True employment tales

Way back in the early 90's when I worked for the alternative weekly newspaper in Knoxville, TN, I sold ads and was the assistant to the psycho bitch who was in charge of the classified ad department, I was given a folder by my boss. I was still new so I had no idea what the folder was, it turned out it was full of leads on businesses that she had pissed off or who had said they'd rather roll around naked in ground glass than ever advertise with us. Ms. Psycho told me to go see as many of those businesses in that file as I could and to try to sell them some advertising.

So off I went. Most of the businesses turned me down and told me to get the hell out but I struck gold at one business that day. It was a consignment shop run by a good looking brunette woman. I gave her my spiel and she listened patiently. I finally showed her ad sizes and prices and she said, "You got lucky today bud."

I said, "Oh yeah? How so?"

She gave me a knowing smile and said, "I got me a little last night and I'm still in a good mood. I'll take the 1/8 page ad and I want ya'll to run it for two months." When she broke out in an ear to ear grin, I did as well. I then asked her to go ahead and pay us for the ad. She hummed to herself as she wrote out the check.

I knew my psycho boss was expecting me to fail miserably, I could tell by the smirk she had on her face when I got back to the office. She said sarcastically, "How'd you do? You've come back empty handed I bet."

"Not so much," I said with more than a little swagger in my voice. "I sold ABC Consignment an 1/8th page ad that's going to run for two months straight."

Psycho said, "She stiffed us last time, you'll have to pay back that commission when she stiff us again."

I pulled the check the store owner had given me out of my pocket and I tossed it on Psycho's desk. "No worries, I made sure she paid us in advance."

Not too long after that Ms. Psycho got her van impounded for not paying her many parking tickets. I laughed like crazy as they towed her van off. I quit that job a month and a half after that.