Back when I was in college I worked part time as a photographer at a portrait studio. Out of all the jobs I’ve had, this one was the one I had the biggest love/hate relationship with, but this post (which is a part of a series of posts in which I will talk about all my previous jobs) isn’t about that job. I’m saving that story for another day. This post is about the few months I had a second job while going to school and working at the portrait studio. That last sentence pretty must establishes that I’m nuts.

Like almost every college student, I was really poor. The summer I decided to get a second job at 7-11 I was in a bit of a jam financially. At that time gas was around $4.00 a gallon and I was driving almost an hour to school and work. It was a slow time at the studio, so my hours were getting cut and I was basically spending my entire paycheck on gas, so I decided to try and find something else to bring in some additional cash. It’s hard to find a job when you already have one and you’re forced into a ridiculous school schedule. I applied at every store in the mall I already worked in that had a “now hiring” sign. I had a few interviews, but no one offered me a job, probably because I wasn’t able to work that many hours. As a last ditch effort, I went in to apply at the 7-11 by my house. I told them I could work overnights because I figured that was probably what they needed most and they would actually consider hiring me that way. A few days later, I got the job.

Maybe a week after I started working there, I met my boss’ husband. Or at least, I thought it was her husband. It could have been her boyfriend, I’m not really sure. Anyway, I can’t remember his name so l’ll call him Joe. He had an awful mullet and worked as a cook at the Carrabba’s down the road. He used to stop in after he got off work to help us put away the truck orders. A lot of the time, he’d bring us food, which made him super nice in my book…even if he did have the world’s worst hairstyle.

After a few days, Joe went from nice guy that brought me delicious Italian food to creepy man with mullet that wanted to date me. He was easily 15 years older than me and every time he stopped in he’d ask “when we were going out” (umm, never?) I told him several times that I had a dating someone (true), but Joe was persistent. He’d ask me inappropriate questions about my “love life” and if “sex with my boyfriend was good” (yes).

I put up with his crap for awhile, but eventually decided the next time I saw my boss to tell her creepy husband/boyfriend/whatever to back the fuck off. At 6am one Sunday morning when I was checking the schedule for next week, totally ready to have a one-on-one with my boss to finally end this mess, I realized I wasn’t on the schedule. My first instinct was “crap, did I do something wrong?” but then I realized what was probably going on. Someone I worked with probably overheard the “conversations” between Joe and I and the rumors started flying that we were having a secret love affair (*gags*). Boss hears through the grapevine and takes me off the schedule for good.

Of course, this story is all speculation. My boss was always cool to me and I don’t want people to think that she was a jealous bitch. She told me that knew I had another job and things were slowing down so she simply didn’t need me anymore. I accepted her story and left it at that, but I’ve always wondered if the real reason I got fired was because she thought I was getting to close to her man. I can promise you, I wasn’t interested.

Filed under: jobs, me by Barbara
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