When I was in high school I worked at an Ice cream shop. We had these huge cans of caramel and one day I was trying to reopen one, someone had left the lid attached to the can so, it was all sticky of course. I was trying to lift up the lid, it slipped and sliced my middle finger on my right hand. Once I got it to stop bleeding I called the owner to ask what I should do. When I finished telling him what I had done he snapped back with "Well what did you do that for? That's like sticking your finger in a mouse trap to see if it works!"
I'll admit it wasn't the smartest thing I could've done but, bottom line, I'm your underage employee bleeding in your shop! what the he11 kinda response is that? So he tells me where to go. I DRIVE MYSELF (while keeping pressure on my finger) to the local emergency room, just a mile down the street. I had to leave behind the new employee I was training. It was the middle of summer and she was on her second or third shift ever. I was told to return to work to finish out my shift and close the shop, as scheduled, once I was done at the hospital. The best part...when I got back and was trying to help clean, so I could finally go home, I got hot fudge on the tip of my rather large middle finger of gause making it look like I wiped my a$$ with it. Needless to say I took it off as soon as I got home. When all was said and done I was reimbursed about $11 for "travel" to a doctor for a follow up and a scar from my cuticle to the first bend of my finger that will never completely heal.
Lesson for the day: Choose your first job wisely!
(Posted by Danielle)
OMG.
Well, this makes my 32 years of working look like a picnic.
My first two jobs were in the Engineering Dept of WSU in little tiny cowtown Wichita, Kansas.
Home of the smelly cows...well not NOW, but 100 years ago.
I digress.
I also worked at a sandwich shop 5 blocks from my cubicle sized apartment and my campus.
Hmmmm...when I sliced MY finger, my boss cared.
He cleaned it. Dressed it.
No need to go to the hospital.
But...and I still marvel at this...this boss FED HIS STARVING COLLEGE EMPLOYESS.
He loaded my car up with FOOD!
HUH?
Yes, food. And he gave me cash to get fresh bandages.
And he told me I never had to slive the provolone or the proscuitto ham again.
Also...he let me paint in his back room on an easle.
The man was a mensch.
I still love that old man....he owned and ran the Grinder man sandwich shop in Wichita, Kansas and he took care of me.
Somehow...he could see the orphan in me.
I never said, he never asked.
He just liked people.
Thirty-two years later?
Shit...I guess I never realized how good I had it as a college student.
Damn.
Never had but 2 decent bosses since..and rememeber...32 years working.
Retired from Wichita Public Schools AND the US Postal Service.
This old white man wth 12 teeth cared more about my little female 98 pound black ass than BOTH sets of my foster parents.
Go Figure.
So you totally nailed it dead-on: choose that first job well.
And heads up:
DON'T WORK FOR LAWYERS UNLESS YOU PLAN TO BECOME ONE.
We have a disbarred wife beating lawyer in this town that I almost went to work for...part time.
Come to find out he beat his receptionists, too.
Bullshit.
And I say it again:
BULLSHIT.
Man.
Talk about a BAD job....
Na