dad tries to fire me

2024-02-06

My dad had just gotten me an internship at his company. It’s the first day of my first job and I’m nervous. My fellow interns and I arrive early and work out at the on-site gym and then go to hit the on-site co-ed showers.

All of the showers are in use. I wait around a little bit for them to open up, but they don’t. Or, they do, but there’s already a line, so they don’t open up for me. Just for the next person in line. I wander around the locker room and find a separate wing with an even larger array of showers. But same thing: all in use, long line.

I leave the locker room and post up at a small table nearby with my netbook and fire it up and try to get some work done. I’m a little self conscious about being hot and sweaty but I figure, I’m sitting by the gym and lockers. People probably know what’s up, and will forgive me a little sweat.

Then my dad blows in like a hurricane and is yelling and screaming at my fellow interns about not being showered and at our desks and working yet. Everybody is terrified. I’m scared, but also angry at the way he’s treating people. So when he gets to me, I get right up in his face and yell back at him. He is slightly taken aback, and the other interns are shocked.

And he’s like, “Well, obviously you’re fired. I need you to go find Linda in HR and tell her you’re fired.”

We both calm down a little bit, and leave the floor to go find some place more private to talk. I explain myself and he explains himself. Everywhere we go, people keep popping up to interrupt us. A small meeting room, a large conference room, a big trampoline room.

Eventually, he agrees not to fire me after all. So he goes up to an office and asks his dad, who is working at a tiny desk facing a wall, to help him undo the paperwork.