How do I live my best life? I lift every day. Heavy things. As heavy as possible. That means inside and outside… dumbbells, kettlebells, my own leg as much as I can to get it behind my shoulder…. as well as the emotional gunk and psychological junk that blocks the free flowing form that is me…Or else I’m a liability. That is how I get through it all.
I was taking a shower this morning at the gym. Moving super fast. Octopus arms.. I had about eight minutes to get ready from wet gym-clothes off to jacket on and walking up the stairs.
I spit in the shower. Like a back-of-the-throat-sound spit. It wasn’t a disgusting nose-clearing spit, just a little excess saliva from high intensity exercise.
And I hear, “Oh My God.” I shook it off. I was near positive that it wasn’t for me. I continue.
Soap is in my hand now, I’m lathering and I spit again and hear her talking like in full sentences.. I couldn’t make out what she said, and even though she started the moment I spit, I was sure she was talking on her phone, or having issues of her own.
I mean this is her world too..
Maybe she forgot her conditioner. Honest mistake. I rinse.
It’s almost getting out time now, and as usual. The steam mixed with chlorine had done it’s magic: I blow a snot rocket.
Only to hear a very aggressive, “Are you kidding me?”
Ok. This is my shower. Also, you can’t see me. I’m behind a curtain.
Your water doesn’t touch mine, we are not at the sink side-by-side.
She doesn’t fucking know me.
What I’ve been through. The ridicule I’ve seen.
I used to have one fucking eyebrow. OK.
Just a fallen headband of hair, right here across my forehead. I can’t even grow it back if I tried.
That’s how many years I have been plucking, waxing, carving out my existence in this world.
Time, I’ll never get back, Never! And all the better, as I have given my life shape.
Those hairs don’t even grow anymore. I won.
So take a fucking hint, lady. You obviously don’t know the efficiency of a snot rocket.
Sexual Harassment # 3
This one can be given the avant-garde title, Fluorescent Lights.
It’s hard being sassy. I don’t know why I choose it every time. I’m probably a glutton for punishment. It was mild sexual harassment that somehow morphed me, the victim, into the perpetrator and got me fired from Barnes & Noble. (Note: The last S isn’t there)
This guy shows up to my counter with a playboy and some black & white NY historical photo book and at the time of paying, he decides to make it rain.
He put his hand up and just sent bill by bill into the air and watched them fall.
Or maybe I watched them fall.. It was only a few bills but as they scattered on the counter I’m thinking ..
Dude, I don’t know what you do with your free time or what about dollars makes you go into a rain frenzy, but look around bud, there’s fluorescent lights on in here. You are not where you think you are, also who the fuck buys titty-mags from Barnes and Noble?
You see me – I’m in a company polo AND I’m wearing a name tag!
WE SELL BOOKS HERE
Did you really think ‘making it rain’ would just go unnoticed?
I didn’t pick them up. Nothing against strippers.
In the terribly uncomfortable seconds of silence, I smiled. My bad. I was thinking of Jose’s reaction when this guy says, “Let me get that BLT. wink-wink” Or at his local bar when he orders a $2 bud light and he’s got his hands up dropping one bill at a time.
Fuck that. This guy is a prick.
I laugh but this is personal, and I’m no child. Worse if I was. I pick up the bills and ask,
“Do you always pay for things like that?”
“Like what?”
Like what? The fuck you mean, like what? Are you not aware of what’s going on. But instead, I say, “Like you’re paying a stripper?”
He was shocked. Him! – The audacity I had? Right?
Please..You should have seen his open mouth shocked-white-guy, ‘No-one-talks-to-me-like-that’ face. He walks straight to customer service and finds my manager.
I can see his arms flailing as they talk. He’s totally irate – the manager comes over.. I’m watching them walk towards me, counting out wrong change and shit. I’m sweating. He succeeded in making me uncomfortable. A little later than he hoped for, but succeeded nevertheless. Finally, my manager comes talking into her walkie-talkie.
So, Barnes and Noble’s finest asks me to come off the register and talk to her in the back. I walk past him as he’s waiting to see that the resolution of this ordeal is to his liking. Steam is coming off of his skin and he’s got death eyes pointed my way.
Immediately I enter one of the stranger conversations of my life.
Did you tell him that he threw money on the counter like he was paying a stripper?
No, I asked him if he always throws his money like that?
What is ‘like that?’
Like one would throw money if they were in a strip club.
You can’t say that to a customer?
I gave her common sense.
She sat back into her seat. Closed her eyes and sort of melted into her chair a bit and then stood up abruptly to say,
“He can pay you anyway he wants to. What you can’t do is accuse a customer of paying strippers?
“I didn’t accuse him of paying strippers.”
Without further delay, she used a formality to fire me.
“You can’t use the word stripper. I am going to have to ask you leave.
And out the door I went. #georgethorogood
January 18, 2020
Categories: Uncategorized . Tags: barnes and noble, barnes and noble management, barnes and noble sexual harassment, barnes and noble workplace, barnesandnoble, comedy, dating apps, equinox horror stories, getting called out in the workplace, getting fired from barnes and noble, getting lucky, head only penises, horror stories in the workplace, i quit, inappropriate for workplace, internet dating, jokes about the workplace, leg-warmers, leggings, legwarmers, look better naked, lucky, management, manager, managerial staff, managerial style, micro dicks, nice guys, nice guys finish last, online dating, online stories, personal trainers, quitting time, random sex, repressed desire, rise up, self control, sex comments, sexual harassing manager, sexual harassment, sexual harassment claim, sexual harassment humor, sexual harassment in the workplace, sexual harassment jokes, sexual harassment on the job, short dicks, short life, short people, stand up jokes, stand up routine, stretching sessions, uncomfortable work stories, unlucky, workplace humor . Author: tiffanylfuentes . Comments: Leave a comment