I stumbled accross this post and it brought me a few years ago. For some context, I dropped out from uni two years into a biology curriculum in my hometown, and managed to convince myself that I was taking a fresh start with a new curriculum in a new town. I must say I live in France, so uni is basically free. Anyway, as expected I dropped out like 2 months into my new curriculum because truth is I had no idea about what to do with my life, and this story takes place a year or so after this point, with me depressed and without any skill or clue about what to do with my life.
Obviously, money was a huge issue and so despite not knowing how to do anything I had to find a way to earn a few bucks in order to sustain myself. I worked for a greengrocers for a bit, the guy was a total ass and finally fired me, then I started working as interim (I don't know the proper English wording but that's the temporary work through manpower, adecco and such companies that I'm talking about) and could earn my first few bucks that way.
So a few months into this, working on and off through interim companies I had this job in a supermarket, already done a few like that so I wasn't too worried about it. I was on a two week contract and genuinely tried my best at doing my job correctly. However, on my third day I arrived at 07:01 AM instead of the 07:00 AM I was supposed to. I thought, no big deal it's only one minute, but the manager disagreed. He pulled me appart and told me “you know, 07:00 isn't 07:01, time matters”, yada yada the usual BS.
And, I'm usually not the kind of guy to get angry and make a fuss about things but I don't know why this time my body didn't listen to my reason and I told the guy to litteraly “fuck off and leave me alone or I'll just go home and you'll deal with this yourself”.
You'd expect him to fire me on the spot, and that's exactly what he did. I get home almost in tears but, you know, after an hour I was feeling so relieved and … so well and grateful I wasn't going to spend my day piling stuff in a storage room, with that asshole above my shoulder watching my every move. It was just so nice to have stood up for myself and I was feeling so fucking great, and I had an awsome day that day.
Of course the paycheck was missing and I struggled a lot about money, didn't eat a lot during those weeks, but didn't regret it for a single second.
Anyway, the story ends a few months later, still working as interim and this time it was an inventory, so you land at 11 PM and spend the night counting basically everything in the store with a bunch of other poor souls. In the meantime, the supermarket with the asshole manager was closed for whatever reason and so I landed at the job and guess who I see in a corner waiting for the doors to open and the shift to start ? Yep, the asshole manager. I reached to him and asked him what he was doing there, he barely answered but he was obviously not happy to see me. I wasn't even happy to see him in such a situation (nor was I sad) but still I thought, “how the tables turn”. Ultimately we were there, practically side by side, counting whatever not knowing if the day after we'd have enough money to fill up our fridges. And I remember thinking, “how dumb it is that those little managers don't feel like they belong with us and should fight alongside us, against this fucking soul-crushing corporate machinery”. We're really in the same team but somehow, we can't aknowledge that fact and keep hatin' on each other for reasons as stupid as being one minute late.
Crazy world.
Anyway, sorry for this bazillion-characters long message, these are my two cents to this sub. Have a great day sir and madams o7