Len Shaner in "Employee Engagement!"
When Len sensed that his final days at Sears were approaching, he could tell that he had earned the disdain of his co-workers for being a complete shit of a human being. But Len being Len, he really couldn't understand why. There was one time, a new employee named "Eddie" had started training in Merchandise. Eddie was nicer than most people and once he picked up on the fact that Len was universally hated, he didn't like that one bit.
Now, I don't blame the guy either. I'm sure many of us have worked places where we make our own judgements about co-workers after a few weeks. You know who's cool; who not to gossip with, etc. But the truth of the matter is that Eddie never worked with Len often enough or long enough to really understand how much of an incredible fuck up Len was.
When Len wasn't getting sent home for being a tard or shitting his pants to get out of work, there were rare occassions he would have truck night with us. Usually on truck night, depending on the load, we'd have a full crew. But the driver was fucking late. REAL fucking late. So late that the manager had dismissed the majority of us before the driver finally arrived. This was like a 1:30 in the morning. But it being Christmastime, we had a ton of shit to unload. So now, it's just me, Rick, Eddie and Len.
We're super fucked but shit's gotta get done. Rick has me staging which means I take the carts to the floor for unboxing, but before we unbox, we gotta unload the whole fucking truck. So Rick puts Eddie and Len on cartbuilding duty to prep carts for me, while Rick starts unloading the truck. An hour into it, we're not even 1/8th of the way into the truck. During this 60 minutes, Len has taken two breaks. I've never seen Eddie look this haggard. We're all drenched in sweat and the new guy is hustling his fucking balls off. I ask Eddie if he's alright. "Yeah man. Just...fuck this shit ya know?" he replies.
When he said that, I'm thinking he was referring to the situation at hand. I come to realize very soon, he's talking about Len. Behind us is the sound of a soda can cracking open. Len is sitting at the Merch computer, surfing online on some fucking train forum. With Rick inside the truck running boxes down the rails, he's assuming Eddie and Len are loading carts.
This sends Eddie over the goddamn edge like I've never seen anyone go before. Eddie walks over to the computer and slaps the soda can right out of Len's hand. "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE? I SWEAR TO EVERYTHING I LOVE I WILL KICK THE LAST THREE TEETH OUT OF YOUR FUCKING HEAD AND MAKE A NECKLACE IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR."
Now, knowing what I knew about Len, I fully expected Len to cry to Rick or try to act tough, but no. This little 5'4 Italian kid put Len in his fucking place. Eddie has initiated himself into the "I Hate Shaner" Fan Club. Len didn't speak for the rest of the night. We finished truck right before opening the next day. Word spread quickly over Len getting his shit pushed in by the "nice" new guy, to the point where Len's inability to work within a team of old and new employees was a major contributing factor to his firing.