Step 2: Have an EPIC night at work.

Okay, so tonight at work was pretty much the greatest work night of my entire existence, and for one reason.

The one person who I loathe having to work with finally lost his marbles and walked off the job.  After no-showing earlier in the day.  It was fantastic.  Here's the scene.

I get to work just before 3 pm, when the person I'm relieving says to me "I don't know who you'll be getting in the kitchen tonight, J was a no-show at lunch."

O RLY?! Do tell!

"Yeah, he tried to get M to work for him, so I think he was mad because she wouldn't.  So, I don't know who's coming in tonight."

"Well, normally I'd say it wouldn't be him, because when most people decide to no-show, they go whole hog with it, but he's crazy, so..."

Cut to 3:56 pm, four minutes before J's shift is to start.  He walks through the door, attired for a kistchen shift.  I'd have been surprised, but well, he really is crazy.  So I wasn't.  He comes in, punches in, then disappears into the back storage room to sulk for ten minutes before actually opening the kitchen.  I don't see him for about an hour.  After that hour, he comes up, hands me two packs of cigarettes and a winning scratch off ticket.  I (correctly) interpret this gesture to mean "I would like to cash in this lottery ticket, and use the winnings to help me purchase these two packages of cigarettes, if it's not too much trouble."  It wasn't too much trouble, so I go about the transaction normally, adding in a "Oh, you won, did you?" as a polite "I'm not going to mention what you did because I don't want to hear you sob-story about it." conversational...bit.  No response.  Okay then.

After that he disappeared for another 40 minutes.  He then came out from the kitchen, punched out and walked toward the door.  He stopped, and Mr. Scarlett O'Hara delivered his speech. Here's how it went (with choice vocab removed because vulgarity is not my thing, yo).

"I can't do this right now."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Okay."

"*walks a few steps closer to the door*  I haven't seen my children all summer.  My children are suffering.  My homelife is suffering.  I keeps sacrificing for this place, and no one appreciates it!  So, I'm done today."

"Okay."

"I'm gonna call ...(couldn't hear what he said)..., too!"

"Okay..."

And he left.  I waited a few minutes, helped a couple customers, waited a few more minutes.  He drove off.  Clearly he was not just having a moment and would not be returning to finish his shift.  My thoughts, from the pucnhing out until the driving off were this:

"Is he punching out?  HE IS!  Oh my gosh, don't laugh at the speech.  DO NOT LAUGH AT THE SPEECH.  Okay, he's gone.  I'll give him a minute, he'll probably cool off and come back.  Maybe he needs a couple minutes... He's leaving!  BEST. WORK NIGHT. EVER.  Okay, time to call Manager."

So THEN he calls the store about ten minutes before we close to apologise for spouting off at me. (DO NOT LAUGH AT THE SPEECH, SARAH!  DO NOT!)  I'm a really nice person and didn't deserve it. (Okay, you can grin, because he can't see that, but NO LAUGHING.)  He'll see me later.  *hangs up* BWAH HAHAHA!  I mean.  Tragic?

The best part about his tweak out, though, was that it was for no reason!  He only works about 25 hours a week, and even then tries to get someone else to work for him at least once a week.  This week, because of Labor Day and being slightly short-staffed, he was asked to work 36 hours.  And he flipped. out.  He thinks he's a very tragic individual, in need of constant coddling, but some people are just like that, I suppose.

I would have had about a frillion stories about all the things this guy does that irritates the heck out of me, but as he's not my co-worker anymore, I won't have any stories like that, will I?

Anyway, it's not like I wish any ill will on the guy.  I hope he finds a new job that's a better fit.  I'm just glad to be rid of him.

His leaving helps my cause, however, as I've already been given 10 of his hours, and will most likely get more of them.

Current Status: Multi-Hundredaire
Money Earned Today: $60 - taxes
Money I Spent Today: $2.12