I was 17 and Young, Dumb, & Full of Cum...

Immediately after I got my driver's license in 1973, I bought a 1966 cream-colored Chevelle from my best friend's dad. Mel always promised me when it came time to buy my first car he'd find me a good one. Restoring cars was his lifelong hobby. I told him I wanted a Malibu SS or a Nova SS with either a 283 or 327 V8 and 4 on the floor. The one he ended up getting for me was a 4 door sedan with a 194 inline-six and 3 on the tree. It looked like an old man's car because it was. Mel bought it from an elderly guy who could no longer drive. Although I was a little disappointed at first, Mel rebuilt the motor, did the brakes, recovered the seats, put 4 brand new tires on it, and it only cost me $300. It was a beauty, had all four original hubcaps, and it purred like a kitten.

Just a few weeks after I got it I raised it a few inches, installed a glass-pack muffler (loud), moved the shifter to the floor (Hurst 3-speed Syncro-lock), and put some wide tires on the front and even wider ones on the rear. When I drove by Mel's house, which I did several times a day, he started staring and shaking his head side to side, clearly disappointed with what I had done to the car. He was a car fanatic but didn't understand why I wanted to ruin a perfectly good 4-door sedan. I raced the Chevelle against other 6 cylinder cars and I was undefeated. After I painted flat black racing stripes down the middle of the car and put Chevy decals on the rear quarters, he stopped looking at me altogether when I drove by. Years later, after I became a licensed plumber, I fixed Mel's gas-fired boiler just days before he sold his house and we had a good laugh about the "hot rod".

Gino Marchetti was the man behind the "Gino's" name

At the time I started driving the Chevelle I needed cash to support my car habit, so I got a job working at Gino's Hamburgers in Stoughton, MA. It was at the corner of routes 138 and 27, diagonally across from A&W Root Beer and the first McDonald's in the area. Gino's had everything from burgers to fried chicken and I usually worked the fryer. Gino's was a fast-food chain that was founded in 1957 by Louis Fisher and in 1959 after Gino Marchetti, former Baltimore Colts defensive end, team captain, and Hall of Famer was brought on board, it officially became "Gino's". Colt's running back and 1954 Heisman Trophy Winner Alan Ameche was also in the mix. At one point there were as many as 359 company-owned locations along the east coast. The "Gino Giant" was their top burger and it was a lot better than a Big Mac, at least in my opinion, and I ate a lot of both.

Not long after I started, a new manager was hired and the Stoughton location became a training center for managers. The new manager was a former Marine and he treated employees like a drill sergeant treated new recruits. He was unusually tough. A lot of times he went overboard trying to scare kids who worked there. He didn't scare me one bit…

All employees were forced to watch training videos and I remember one of the videos showed an employee spilling three ounces of ketchup on the floor and then the video paused and the narrator explained the math, "If every employee who works for Gino's nationwide, spills 3 ounces of ketchup on the floor that amounts to over 8,000 ounces of ketchup and costs the company x amount of dollars". I think Gino's wanted its employees to be conscious of casual waste, but the goofy videos only encouraged employees to squirt ketchup on the floor and then imitate the narrator's voice and announce how much it would cost Gino's if every employee did the same. I can't remember who was first to do it (ha!), but he got everyone squirting ketchup on the floor, and then mustard, mayo, any available condiment… 

I was 17 and young, dumb, and full of cum and playing football and lifting weights when the former drill sergeant was hired. When he started ragging on me I thought about knocking him out more than once. I didn't find anything to like about the guy, but I always did my job. He was way too serious, a real hardo!

One morning one of the girls who worked there punched in a minute late, 9:01. She was short, timid, and a nice kid. The drill sergeant rushed over to her and let her have it in front of all of us. When he was done he told her to go home. She started crying and pleading with him to let her stay, telling him she was asthmatic and had to go on her breathing machine to open up her lungs and that was why she was late.

Let's face it, time clocks SUCK!

He was not gonna cut her any slack, so she explained that she lived with her mother and helped out with the bills, and needed the income. She apologized over and over but his voice only got louder and meaner and he pointed to the door and told her to leave…

She went home and 10 minutes later she returned with her mother who tried to explain why her daughter was late, but the former drill sergeant wouldn't listen and he was just as mean and loud with the girl's mother. That's when I decided I had listened to enough. I went over to him, got up in his face, and told him to be nicer to the girl and her mother. He knew I was young, strong, and more than capable of kicking his ass, so he did what boss's do, he used his authority and told me to "go wash the men's room floor on my hands and knees"… I looked at the girl and her mother and then back at the former drill sergeant, and after I stared him down I walked towards the bathroom and as I got ready to go in and wash the floor, I turned around and made a beeline right back to him. I told him he was a "motherfucker" and that I was gonna "kick his ass" and that's when he threatened to call the police. As he was firing me I was quitting and I walked out in disgust…

He knew I was young, strong, and more than capable of kicking his ass

I knew I'd get another job, and that I had done the right thing. He was a disrespectful piece of shit who was full of himself and by calling him out I made him look like a coward and a fool in front of all the employees, which felt really fucking good.

When I returned a few days later to pick up my last paycheck another manager was on. He and I were friends and he laughed about what happened, but he told me I was banned from entering the restaurant. I went there on Friday night with my girlfriend and another couple, the girls had to use the bathroom, but I was told to wait outside. I got into it with the manager, but he said he didn't want to call the police like he was told to do and asked me not to make a big scene.  He was a married guy with a kid and I didn't want to hassle him so I waited outside while the girls used the ladies' room…

I get it, when you work for someone you do things their way or it's the highway, but that former drill sergeant had crossed the line and when he disrespected the girl and her mother, I could not let that go…

Someone once said, "Don't judge people by the way they treat you, judge them by the way they treat others, because sooner or later…

In the comments let me know if you ever had a run-in with a disrespectful boss and how you dealt with it.