u/slicktired

I got a call from my wife on the way home from work last night that she didn’t have enough bananas for her banana pudding and asked if I could run into the grocery store to get some for her before getting home. No problem.

I immediately find a spot to park, I immediately grab bananas, and then walk back to the front of the store. It wasn’t extremely busy but there was a good flow of foot traffic in most aisles.

When I got to the front I was confused because there was a line of about 7 people in front of me to checkout. I glanced around and didn’t spot any other cash register open so I just assumed they were short staffed and started to scroll on my phone.

A few minutes passed and I finally made it to the front of the line only to realize it wasn’t even a checkout line. It was the line of overnight stockers coming into work to scan their badge in to clock in. So I’m at the front of this line holding bananas like an idiot staring back at the ID scanner with multiple employees behind me waiting for their turn.

I thought about dropping the bananas and just running to my car. But I quietly owned it, walked over to a self checkout, got in my car, and drove home in silence.

I won’t be back in there for a while. Lol.

I started with a tech company last summer. First “big boy” job I’ve ever had before. I was extremely excited. But because I’ve never worked corporate, I struggled very quickly to find my place among the 99% of the other corporate robots I work around and for.

Mostly, it’s just annoying banter and weird egos I have to navigate around. So it could be worse and I’m sure many can relate to that. Still something I’m figuring out though.

There’s this one specific lady, for sake of anonymity let’s call her “Brenda”, who was 2 desks down the hall from me. She’s been with the company for like 20 years and is one of those who has made her entire personality around working for this company. Immediately I realized people LOVE Brenda. Every word she says has people locked in like they are getting universe saving level instructions. But also, one of the most boring people I’ve ever met in my life. Think Phyllis from the Office with no redeeming qualities to really help paint the picture for you. But at every event and every opportunity, people will line up to speak to this lady and will suck up to her and laugh so hard at anything she says that you can sometimes hear it down the hall. This woman isn’t funny. It’s just this strange corporate game everyone but me is playing.

My first week, I was obviously super nervous and didn’t have a full grasp on how things worked. All day long I would have this lady staring at what I was doing every time she passed by. Not even nonchalant. Straight up slowing down to look. But I still remained kind and would give her warm smiles.

One day on my first week, she came over to my desk and said, word for word, “You know, if you’re gonna work here, maybe you should consider wearing some nicer shoes.” Before I could respond, she was already walking down the hall again. I was actually speechless! I’ve been a pizza delivery driver, I’ve worked retail for years, I’ve had jobs that typically are full of shocking interactions. This takes the cake.

Because I was brand new and REALLY needed the job, I decided to play the politics and understood if I mentioned this to HR to something, my work life would be a living hell. So I reminded quiet and never told anyone about it.

By the way, my shoes were $200 and brand new. Zero idea why she said that.

Fast forward coming up on a year later to today…

We had a local Indian restaurant cater in for everyone because we had a lot of higher up people flying in for a yearly company meeting. I never tried Indian food before this moment but felt like it was the perfect time since I wasn’t paying for it. I ended up liking it a lot. But my stomach went into a death spiral.

Before I continue, I have to explain the office floor I’m on. There’s a long hall with offices and cubicles kinda intertwined together. At the end of the hall is the bathrooms and about 10 steps away is a huge meeting room.

All of our executive team, including the CEO, were using that meeting room today.

Out of nowhere, my stomach felt atrocious pains and I knew it was time to run as fast as I could without being obvious directly to the bathroom.

The SECOND my pants went down, it blew out like a shotgun. Followed by a smell that is only comparable to what I would imagine a corpse smells like. I go as quickly as possible understanding of I didn’t leave before the smell left the bathroom, then everyone will know it was me as I walked out.

I anxiously left the bathroom and was beyond surprise to see not a single person was looking my way. I made a quarterback move and went to another bathroom super far away to finish with any diarrhea residuals.

About 15 minutes later, I make my way back to my floor and when I turned the corner I literally stopped dead in my tracks.

There was a CROWD of people near the bathroom area looking around in complete disgust. I asked a coworker walking by what was going on and she explained how the executive meeting was randomly stopped because the smell.

The bathroom door then opened for me to see my CEO of ALL PEOPLE walking out to announce “Yeah, it’s coming from in here.” TWO people were dry heaving. My heart was POUNDING.

But I realized my timing was god tier because many people saw my return and absolutely no one saw my exit. So it looked genuinely like I was just walking into the situation and no one would expect me.

Out of NOWHERE I blurted out to my coworker under my breath, “I bet it was Brenda.” (Our bathrooms are unisex.) I don’t even remember thinking to say this. It was like I was possessed. I literally almost covered my mouth in shock.

My coworker was confused. So I doubled down. “Yeah. I stayed over a few weeks ago and it was just me and Brenda in the office and she did something similar that night, too. I had to leave even though I planned to be here for another hour at least.”

And I walked back to my desk nonchalantly.

30 minutes goes by and this cool dude a hall over came over and says, “You heard who did it? They think it’s Brenda.”

I could hear my heart pounding. It somehow circulated that fast that someone from another area of the floor was spreading it back to me.

She had no idea any of this was happening behind her back. But by the time the day was over, EVERYONE I was running into or passing was mentioning how Brenda’s diarrhea was so bad that it made people sick.

So much time has passed from that shoe remark she made, that I assumed she would never even think to blame me if it ever got back to her. But I’m still anxious.

She left her office to go home and I watched as every person she passed stared at her in shock.

I seriously don’t know how this ends. But whatever. I’ve been home for a few hours and I’ve come at peace with my actions today. It’s absolutely in every way possible going to be getting back to me lol.

TL;DR: A very rude coworker said I need to buy nicer shoes to work there so I blamed my explosive diarrhea on her months later