The First Time I Got Fired

Stinakity submitted 519 days ago

When I was discharged from the military, I could not get a job. Eventually I had to go to an employment agency. The agency set me up at a job in a metal company that specialized in fabricating restaurant sinks. I was assigned to the night shift, 5 to 12:30, with several other genuine characters.

Our task was to cut out the metal which was to be shaped into sinks the next day, and to remove the cut out sinks from the kilns and dip them in sulfuric acid to the remove the soot.

There was a grizzled old guy (I never did know his name) who supervised us.
Basically, after he told us what to do and assigned our work stations for the night, he disappeared. He would miraculuously reappear every night just before 12:30.

We basically worked ourselves out of a job. It was so boring that we came up with an idea to see which crew could cut out the most metal. When we ran out of metal to cut, we tried to see how many sinks we could pull out of the kilns and dunk in the acid. When we were through, the place was cluttered with cut metal and sinks. The day shift could not keep up with us.
That's not why we got fired, though.

There was this one guy on the shift who had a disappearing act of his own. When the supevisor caught wind of it he assigned him permanently to the sulfuric acid pit. Naturally the guy objected. In the middle of a heated debate, he lost his cool. He pulled off one of the thick, rubber insulated safety gloves and slapped the supervisor across the face. It looked just like something out of one of those old chivalry movies, except that he had acid on the glove. The supervisor suffered more injury to his ego than to his face.

Naturally, after the supervisor ran and rinsed the acid away, he called the police. When the police arrived, they asked each of us where the perpetrated had scurried off to. Of course, we all told him that he had left the building. We honestly thought he had left the building. He had not left the building. He thought he had out foxed the cops by hiding in the building until the coast was clear, then simply walking away into the night. As soon as he reached the parking lot, he discovered that the cops were hiding behind cars waiting for him. The supervisor berated us for not telling where he was.

The next evening when I reported to work, I was informed that the whole shift had been fired. When I inquired about my final check, they told me to check with the employment agency. When I checked with the employment agency, they told me I owed it all to them. When I asked about sending me on another job, they laughed. Luckily, now so can I.