I thought of this question because someone joked about double-dipping their hands in the chocolate fountain at Golden Corral and boy did that invoke one of my least favorite paying-for-college memories.
Yes, someone did dip his hands into the chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral. Worse, he was a repeat offender, a man that was at least in his 30s if not older slurping it off of his fingers and all, sometimes while making eye contact with me or my coworkers. Worse, there was no enforced rule against doing so, at least at my location, so my manager just told me to let him do it, don’t make a big deal out of it, and hope he doesn’t bother anyone else.
That same manager once insisted on me making the place extra clean a little before Christmas, so they insisted that I use double the amount of cleaning bleach in the same bucket. I explained that’s not how cleaning works or how OSHA compliance works. I got a write-up. I said that wasn’t an offense that qualified for a write-up, and what they said was “thanks for the tip, I’ll find something that is. Your word against mine.” 
That same manager punched me out early without telling me, because the place wasn’t perfect enough before I left over an hour late, missing my family waiting to pick me up outside by that long to go out to do holiday stuff. I did call that in on the supposedly anonymous tip line later, but you can guess what happens when an anonymous tip about wage theft is called in on a manager that already knows who would call in that tip in a “right to work” situation. 
That same manager was fired a week later for embezzlement, and not the cool kind. They were writing up and firing people for months for money missing from the register. I found out when collecting my last check and noticed someone new. 
Working at a machining/widget manufacturing plant on routing & part grinding. Generally do a good job of things for a couple months, good quality, good rate etc., the job sucks ofc but what are you gonna do (absolutely terrible for carpal tunnel & other hand/arm joint shit). Still, I get compliments on part quality, I get stuff done, and I at least make some (shit) cash. Management is starting to talk about mandatory overtime and all but yknow this is base level US manufacturing shit.
Now, to preface the real jokerfying event, this is the same job where I, as a lighter skinned black person with a fro get asked day one “So what are you? Must have some Indian in ya, wouldn’t guess by the hair though”. Same sort of question I have gotten at pretty much every job I’ve ever had though so I just file it away as another in a long list of the same shit in conservative hell USA. (anyway great guess dude! great grandfather actually was chickahominy - that’s 500pts!) Edit: in retrospect at least I didn’t get any slurs thrown at me that I know of, that’s the benefit of not looking exactly like what these chuds picture in their heads, they usually gotta ask first to precision target the slurs.
Had a couple black coworkers come up to me one lunch break a day or two later and say “oh yeah this place is racist as fuck, we gotta stick together here yknow?”. Good signs no red flags
Later on, my section gets a new part order for several hundred of the same widgets we usually work on, but the shift manager says it’s high priority and to drop everything else and switch over to these. This is a pain in the ass when you’re in the middle of a 600 part order ofc but whatever, I shift the grinding machine over to working on these. I notice they’re the same parts but of noticeably lower quality metal than the usual, which we’re going to auto manufacturers iirc.
I didn’t see the specifics of the contracts unless I asked, and I was curious this time. So they tell me these are part of a contract with General Dynamics! Not only that, but a coworker, ancient old white dude (as it seemed 50-60% of the employees were), tells me they get those specific orders all the time, and they’re being used in M61 Vulcan rotary guns! This mummified fuck then claps me on the shoulder and says “How’s it feel knowing you’re helping protect a lot of people - or kill a lot haha!”
Quit when I learned that about 50%+ of their manufacturing was military contracted, couldn’t do it. I had to cite “deeply held personal/religious beliefs” when asked for form purposes lol. Ngl I’m still fucked up about unwittingly building parts to killing machines. Shit that’s been used since Vietnam for massacres and imperialist power grabs. Feel like I should’ve idk, looked at their contracts or some shit before taking the job?! But everything here is linked to the MIC, fuck man. Should expect everything in this hell country to be suffused with white supremacy and linked intrinsically to the slaughter engine but fuck was it concentrated there.
Still feel guilty but now I kinda laugh too, it’s just so evil here. Anyway big crisis of faith yadda yadda, I helped the slaughter engine and kinda hate myself for it yadda yadda, I am currently heading to Arkham in the back seat of the Batmobile. Fuck this country
Everyone is a cog in the great machine. Some are just closer to the heart than others.
Unfortunately true. I’d worked plenty of shit jobs but never had my hands so directly on the raw material that keeps it running. Didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know about this country, the state of labor, the MIC etc, but did learn a bit about my sense of personal culpability for being involved in it I suppose. Can’t abstract it away here
I quit one job developing a video platform because, as it turns out, that video platform was specifically for selling pseudoscience to practicing doctors. I quit another because I was making logistics software and it turned out their major clients were arms dealers. The first one wasn’t my fault because they laundered their client list very well. But after the second one I made sure to start researching the company’s clients beforehand as well as just asking during the interview. Turns out that hiring managers tend to know what’s unpalatable and downplay it heavily
I worked in a machine shop running CNCs. I started by working on parts for microscopes and electrical housings and made what felt like an army’s worth of assault weapon uppers before I quit a week later.
The only major factory in my state is owned by General Dynamics, much of my state’s economy depends on imperialism.