My first proper job
I had a pretty tough childhood, my parents never really wanted a kid and I had no other family to speak of, so they abandoned me around the time I was due to start school. I spent my youth going from one foster home to another, never really fitting in. They weren't exactly nurturing places, I never got anything to myself and rarely got a full meal, so I took up a dodgy cash-in-hand job to try and survive. Of course, I never told anyone, I'd just sneak off instead of going to school and deliver packages for the local toy store.

A few years later I was caught up in an accident and laid up in hospital for months in a full body cast. In hindsight it was the best thing to ever happen to me, it got me out of that rut and I decided to spend more time on my education. In whatever free time I'd have from day to day I'd study science, I even managed to get a place at the open university to read nuclear physics. Just as I was finishing I got a lucky break; the local news station in my hometown picked up on me graduating (it must have been a slow news day, but I'm not complaining) and the manager of the local nuclear powerplant saw the report.

I guess he must have felt a little sorry for me because he managed to rationalise giving me a job as his 2nd in command on the strength of a single news report about my work ethic. However, when I turned up I found out that he was a very fickle man and had changed his mind in the intervening time and hired someone else. His assistant (who was the campest man I've ever seen in my LIFE) took me to find my new job 'somewhere out of the way'. I should have just walked out right then and there.

I got my desk set up and my new co-workers came around to introduce themselves, two of them seemed nice enough, but the third was the embodiment of the word 'oaf'. A fat, obnoxious american bloke who I later found out didn't even go to university. He rifled through my things, laughed at his own stupid jokes and mispronounced even the simplest of words.

As the days progressed it got harder and harder to stand him, whereas I'd had to work hard for everything I'd got the same had just fallen into his lap. He had a job where he was responsible for the safety of thousands of people and as far as I could tell he didn't even have a secondary-school education, let alone any idea of what he was doing. He'd engage in reckless behaviour that by all rights should have killed him and escaped unharmed. When I tried to intervene with him messing around with a jar of acid I did manage to save his life, but got a reprimand from my boss for damaging company property.

I'll admit, it got to me. A lot. I started thinking of myself only in terms of being his enemy, the hatred slowly grew and festered in my mind and he did nothing to stop it. In fact, after I'd blown up at him one day I felt a bit guilty, so went to his house to apologise. Not only did this utter twunt have a beautiful wife and three lovely children, but he was having lobster for dinner. I was having baked beans! I lost it.

The next day at work I decided that I'd had enough of my life, I wanted things the easy way from now on. Why should I bother with safety gloves? He doesn't! He's fine! He's got lobster! I don't need the gloves either! Because I'm Homer Simpson! … It did not go well.

- Frank Grimes
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Tue 4 May 2010, 17:13, 1 reply)

Sorry
I spotted a pun a sentence in and went to the bottom. Wish I hadn't though.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Wed 5 May 2010, 13:18, closed)