WhaHappen?

Ever had a rough couple of weeks at work where the daily soul-sucking experience makes you want to just quit and ask yourself that torment-filled question: “WHY, oh why, did I marry for Love and not for Money?!”

In reality though, my work life (for now) is not that unbearable and, even more realistically, I never had the elite DNA and requisite body measurements to have snagged a Warren Buffett-type or one of the Gettys. Therefore, I continue to drag my arse downtown wearing my boring suit and sensible shoes.

But I always wonder about other jobs as I go about my sometimes hum-drum day. I wonder what other regular jobs reveal about people or their work environment. What I mean by a “regular” job is a job that a lot of people have stumbled upon before they reach their REAL career goals or live out their dream. As in: “I’m a singer, but my regular job is working the rides at Six Flags.”

Wherever I go, whether it’s the movie theater, the library, or supermarket, I always want to ask the employees about some of their more unusual experiences at work. So I drew up a partial list of work places that I want to know about from anyone who’s ever worked there: What’s the funniest, weirdest, grossest, or just plain whacked thing that happened?

Here’s my own examples:

• Fingers in jars on my desk. Yep-that’s right. Old school CSI. Twenty years ago, I worked in the Latent Prints Unit of the Crime Lab doing data entry. I walked in one afternoon and found several small jars front and center on my desk, each one containing a finger pickled in some sort of liquid. The fingers were in the process of being matched to their rightful identification. Good thing I had already eaten lunch or I would’ve been stuck on thinking “finger foods sounds good.”
• On-duty prostitution? (Rumor category). I know, you’re thinking, “well I humiliate myself and sell my tired body everyday at work for a fistful of dollars.” No, this is different – slightly. Rumor had it, this was the real deal. Some woman (NOT me) in her early 20′s at the time (again, Not me), was offering and occasionally performing (are you ready for this?)…. $5 BJ’s in the stairwell at work! Again, I only sorta believed it when I heard because of this woman’s openly outrageous demeanor and reputation that she herself flaunted.

So if you’ve ever worked at the following places, I want to know:

• Supermarket. Do you analyze the customer based on what they buy? When I have too many cookies, chips, and ice cream in my cart, I try to throw in some spinach, broccoli and oranges, to prove to the cashier that I’m not just a snackivore.
• Movie theater. Do you wonder why people pay good money to see a movie that you already know sucks? And do you want to dismember the people that leave their trash around their seats?
• Clothing/Shoe store. Do you worry about people with smelly feet trying on the shoes?
• Bank, library, toy store, gas station, restaurant. Tell me what it’s like working at these places or mention something that most people might not know about these jobs. Even if your workplace isn’t listed above, enlighten me about what goes on where you are. It would satisfy my eternal curiosity about the working world outside of my own little job.

And if you know someone who can answer these, by all means, forward this! Inquiring Minds Want to Know.