Friday Freebits with Ginger - #FriFreebits

Hi, and welcome to Friday Freebits, a great way to get a sneak peak into published and unpublished works of some of your favorite authors.  We're new and looking for others who want to share;  if you do, drop me an email at mizging@gmail.com and let me know.

Today, I'm continuing with the book I'm reworking for re-release, Life is a Bowl of Toilets and I feel Flush.  Picking up where I left off, last week, and I hope you enjoy my offering.

Just a reminder...I was using six paragraphs from the chapter, Take This Job and Shove It:

Stupidity kept me at the nursery-landscape company for far longer than I should have stayed.  What started as a three-day-a-week position, turned immediately into five plus.  I was hired to be the assistant bookkeeper, but with his wife's departure, I kept my same crummy wage but acquired all her duties except for sleeping with her hubby.  I'm pretty sure I could have had that job too, if I would've wanted to cozy up in the sack.  I think my husband would've had a problem with that task.

I finally wised up the day the boss had my hauling five-gallon trees out in the landscaping yard.  Now I'd become a lacky?  I quit.  I was only one in an army of hundreds who came and went, judging by the number of W2 forms that arrived in the mail right before my departure.  Mr. Charming, it seemed, was hiring illegal immigrants, and faster than the INS snagged them back, he'd have another truckload delivered.  I'm glad I left.  The last thing I needed was trouble with the Feds.  Of course, I should have gotten a clue when none of the other employees spoke English.

From there, I went to work for a private industry, working for the unhappiest man alive.  I was young, inspired to be active, and played softball three nights a week--one of which I sprained my ankle.  Let me preface the incident by assuring you that "shit" does run down hill, as 'they' say.  My supervisor took crap all day from his boss, so he spread it around thick and idiotically.  For instance, one day he found something in the file cabinet stapled crookedly and demanded to know who did it.  I should have known that turnover was an issue there when I saw the empty desk that had been occupied when I went for my interview the week before.  But, live and learn.   Anyhow, the end came for me when I walked twenty-five paces across from my desk to the copy machine without my high-heel on my sprained foot and it became a major issue.  I'm pretty sure I cleaned out my desk and left at noon.

I applied for and was hired at another university, starting as a Senior Clerk.  I soon advanced to a Principal Clerk, and eventually worked my way up into management.  In all my twenty-plus years there, I never could figure out what a "Principal" clerk was...as opposed to an unprincipled clerk?

All those years spent working at UCD inspired happy and sad memories.  I've let go of the sad and held on to the myriad of good times.  We kept a running "funny file" to document the wacky things that happened every day.  When you work with a diverse group of folks, trying to adjust to new cultures and languages, you're bound to see some amusing things.  Just trying to pronounce names created some pretty humorous situations.  I'm not lying here...these are real names, and in their homelands probably don't even raise a brow, but imagine when Semma Dong came in to meet with me.  I had a horrible time keeping a straight face.  Of course meeting Ms. Dong was mild compared to my first encounter with Fok Yu at a student orientation.  OMG, how would you like to go through life with that name?  I'm sure there were lots of other amusing things that happened, but I've been retired for a number of years now and my long term memory has joined my short and gone on hiatus.  This is just another big plus of aging...something I'm sure I'll cover in this book.

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To be continued next week, but now, jump on over to my friends and see what they've offered up:

Jamie Hill
Roseanne Dowell
Tricia McGill
Juliet Waldron
Sydell Voeller
Taryn Raye
Kathy Fischer-Brown
Rhobin Lee Courtright