Some building and preamble to set the details for my story. I feel it suits this sub;
I'm somewhat lucky to be in a position where I make a passive income (I know, hang me at the gallows etc…) So I make enough to have a pretty comfortable if somewhat frugal life doing exactly nothing.
My background is in numbers, but I'm strong at adapting to roles within or relating to the field. I have no formal qualifications other than my meaningless high school grades (secondary school here in the UK) and so my capabilities are all derived from my own effort and my work history over several decades.
For a while I worked as a data analyst with a local company, this situation was fine until the company moved in a direction I had no desire to follow. We parted ways amicably, but without this secondary income, I found that while my passive £ alone was enough to scrape by but I lacked some of the luxuries of having some disposable income.
Fast forward some time, I'm essentially living as a retired person in my late 30's I've never been a 'driven' person and so aside from occasionally looking for piecemeal or short contract work I let things go as they are, and here's where the 'antiwork' tale starts…
My wife, working for a major retailer, had been in discussions with her superiors about the approaching seasonal rush and begging them for some relief in certain areas, one of which falls under my remit of skills. And so after some time and discussion with her, I suggest “we'll I could do that without even thinking, talk to your boss to see if he'd take me on for the task, but I don't want any customer-facing roles and certainly no other 'store' duties… I'll do just that one thing so it's off your plate and help make your life easier and get the store moving during rush”
She passes this to her higher-ups, and knowing me, she emphasizes the fact I would happily take a role doing 'drudgery work' that nobody else in the store wants to do, but I should be left to do just that task, nothing else. After a short back and forth over several days my wife reports to me that her boss wants me to go in to talk about this.
Thinking I might be able to earn a few pennies for the piggy bank I roll up as requested, I turn up wearing my jeans, a hoodie, a long black coat and an ill-fitting beanie cap (it was cold…) but my appearance is certainly not 'someone turning up for interview'
The boss comes to the shop floor, greets me and asks me to follow, leading me to a small staff room.
I sit in the most casual draped sitting position you can picture, we chat briefly and I open with some standards, I explain I know what needs doing, I explain it's part of my expertise but I also explain that my time is precious and that taking this role is borderline an imposition against me.
He starts talking about what he needs and then goes on to talk about roles and duties (all shop floor related) at which I just zone out and let him huff hot air for a while. Once the noise stops, I sit up a little and state with some tone of confidence that I don't think I've ever plucked up before; “listen, I don't need a job, I don't even need money. You were told what I was willing to do, and it's clear you need someone to do it, but I'm not going to be bothered with any of that other stuff you just said about… I thought this was explained to you?”
He mutters something about standard duties of staff, I cut him off and, standing up, I reply something to the tune of “I don't think I need to be wasting any more of your time and certainly don't want to waste my time, I think we're done here” with a bit of a disarming grin as I clearly indicate with my body language that I'm leaving.
It was at this moment I realised throughout the 'interview' in which I was sat, I was totally in control of the direction of the conversation, I was the one being demanding, stating a few times that I'd only work X hours, I'd only do Y tasks and several other pointed declarations.
His face was a real picture. We parted ways and apparently, my wife then got a bit of an earful about me being uncooperative or some such.
Time passes, and my wife eventually leaves that company, but not before telling me that apparently someone was eavesdropping on my interview and the story of my belligerent dismissal of someone that, If I understand it- was an unliked boss, was a folk tale among the staff there.
That was quite some time ago now, and I'm still living my best life in my early retirement playing video games and chilling doing whatever I want whenever I want, beholden to nobody.