many years ago, temping for a shitty callcentre
agency work, for a big directory company, shout if you can guess who. the office aircon shit the bed in the middle of the biggest heatwave in years. they wouldn't open the windows, in retrospect probably because if you treat your staff like shit, AND are on the 5th floor, it's not a wise option. the boss's desk had a calendar/clock/thermometer on it. the thermometer was reading 33 degrees celsius, i don't even want to think about humidity, it was probably one point away from actually raining in there. i was feeling particularly obnoxious, so i had a quick look at my agency employee handbook, and lo and behold, in the small print of the 'working environment' or somesuch section, was a line stating that if the temperature rose above somethign like 28 degrees for more than two hours, you could walk out and not return until the temp dropped again... ON FULL PAY..
so i got up, turned round to the manager and in a voice designed to carry said 'it's 32 degrees in here, there's no projected repair time, you keep fobbing us off, and in my handbook, from the agency contracting me here, i'm entitled to leave on full pay until the temperature is within limits again. this is standard policy for XXXXXXXXX agency.

and left. and, in dribs and drabs behind me, as word spread so did the other approx 80% of the people on that floor who were ALSO with the agency i was with. and there wasn't a DAMN thing they could do. so we left, and three days of glorious sun and relaxation later, returned to a nice cool office, and NO bollocking, just dirty looks, which amused me greatly.
i also took time to read the rest of the handbook, and made sure i was in a good position to while i was off, shave two big fat mohawks into my head and dye them bright electric blue (which happened to be the colour of the competition)
that was fun when the bigwigs took a stroll through the department. i was due for the end of my 6month stint anyhow and would rather have been gang-raped by rabid porcupines in a vat of malt vinegar than work there any longer. fun times! the moral of this story, sometimes, even for men, it helps to RTFM.
(UppityDamnPrimate LET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Tue 22 Jun 2010, 12:32, Reply)