They do things differently there...
I was reading all these stories thinking that I had never had the balls to quit a job I hated, then I suddenly remembered the one time I stood up for myself. Yay me.

I was 21, studying languages at uni, and was in my year abroad as a language assistant in Germany. A nice, rural town in the south of Germany, quite near to Stuttgart.

On top of the school job, I was working as a barmaid in a local family-run hotel. A nice place, but the couple who ran it were somewhat unusual to a staunchly reserved British girl.

After I finished my official contract with the school, I decided I would stay on for the rest of the summer until I went back to uni, and work full time in the hotel. The money wasn't great, but it was actual, spendable money, and I love being in Germany, so I was quite happy.

Until that one shift.

The hotel was hosting a dinner evening for a local football league - nothing professional, just a Sunday league type of thing. But they were all big fellas. And drunk. And loud. And old-fashioned.

I'm a terrible flirt, and these days I would eat these guys for breakfast, but in those days I was a shy, inexperienced ingenue, so when they started shouting very loudly "Schlaf mit mir!" and somewhat seedier requests, I have to admit I lost it.

I spent most of the night running off to the loos and crying, hoping against hope that the bosses would notice how upset I was and ask them to stop. But no, they were enjoying being the jovial hosts nand couldn't give a flying fuck.

After about three hours of this abuse (it was a looooong dinner) I flipped, stormed out and slammed the big heavy wooden door to the kitchen. The whole restaurant fell silent, and then the footballers did that 'ooooooh handbags' kind of noise.

The boss came out to find me, and I have to admit I was still naively expecting her to be nice to me and ask what was wrong. Instead her response was basically "What the hell was that all about? You get back out there and do your job. The customer is always king" etc etc.

The next morning I tearfully phoned home and vented to my dad. Again, in a total turnaround, I got entirely the unexpected result. My parents have always been very pro-work, pull your weight, no free rides, and I fully expected to be told to suck it up.

My dad did the best thing he has ever done for me. He said, very calmly, "Come home. Come home now." GBless him.

And I did. I went back to the hotel that very morning, told some very hungover bosses that I wouldn't be returning, took a train straight to the airport and booked my flight home for the end of that week.

There was no petty revenge, but I wrote a teenage angsty poem about the whole thing.

In the time since then I have got a life and some confidence and would not now put up with that kind of shit.

The scene of the crime...
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Fri 23 May 2008, 10:27, Reply)