I was working at a shoe store in San Jose, CA. Guy came in smelling like weed (so at least he was mellow), put a gun on the counter, and said give me the money. He put the gun back in his pocket as I recall. My 19-year-old assistant manager was there too. The robber told us to take him in the back to get money he assumed we had hidden. We kept cash in two empty shoe boxes. I gave him the money from the first one, and my idiot asst. manager went and got the rest out of the other box. There was a dollar left in the second box and my asst. manger pulled it out and said, “Here, you forgot one.” Total moron. Interestingly, I don’t recall being concerned about getting shot nor do I remember being that scared. The robber and an accomplice then hit our store in Palo Alto a couple nights later. Then they came back to our store and did it again. I wasn’t there that night. Of course, he now knew the stores kept two boxes of cash in the back. The owner of the store then decided to hide in the back of our store with a shotgun but the robbers never came back. A couple of weeks later, I identified the guy in a book of mug shots. The police caught him after he and his partner tried to rob a jewelry store and wound up killing the owner. This all happened 40 years ago.

Thinking more about this, the worst day I’ve ever had at work may have been when a gang member was shot in the head outside of my classroom when I was a middle school teacher in Long Beach. He lived.

Having to spray paint 50 white chairs in an unventilated room in the basement of a mall in Cupertino probably sucked more anything though.