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Congratulations, you have my respect. Let's get busy.Step 1: Validate your ideaGet a piece of paper. Answer the following questions:1) Who wants printed t-shirts?2) Why would they buy from me?3) How would I reach out to them?Got that? Good.Now pick up the phone and call them."Hi, my name's Justin. I hear you're having a booth at the education fair next month. Are you the person in charge of the booth?You are? Great! I can do custom printed T shirts with your university's logo for a cheaper price than anyone else you can find. Imagine this, you'll have a color coordinated team looking VERY smart and that'll make a fantastic impression on your prospects. You'll stand out from the other 400 booths!Yep, I sound young because I'm 14. Tell you what, sir/madam, let me drop by your office with a couple of samples, and if you like I'll draw up a few designs for you on the spot. If you like my ideas, we'll move forward, if you don't, maybe you can give me some advice! Deal? Ok, see you tomorrow.Get 5 appointments. That should validate your idea to some extent. If you can get more, the better.Step 2: MoneyBorrow money from your parents. Borrow enough for a few sample T-shirts, stationery, and travelling expenses. Set yourself a deadline of 6 months to repay the loan. Be sure to pay the amount back with interest.Step 3: Your first sales appointment1. Bring a couple of T-shirt samples. Make sure they're clean, ironed, and folded in a plastic covering.2. Bring a notebook (the paper kind) and fill it up with a couple dozen pages of T-shirt designs.3. Bring a receipt booklet. Fill up half the booklet, tear off the receipts and leave the carbon copies.4. If you've managed to borrow enough money, print some business cards and bring them along. If you haven't got enough money, don't worry just drop them off when you've made enough to print some.5. Be clean and presentable when you visit. Comb your hair. Wear clean shoes. Put your notebook, receipt booklet, pen, and any other stationery in a plastic folder.Introduce yourself with a firm handshake, a smile, and hello. If you're shy, practice your introduction in front of the mirror.If you're supershy, introduce yourself to random people at the supermarket just to wish them a nice day and compliment them on their shirt, their hair, their dress etc. After a few dozen introductions you won't be shy anymore!Your sales pitchKeep this phrase in mind:What's in it for me?Everyone you talk to will have this question at the back of their minds. EVERYONE. Everything you do, everything you say must address this question. How?By asking questions. Ask lots of questions and listen. Try to find out what they want, what they need, and how you can help them get there.======================================Here's the WRONG way to make a sales pitch:Hi, I'm Justin thanks for meeting me. I can do all kinds of T-shirts for you. I can design your logo; I can print them in purple, black, or white; I can do sizes L, M, S, and XL; I can have them delivered by the dozen; I can do this; I can do that etc. etc.====================================Here's the RIGHT way to make a sales pitch:You: "Hi, I'm Justin thanks for meeting me. So you're doing that education fair right? What sort of T-shirt design do you think will work for you?"Customer: "Oh, I'm thinking of maybe a dozen of white T-shirts, maybe with our logo on them."You:"hmm, that can work, white T-shirts do look clean and presentable. Do you want something that's minimal and clean, or do you want something that would catch people's attention?"Customer: "More attention wouldn't hurt. We want as many enquiries as we can get."You: "Hmm.... your university's color is red right? What if we switched the color scheme around, and do your shirts all in red? That'll be really eye catching! What's more, collared Polo Tees would make your team look much smarter than with uncollared Ts. Would you like me to draw it out for you and you can see for yourself?"Customer: "Ok...........................You're right!"You: "Great! How many shirts do you need and in what sizes?"Customer: "About 2 dozen in M."You: "Ok, how does a delivery next Friday sound? Would 10am be ok for you?"========================Then stop talking. If they ask you buying questions such as how much your T-shirts will cost, how long it will take etc. you've got your sale.Step 4: Close the sale!Ask when they would like their T-shirts delivered and collect a deposit. The deposit must be enough to cover your costs. Work out the amount beforehand.If they can't or won't buy from you, no worries, just ask them if they know anyone else who will.Step 5: ProductionIf you've never printed T-shirts before, don't print them yourself. Give your design to a professional printer and have them do it. You won't earn as much but you'll ensure the quality of your product. Focus on building your sales instead.Find a printer who's friendly. Negotiate a cheaper price. Let them know you're doing bulk printing and they can expect a lot more bulk orders from you in the near future. Ask around and compare.Don't give the full amount up front. Put in a deposit, and let the printer know they'll be the first to get paid when you receive the rest of the payment.If you can't find a printer who will give you credit, here's a handy trick. Ask your customer/s to write a letter with their company letterhead stating the following:1) They're ordering X amount of T shirts from you2) A reassurance that they'll pay upon receiving the goodsIf you need the letter fast, don't sit around and wait for your customers to write it. Type out the contents of the letter yourself and email it to your customers so they can just copy & paste it into their letterhead, and sign.Show the letters to the printers, assure them that you have customers who're paying for the T shirts, show them the receipts and any purchase orders you have, and assure them that you'll pay them first, and only then will you get paid.Step 6: Packaging and deliveryAny fool can deliver T-shirts from point A to point B. You, on the other hand, will deliver your T-shirts with style. Ensure that they arrive clean, tidy, and neatly folded in waterproof plastic packaging with sizes clearly marked.Write or type out a thank you note to your customer.Dear Ms Jane,Thank you for buying your T-shirts from me. I've put a lot of care and thought into the design and printing of your T-shirts so you can be assured of their quality. If there's anything else I can do for you, please give me a call at 123-456-789 or email me at [email protected] and I will be happy to help!Thank you!JustinPut the note and the receipt in a nice envelope and hand it over with a big smile and a thank you.Step 7: Review and improveFigure out the following:1) How many prospects have you called?2) How many prospects agreed to an appointment?3) How many appointments resulted in a sale?4) How much did you make from each sale?5) Take all your expenses so far and divide them by the number of sales. How much did you spend to complete each sale?6) How much do you need to earn to make this worthwhile?7) How many prospects do you need to call to get the required number of appointments to get the required number of sales to earn the amount that'll make this worthwhile?8) Where and how can you improve so you can keep earning more?Rinse and repeat.Best of luck.

Thanks Anon for asking!Right now this answer is just to get it all off my chest. I know it doesn't match upto Quora's standards but the fact of the matter is that I spent a whole day and better part of the night to jostle the memory. Will surely edit and refine and add to it soon.Firstly I would like to clear up the air about the word 'Punishments'. The meaning of the word at defence training academies in India is not what is commonly understood as a moral rebuke or penance to make amends for a wrong doing. It’s more matter of factly like Penalties.A punishment just means a ‘WTF’ interruption in your routine plans to chill out or do something you've been planning on catching up with for the past week - in my time back in 1988, it usually meant writing that letter or tidying up the billet or catching up with assignments etc. It does not mean 'Ragging' as made out in pop media - not by a long shot!Disclaimer : The narrative below is from my own training at IMA in 1988. A lot may have changed since, so please don't judge these wonderful institutions from outward appearances. If it was possible, the blood in my veins would be of Olive Green color!Now to the question :UNOFFICIAL 'PUNISHMENTS' BY SENIORS :Swimming on the Rocks: Crawling on gravel with arms locked behind the back clad only in IMA swimming costume. I did plenty of that every day during the break between training hours and sports.Rogering Nite (Summers) : Front Rolls > Back Rolls > Side Rolls in random combination of 10 each after consuming at least two bath mugs full of water post dinner. Duration Two hours or maybe more. Venue - Billet compound which usually had grass to soak up the vomit many would throw up. Kit - Swimming Costume. Battle Cry – Cannot be printed. Too saucy! Mind you there was neither inclination nor energy to go take a shower before hitting the sack. Just stagger in wipe body with the towel and dive in forget the odour. We all smell the same. No wonder we had a dozen bed sheets and towels apiece.Missourie Nights (Winter) : Front Rolls > Back Rolls > Side Rolls in random combination after consuming atleast two bath mugs full of water post dinner. One bath mug of water to douse the body and stand at Savdhaan (Attention Position) for a few minutes. No trembling allowed. Then the senior would one by one ask each cadet to count the total number of lights visible in Mussourie (16 KM away as the crow flies)Naturally there was no correct figure. One person would be arbitrarily picked out as the correct answer and would be told to do the honour of pouring a mug full of water over the heads of the rest of the platoon. Believe you me the guy doing the honour was anything but relieved because he would be told to drink up the rest of the water in all the buckets and then the whole platoon would be 'dismissed' to go and fill up another bucket full and get back into parade in double time. The straggler would be told that the whole batch would have to repeat the whole shindig because he got too late.Muster BlusterMuster Call at 0430h. Since it is expected GCs would be sleepy after a long night Ragda session, the received wisdom of the senior cadets used to be that put them through their paces first thing in the morning so that they don’t get sluggish while going to the PT fall-in. Thereafter they will keep going through the day.Patti Parade – change from sports kit to outdoor Dungaree to indoor formals and back to PT Kit.BAJRI ORDER :Type I : Single Pack : Rucksack ‘A’ Scale filled with gravel. Minimum 30 min of Sit (on haunches) Stand Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand… Dress Dungarees. For special occasions – swimming trunks.Type II : Two rucksacks ‘A’ Scale strapped together filled with gravel. Scores of Sit (on haunches) Stand Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand …Type III : Two rucksacks ‘A’ Scale strapped together filled with gravel and a cycle held in bare hands and raised over the head. Stand Attention or the more favorite Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand, Sit – Stand …Endurance Run : Time after dinner. Dress dungarees and ammunition boots.Hackle Order : Full ceremonial cadet dress with IMA hackle clipped onto beret / turban. Done to throw the fear of the Company Commander into a persons hide. It meant, do this the next time and you get marched upto the Coy Cdr and that could mean anything from 14 restrictions onwards … (For official punishment Restrictions see below)Push Ups (Military Style ie. arms locked to the side of chest and not akimbo like pehalwans) anything from 100 to 500. I could reach well beyond 100 after that the 'Shamming' started. The seniors notice, you get yelled at but the game goes on in all seriousness. Oh well! Wish there was a rewind button in life. Would gladly return to belove IMA!Sit Ups : (Arms locked behind the head legs stretched out) Infinite ie. as many as can be squeezed into the night. I have personally done 650 (Helped me a lot. I am arguably the first person in the World to reach Rohtang Pass on an ordinary cycle (Hero Brand) with a three speed gear added on after cycling all the way from Dehradun 550 KM (3985 Mtrs Lat 32.371627 Lon 77.246681 Google Earth) Rohtang to Pathankot via Dharamsala 353 KMOFFICIAL PENALTIESINSTRUCTOR PENALTIESDRILL USTAADContinuous Tham Practice Carry On : (Tham Khaali Ek Do!, Tham Khaali Ek Do!!, Tham Khaali Ek Do!!!, …short Left step, short Right step left foot stamp right foot stamp into Savdhan position then repeat .While doing so you have to shout at the top of your voice and the arms have to swing 180 degrees in rapid succession.HaunchingHands on waist. Squat and start hopping forward like a bull frog.Continuous Flat Foot carry on! : Hands on waist jump up touch your knees to your rib cage and bring your feet crashing down on the tarmac. The sound should be THACK THACK THACK and not putterrr putterrr putterrr…Gun Parikrama (Circumambulation of the gun) Rifle held high above the heads run from one corner of the drill square to the other where an obsolete 25 pounder gun (memorabilia) rests. Go around it and fall back into squad in two minutes flat. Total distance to run approx 200 metres.Note : The punishments were no big sweat. On the other hand shamming them out and not getting caught was where the real fun lay.WEAPONS USTAAD:Small Arms / Grenade Firing Range – Limbering up with tiger crawl.Battle Inoculation (Mock Practice)PLATOON COMMANDER’S PENALTIES FOR APPOINTMENTSOrders Parade : Get in to push up position on left hand with pen in the right. Copy on the ground write down the orders. If you unnecessarily ask doubts, you are required to pick up a few pebbles and put them in your mouth to help you keep shut.PS: I don’t know how many have done it or maybe my platoon commander was more creative than the rest, I used to take my orders in push up position with a mouth full of gravel – that’s coz I had way too many doubts! :POFFICIAL (PUBLISHED) PENALTIESThese are penalties that are awarded for cognizable offences by any officer who sees you default. They are published in the official gazette. Late FM Manekshaw still has some restrictions pending against his name in the drill instructors office in IMA.Extra Drills : You are required to dress up in Drill Formals “Hackle Order” and report to the drill square where you are to do drill. Read Hunching and Squatting and Flat Foots and Continuous Tham Practice!Restrictions : Liberty is excused. (going out to city on weekends is prohibited. You have to report to the drill square for Extra Drills.)Relegation : You get so many restrictions that there aren’t enough days to complete them, you get relegated. You could also get relegated straightaway if you did something really stupid like losing a magazine of a rifle or manhandling your peer etc.

Well, I didn’t quite get fired, but I got one serious, formal write-up, and my manager, the head of HR, tried to write me up for something else, and she ended up looking really, really stupid.But still, it was obvious I needed to get out of there, and grad school was what to do next. It was already April or so, thus most schools would not accept me. But I got an excellent GRE score, and blasted that score out to maybe 50 schools with rush/priority or whatever the option was called. Eventually I found a decent (in the top 25 or so) program that had rolling admissions.Anyway, back to the job. It was the HR department. It was my first “real” job after I got my BA. Occasionally I noticed old (at least 5yrs old) org charts indicating that HR once had had a VP and Sr. VP, but when I was hired, Manager was as high as it went, and she reported directly to the President. I think she got her BA at a very mediocre-to-bad place, since she had no formal learning about HR. The lightbulbs got changed, and she was checking in on staff whether they were an improvement to our working conditions. I made some off-hand joke about the Hawthorne Effect. She didn’t get it even after I explained it to her.We were a good sized credit union, Federally insured, of course, and had some sort of special relationship with the military because we had branches in some odd places just so a military base could have a financial institution. Well, an African-American disgruntled applicant (or pre-disgruntled person, since she actually never applied in the end) wanted to see our Affirmative Action Plan. The manager never actually spoke with the disgruntled person; rather, I, the youngest and least senior member of the department (and also the only male) had to shuttle back and forth from the Manager’s office to the front desk, repeating lame variants on “Well, it’s a secured document,” “We do not have access to it at the moment” and excuses like that. Eventually the disgruntled lady left in a huff. I was the worst possible person to be trying to calm her down, because of my skin-color (I’m white), gender (I’m male. While I am far from intimidating, and really tried to keep the situation low-key and collaborative, using a male is more likely to bring about escalation of conflict even in an office setting. My age didn’t help (many people consider it insulting to be forced to deal with an a person who is inexperienced, powerless, and likely somewhat incompetent due to their lack of experience. All these issues were exacerbated by the fact that the Manager’s office was right in plain sight about fifteen feet behind the front desk and I kept going back to her office for advice/support.Many of you may not know much about required Federal filings in the US, but Annual EEO-1 reports are required if a business meets any requirement listed below:We were more than large enough >500 to require one just based on the simple number of employees, regardless of anything else.We were a financial institution, almost all of which must file. We met all three of the possible criteria for filing. If you even meet one of the criteria, you must file (besides the # employees issue by itself).Held Federal Contracts >$50,000. It’s remotely possible that I’m wrong about this one, but with our branches on bases, I’m pretty sure we had *some* dealings with the Feds, even just “who will pay to resurface the parking lot” or other minor stuff that could exceed $50,000 pretty easily if you add them up/Federal Depository in any amount. I am almost certain we handled direct deposit for military members on several bases in AK and WA, and the Philippines until Pinatubo erupted.Again it’s possible I’m wrong, but I think we handled savings bonds and Notes.So. We should have been filing annually. They’re not fun, but not terrible either. The manager didn’t do them because she had no idea what they were or that we needed to file them. We also needed an Affirmative Action plan, updated annually. This was the report the disgruntled lady wanted to see, and while the EEO-1 is considered confidential, disgruntled lady had a Federally mandated legal right to read our Affirmative Action plan. But there was no such plan to read and we hadn’t been one for years. . .Anyway, I did not get in trouble for that one, although my manager was not happy when afterward I pulled one of her BLR binders and showed her the requirements for EEO-1 and Affirmative Action (BLR binders documented every HR-related law or regulation. They came in print and provided extensive commentaries/explanations/clarifications. Once a month, a packet would arrive for updating the binders. Those binders took up a *lot* of shelf space.).The reason I was able to easily pull out exactly the right binder and go to the right section was that I was enrolled in an HR class that was part of the MPA program at the University and had studied the issues surrounding discrimination, Affirmative Action, and sexual harassment recently. With her permission I used the BLR binders as a resource (if you’re curious, an MPA is a lot like and MBA, but is meant for non-profits and government workers). Anyway, I filed the required paperwork for tuition reimbursement once I had my grade in hand. The main requirement for reimbursement was that the class(es) you were taking needed to be related to your current job. Guess who oversaw the reimbursement program? My manager, of course (ultimately the President signed the paperwork, but she decided which which ones were worthy of his signature). My reimbursement denied of course. Recently I had gotten a small promotion for handling Employee Benefits instead of screening job applicants. I still had the same co-workers, same horrible boss, and only moved to a desk about ten feet away from my old one. She explained to me that benefits were more of a payroll issue than an HR issue, and since I was no longer an truly an HR worker, the class was not related to my job.Oh, two really nasty situations arose while I was doing benefits.We had a recently hired teller who became pregnant (she probably had 90 days on the job, since that’s when health insurance and such kicked in). My manager was dedicated to proving the pregnancy was a pre-existing condition. Evil. And the manager handled it like the disgruntled lady.The other benefits nastiness involved our retirement plan. *now* I understand Annuities vs defined benefit vs defined contribution, but back then I didn’t know much of anything about retirement plans. We had a defined-benefit plan. One day a fairly high ranking employee called me to ask about a lump sum immediately vs. letting his money ride (I don’t know how he could pull out his retirement money and keep working, but somehow he could. (I think it had to do with being the director/CEO/President of a company that was technically separate but wholly owned by the credit union). Anyway, he was concerned that his lump sum value might shrink soon. I discussed it with my manager,and she didn’t seem to know much either. When I told her that he was insisting on a solid answer ASAP, she finally gave me a definitive answer: your retirement funds will never decrease. The plan provides defined benefits, so the value is not affected by the stock market. Your benefits just keep growing while you are working and will never go down. I called the man back, and while he didn’t seem entirely convinced (my utter ignorance and confusion in the previous call probably didn’t help).A little while later, probably after a month had passed, I heard from him again. He was absolutely fuming and ready to sue. Apparently the value of the lump sum *had* decreased, and by a large enough amount to make him extremely angry. My boss was out, so I directly called up the company that managed the plan.I didn’t know how lump sums vs annuities vs regular defined benefit plans worked, having had no exposure to retirement products at the tender age of 20 (I actually did already understand in a basic sense how defined contribution plans because they are basically just investing with pre-tax dollars and maybe a match from your employer). Anyway, the kind and patient representative of the company that managed our retirement plan explained that a lump sum was calculated based on the total amount of money you would expect to receive from the plan if you lived your full predicted lifespan, adjusted for assumptions about what investments would yield during that period. If investments in general were doing well and were expected to continue to do well, a lump sum might go up, but if investments were doing poorly and expected to do so in the future, a lump sum could go down. Or perhaps they pegged the yield to the prime rate or treasury bonds. In any case, the expectation of return on investment the company used for calculating lump sums had gone down bit, thus causing the amount of a lump sum to go down. BTW — this was 1993 or ‘94. I think that the company used some sort of rolling average, and they had just included the 1990 recession in the years they were using. Or maybe it went down for some other reason.In any case, I managed to regained the trust of the person who had lost money. I confessed my ignorance and apologized for any harm that came from it, and basically told him what had just been explained to me. He already understood the issues, since he paid attention to his statements and understood retirement plans, but at least now we were on the same page. With the boss out of the office, I couldn’t do anything to solve the problem but we would see once she returned.When she returned to the office, she blamed the whole thing on my having overstepped my bounds and made promises on behalf of the organization that I was not authorized to make (going back to her statement that “Your benefits will never decrease,” etc., only now, she said that I had made up the erroneous statements on my own). Luckily, I did not get written up or fired. I think it was because I knew that the lump sum guy had been made whole using funds from the Credit Union (not the retirement plan), and that a VP or above had back-dated the check to make the amount match what it would have been in an alternate universe. I’m not sure exactly whether they committed a crime or not, but the manager wanted to keep it hush-hush, so she did not retaliate. At least not immediately.Shortly thereafter, I was written up for violating company policy and state labor law. I was accused of arriving early, sometimes taking lunches more brief than allowed, and also, I sometimes worked late to complete a task. I probably showed up ten minutes early every day because the penalties for tardiness could quickly lead to termination. I admittedly had the habit of failing to use my last five minutes at lunch. Staying late could vary, but I usually left and 5:00 and if the task was going to take more than 20 minutes or so, I’d just leave the work to be completed the next day. By engaging in this unauthorized behavior, I was creating a dangerous legal liability for the Credit Union. I might be keeping track of my extra work time, planning to sue for failure to pay me for the extra work, and also attempt to gain a punitive award. I thought it was a very, very strange accusation, but I was clearly guilty of the behavior she had documented.So: one strike. Two more write ups meant termination.The next attempt to write me up was based on the accusation that I had misrepresented my access to the Credit Union President while conversing with one of our branch managers. I did have a conversation with that manager regarding a Tuition Reimbursement taking longer to process than she had expected. I told her something along the lines that the forms for that program needed to be signed by the President, and due to busy schedules, apparently my Manager had not had an opportunity to meet with him recently.My Manager accused me of having told the Branch Manager that *I* had not had an opportunity to meet with the President lately. The hierarchy was very rigid; only once in three years was I allowed enter the top floor where the executives were, and that was just to quickly drop something off with the receptionist on my Manager’s behalf. So meeting with the President would be absurd for somebody of my stature. While my Manager was preparing my formal reprimand, I asked if we could call that Branch Manager and get her recollection of the conversation. My Manager was convinced enough about what she had heard that she agreed. It would just be more damning proof of my having said what she had overheard.We called, and the Branch manager could not recall the conversation in complete detail because it was such a routine non-event, but she was certain she would have remembered if I had claimed to be having meetings with the President. So it was my memory and the memory of the Branch Manager against my Manager’s memory. I had narrowly avoided my second formal write-up.After that incident, the Manager and I experienced levels of defensiveness and hatred that I never knew existed. I had generally been rather obsequious and deferential if it looked like her anger and hatred of others was likely to surface. After my “win” from the Branch Manager backing up my side of the story, those who knew about the conflict were glad. She had always been erratic and sometimes just made no sense, but this was the first time (as far as I knew) she had been called on her bullshit and had her power and judgement questioned.Now, I just didn’t care. I spent much of an entire week attempting to get our magical new Laser Printer (bye bye, dot matrix!) to communicate with our mainframe accounts and the terrible, horrible software we used for managing some of our information about employees (the bulk of the information was still stored as hard copy in about 15–20 filing cabinets).I did it! The mainframe could print to the Laser Printer. Much of my time had been spent typing letters notifying individuals about significant changes to their benefits (gaining health insurance after 90 days, bumping up to the next level of the defined benefit plan after ten years, COBRA eligibility upon termination, etc., etc., etc.) Many different events, each with a separate report from the mainframe. I didn’t need to type the whole letter; we had the various notifications created by a printing company on CU letterhead, so I generally just needed to type their name, one or more dates, and maybe a little more for some of the letters. Anyway, once I had it going, I started with the most common notifications and worked my way through the different types of letter. It was a *very* annoying and error-prone job to get the mainframe to put the names and dates and such in the proper parts of the letter, but it was possible, and a lot more fun than typing them. In addition, it really ticked off the Manager. IT staff had connected only her terminal to the Laser Printer. But they set it up in a communal area surrounded by our staff. When she finally noticed what I was doing, she was angry, but the staff were glad to be able to get away from the dot matrix, and were looking forward to automating processes like I was doing. It was such an obvious improvement to the speed, accuracy, and appearance of our work that she backed off, which had seldom, if ever, happened before. I suspect that word of her going loony-bird about meetings with the President had made its way to the executive suite and she may have been told to calm down or something. Or, she was just having an unusually nice day. I dunno.About a week later, I was accepted to grad school. There was still time to participate in the summer construction-and-related-activities boom that happened each year in Alaska. So I left the Credit Union, planning to get the highest paying job possible for the Summer. Thus, I became trained in hazardous waste labor and earned more money in ten weeks than I would earn at the Credit Union in a year. Then my life really began, upon entering grad school.If you made it this far, great! Thanks for paying atten for so long to a relatively uneventful story.That manager was a vicious person who was probably in HR precisely because her position allowed her to be a bully as an adult. The pre-existing condition issue for the pregnant teller, was just one little event out of many. There was a young married couple in the building; she worked in the branch doing something more than a Teller but less than a Loan Officer or Management. Member services Rep, I think. He worked as a groundskeeper mowin the grass and such at first, but it turned out he actually was educated, intelligent, and diligent, so he moved to a much better position in Real Estate. A move that dramatic was practically unheard of. The birth announcement about their first child was proudly communicated to the whole organization by somebody important. If that was on a Monday, then fast-forward to Wednesday, two days later. She fired the husband for his third tardy of the year, just two days after we celebrated his child’s birth. He was not very tardy, less than five minutes I believe. The Manager in Real estate didn’t want him fired, and I believe it was that manager who brought the absurd situation to the attention of somebody on the Executive floor. The new father’s termination was rescinded the same week it occured.In another brazenly cruel situation, HR had an employee foisted upon us from Insurance. Our new co-worker had apparently worked in insurance for much of her life, but was new to the Credit Union. She had been working in Insurance for perhaps a month before she was moved to HR. It was soon apparent why the Insurance department had wanted her gone. She was probably in her mid-to-late 60’s, and I suspect that she had been a rather odd character for her whole life; her quirks were probably not due to her age. She was one of the kindest, warmest, most loving people I had ever met, but she simply could not think on her feet and get complex tasks accomplished. She wasn’t particularly useful, but she made a decent receptionist (she loved to smile and greet people coming through the door.) She could take messages just fine, and efficiently operated the receptionist phone with multiple lines to forward calls. I never did understand how to work that device very well. apart from being friendly and greeting people, we would occasionally assign her simple tasks, such as stuffing a bunch of envelopes or alphabetizing 1000 job applications. She was rather slow, and sometimes got hung up by minor complications that most of us could simply work around. So: not a fast and efficient employee, but a wonderful person who was able to contribute to the organization, just not by doing complex tasks. Attacks began. First, our Manager forbade her to have a water bottle or snacks at work. The lady countered with a note from her doctor that declared that she needed water and snacks available at all times; might have been diabetes I dunno for sure.This is the longest post I have ever created, and is one of the few with any type of narrative. Please comment about what you thought. Good, bad, boring, enjoyable, painful, whatever!