work stories

[ZAKO the GREAT]

there was a day when i worked late in my office (till bout 11pm). Suddenly i receive a call from the receptionist's. when i picked up the phone, all i hear was buzzing noise. i thought someone must have been trying to play a prank on me so i decided to go check it out. Needless to say, there's nobody left in the office. and the door is locked. there's only 2 person who hold the key, and i'm one of them. (the other guy have gone holiday for the week.) so there's no way anyone could sneak in the office without the key. the more i think, the more i freak out. And i heard the phone rang, again, in MY FUCKING ROOM! (the call must first goes to the receptionist before it transfer to other departments). i was so fucking scared that i left the office immediately. till today i am not sure of why this would happen. and i doubt that i will.

[Zomboid]

Originally Posted by sspadowsky

No one but Zbu gets to post in this thread from now on.

Agreed. Truly wonderful stories.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

I have a lot of interesting work stories, being that I have held many unusual jobs.

I will share with you a tale from my first day on the job as an embalmer.

Things are going to get a little messy.

I was a fresh faced 16 year old with an interest in the macabre. I managed to finagle an assistant position at a local funeral home as part of my mandatory pre enrolment industry time. Before a school even considers a funeral services education applicant, a number of volunteer hours must be completed under the supervision of licensed director. This was my first day and I had never even seen a real deceased person before.

I can still remember walking into the cool and pungent embalming room. The Embalmer looked me over and reprimanded me on my choice of footwear. My old Doc Martens were the closest thing I had to dress shoes. I was fortunate to have a thin white shirt and black tie in the back of my closet. Anyway, the embalming of the first person to come in went smoothly.

She was an elderly woman named Doris. She was cared for and loved by her family. She looked at peace and I watched my mentor go through the steps involved in the embalming process.

My mentor was a very tired looking man. He was overweight and you could see that he just didn’t care anymore and was just sick of death. He treated the entire event like he was taking out the trash. No emotion, rough hands and callous jokes. But he did his job and I watched intently. A couple of hours later he was done.

The next person, I assisted more handily in. I washed the body, prepped him, used the trocar ( a spear-like vacuum device) to pierce his organs and remove as much material from his abdomen as possible. Eventually made a small cut above his clavicle and started pumping the fluid into him. All went smoothly and all was legal under the supervision of a professional for purpose of instruction.

Now, the next fellow to be wheeled in was an obese gentleman who was in rough shape. He had been gone for a few days and was on the cusp of festering. He had been autopsied at his previous stop and his chest had been butterflied open with a ‘y’ cut. At this point, my mentor simply stood back, had a smoke, and started to guide me through a new procedure. I know now that what I did was highly illegal and to follow through on such a procedure a licence is required. He actually had me cut out the baseball stitches and open the guy up again. He then proceeded to give me an anatomy lesson as we rooted around in his innards.

Noting the time, my mentor left the room for a bit. He went across the street to grab us some lunch. When he returned he informed me that I would be eating my lunch in the embalming room with our portly friend. He handed me a couple of industry magazines and a sloppy sausage-on-a-bun sandwich.

So there I was. A greasy, animal intestine sandwich in one hand, an embalming magazine in the other and a 400 pound man spread open like a trout on a gurney right behind me. As I ate I eventually took a seat right in front of the occupied gurney, with my back to the body. I sort of left my body for awhile, in an attempt to forget where I was. I was too successful at it though and I leaned back on my chair, lost my balance, hit the gurney and proceeded to dump the splayed carcass onto the tiled floor.

Much like a bit of buttered toast the big guy landed open side down; I freaked.

This was my first day, what do I do? I’m going to be fired! My boss would be back any minute!

I could literally see all my career aspirations disappear. I frantically resolved to fix the situation. I knew I would not be able to lift the guy back onto the gurney but there was a hoist system in the corner of the room used to transfer body from table to table when a person was working solo. I started to drag the guy to the hoist. As I did so, he began to unravel. A rope of intestines and congealed blood smeared the floor like some horrific snail trail. Even worse, my shoes were slippery on the tiles and now gore soaked floor. I began to lose my footing as I became more and more frantic. I slipped and slid as I tried to push and pull the dead weight. Eventually I lost my footing and face planted right into the gore. As I tried to get up, well, it was reminiscent of a newly born calf trying to get his footing. I flopped again and again to the floor like some demented three stooges routine. Smeared with horrible grime, my white shirt resembled modern art and I finally got the guy to the hoist. I locked him in and got a table under him.

However, there was still the matter of about seven feet of intestine and human refuse littering the floor. At this point, I was completely manic and I just proceeded to stuff the guy like a turkey, not paying any attention to the placement of anything. I then hosed off the floor.

When my mentor returned, not two minutes later, there I was sandwich in hand, covered in disgust and ‘acting casual’. I pretended nothing happened despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He looked around, blank faced. He looked me up and down.

“You know,” he said “Bodies drop all the time. It’s no big deal”.

The best bit was being detained by police during the bus ride home. The driver called to cops due to my bloody clothing and they actually pulled up with the cherries flashing.

They had to call the funeral home to confirm my story.

[Fathom Zero]

What a good story!

My mum knows some folks who work at a mortuary and at this point in time, there was a double homicide. It's a rare occurance here in the sticks that something this bad happens. Normally it's just gang shootings outside the high school or some dumbass kid getting bit by a crazy dog.

It happened at a motel, one of those fleabags that make you cringe. Most of the news crews were on the scene. The juiciest part, though, was when the bags were taken out on the stretchers. So, here's my mom's friend, walking a body over to the vehicle, pushing the body bags over, and just smiling the goofiest smile he possibly could and waving to the camera.

It's very surreal, seeing something like that. You had to have been watching it, too. He looked like he was having the time of his life. I guess he enjoys his job.

[Sethomas]

My jobs have been uncouthly mundane. One of my friends always complains that I'm full of random stories, so I've taken to just alluding to odd aspects of them off-hand instead of telling them. I guess this makes me more mysterious? I mean, at my second job, in my first week I was sent down to get something out of a room having been given rather innocuous details of where to find it. When I arrived, the signs said under no uncertain terms that to enter the room at the wrong time would bring death. It was a particle accelerator, which I learned never came to full construction and was thus turned into storage. When I asked about that, my supervisor was all like, "eh, never mind that sign." That's about all the adventure I've got on the workplace.

HOWEVER! When one considers that he's a mere radiological tech in suburban Indiana, my dad's job is rife in adventure. So, in an odd generational role-reversal, I'll live vicariously through him.

As a resident of the Hoosier state, the Tom Petty song "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is of particular significance to everyone I know. I've read many many interpretations of what it means, but only in one of hundreds of posts on that song meanings website did I find an allusion to the story that my health/PE teacher gave me in high school. It goes like this: Indiana girl leads a wild life, tries to escape the banal country. Somewhere in the process, she ends up institutionalized in Indianapolis in the very hospital where I was born. As a long-term, stable resident, she was allowed on a trip to the observation deck of what was at the time (and probably still is) the tallest building in the city. Obviously, they tried to be careful about not letting them near windows, but observation decks are built around that concern. Eventually, she excused herself to the restroom, wherein she found an unguarded window and promptly jumped out.

As it would happen, my dad was a young X-ray tech at the time. When the body arrived at the morgue, the powers that be decided that it was an invaluable asset to science for her to have a post-mortum full body scan. My father was the attending tech.

As he described it, every inch of her body felt like a sponge. The fact that there was actually anything to be put on the examination table and not just in a couple of buckets came about because she happened to land on a tree planted on the mezzanine ceiling before plopping to the ground like a slinky.

Oddly enough, a few years ago he came home from work and described what he said was the most unpleasant experience of his career. An elderly man was walking through a door and tripped, but tried to catch himself by grabbing the frame. His bones being brittle, his forward momentum merely pulverized his shoulder and all the joints involved and his arm twisted backwards. He came to the hospital that way, afraid to move it back into position.

Other clients my dad has had include virtually everyone now in the NFL, an Egyptian mummy of a 12-year-old, and the world's tallest living woman.


Oh! I just remembered that a long time ago I posted somewhere random on these boards the story of how my older sister (now a doctor, then a subintern or whatever they're called) described her day. I'll post that again!

An old woman came into the emergency room complaining of stomach cramps. My sister did the routine checkup spiel as the family in the room debated with one another about whether or not to sign the DNR (do not resuscitate) forms for her. When my sister put her hand over the woman's chest, she felt a gentle bump and realized that the woman had hemorrhaged. In a panic, she called for the attending (knowing more or less that nothing could be done) and at that, the family of the old woman started screaming at each other over whether or not to sign the (now virtually redundant) DNR forms. That was the last thing the lady heard before she died.

[Guitar Woman]

[sakura]

There's this freak of a lady that works the desk where I'm employed - she has this ugly-ass Hummer (supposedly she has two, as well as a $450,000 house out of state), has money up the ass as a result of a failed marriage to a rich sap, and of course, has no need for a job; you know, another reason alot of us with bills to worry about can't find employment.

I walk into our back room during lunch and see two of the guys eating a weird-looking pizza. There are several other employees, including the boss, with a slice in their hand. I make the deduction that this is the guys' pizza and they're sharing the yummy wealth in the middle of a hard day.

I ask for a slice. They oblige. It tasted like shit, but I hadn't eaten since around 6 the night before and I was fucking hungry. Naturally. I didn't want to bug them for a second slice so I asked if I could grab a loose pepperoni. Again, no problem. As I'm picking it off with the tips of my fingers, the now rapidly-cooled pizza causes the cheese to come off along with it. So I don't drop it back on there, I just eat what I picked.

That's when this woman walks in and makes this annoyed grunt. She sits at the table with the boss when the few others leave, and proceeds to exchange looks with her. Of course I can tell she's miffed about SOMETHING, although it better not be about me having permission to grab a 'roni. So I don't dick around, I ask what's up. She gripes that "it would have been ok if I had just TAKEN the slice, but the guy had no business giving away HER lunch. SHE paid for it.

So I explain I had no idea I somehow ruined her fantastic spread. I offered to pay her for my piece, I said I'd toss the offending slice into the trash - I even offered to purchase and pick up a new fucking pie... but no. Not good enough.

Forget that I tried to honestly remedy the situation, or that I wasn't to blame for not knowing her name was cryptically spelled in sausage. For some reason she must've felt it necessary to punish me with her looks of disgust and subsequent commentary on how disgusting I was to the boss when I then left the room and was therefore, in her pea brain, far out of earshot.

So that's when I got pissed off. They say the cheapest bastards are the ones with money, and now I have firsthand experience as to why. I mean, totally off the scale why... What's fucking morbid is that the bitch exhibits such an attitude right there over an $11 pizza after a person (who, to $11 is actually give or take, 1/14 of their meager earnings) is told by the one EATING IT: "yeah, you're on brake, it's lunchtime, everyone else had some, just take it."

Funny, as well, how nothing was said about the rest of the staff partaking in such a aristocratic feast. So, at the following week's company holiday party, I let out a quip as we passed her throne: "are you sure you wanna go up to the buffet now? I dont wanna have to taint the food."

Predictably, she bit it, hook and all. "It's a possibility." All the proof I needed. Apparently it wasn't about the food, it was somehow about me and the food. So, I proceeded to jab at her loud enough for the round table to partake in the squabble. She just tries to avert the attention and says, "don't start with me..."

No, bitch, you started. I would've loved to call her a bitch when I made that straight, but regardless, these people are like a disease infecting every corner of the Earth. And my job (and everyone else's party time) aren't going to suffer as a result of it.

My boss seems to wait until I'm in the office checking the schedule (when bitchola's working) to make comments on how "family-like" our establishment is, blah, fucking blah. When I was in high school, shit on, well, the grade-school-level, may have given me stomach aches. But it didn't those times. And that feels real fucking good. The boss is transferring next week- so remarks aren't a problem. Pizza bitch hasn't said a word to me since, which to me, is a good sign. If only there were a time limit on when that crap gets permanently rubbed from the front desk. In the meantime, she better keep her grimy nubs off my leftover Christmas cookies.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Man, the stories I could tell about the time I spent on the road with the carnival. It’s really a gypsy lifestyle. In Canada, the major expos are really spaced apart so, in an entire season, we would only do about 7 spots. But they were big. At the Calgary Stampede, for example, I would perform for and bring 5000 people through my joint each day, for two weeks -14 to 15 hours a day.

My final year was by far the toughest as only myself and another individual drove, set up, ran and tore down two major attractions. Also the expos were planned very close together. I remember having to tear down our exhibits in Saskatoon jump to Toronto and set up in just two days. That drive is nearly 2000 miles – about 28 hours in and of itself. I was drunk on lack sleep by the end of that.

I drove an RV older than I was. Everything in it was broken.

Everything.

No heat, no air, no radio, no working wipers. Travelling was insane as the thing was on its last legs and would fail during every major excursion. I saw a lot of highway shoulders that year. The rear was gutted to make room for tent and banner line timber so there was no place to sleep comfortably. I would generally sleep in the odditorium, a space I shared with a mummy, a human shrunken head and a bust of Joseph Merrick. The boredom during the drive was the worst. My partner was driving a separate vehicle and I had no entertainment what-so-ever. Briefly, I had a chimpanzee co-pilot for a few days, and that was a hell of a lot of fun. I would get a lot of reaction pulling into gas bars with a chimp. I would walk Milo to the bathroom and change him. Sometimes the owners of the greasy spoons I stopped at would let him come into their establishments. That combined with the ‘Greatest Sideshow On Earth’ trailer I was pulling gathered a lot of small middle-of-nowhere townsfolk. I would perform a bit for them…maybe get a free slice of pie.

The carnival itself was pretty close knit then; things have changed a lot in a very short amount of time. The carnival is mostly corporate now. While the carnival was like a big family, I was really an outcast due to my profession and because I was constantly in character. I was the black sheep, the weirdo, I fronted the freakshow, I was the odditorium Bally and occasional performer. I wore a three piece suit in summer weather topped off with a bowler or top hat, in the evenings – I often wore a creepy getup. I always felt that I was not one of the gang, and I didn’t make much effort to change that opinion.

Then, at the Calgary stampede that year. I was proven wrong.

It was my last year with the carnival, fronting the odditorium as the bally man. It had been a pretty bust season. Bad crowds, bad attraction lot locations and poor new management. It was late at night and I was watching the big wheel. It was well past midnight but it was still lit. That meant the carnival was still open and thus, so was my attraction. I wasn’t doing my shpeel though; I was sort of just laying back. Now, because I was in a strange costume and I was back lit, it wasn’t unusual for people to mistake me for a statue. In fact, on long nights I revelled in frightening people by suddenly moving. It was a cheap scare that was infinitely easier than swallowing a sword or pounding a nail into my face. So this night, when a couple of college kids fuelled by booze, ran right past me into the attraction without paying I just shrugged and chalked it up to not being seen. I could have ran in after them, but I was tired and decided they would be out in a second or two.

You see, the odditorium was a museum. There were a lot of words in there. It’s sort of educational so I wagered these preppy jock boys would tire quickly and leave.

Then I heard glass breaking.

I ran in and witnessed them breaking out a second exhibit. They didn’t even see me as they ran, because when they got outside they stopped and laughed. It had been a long day and without even thinking I walked up to them and shoved the bigger one. We started arguing and it escalated quickly.

Now, I’m a pretty big dude. I was a power lifter in my youth and stand about 6’3 – 280lbs or so. This kid was bigger than me. Likely played football or something but I was pissed. I guess my three piece suit was deceiving as well because the jock laid into me with an elbow. I hit the guy as hard as I could and he dropped to his ass, his buddy grabbed me and I tripped him. But the big kid was back on his feet and he started to wrestle with me. I put my shoulder into him and backed him up, I actually slammed him into the Scrambler ride railing. Unfortunately, he was keeping my head pinned down and his buddy was wailing on my back and ribs. Then, a couple other guys showed up and they started to wail on me too. I was scared and started fighting for my life, I ended up pushing the Scrambler railing way back and slammed the big kid right over the side of it into the actual ride area. I then put my back to the railing and put up my fists. They swarmed me and really started to beat the shit out of me.

The ride operator, Shep, started yelling at us.

‘You kids, fight someplace else!’ he screamed as he approached. Shep was a rough carny, he had done some time. He had a huge facial scar and a bum eye. I had never said two words to this guy before but I looked at from under a pile of humanity as I swung wildly from my back. My top hat was gone, my suit was torn, my face bloody and makeup completely obscured – yet he recognized me.

‘What the fuck!’

He jumped the rail and started fighting. Then all the rides in the area slowed, shut down and the midway was quickly awash with red-coated carnies laying the boots to a bunch of punk kids. We eventually subdued the lot of them. And that’s how I ended up sitting on a the chest of a teenager in from of a crowd of a couple hundred people.

The cops showed up, surveyed the damage and took three of the kids, myself and Shep into makeshift HQ. The kid screamed that I attacked him. I showed the cops pictures of my brother the cop, my Cops for Cancer participation card and pictures of the 7 year old kid I was hanging out with as part of the Big Brother program. They asked me what I wanted to do. Now, I could have had him arrested, but it would have just been thrown out as there was no way I would be able to get back to Calgary for a trial. So I told them I wanted money. I wanted whatever the kid had.

The cops went in there and screamed at the kid for a couple of hours.

He coughed up $300.

It was enough to repair the damages and mend some of the bruising.




The Odditorium

My two black eyes, a couple weeks after the incident. It's one of my favorite photos.

[Fathom Zero]

Would you say you've lived a full live?

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Ha!

I've been around.

[MarioRPG]

I'm sorry, but JTP has my support now for best stories (as horrifying as they are).

[Chojin]

I'd expect JTP to be the king of stories around an internet forum :<

[comhcinc]

wow great stories. i work for a defense contractor. only three other people are allowed in my part of the building, thus i have no stories. i suck. a lot.

[Chojin]

but you like pie.

maybe you could elaborate on that.

before or after you drive us to suicide.

[comhcinc]

pie is damn tasty and not too sweet. cake is too sweet. i don't like cake. it's too sweet unlike pie. i like pie. i think blackberry is my favorite pie............................................... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..................................... i can eat pie at work

[Chojin]

please don't stop

i'm almost there

[comhcinc]

do i A: continue with retard pie stuff B: ignore and move on C: say "that's what your mom said last night"

hmmm, nah i would just like to read more neat-o stories

[Emu]

This happened today. It didn't really happen to me but I saw it.

So this car comes around the back corner of the building from the street. It's a nondescript black Lumina or some other POS car and it's not doing anything out of the ordinary, except that it's being tailed by a cop car. It pulls in to the motel next door and parks in the parking lot as if nothing is going on. Then the cop car speeds up and turns on its lights, moving into position to block one of two possible escapes. The cop steps out of the squad car and moves to the other car, and I suppose asked them for ID. I couldn't see very well from my vantage point but something was definitely going down.

For about five minutes nothing of note happened, but then another squad car showed up and blocked the other exit. I get distracted with a phone call and I keep trying to keep an eye on what's going on.

I shit you not, gentlemen: Right as the lady on the phone asks me if the motel is located in a safe area, I see a cop leap on a young fellow trying desperately to escape, pin him to the ground and cuff him. Moments later, the men are led into the squad cars and their car is towed.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

I had these two people that came in and asked to help get a shopping cart down the escalator. Their eyes were all buggy and they looked like they were whacked out on something strong.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Originally Posted by comhcinc

do i A: continue with retard pie stuff B: ignore and move on C: say "that's what your mom said last night"

hmmm, nah i would just like to read more neat-o stories

for whom do you work, and it what city?

[Nick]

All these fantastic stories make my job seem even more boring.

[Emu]

A very large semi truck knocked over our brick fence today

[Emu]

GOD

and then we had two women staying in one of the rooms over the weekend, and they completely trashed it, including this:

[Misdemonar]

Penaud, you are an awesome fellow!

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Ha, thanks, but I'm just living life.

Another carnival related story.

Usually, at the end of the season, we would be in Toronto at the CNE. The odditorium owner lived in Toronto and so he would host an ‘end of the season’ party. He would invite a select group of carnival folks to attend the festivities and we usually ended up with a rather unique group. A few years back it was no different. I was still on payroll so I’m counting this as a work story. I was more or less working security and making sure no one exited the residence with any valuables as my boss had a pretty impressive collection of the macabre.

Anyway.

I remember Fingers was there. He was an old time carnie. He was stick skinny, had a lazy eye, no teeth and he missing a bunch of fingers. I think he had five fingers in total spread across two hands. Way back in he used to work spook houses as an inside runner - before the carnival banned that sort of thing. I used to invite the guy over to the odditorium when I was working to shake hands with the folks waiting in line. Believe it or not, despite the looks of the guy he had a lady friend in just about every city we stopped in. Of course, I use the word lady loosely. The women were troglodytes but he was no George Clooney and wasn’t picky. I can remember that the woman he brought to this party was a whole new sort of gross. I could not, for the life of me, stare directly at her.

This coming from the guy who worked the freak show.

This was a small group and there were a few hot ladies as well. I was pretty much the center of attention as this was pretty much the first time I was out of character in the history of the carnival. So, while a lot of the ladies knew of me, few knew anything at all about me. I had the mysterious enigma factor working for me and I was working it.

About halfway through the night a fellow by the name of Levi showed up. Now Levi was a friend and was a professional strongman. He was the splitting image of a 1920’s strongman. He was bald-headed, sported a fine handlebar moustache and a portly gut. He was a salt of the earth type character and an easy going guy full of humour. He actually has a mistletoe sprig tattooed just below his navel.

Now, Levi brought along a friend of his and, for the life of me, I can’t remember his name. I knew him by reputation though. He was the epitome of every bad carnie stereotype. He was loud, rude, obnoxious, and constantly intoxicated. During the course of the night, he got worse and worse.

I eventually pulled Levi aside and asked him to watch his friend. He was a little embarrassed and promised to rein him in. Unfortunately, I eventually had to pull the bastard himself aside to warn him about his voice and antics. He responded by going into a tirade about how I was ‘hogging all the sluts’ and that I was nothing but a goon. Fingers stepped up and defended me, which just angered him further. He then threw a beer bottle at my head. Which connected with a thud, then bounced and shattered on the floor.

Now, believe it or not, I was still pretty calm. I’ve had worse happen to me in my years as a bouncer. So, I simply asked him to leave. As I was doing this he swung at me. I dodged, punched him and knocked him on his ass. I started to wrestle with him for a bit. My main concern was that there were a lot of breakables in the place and there was a room filled with even more breakables to navigate before the front door. I eventually just worked my away around to his back. Got him in a bear hug, hoisted him off the ground and walked him, kicking and screaming to the front door. At that point I let him go and he immediately swung on me again. He connected and I lost it. I took him down and choked him out with a forearm.

So, I was on the front stoop, the majority of the party goers were watching me choke this guy out, listening to him gurgle, and a couple of people actually applauded. But the funniest bit of the evening was yet to come.

So we left Levi to console his buddy on the front porch. A few minutes later, the guy had come to and he started yelling. Calling me out and trashing my boss’s name (which he actually turned out to be right on). But this was about 2 am and his antics were really getting out of hand. He picked up a brick and was about to toss it when Levi finally grabbed him and tossed him like a bear slapping a salmon.

‘I can’t take you anywhere!” Levi screamed in anger. ‘You embarrass me!’

And with that Levi stretched his arms forward and began to slowly lumber towards his buddy. He had tears in his eyes as he clomped forward like Frankenstein’s Monster. He was going to choke the guy. He was going to choke the guy very slowly.

His buddy just looked at him, puzzled. Not really sure what was going on. Levi was about a foot away when the guy realized what was up but he got this look on his face and it was like he was frozen in fear.

Then, the world’s slowest strangling commenced.

To this day, I have never again seen a man be choked out in such a way. I was like something out of Ed Wood. Here was Tor Johnson neck wringing a drunk and barely flailing carnie while big tears streamed down his face. It was Of Mice and Men, it was epic and it was the funniest thing I have ever witnessed due to its sheer absurdity. As the drunkard's face turned more and more purple, his ineffective flailing ceased and he went limp.

Levi released the body of his best friend into a curb-side heap. He then just sat of the front step and listened to the gurgling of his unconscious chum.…and then the gentle giant sobbed uncontrollably.