Story Time: in 2012, when I still lived in Florida, I used to work for a credit union, and I had the absolute worst manager and assistant manager. They were sloppy, lazy, and offloaded their work onto other people. No biggie; I’m grown and I can handle my job and not stress because I’m damned good at it. Problem: the manager and assistant manager, who happened to be best friends in real life, also happen to be very, very conservative older women. I’m talking like, hardcore conservative Christians, the kind who are not very good people and are very unlike Christ. I don’t make it a point to tell people I work with my business because when you work, you’re busy and you don’t want to burden other people, right? At least, I don’t. Subject of my love life comes up after a while of me staying in my lane, and I’m also not a liar, so I casually mention that I happen to be gay and I’m dating someone at the time.
The change in my managers was almost immediate. From that point on they tried their utmost to make my life miserable, but I wasn’t going to break. Fast forward about a month after this mess and one of the tellers, Tanika, and I have become really good friends, and she pulls me aside one Monday morning to tell me that she overheard the manager and assistant manager talking about firing me, and she didn’t want to get too involved, but she didn’t think it was fair so she wnated to give me a headsup. Here’s the best part: these asshats are SO lazy that they literally say - or so Tanika tells me- that they’ll wait for the end of the week to do it, because otherwise they would have no one to cover my Wednesday shift, and they’d have to sit on the teller line, and no siree Bob, they’re too good for that! Too important! Too. Fucking. Lazy.
Immediately I type up a two week notice at my station, print that shit out, and take it to that sloppy ass manager in her sloppy ass office. They have no receipts on me, but these people will find anything and use it to get rid of you if they can, and I’m not having a forcible termination on my record and dealing with how that will look to future employers. Keep in mind that I’m not supposed to know that they’re planning on firing me, and I’ve done my homework on company policy about two week notices (they had just changed it in January, and it was February). I give her the paper, sit in front of her, tell her some cock and bull story about needing more time for school. She looks upset, tells me to leave the letter, and go back to my station. I pull out a second copy of the letter and say: “Sure! But, first, I need your signature on this one, which is my copy of the two week notice.” Her face was a Goddamned mask at this point, but I could tell she was burning up inside. She’s trapped; she has to either sign it and pretend everything is fine, or she refuses and I go in on her for her “suspicious behavior” and call her higher ups. She signs my copy. I go back and finish my day.
Day ends and the assistant manager comes to me and tells me they have spoken to the president of the credit union and they have decided to terminate me anyway. Tells me I need to turn in my drawer and vault keys immediately and leave the premises. I refuse; “I’m not leaving until we count my drawer down together, I have a printed and signed copy of my balance, and you have signed paperwork confirming that I have given you all keys back.” She has no choice. I walk out with all necessary paperwork, get home, and immediately email the credit union president telling him what happened and how I think it’s utterly unprofessional for an employer to behave this way. He calls me the next day to my personal phone, and tells me the manager and assistant manager both told him I had quit on the spot and walked out without so much as a goodbye. I tell him I have a signed two week notice from the manager, because this sloppy ho can’t even keep own story together for five minutes. He tells me to photocopy it and email it to him. I do. Tells me he is going to have a discussion with the manager and call me back ASAP. Calls me back, apologizes profusely, and tells me that I shouldn’t have been treated as such, so he offers to pay me for the two weeks I had give notice for, ON TOP of an extra two weeks of compensation, and I didn’t even have to show up to the branch anymore. He was paying me a full month for no work to make up for the situation.
First paycheck comes in, and I put on my best outfit. Pick out the hottest shit in my closet that says: “I look incredible” but also “I have free time and you don’t” and “enjoy working here while I get paid while napping at the beach,” and I walk my happy little ass into that bank to pick up my paycheck like:
Enjoying the fuck out of this show, right? Like, she can’t say it out loud, but she’s fucking living for this goddamned circus and it’s written all over her face!
I talk to her and loudly tell her how amazing it feels to have four weeks off with pay, and how polite and nice the bank president is.
Then I walk my happy little ass out of the bank like:
But not before saying bye to the manager and assistant manager and reminding them that I’ll be back in two weeks to pick up my next check, “probably right before I head to Key Largo for the weekend.”
…and that’s the story of how I once absolutely wrecked two people who thought they could use their positions of power to come for me unfairly, and a story I’ll be telling my grandchildren so they know, as grandpa knew on one February morning of 2012, that you take bullshit from absolutely no one.
