EPTOn hindsight, I now realize how dangerous that conversation could have been...
(and I almost missed my flight and didn't get a receipt for the trip and got chewed out by the accountant when I got back to the office - FML)
All in a day's work - Page 4
| Blogs > Gesamtkunstwerk |
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farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
On hindsight, I now realize how dangerous that conversation could have been... (and I almost missed my flight and didn't get a receipt for the trip and got chewed out by the accountant when I got back to the office - FML) | ||
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kafkaesque
Germany2006 Posts
I had to to stuff for her thrice a week, and her office was at her home, which was about half an hour away by car. Usually at least twice a week when I got there, nobody was there as she frequently forgot I was supposed to come and never notified me beforehand, so I usually sat in my car, waiting dutyfully (the fact I got full pay for my reading-in-car sessions sort of added to my being dutyful). Though I essentially only worked a day a week, if that, I loved that job and got fired for the stupidest reason: Albeit my utter uglyness (think: Denny Devito's uglier younger brother) and despite being about twice my size, her husband got really jealous of her having a male assistant and would frequently throw hissyfits when we dared close the office door. I would have understood being fired due to my obvious not being needed, but that was just pathetic. | ||
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cLAN.Anax
United States2847 Posts
 One of my co-workers, I learned, was a closet nerd. During our safety briefings and around the office, he’d always be a bit of a jerk to me (only mockingly, however). But when we were in the mine collecting samples and stuff, we’d talk about his barbarian he was working in Diablo III, how he used to play Counter-Strike with his sister as a kid, various Total War and strategy games, and I learned he used to be a pretty avid Magic: The Gathering fan. Minor politics below: + Show Spoiler + Another co-worker was an unabashed liberal. I never really brought politics up, but she occasionally insisted on discussing, what had been at the time, the upcoming Presidential election, as well as complaining that she "probably" didn't get paid as much as her male co-workers and being mildly obsessed with recycling. I didn't share with her whom I was voting for, mostly because I didn't know whom I wanted to vote for, but since I had noncommittally said, "Definitely not Obama," she automatically assumed I was in Camp Romney, lol. Rumor has it she even called for her order/prescription of birth control during work hours. At the office, where everyone could hear her. Mr. Closet Nerd said it was flippin' hilarious. | ||
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NIIINO
Slovakia1320 Posts
I work at the gameshop and people have a lot of small troubles with their videogames machines. We dont provide any service but hey there is no GSL at the moment so why dont help them ? I always say its free but I think it makes them give me even more money. I get 5euros to instal sims 3, 20e for Windows. Once I helped to build PC (Thank you kind ppl in tech section of TL) I got like 50e for that! I get a lot of alcohol too, too bad i dont drink, at least my co-workers are happy. When you dont get any tips and make 2,5e for a hour of work its really nice to be able to say that you are proud of what you do.) So here are a few stories: 1, Our shop is located next to this big electro where guys love to troll their customers. For instance 60-70 old man and probably his grandchild came in and asked for DVD games, We knew something was going on so we asked him some questions and it turned out that he bought DVD player and they told him that it can play games too. they were so sad  2, 25-29years old male with his GF came in and said: We just bought PS3 and Kinect and we are looking for some party game that can be played on it. And yes they had PS3 + Kinect sensor in the bag 3, Every day I get someone asking me how much for cracking his x360, cant blame them, games are expensive (btw We dont do that) 4, The only thing I hate about this job is when I talk to the customers for like 20minutes explaining x360vsPs3vsNintendo and I say how much it cost to them and they say they will buy it in the electro across the street and come here for some games. I can give them disscount for games but its still like 15e difference for 2min of walk so cant blame them 5, I SELL SS, ROCCAT, AND RAZER GEAR, everytime I sell one It makes me so happy. 6, We have anime section so its ok to see 12-16 years old girls sitting on the floor for 3hours not moving just reading. 7, Kids pee and vomit from time to time, yet no poop 8, I have super nice co-workers and boss, so when this cute girl with crazy badass tattoos and her GF came in to ask if we knew someone that can help them set up ps3 I could go and take extra controler with me (this happened at 17:00, we close at 21:00 so my co-worker had to work alone for 4 hours + I dont have ps3, had no idea what I was doing) 9, Horror story: No Pre-paid cards for WoW in entire Bratislava for like a week, some ppl were ok with that but mostly they were ok with going 70km to the next city. 10, There is this one guy who wants to sue us because his x360 can not play his downloaded fable3, I dont take shit like this seriously but when I saw that he is Phd and has like 20pages of text it was the 1st time I had no idea how can someone put so much time into the prank. LOL ! 11, We used to let kids play ps3 in the shop, after 2 days kids used to come there and play after the school after a week they camped there and waited for us to open, We knew something was wrong but had no idea how much until parents used to pick up their kids after work at 21:00. 12, There are a few funny theif stories but that would take so much time and I have some work here so maybe later. haha ! | ||
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kafkaesque
Germany2006 Posts
On January 26 2013 01:46 NIIINO wrote: 12, There are a few funny theif stories but that would take so much time and I have some work here so maybe later. haha ! Please do! Besides working in a music store, working in a Gamestop or bookstore are the only sales-positions I find remotely interesting and I like reading about those. | ||
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
. Somehow beat the anti-double post magic. | ||
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c0ldfusion
United States8293 Posts
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
I meant intern ... lol | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9859 Posts
Now from the people who come in, it's 80-90% guys, naturally the owner wants all the servers are bartenders to be girls, anyways. It was a pretty slow thursday for Karaoke night, I went from the kitchen to the front of house, to fill up my cup with iced tea. There I am, just having small talk with a couple regulars sitting at the bar, and all of the sudden a stool swishes maybe a meter from my head, and right onto the counter behind the bar, knocking over a couple bottles in the process. I look up, and see a tall, maybe 6'2" enraged man, and a younger lad, likely no older than 22, leaning against the VLT machines, and I make the connection that the tall man threw the stool, probably at the other guy. Not even a second later, the older man slowly approaches the kid, and the 4 men sitting at the table behind them stand up. As I see him loading up his first strike, I begin to sprint as quickly to this situation to break it up, my heart is already racing, I hear background noise. "Take that out of my bar! You are not welcome here". He grabs the kid by the shirt and throws a few quick punches and the kid drops. He begins yelling shit at him, calling him a "fuckin' twad", and always using some sort of derivative of that insult. The kid is just trying to cover himself. He starts kicking him, and to my dismay, the four other men, that I just was not concerned about at all, join in on the fray. The kid gets maybe 10 kicks to the stomach, head, whatever, they are continuing too. I finally get there, I'm an average sized guy, 5'10" and 180lb, decently built. this guy seems huge, either way, with the momentum of my run I give him the biggest push I can, and the others who are half watching and half-kicking I yell at "Fucking sit down if you don't want to spend the night in jail". Then, ughhh, a get a pretty shark hook to my kidney from the tall older guy who got his footing back. I clench my teeth, and yell at him, "What the fuck are you doing?" "What the FUCK are YOU doing, man?!" "Like seriously, WHY the FUCK did you do that?!"... I just kept repeating that (anyone working at a bar, effective strategy), the guy seems a little calmer, maybe thinking a bit, I dunno, but gives me a push on the shoulders anyways as I take a couple steps back to regain my balance, "little shit snorted my blow". Instinctively I just reply, "How much?!" he mumbles something, I ask again, "How much coke?". "He replies, "This kid is getting fucked, I don't give a shit that it was only a few". I reply, "Okay, so like $40 man? Seriously man, I'm trying to help you, this isn't worth it, I'll give you the money and just please leave the guy alone, we will get his sorry ass out of here, and you can enjoy the rest of the night". I take out my wallet, hand the man 2 20's, and quickly the noise clears. My heart stops racing, the spectators head back to their seats; some leave, some clap. The young guy, he doesn't need another signal to get out of there, he scurries a long (didn't pay his bill or anything, not a bad free 10~ beers + food). The assistant manager was quick to call the cops during the situation, I'm quickly trying to survey the damage, one stool had a broken leg, and there was a pushed over table and a couple other stools that were fallen over. On the bar end, nearly $100 worth of alcohol spilled. Two cop cars show up, three cops come in. Bartenders point towards the table, the cops begin conversation with them, and I'll just mainly paraphrase this part. The guys get pissed off and start swearing at us for calling the cops, the power-hungry cops are threatening to Taser the guys, in the end, two of them get handcuffed, the other 3 just follow them outside. Before that however, the cops literally forced them to pay for their tabs, to pay for the broken bottles, and the other kid's bill. I never got my $40 back, and the stool we will have to nail back together, but besides that, just a day on the job. I really like the job, it's fast-paced, and you really do get money for what you're doing. You are just expected to break up these situations, pretty much a qualification to work there, is to be able to neutralize any strength man while he is drunk, usually talking will help, the servers are pretty good with that, sometimes some physical violence is required so they don't pose a danger to other customers. Usually if people are in groups they can deal with them, so it tends to be always one lone person gets really mad. This is a one every two weeks occurrence or so, this is one of the more interesting ones, but people will be people. Hope you guys enjoyed the read (: Might write some stories that are a little less typical and maybe more embarrassing in the bar scene if there is demand! (getting knocked out by 50y/o blonde with a wine bottle? S;) | ||
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farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
On January 26 2013 03:08 FiWiFaKi wrote:+ Show Spoiler + I'm an Engg student at university, and I'm also a Kitchen Manager at my local bar. It's a bar, so it seems like lots of stuff would happen, but besides bar fights and out-of-control drunk people, usually not too much. Yesterday I had a little hero situation happen to me at work, so I thought I'd share. Now from the people who come in, it's 80-90% guys, naturally the owner wants all the servers are bartenders to be girls, anyways. It was a pretty slow thursday for Karaoke night, I went from the kitchen to the front of house, to fill up my cup with iced tea. There I am, just having small talk with a couple regulars sitting at the bar, and all of the sudden a stool swishes maybe a meter from my head, and right onto the counter behind the bar, knocking over a couple bottles in the process. I look up, and see a tall, maybe 6'2" enraged man, and a younger lad, likely no older than 22, leaning against the VLT machines, and I make the connection that the tall man threw the stool, probably at the other guy. Not even a second later, the older man slowly approaches the kid, and the 4 men sitting at the table behind them stand up. As I see him loading up his first strike, I begin to sprint as quickly to this situation to break it up, my heart is already racing, I hear background noise. "Take that out of my bar! You are not welcome here". He grabs the kid by the shirt and throws a few quick punches and the kid drops. He begins yelling shit at him, calling him a "fuckin' twad", and always using some sort of derivative of that insult. The kid is just trying to cover himself. He starts kicking him, and to my dismay, the four other men, that I just was not concerned about at all, join in on the fray. The kid gets maybe 10 kicks to the stomach, head, whatever, they are continuing too. I finally get there, I'm an average sized guy, 5'10" and 180lb, decently built. this guy seems huge, either way, with the momentum of my run I give him the biggest push I can, and the others who are half watching and half-kicking I yell at "Fucking sit down if you don't want to spend the night in jail". Then, ughhh, a get a pretty shark hook to my kidney from the tall older guy who got his footing back. I clench my teeth, and yell at him, "What the fuck are you doing?" "What the FUCK are YOU doing, man?!" "Like seriously, WHY the FUCK did you do that?!"... I just kept repeating that (anyone working at a bar, effective strategy), the guy seems a little calmer, maybe thinking a bit, I dunno, but gives me a push on the shoulders anyways as I take a couple steps back to regain my balance, "little shit snorted my blow". Instinctively I just reply, "How much?!" he mumbles something, I ask again, "How much coke?". "He replies, "This kid is getting fucked, I don't give a shit that it was only a few". I reply, "Okay, so like $40 man? Seriously man, I'm trying to help you, this isn't worth it, I'll give you the money and just please leave the guy alone, we will get his sorry ass out of here, and you can enjoy the rest of the night". I take out my wallet, hand the man 2 20's, and quickly the noise clears. My heart stops racing, the spectators head back to their seats; some leave, some clap. The young guy, he doesn't need another signal to get out of there, he scurries a long (didn't pay his bill or anything, not a bad free 10~ beers + food). The assistant manager was quick to call the cops during the situation, I'm quickly trying to survey the damage, one stool had a broken leg, and there was a pushed over table and a couple other stools that were fallen over. On the bar end, nearly $100 worth of alcohol spilled. Two cop cars show up, three cops come in. Bartenders point towards the table, the cops begin conversation with them, and I'll just mainly paraphrase this part. The guys get pissed off and start swearing at us for calling the cops, the power-hungry cops are threatening to Taser the guys, in the end, two of them get handcuffed, the other 3 just follow them outside. Before that however, the cops literally forced them to pay for their tabs, to pay for the broken bottles, and the other kid's bill. I never got my $40 back, and the stool we will have to nail back together, but besides that, just a day on the job. I really like the job, it's fast-paced, and you really do get money for what you're doing. You are just expected to break up these situations, pretty much a qualification to work there, is to be able to neutralize any strength man while he is drunk, usually talking will help, the servers are pretty good with that, sometimes some physical violence is required so they don't pose a danger to other customers. Usually if people are in groups they can deal with them, so it tends to be always one lone person gets really mad. This is a one every two weeks occurrence or so, this is one of the more interesting ones, but people will be people. Hope you guys enjoyed the read (: Might write some stories that are a little less typical and maybe more embarrassing in the bar scene if there is demand! (getting knocked out by 50y/o blonde with a wine bottle? S;) Great story - interesting read! You got balls to step in when there's that many of them. Might write some stories that are a little less typical and maybe more embarrassing in the bar scene if there is demand! (getting knocked out by 50y/o blonde with a wine bottle? S;) YES PLEASE | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 25 2013 22:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: No. Haven't you ever heard of "The customer is always right?" While it sucks, it's often times a necessary philosophy to retain business. And the business is bigger than you getting your feelings hurt, Mr. Employee #384744, so suck it up and ignore their stupidity for the whole sixty seconds that you'll interact with them. That's a philosophy for employers. I don't feel that employees are in solidarity with employers, so I don't care about this. It's not my job to make the business go well, it's my job to keep my job while expending as little effort and sanity as possible. My boss can go around thinking "the customer is always right" as much as she wants, that's her problem. And also, maybe some of them are acting like shit because you're treating them like shit  No. I treat them like normal people to start out with. I'm a very polite person, and I don't even talk to them about philosophy. But if they act like shit I'm not going to kiss their ass. Sure, that's a practical reason, but your job is also to do your job, and that also includes keeping the client happy by doing your job competently, often times with a smile (or fake smile) on your face. Every job has customers who are pains in the asses, but you tend to put up with them because it makes your boss happy, and/ or you get a paycheck, and/ or you like your job, etc. You don't take out your anger on a customer; that's just showing that you don't know how to handle situations properly as an employee. I don't agree that my job is to do my job. It's your boss's job to try to get you to do your job, and its your job to try to avoid doing your job while keeping your job. edit: my point is not that you should treat people badly. My point is that working in the service industry doesn't mean you temporarily suspend your person-hood. If my boss wanted me to be a "professional," she could pay me like a professional. | ||
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farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
On January 26 2013 03:56 sam!zdat wrote: That's a philosophy for employers. I don't feel that employees are in solidarity with employers, so I don't care about this. It's not my job to make the business go well, it's my job to keep my job while expending as little effort and sanity as possible. My boss can go around thinking "the customer is always right" as much as she wants, that's her problem. No. I treat them like normal people to start out with. I'm a very polite person, and I don't even talk to them about philosophy. But if they act like shit I'm not going to kiss their ass. I don't agree that my job is to do my job. It's your boss's job to try to get you to do your job, and its your job to try to avoid doing your job while keeping your job. This is a terrible attitude to work and life in general. I hope you realize your career has been severely castrated by this attitude and that your chances of promotion or moving on to better things are slim to none. I used experience at a Korean food court stall to land an IT job with a major tourism and resorts corporation. Totally unrelated experience, but I had the references and the stories from the previous job to convince my manager-to-be that I was the best damn kimchi cutter at that store, so I would strive my best to be the best damn IT guy at his company. | ||
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farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
On January 25 2013 15:13 sam!zdat wrote: I think it's your job to avoid getting fired. Whatever subtle abuse you can heap on well-deserving customers while accomplishing this aim is fair game. gotta steal back those crumbs of jouissance wherever you can. Of course, if you're satisfied with what you have, then you can get by simply doing the minimum not to get fired. But I didn't want to cut kimchi, fry potatoes and mix 'slaw for the rest of my life, so I worked harder. Just sayin', there are reasons to work hard other than your monthly paycheck. Think about next year's paycheck, or your paycheck 5 years from now. In 2006 I was making $6.50 an hour (Asian places don't exactly respect minimum wage). Needless to say, I make way more now and am looking to make even more later. EDIT: OK he ninja deleted his post - will edit if he reposts. | ||
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
A week later, I came back and told him that it didn't work out. So he asks me how did I do it and I explained method A to him. He proceeds to look at me with a smirk on his face asking: "Why did you use Method B? Of course Method A won't work!" He's a really nice guy and enjoyable person to work with so I didn't get pissed like I normally would. 1 year later I was working with a different professor and we had to detect moving things in a video. The first video was under normal lighting conditions while then 2nd one was under different light and it was really hard to see the fish with the naked eye. He and his colleague were talking about how hard the 2nd one would be and he told me to leave the 2nd one aside. For 2 months I worked on the first video and everytime I show my non-perfect results he tells me how the 2nd one would be much harder, and we should leave it for another time and concentrate on a simple one first. After 2 months I got sick and he got sick and we didn't meet for 1-2 weeks. When I got back, he asks me about progress and I told him I'm a bit behind because my HDD bricked and I spent a lot of time recovering it. He proceeds question me on why haven't I started analysing the 2nd video and tells me about how I'm behind on my work =( On January 26 2013 01:46 NIIINO wrote: being nice to your customers open more doors than you think. I work at the gameshop and people have a lot of small troubles with their videogames machines. We dont provide any service but hey there is no GSL at the moment so why dont help them ? I always say its free but I think it makes them give me even more money. I get 5euros to instal sims 3, 20e for Windows. Once I helped to build PC (Thank you kind ppl in tech section of TL) I got like 50e for that! I get a lot of alcohol too, too bad i dont drink, at least my co-workers are happy. When you dont get any tips and make 2,5e for a hour of work its really nice to be able to say that you are proud of what you do.) So here are a few stories: 1, Our shop is located next to this big electro where guys love to troll their customers. For instance 60-70 old man and probably his grandchild came in and asked for DVD games, We knew something was going on so we asked him some questions and it turned out that he bought DVD player and they told him that it can play games too. they were so sad 2, 25-29years old male with his GF came in and said: We just bought PS3 and Kinect and we are looking for some party game that can be played on it. And yes they had PS3 + Kinect sensor in the bag 3, Every day I get someone asking me how much for cracking his x360, cant blame them, games are expensive (btw We dont do that) 4, The only thing I hate about this job is when I talk to the customers for like 20minutes explaining x360vsPs3vsNintendo and I say how much it cost to them and they say they will buy it in the electro across the street and come here for some games. I can give them disscount for games but its still like 15e difference for 2min of walk so cant blame them 5, I SELL SS, ROCCAT, AND RAZER GEAR, everytime I sell one It makes me so happy. 6, We have anime section so its ok to see 12-16 years old girls sitting on the floor for 3hours not moving just reading. 7, Kids pee and vomit from time to time, yet no poop 8, I have super nice co-workers and boss, so when this cute girl with crazy badass tattoos and her GF came in to ask if we knew someone that can help them set up ps3 I could go and take extra controler with me (this happened at 17:00, we close at 21:00 so my co-worker had to work alone for 4 hours + I dont have ps3, had no idea what I was doing) 9, Horror story: No Pre-paid cards for WoW in entire Bratislava for like a week, some ppl were ok with that but mostly they were ok with going 70km to the next city. 10, There is this one guy who wants to sue us because his x360 can not play his downloaded fable3, I dont take shit like this seriously but when I saw that he is Phd and has like 20pages of text it was the 1st time I had no idea how can someone put so much time into the prank. LOL ! 11, We used to let kids play ps3 in the shop, after 2 days kids used to come there and play after the school after a week they camped there and waited for us to open, We knew something was wrong but had no idea how much until parents used to pick up their kids after work at 21:00. 12, There are a few funny theif stories but that would take so much time and I have some work here so maybe later. haha ! Hahahahaahahaha I love this thread! | ||
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Deleuze
United Kingdom2102 Posts
On January 25 2013 22:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: No. Haven't you ever heard of "The customer is always right?" While it sucks, it's often times a necessary philosophy to retain business. And the business is bigger than you getting your feelings hurt, Mr. Employee #384744, so suck it up and ignore their stupidity for the whole sixty seconds that you'll interact with them. And also, maybe some of them are acting like shit because you're treating them like shit Sure, that's a practical reason, but your job is also to do your job, and that also includes keeping the client happy by doing your job competently, often times with a smile (or fake smile) on your face. Every job has customers who are pains in the asses, but you tend to put up with them because it makes your boss happy, and/ or you get a paycheck, and/ or you like your job, etc. You don't take out your anger on a customer; that's just showing that you don't know how to handle situations properly as an employee. I dunno about that. My brother-in-law is a regional manager of a phone store in the UK and he routinely follows this philosophy, regularly get pulled up on customer complaints yet regularly gets awarded bonuses for smashing targets. I think the 'don't-get-fired-treat-customers-like-shit' approach pretty much defines the philosophy behind the capitalist mode of production! EDIT: Also, On January 26 2013 02:43 c0ldfusion wrote: I thought everyone on TL had baller jobs like engineers at star companies or semi-pro poker players. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 26 2013 04:04 farseerdk wrote: This is a terrible attitude to work and life in general. I hope you realize your career has been severely castrated by this attitude and that your chances of promotion or moving on to better things are slim to none. It's not a career, it's a service job. On January 26 2013 04:36 Deleuze wrote: I think the 'don't-get-fired-treat-customers-like-shit' approach pretty much defines the philosophy behind the capitalist mode of production! word yo, I say call a spade a spade | ||
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Nitrogen
United States5345 Posts
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Dfgj
Singapore5922 Posts
On January 26 2013 03:56 sam!zdat wrote: If my boss wanted me to be a "professional," she could pay me like a professional. That's exactly what you're getting now, you just don't think it's worth your time. I'm from a country without minimum wages. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 26 2013 04:59 Dfgj wrote: That's exactly what you're getting now, you just don't think it's worth your time. Well it's definitely not worth MY time, because I'm "slumming it." But I don't think it's worth any of my co-workers' time, either. I'm from a country without minimum wages. What a miserable thought. | ||
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