I really daren't get onto my current bosses
because that place makes me so angry that yesterday I walked off a shift, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I'm someone that prides themselves on always being as professional as my flawed human nature will allow (at work anyway :p).

But a good few years ago I worked in a fruit and veg concession inside a Kwiksave, it was just me- sweet sixteen and not even eligible for minimum wage despite having my own place, and my rapidly approaching senility 'supervisor' who I will call 'D.'. This guy was lovely really, just from a different age, and despite the fact that within a month of working there I was practically running the place he never stopped seeing me as a) young and b) female so I had to do a lot of our job while he was looking the other way, in truth I think it would have been a major blow to his ego to know that I did things like recheck his order sheets before they got faxed off to catch the regular and major mistakes/oversights (I started doing this after the time he ordered a whole pallet of jaffas instead of a box when we barely sold 2 oranges a day), the whole time I was there he found excuses not to officially show me the ordering system, yet when we took a guy on to cover 16 hours a week he showed him his 2nd day!

Anyway, once when I was putting out some new stock I came across a very large spider in one of the fruit boxes. I never used to have a major phobia of spiders (though they can GET TO FUCK when they do that quick scuttle at you) but I don't mind admitting that this one was giving me some major fear. A customer came in at this point so I went and served him, made sure no-one else was likely to come in and then went off to find the supermarket deputy to lend me something I could catch the bugger in. After he'd offered to get him on a piece of paper, went white when I showed him my new charge, then wandered off again to 'find a bigger boat', we settled on a big yogurt pot (yay lid!) and spent a fun twenty minutes cornering Mr. Scuttles and safely securing him in his new temporary home/pot.

D. often rang in to 'check on me' during a shift so I waited for his call to ask his advice on the next move, having already been told by the supermarket manager that we'd need to report it to our head office and then get someone in to identify what the spider was. I swear, within 5 minutes the guy was in! any excuse to feel useful/in charge, but he poo-poo'd my notions of it maybe being a foreign critter and told me I was over-reacting (which was funny given that the only reaction I'd given up to that point was 'I found a spider, it doesn't look like any I've seen before so I caught it to be identified').
After I hassled him into giving me the number for our boss he agreed to ring himself and a few minutes later I was put on the phone with an irate manager
"Now, it doesn't do anyone any good to overreact love"
"I'm not, I just thought you'd want to know what's going on. Plus, where ever it's come from, at some point it's been in your warehouse, you might get more of them"
"house spiders are hardly anything to worry about love, we get them in warehouses just like yer own house"

I glanced over at D., he smiled sheepishly.

"It's not a house spider"
"Well it sounds like one to me"
"It's definitely not"
"They CAN get pretty big love"
"I know what a house spider looks like, even scaled up, I've seen plenty of them, this is about twice the size of the biggest one I've seen, its legs are shorter and much thicker, its body looks armoured, it's fangs are more pronounced and it has distinctive markings on its back"
"...put D. back on"

They finished their little chat, the boss was spooked enough to convince D. to call in someone to identify the spider but was reassured by D.'s conviction it was all fine.
D. was in in the morning so said he would sort it out then, he went home and I finished up my shift.

CUT TO NEXT AFTERNOON

I wander in, chat to D. about the morning, go into the back to drop my things off...notice an empty yogurt pot. Suspicion blooms in the deepest pits of my stomach.

"um...what happened with the spider D.?"
"oh, hahah, I let it go outside!"
"...really?"
"..."
"D....please tell me you didn't?"
"yes, but I stepped on it!"

o_0

Later in the day I hear from the guy at the butcher counter next door that this is all true, except for the stepping on bit, unsurprisingly the spider was too quick for my 70 odd year old supervisor and ran straight off, finally free to terrorise the British land. Apparently he couldn't be bothered with the hassle of getting someone in to ID it (despite me offering to handle it the day before, and the fact that HE had never seen a spider like it either).

For a few years after that I kept half an ear open for tales of odd spiders in the area, I know it most likely would have died soon afterwards anyway, and that it couldn't really breed...but I still think now, 10 years later, that it's a really fucking stupid thing to do to just release an unknown spider into a most likely new habitat.

Sadly, that was far from the most stupid thing he ever did, but I've bored you enough :)
( Jessie © needs pirate name suggestions, Wed 24 Jun 2009, 11:52, 7 replies)

Love it!
"...biggest one I've seen, its legs are shorter and much thicker, its body looks armoured..."

That would be enough to give me teh fear.

Have a very well earned click.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 24 Jun 2009, 12:07, closed)

occasionally
large fruit-eating spiders can be transported in bunches of bananas. most of them are pretty harmless, but a wild animal is a wild animal. your boss should have immediately reported it, if only for safety's sake. as someone who's kept tarantulas, i know how big buggers like that can get!
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Wed 24 Jun 2009, 19:03, closed)