If You Can’t Take the Heat
I have two who actually tie into each other. I worked at Walmart when I was 20-ish and worked in the back, receiving, sorting, and staging products as they came off the truck.
There were four of us: the lead Robert, myself, and two kids. We also had the three folks from the team who processed returns to merchants. One of those was a middle-aged man named Jan.
We all reported to one boss in the back who was never actually there, and none of us really knew when he’d be around. To start off with, I had worked at a Walmart previously, so I had experience coming in. You’d think I’d be on a track to promotion, and so did I…til Robert just vanished.
Robert was gone for two months in total. During this time, the boss had been notified and he asked me to step into Robert’s role as the lead, which consisted of a bit of scheduling and mostly making sure the others didn’t mess around all day. I did this with no problem for two months.
Then, as quietly as he disappeared, Robert came back. No notes, no doctors’ explanations, no anything. He was immediately handed his old vest and the boss told him he’d “sort out the re-hire later.”
Just like that, the interview I had for Robert’s position as a lead was closed, and Robert was re-hired without any penalty despite two months’ no-show. On that particular day, it was 110F and I was already absolutely fuming when a truck that we had been waiting on rolled up.
Turns out, the driver had tried to drive in overnight and was going to exceed his driving allowance so had pulled over at 6 am and slept till 1 pm. The trailer had sat in the sun and was HOT.
I’m talking “open the door and heat just blasts you”…but we needed to get it unloaded, so one of the boys and I dove in and started pitching everything we could out.
Robert got a pallet jack and was trying to arrange some stuff to make the two 7-foot high pallets of dog food easier to get out, but had got them stuck instead and called Jan over to help. Jan is a big guy. He’s German, complains loudly and often, and ate sauerkraut without fail for lunch every day.
Jan and Robert are working away trying to get these pallets out while I and the kid were basically stuck in the sweltering trailer. Suddenly, I hear Robert cough and Jan goes “Oof. Ohhh…Ooh” and Robert backs slowly away from the truck while Jan just gets back into it and keeps working away. Then the smell hit.
We’re in a trailer that’s easily 120 in the sun, baking, sweating, and barely able to breathe, and Jan just let out the most god-awful silent toot.
Sauerkraut and Sausage.
We had fans blowing into the trailer over the dog food pallets to keep me and this poor kid from dying of heat exhaustion, and suddenly we’re ground zero of this nuclear fart. I can taste it, my eyes are watering.
The poor kid next to me is dry heaving and we’re ABSOLUTELY STUCK because Robert jammed the god darned pallets together at a messed-up angle. I slice the shrink-wrap and just start chucking bags of dog food behind us.
The kid starts helping while he’s gagging and finally we clear about four rows out and I boost him up and crawl up myself and out into the warehouse. I ripped my vest off and walked into the office where the boss was and chuck it in his face and walk out.
As I leave, I can hear him asking Robert what happened and a “Christ. What’s that smell?”