You're fired!

I've also never been fired per se, just not re-hired. But the way that they did it irks me to this day, and I still have a dager-shaped scar on my back.

Starting as a high school student in 2000, I worked summers and breaks at the local college bookstore. It was a wonderful job--long hours and hard work, yes, but generally great co-workers, a boss I respected and admired, and lots of attractive student customers and free books.

Eventually, the store hired a dedicated personnel person, a fat, lazy bitch who never liked me for reasons that have always eluded me and took secret joy in chewing me out for "insubordination" while other members of management were on vacation and making oblique references to how little I worked around friends and family. The ironic thing was that I had been at the store longer than she had, having been hired in their first summer of operation.

I worked there for summer 2005 before leaving to go to school as usual. I asked about my hours for the break, and said fat bitch informed me that I wouldn't be needed this particular break. That smarted, since it was a particularly long break and I needed the money, but I wrote it off. I asked if I'd be needed as classes ended the following semester, and was informed that I'd be re-hired for summer 2006. So I made my plans accordingly, and when I got home, asked for my schedule.

Then I got an email from the fat personnel bitch informing me that my services wouldn't be needed after all. She wrote the message as if she'd never seen me before--as if I was some kid off the street applying for the first time rather than someone who had worked there for six years. There was no explanation. Incidentally, that summer was the one summer--out of all of them--that I really needed the money, and I was forced to work part-time at Wal-Mart instead.

It's not as dramatic as some of the other stories, but it still hurt me a lot--even though I disliked the fat bitch, I loved that store, knew all the managers, and had a history of good service. I even gave the management gifts from Asia after a study abroad, and they threw me aside in the most crass way possible in my moment of need.

How ya doing, buddy?