Ben Thompson:  My Stupid Website.
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-- I Quit! --
                               Update 12 December 2003 by Amazing Ben

    So as I am starting to get the hang of this whole website thing, it looks like we'll have Amazing Ben updates on Mondays, The Corporate Ninja on Wednesdays, and on Fridays if I don't feel like posting anything myself, I put up something someone else wrote.  If anyone wants to submit something I'll be happy to post it.  As long as it doesn't suck, that is.  You can submit something for scrutiny here. Now on to the update.

     From the moment that every bright-eyed young employee shows up to work and clocks in for the first time at a new job, they are thinking about one thing:  how long until they can quit.  I have been lucky enough this week to quit my craphole bullshit job in favor of a better craphole bullshit job.   My quitting experience was far less satisfying than it has been in recent history, however, as I decided to take the "coward's way out" and actually submit a written two week notice like I was some kind of responsible adult or some shit.  To my credit though, it took me twenty-three years to actually terminate my employment in such a manner.  So, without further ado I give you:
Amazing Ben's Top Five Quitting Experiences
    Number 5 -  AMC Theaters, Tallahassee FL:   I accepted a position as a summer help concession stand operator at AMC Tallahassee in January of 2000, knowing full well that I had no intention of staying over the summer, and rather that I was going home at the beginning of April when school let out.  To my defense, who was going to hire me for three months of work?  I was looking for a new job since I had just been fired/quit working at Albertson's (see below), and I had bills to pay, damnit!  Anyways, my manager was more than a little upset.
Chicks dig it.
Here's how the conversation went:
   ME:  "Um, yeah.  I'm putting in my two weeks."
   ASSHOLE BOSS:  "What?!  You were suppossed to stay over the Summer."
   ME:  "No, I'm going home."
   ASSHOLE BOSS:  "I never would have hired you if I knew you weren't staying over the Summer."
   ME:  "Yeah, sorry."

They get better than this, folks.

Number 4 - Cherry Communications, Tallahassee FL: This was a shitty telemarketing job where I polled people over the phones about political issues.  I asked people everything from "What political party do you belong to?" to "What color underwear are you wearing right now?" .  I walked off of this job by not returning from my lunch break on my first day there.

Number 3 - Albertson's Grocery Store, Deerfield Beach FL:  I was a bag boy for Albertson's for a while, and I can say that I would rather have stuck my face in a bag full of angry rabid weasels than gone to work there.  To top it all off, my boss was a total dick to everybody.  So during one Summer, I went to my manager and requested to be moved up to fourty hours a week, instead of my usual twenty.  Then I didn't show up for any of my shifts for the next two months.  When my monetary supply started to run short again, I returned to Albertson's and found my old boss.  Here's what happened:
   ME:  "Um, do I still work here?"
   ASSHOLE BOSS:  "Um, do you still want to?"
   ME:  "Yeah, I guess."
   ASSHOLE BOSS:  "Ok, I guess I'll write you in the schedule for next week."
   ME:  "Ok."

   I showed up the following Monday for my shift, and as I was coming up to the building I ran into the Store Manager, who also happened to be a huge toolshed.  I hadn't shaved for like four months, so I was actually beginning to develop some facial stubble on my chin, something that was forbidden by Albertson's Code of Laws and Rules.  The store manager gestured to his own chin and remarked, "Hey, why don't you go ahead an knock this off, okay?" 
   I went inside, clocked in, turned around and walked back to my car.  I drove home and never returned.

Number Two - Albertson's Grocery Store, Tallahassee FL:  When I applied to this Albertson's almost two months later, they actually brought me on as a re-hire and gave me a twenty-five cent per hour raise.  However, it was not long before I began to grow weary of this job as well, and it was only a matter of time before my irresponsibility once again consumed me.
    My dorm cohabitator and esteemed colleague J. Catfood had recently obtained a copy of a CD that contained The Curse of Monkey Island and The Curse of Monkey Island 2 from an unspecified location.  One fine Saturday morning, he brought the CD to my dorm room for my installation and gaming pleasure.  I had to work that afternoon, so I decided to start up the game and fiddle with it briefly before showering and getting ready for work.  However, once Guybrush Threepwood appeared on my screen and I was dropped face-first into a steaming pile of Adventure, I was totally riveted to my computer screen.  Defeating the Evil Pirate LeChuck became my ultimate mission in life, and I knew that this was my destiny.  This is what I was born for.
     Time quickly passed, and when my phone rang I realized that my shift had started thirty minutes ago and that the brief seconds I had spent hunched over my keyboard had actually been hours. 
     One thing I have failed to mention so far is that I worked with my then girlfriend, and our shifts were at the same time.  Luckily I let the machine get it, and my heart fell when I heard the shrill shrieking of my banshee girlfriend besetting my answering machine with all sorts of colorful language and profanity-laced phrases.  When she told me I would be fired if I didn't come in, I realized then what I had to do.
I am Guybrush Threepwood.
I have come to kill you.
  I quickly raced down to J. Catfood's room and burst in just as the phone was ringing there, hollering for him not to answer.  I was too late, however, as he was already picking it up.  I gestured my thumb across my throat quickly and he used his astute powers of deduction to realize what was happening.  I leapt for joy when he said into the phone, "Nope, I don't know where Ben is.  I haven't seen him all day.".  Then it was off to Miss Andrea's room, where I managed to catch her just before the phone rang.  With all my bases covered I was free to battle LeChuck and avoid the angry outcries of both my girlfriend and my boss.
  
I never showed up to pick up my third written warning for no call/no show.
Photo Copyright Despair.com
Number 1 - Century 21 Home Improvements, Boca Raton FL:  This was another telemarketing position, where essentially you are paid ten bucks an hour to have people tell you to go fuck yourself all day.  Every second of work was like being skinned alive and slowly lowered into a vat of salty alcoholic lemon juice whilefascist chimpanzees hurled bowling balls at my face and insulted my intelligence.  One day I was dealing with a loudmouth asshole customer and I had just had enough.

   ME:  "Hey, you wanna buy some cabinet facings?"
   ASSHOLE CUSTOMER:  "Go fuck yourself asshole!  You fucks call me every goddamn night in the middle of dinner or while I'm standing on a ladder and fucking try to sell me stupid shit that no one in their right mind would ever buy over the phone!  Fuck you!  Never call me again!"
   ME:  "Oh, I'm going to keep calling you.  I'm going to call you tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.  And just when you think I'm done calling you... I'm gonna call you again.  So, I'll talk to you later friend."

I hung up and typed in a note for that guy to be called back after six P.M. that same evening, and popped my phone over to Mute - triumphing in my victory while the next call clicked over and some woman kept repeating, "Hello?  Hello?".  Unfortunately, sometimes the boss would listen in on our calls, and since my sales were abysmal (I never sold anything, ever) this was such an occasion.  I was called in to the boss' office, where we rapped briefly.

   ME:  "Yes?"
   REASONABLE BOSS:  "You're fired."
   ME:  "Thats fair."

I turned around and left the boss' office.  After closing the door I threw a fit, yelling, "You fucks can't fire me!  I quit!" and knocking a bunch of markers and erasers off a nearby dry erase board.  Then I stormed out and never returned.

THE END

I had no idea this post was going to go on so long.
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