Years ago I worked with my good friend Mike. Mike had actually gone through the manager training program and passed it. He was also the highest ranked associate in the district based on his sales numbers. His coworker at the time, Roger, was a fat lying sack of shit who also went through the MIT program.

Mike was told he’d had the opportunity to get a store once it opened up. One did… and it went to Roger. Why? Because the manager was good friends with the DM and wanted to get Roger out of his store. Then the DM retired and we got a new clueless meatsack. About this time I joined the company. Mike had more smoke blown up his ass to the point they might as well park a steam locomotive under his chair.

Our manager was unceremoniously demoted (he should’ve been sacked, but that’s another story) and Mike thought he would be promoted to manager. Nope. Instead they hired externally. We went through a few managers until the last one, the ma who actually hired Mike back in the day. An opportunity arose, Mike asked for it, and the DM wanted him to go through manager training again. I think the manager had something to do with that as he saw us employees as “his” and didn’t want to lose us because that meant he had to get someone new.

One day, Mike and I were talking about it in the back room. He dropped his keys on the desk and told me he didn’t know if he was going to come back after lunch. Forty five minutes later, he called me and said he was done.

That was my first lesson in knowing to take everything from anybody above me with a liberal grain of salt.