While I was in college working on my undergraduate degree in CS, I got an "internship" with a locally owned computer store. I wasn't really keen on working in a dusty little room all day surrounded by half-naked computers, but I thought that it would be good expeirence. When I went in for the interview, the owner/only employee thought that I was the best thing since sliced bread. I had worked for a grocery store since high school and he liked that I had customer service expeirence as well as technical skills. He said that he had a "terrible time finding good help, kids these days just don't want to work!" He started talking about how he could see me running one of his (currently unopened) stores after graduation and being a major business partner with him one day. He basically wanted me to be his apprentice. I wasn't too sure about all of this, I always dreamed of working for a corporation, wearing a suit and carrying a breif case, so I was very non committal and just told him that we would wait and see how it went. Well, the next few weeks were insane. The guy was crazy. He looked exactly like Will Farrell spoke like he did in Zoolander. He would get all excited about an idea that I had and then would freak out when I started to implement it. He would treat me like an idiot and would then turn to customers and treat them the same way. I actually saw him kick a guy out one time because he was browsing while talking on his cell phone. The owner told him that if he wasn't going to buy anything then he didn't need to be wasting our time. Really weird. Well, after I was there for three weeks, he sat me down and asked me how things were going. He wanted to know if I was still "persuing a management career" with his company. I simply told him that the more I worked there, the more I wanted this to be an internship, not a career. He got slightly frusturated but then calmed down and said that that was fine but he would have to decrease my pay. I agreed, thankful that he wasn't going to freak out on me and went to lunch. When I got back, he was talking to a customer and I went back to the work station and was going over stuff with this new girl a year or two younger than me that he had just hired. After the customer left, the owner came back to the workstation and told me to "gather my things and meet him up front!" I just looked at the other girl and kinda laughed and said ok. When I got up there, he was livid and informed me that he was firing me. When I requested a reason, he said that my behavior in front of customers was "completely unprofessional" (I've worked in customer service for 4 years, customer service is what I do) He didn't even want me to fill out my time sheet and told me to mail him a letter with my time worked included. I never thought that I would be happy to be fired from a job but when I left there, I felt 10 pounds lighter. Luckly, I didn't quit my job at the grocery store, so I just stayed there until graduation and now have a desk job with a brief case and huge window selling software like I always wanted to do! Yeppie!!! :D :D
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