Taking out the trash

simplyfiredstories submitted 550 days ago

Thought I would let you know about the first and only time I was fired.
One of my numerous summer jobs through college was working for a trash hauling company. The job sounded horrible but it was actually quite nice. The company would get hired by people or companies to remove unwanted dry goods, not stinking garbage, to the local dry goods ecological dump site. We got to work outside most of the time, we also got the chance to rummage through peoples unwanted objects. There were many good cameras, old neon bar signs, beer fridges etc. that ended up in one of our houses rather than the dump. I was a driver of a 5 ton truck and would be assigned a swamper, usually a 17 or 18 year old high school kid whose only job was to help me load the stuff onto the truck. The one swamper they assigned me was stoned at 7:00 am when I went to pick him up from his house. The kid slept all day, only helping me on one of the many jobs during the day. The next morning he was smoking up when I picked him up. I called in to the boss and told him I wanted a new helper. The 'brilliant' manager's response was I should learn to deal with difficult situations and not ask him to deal with my problems. Silly me, I thought stoned employees would be a liability issue for the company, but apparently not. Again the kid was no help during the day and one of the clients ended up helping me move an old stove onto the truck. Yelling at this kid did nothing, the only way I could get him to do work was to promise to hit a 7-11 for food after each job. Even then he was little help and always stoned. The last day of the week, I had made yet another request to get a new swamper and was denied again by our 'brilliant' manager. This day however I was inside talking to a client and the kid was sleeping in the truck cab when the munchies struck so off to 7-11 he went. He promptly put the truck into gear and drove through the client's garbage can, through his hedges and across the neighbors lawn taking out the antique mailbox all at about 2 miles per hour before parking the truck on the lawn and going back to sleep. Of course the manager gets called out. When he arrived the kid was still fast asleep. His 'brilliant' response to this incident was to fire me for not managing my swamper and my truck but the kid wasn't even talked about. A month later I found out that the kid was the son of the manager's girlfriend. I guess getting some outweighs any company insurance and liability issues for having a stoner as an employee. Five years later I see that the kid is now driving one of those trucks. I try to stay away from any of their trucks I see while driving as I am sure there is still a cloud of pot smoke trailing out of the cab.