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killapunk · 5 years

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the weirdest, NO, evilest, person i have every worked for

no real names are used in this piece. i refer to other weirdos and freaks throughout, sorry its a long read (i didnt intend for this) but its one of those things ya gotta settle into and believe me its a wild ride. this saga covers over three years of drama btw.

tw: mental health mentioned (inc panic attacks), chronic illness mentioned and mild sex references

i am going to single out jess. shes more evil than a weirdo but weirdo nonetheless. pete is a secondary weirdo in this saga.

i work in retail for a long time. a fashion store to be precise. i started out in one store but transferred when i started studying at uni and remained there for the majority of the retail career. during my time there i had three managers, the longest one, who is also a fucking weirdo was pete. now before i worked with pete, before he transferred to our store. i didnt like pete when i started working with him, he annoyed the fuck outta me. but my life circumstances changed and my mental health issues got very bad AND i was diagnosed with cfs so i had to disclose it w him. turns out… he was fucking mental too, very understanding, super chill. we liked the same shit. great boss. 11/10 every time.

he would be my reference for every job ever…

…but. he started gettin involved w jess. now to jess. the main character in this piece.

jess had started at the company around the same time as me and we were always on the same level until the last year or so. jess was a bit older than the average age of staff at the store (17-20) and was 23 when this drama started. she had a college diploma, went onto do something semi-successful but related to her HND. but blew all her money, moved back into her parents and started working at the store part time and then onto full time. she was like…the perfect retail girl? small, cute, slim, bubbly… always looked cool in her uniform. customers loved the fuck out of her.

jess had a bf when i first started and pete had a longstanding gf. jess and her bf ended things abt 4 or 5 months before pete and his gf. but i remember they started gettin cushy around about this time. im not sure if its cos im v sympathetic towards pete (a true kind soul who i hold v dearly in my heart) but even tho youd be thinking ‘boss abuses his power’ …jess was and still is fuckin manipulative and he has longstanding mental health issues and i just think she sorta got the ball rollin’. pete and his gf didn’t seem on good terms, i dunno the full story but it seemed like they should have broken a long time before the did.

i think the fortnight before pete and his gf broke up they were spotted hanging out together near where she lived. it was this hush hush thing that everyone giggled abt cos there was at the time talk they were fuckin. when it got out, after his breakup jess said she was ‘just being a friend’ cos he was ‘going through a tough time’.

jess got promoted to keyholder even though she didnt really (at the time) have the skills or confidence to be a keyholder. and then she started to try and fuckin control the work. back during this time, everyone who worked at the store, minus literally 3 people, had worked for the company for at least a year. the store ran very well, we were always in profit. nothing went wrong. but. she started changing processes because it 'made things easier when she was opening’. like. she made everyone tally the amount of people they served in the fitting room in one box and tally the amount of things people left behind so she could make a sales chart. idk if that’s normal in other stores but like? it was just nuts and impossible to do.we always put deliveries away out the package but not folded in a particular way. she made everyone tag and (where relevant) hang items bc she had to pick everything in the morning.

she became friends w most of the girls, including one of the supervisors. they ruled the workplace. it was a total gossip mill. she gaslit the fuck outta people. one already less-popular girl at work ended up quitting cos she kept blaming her for fuck ups, she kept getting write ups and it was impating her mental health. she spun people against her. less popular girl spoke up and called her a bully and jess acted all defensive and said she wasn’t a bully bc shed been bullied before? jess continued to fuck up the workplace. next she turned on two people in her own clique. one tbh, i think she was jealous of bc jess had always wanted to be a teacher and this gal was training to be one. the other girl was v like jess, just not a bitch… strongwilled, liked control. anyway, drama got to the point where they had to quit. waay too much drama for this textpost. at this point others started to notice n work became hostile. jess moved her girlgang clique to one of the original clique girls, a different supervisor and the other two full time staff members.

pete obv didn’t listen to people coming to him, as store manager being like… hey… there’s this major clique problem and he’d be like ‘nah everyone is just friends, jess is a bit insecure but yno things are good, people quit, its just retail. fuck it.’ jess accused everyone who didn’t get on w her as being a terrible person. those legit words. like. if someone said it was a shame x, y or z left shed rebut, nah they were shit at their job, they were a shit person. honestly. EVERYONE. was a bad person. even the nicest people in the world were the worst person, the worst at the job. she was a good person, she liked the good people. she HAD BEEN BULLIED AND WOULD NEVER BULLY. she threw the anxiety word around a lot.

once we had a staff night out and i got left alone with jess and pete at the end of the night in this terrible lil bar as i waited for someone to pick me up. this is a good point to mention jess was always weirdly jealous cos i was close to pete. fucking ridic considering he was 14 years older than me and you know my fucking boss??? this night, i was sitting right next to pete, we were both drinking, jess wasn’t (cos she likes to be in control, she even said it), he had his arm around me and was whispering something into my ear that was such a non-thing i don’t even remember. she got her phone out, started texting. he excused himself and when he returned he sat beside her. it was fucking nuts. i couldn’t believe my eyes. we had to basically carry pete out of the bar. jess said to me she was gonna drive him home cos it was on the way to hers (spoiler! it was not!). myself and pete did the open the next day. he came in wearing the same clothes. i mean, he could have just passed out and had to rush to work when he woke up. but. this guy went out a lot. he never repeated an outfit. i think jess took advantage of a very drunk him. similarly, on another night out, jess promised to drive someone home. said person got too drunk and thew up. jess refused to take them home and called them embarrassing, she gave the space in her car to pete.

i had a major bad evening shift at work concerning another staff member, kaylee. a gal who just rubbed me up the wrong way, and who didn’t like me. ill never know why but it was just one of those things where anytime i was on shift w her she would nitpick and bitch about me and just… make me feel not v good. she was possibly the laziest and rudest person i had ever worked with but someone got away with it?

i used her as a way to talk to pete about the general problems in the store (jess). and…it was fuckin surreal. i told him abt kaylee. i told him i thought jess was controlling but kinda laid off a bit like ‘i get she thinks shes doing it for good’ etc. i padded it out w a few other rly petty issues abt the store. i was actually really upset, kinda numb from life to properly let out my emotions. and then. he started cry on me. like this full-on grown man having a panic attack in front of me when i was 19, fucked on diazepam i should have never been prescribed. to this day i visualise it. me and pete were v close at this point, and like, he didn’t mention jess too much – asked me about the other girl and other issues when i came to him. we spoke about personal shit, all but jess. i kinda wonder if he didn’t have the panic attack if i would have told him his under the radar relationship w her was not on?

and then. pete sold me out in the name of jess. idk the full ins and outta everything but he had to confront the drama once and for all cos our figures were so low so he decided to blame it all on kaylee. from my understanding of the situ from a lot of ‘he said she said’ bs, pete had this big meeting w kaylee. was like. 1. do ur job right and 2. stop being rude and unapproachable. the thing is, although kaylee is rude shes one of these ppl who most ppl really liked, not in a jess/regina george theyre scared of you way but…like they thought she was a tv character and she was funny and honest. so i think she confronted some obvious allies, and jess told her, according to another staff member, that i complained about her. after hearing this i obvious went to pete and tbh, acted pretty dramatic (cos if you haven’t fucking learned already THIS STORE WAS FULL OF DRAMA QUEENS). as soon as i heard, i started texting him angrily on his day off. i remember folding something in the fitting rooms and he came up to give me a hug and i was like ‘HOW FUCKING DARE YOU TELL OTHER PEOPLE MY BUSINESS’. i confronted jess, in a lighter tone, cos i obv told pete (half) what i felt about her. jess played the fucking innocent role. like, she said something along the lines of ‘we’re both close to pete n he was so worried that when me, you and kaylee did those shifts together that something would go wrong. so he told me to keep an eye on things and that’s all i told kaylee cos she wasn’t sure why she was being targeted when so many people in this store are treating people badly. i didn’t say you reported her or anything, honestly!!!!’ queue more bs.

after this, jess didn’t bother with me but was never explicit about hating me. if there was a convo going on and i tried to join in she scolded at me for being nosey. if i was unwell (i have cfs) shed moan ‘jokingly’ that i always had to be ill. i think she ripped on me once cos i said i was late for a hand-in at uni.

her next real victim, however, was jack, my best friend in store and our supervisor. jack was getting fucked over in his supervisor role bc pete would schedule jess for anything managerial. jess started a rumour that pete didn’t trust jack bc jack fucked it at a meeting w the other stores (semi true but fucking up a meeting isn’t the end of the world). like. anything jack would be, jess would be on him. by this point 50% of the staff that were around at the start of the story HAD LEFT. jess had driven people out and had the new ones all up her arse.

pete quit. it was sudden.

not long later, facebook popped up with a fuckin ‘pete is in a relationship with jess’ status and pete has never spoken to me again. i left shortly after that, although our new manager was lovely i felt like i was working for jess.

jack ended up GETTING DEMOTED, by petes replacement who had no idea what a shitstorm she was getting herself into. the new manager PROMOTED jess and demoted jack bc she was doing all the supervisor jobs whilst jack was only doing midshifts. he didnt get shafted to the lowest pay and was instead given the title ‘trainer and authorised opener/closer’ whilst still doing the same fucking job. he transferred out, cos that shit is fucking degrading and within, like two months he was put back up his rightful position. yay for my forever work bestie. I

feel like this has been going on for too long now. i think this doesn’t do her justice. like…i cant believe someone who is NOW 26 and who got what she wanted after manipulating a mentally ill man caused so much drama and pain and tension in a fucking clothes store.

fucking horrid. im reading this completely exhausted and so i cant say much but i just feel like these people are always the ones who come out on top, and its so fucked up. im really sorry you had to deal with so many unpleasant people, and your friend as well.

i swear mediocrity and asskissing is what gets you anywhere in this world, and manipulative cunts like this jess woman take full advantage of that. it’s pretty scary, honestly. amazing how far drama can go, huh. this is why i have trust issues.

i still hope she gets her ass kicked by life, though. there has to be some sort of karmic justice somewhere

i also feel like i should say that there’s always going to be people who won’t like you for some reason. even if you don’t do anything wrong and even though everyone else thinks they’re great. no idea why this happens, but all i can say is there’s really nothing you can do. so FUCK EM (in the most metaphorical sense as they don’t deserve you giving them the time of day)

#manipulation #story sharing #submission

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silenceofthemongooses · 6 years

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hi! I hope I'm not bothering you but I can see ur attending CU. I'm planning on applying to either the school of art or engineering, but I'm leaning more towards art. I'm really at a loss when it comes to applying, home tests,and the general enviorment of the school.. and what to do after I graduate so I was just curious on what that's all like :0 sorry for making this so long .. thank u for ur time!

OMG THIS IS THE ASK I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR MY WHOLE LIFE I LOVE TALKING ABOUT COOPER

i’m putting it under a readmore bc it got crazy long??? i’m not even to the part where i yell about applications yet and it’s like ten paragraphs lmao

so.

first things first.

i applied to cooper in the first place because when i took the tour (best fucking college tour i took the whole time, by the way. all of the guides LOVE cooper and they love telling you about it, so if you get a chance, defo go on the tour bc theyre way more honest and you get a better feel for the school than on any other tour) one of the things that they emphasized was the student community., one told me that once when she walked into the EE lab and asked to borrow someone’s phone charger because hers had frayed so badly it wasn’t working. not only did someone give her a charger, but they fixed her charger until she could get a new one.

and when i got here, it’s totally fucking true. cooper is a community in every definition of the word. everyone is totally willing to help you in any way that they can, because that’s the kind of people that cooper admits and then fosters that behavior.

now. the reason they foster this behavior is because it’s a fucking hard school. the standard course load for a freshman engineer first semester is 18.5 credits, spread out over 7 classes plus a professional seminar. and yeah, some of those are only one or two credit classes, but they still have homework and class time. it is a rigorous schedule that only gets harder. professor alan wolf (physics, more on him later maybe? i have him next semester, we’ll see if the Rumors are true) said at an engineering faculty panel that he wants physics to be moved to first semester of freshman year (instead of second) because the transition from “an easy first semester” to a semester with physics and calc 2 was too difficult for a lot of students. everyone around me groaned when he said the first semester was easy.

and this is just the engineering school! the art school is hard as hell too. keep in mind that what i know about the art program is just synthesized from talking to art students and not at all from personal experience. but.

the first year of art is a foundation year. they assume you don’t know anything, and break you down to basics. the art ra in the dorms said her freshman year was incredibly hard for her both as an artist and as a person just because she was confronted with all these other talented people and having to face that she wasn’t The Artist in school anymore. i regularly leave the student lounge (menschel) at two in the morning only for art kids to walk in, holding all of their materials (although, not anymore, since someone got charcoal all over the tables in 3a lmao) and settling in for another all-nighter.

cooper is a culture of intense rigor and stress, and there is no overcoming that. but it’s also a culture of community and supporting each other. it’s a really specific kind of school that some people find just isn’t for them.

also, cooper is like, really small. like. very small. here are some of the things you will encounter because of cooper union’s limited budget and facilities, and which you basically have to accept:

no dining hall. there’s frankie’s cafe in the new academic building (also known as the engineering building, most commonly referred to as the nab) but otherwise there is absolutely no meal plan. frankie’s has like, sandwiches and muffins and bagels and (terrible) coffee, but it is in no way a full college dining hall.

no gym. i think at one point we were allowed to use nyu’s facilities? no longer. almost everyone i know belongs to a gym. i myself visit the planet fitness on union square maaaybe once a month when i guilt myself into it. blink is a popular option. if you’re willing to spare the cash equinox is also there. crunch is the one that everyone kind of makes fun of but like it’s super close so go for it if you want.

small supporting staff. this is both a blessing and a curse. i know everyone in the student affairs office by first name and usually they know me. i think at this point i’ve met everyone in the financial aid department. cool, because it means that they know me. bad, because it means i’ve had to talk to all of them to figure out what the hell is going on with my scholarships and how much money i actually know. this is not a school where there are online systems in place to fix any problems you have. you have to be your own advocate to the administration, and as much as they desperately want to help you, a lot of the time it comes down to just making sure your paperwork goes through. good news is you almost never have to make an appointment to talk to someone you just show up.

very little interaction between the schools. there are three schools. art, architecture, and engineering. engineering is by far the most populated, followed by art, then architecture. if i didn’t live with two artists, i would never talk to anyone in art or architecture. yes, the hss classes are multidisciplinary, but just statistically, engineers far outweigh the artists. there weren’t even any architects in my hss1 class. if you don’t make the effort to reach out beyond your school, it straight up doesn’t happen.

sometimes when you go to the basics plus to get some hangers because you ordered too many shirts online and now they’re just kind of shoved in your drawers and when the cashier asks if you have a student id and you pull out your cooper id she’s like “oh! is that local?” and you have to smile and say yes and when you walk out of the store you can see the foundation building down third with absolutely no problem

there’s more and i’ll think of them later but this is good for now

ANYWAYS i have a lot more thoughts on the culture of cooper??? but i think i’m going to leave it here because this is a decent overview of how i feel and what the most important parts are.

now.

for applying.

again, i applied to and am in the engineering school. everything i know about the art school is based on talking to art students

also, i am in no way affiliated with the actual admissions department and the following is just based on my experiences as someone who applied and talking to other people who applied

also at first i thought you were applying this cycle and i was like. honey. this is not enough time for either application

BUT THEN i put an ounce more thought into it and realized not everyone younger than me is a high school senior lmao

anyways!

both applications are really intensive. to get art out of the way (sorry art) it’s a series of prompts that you have to create a piece in response to. some artists i know got crazy super stressed about it, and pulled so many all nighters, and skipped a lot of homework to do it, and overall just did not enjoy it. one of my artist roommates, however, said that she actually really enjoyed the process? she just let herself create without worrying “is this what will get me in?” and felt that it was a really great experience.

either way, you’re going to have an interesting experience.

for the engineering writing prompts, it’s a goddamn marathon. there were nine, i think, when i applied? i applied to eleven schools and i had to write seventeen supplements. the ratio of supplement-to-school was way off and its all cooper’s fault lmao

there isn’t a word minimum, but there is a word maximum per essay, a fact i discovered as i was copy-pasting mine into the commonapp from my googledocs file. i think the max is 500 words? not positive tho don’t quote me

anyways they’re all fairly standard questions. like, nothing out of the blue like chicago’s or whatever. but keep in mind that this is honestly where you’re going to get admitted. a lot of people apply to cooper. and a lot of those people will have the same exact stats as you (btw, sat/act scores and gpa matter slightly more for engineers than for artists and architects) and the way to distinguish yourself is through your writing. cooper admits you as a person because they believe you’ll add to their community and then to the world, not because you got a perfect score on whatever.

so i, at least, let myself be a little freer in my cooper essays than in any other supplement. some of them i could answer right away (why cooper? why engineering?) and some of them i had to think about for a few days. the last one i wrote was the “tell us about something you read recently”. i wrote about staying up until three in the morning reading a novel and crying. i wrote it the next day because i realized that’s like, exactly who i am as a person.

the biggest tip i have for writing these essays in general (not just for cooper) is to watch food network star or something similar. the contestants get prompted on how to hook an audience (hey, you want to do that too!) in a short amount of time (word count) and tell a story that relates to both them and their food (a story that relates to you and and why you’re going to be a bombass cooper student) like, just watch a few, and then you’ll kind of have the flow of it down, and you can figure out how to work it into your own writing

just like, really show who you are. i know it can be tempting to put on this facade, and to a certain extent you should (do not, for example, tell them about the time you got so drunk you pissed your pants) but do your best to express yourself, in either application.

um anyways i am always down to talk about any aspect of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, so if you ever want any more info on anything, hit up my inbox!

my points of expertise include the dorms, classes, stanislav mintchev the greatest math professor in the history of the world, ray’s pizza, sitting in the engineering student council meetings and listening to all the Hot Goss, and more

i mighttttt end up putting up like “a week in my life” post at some point because i always think those are cool and maybe it would be neato

we’ll see

(if anyone want to see that…… or anything else……. lmk……..)

#ask #cooper union #literally anyone at anytime should talk to me about cooper #i love this damn school #hashtag problematic fave

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