Telling the Boss to Take this Job and Shove It : The Thrill and the Aftermath

For some, especially those of us who don't much like taking orders from anybody in the first place, telling the boss to take his job and shove it can produce a sense of satisfaction like no other. The aftermath, once the thrill wears off, isn't always so enjoyable.

Still, I must have thought it was generally worth the price of the whistle, since I kept on doing it over the years. Here are a few examples from my checkered past, edited to include only those cases where I wasn't about to put up with the situation any longer.

1. June, 1961. My first job after high school graduation. Shorty and I worked as hired hands on a local ranch. The problem in this case wasn't the boss. Shorty, unfortunately, was a nice enough guy most of the time but a bit lacking in functioning brain cells.

The rancher owned a stunningly beautiful, jet black, three-year-old Thoroughbred stallion. When a mare in the next corral came in heat, the young stud naturally got rowdy in his desire to get himself some loving. Shorty tried to get him to settle down. When the horse wouldn't listen--what horny fellow would?--the fellow pegged a stick at the black's head.

Put out his left eye.

I told the boss, "I can't, or won't, work with a guy like that. It's him or me."

"Well," I was told, "I can't fire him."

I packed my gear and was gone in ten minutes.

Aftermath: Not much. Heck, I was 17.

Lesson learned: Some fools is dumbclucks around livestock; take precautions accordingly.

2. August, 1962. With a year of Auto Mechanics college and a season on the college rodeo team under my belt, I'd come back to the home ranch I'd left after high school graduation. I knew the place and the work inside out, the hay needed to be put up, and Dad was offering room and board plus the princely sum of ten bucks a day.

I'd accepted, with the proviso that I could take time off to compete in a rodeo "whenever I wanted". Which was kind of like President Obama getting the Tea Party to say he could spend "whatever he wanted". We'd come to a confrontation, he'd laid down the law: I was done with rodeo.

Yeah, right.

There was little thought of telling him to take his job and shove it, though. He could have whipped my butt any day of the week back then, and if I said I was leaving, he most likely would have.

So I bailed in the middle of the night, two nights later, leaving him holding the bag with no help and plenty of horrible emotions. His emotions, not mine. Turned out (I found out decades later) he'd done exactly the same thing to his Dad--but didn't much like the cowboy boot being on the other foot.

Aftermath: For a good 40 years thereafter, he felt he'd been betrayed, that he "no longer had a son". He did get over it. Eventually. Sort of. But to the day he died, I walked on eggshells around him so he'd have no reason to be upset enough to force us to reincarnate together in the future.

That would suck.

Lesson learned: Some folks can dish it out but they can't take it...and my old man was one of 'em.

Was it worth the price of the whistle? You betcha. Nobody tells a rodeo cowboy he's done riding. Especially this cowboy. Didn't even go all that smoothly when I told myself, years later.

3. June, 1974. Eugene, Oregon. The boss knew I was leaving my insurance underwriting desk job at the office. I'd given two weeks' notice, and this was my last day. It had to be done, which is a story in itself.

But he had a nasty attitude. I needed, that final day, to boogie a couple of hours earlier than the normal end of the workday. The reasons are unimportant. What was important? The fact that he denied my request to leave a bit early without any consideration whatsoever. His dismissive arrogance was, in a word, palpable.

I returned to my desk...seething.

By no accident in timing, that was on a payday. Our checks were delivered to our desks every payday at around 10:30 a.m. My check arrived. Then I had to wait...but not for long.

At noon, we all got up to go for lunch. The bank was right downstairs in the same mall where the insurance office was located. I cashed the thing. Headed out the door. Never looked back. By denying my request so summarily, the manager had just doubled my margin of available time for getting the contents of our townhouse loaded into the U-Haul.

Of course, the check did need to be cashed immediately. Especially in light of the note I'd left in my top center desk drawer to be found by those who would investigate upon my failure to return from my lunch break. My former boss's name was Don. The note simply read,

"Don: You have a lot to learn about the limitations of your power over people."

Aftermath: For one, I don't remember ever putting Don's name down as a character reference on any of the job applications I filled out over the years. Other than that...not much.

Lesson learned: Sticking it to the guy who thinks he's sticking it to you...is way cool.

There were other times, of course. In one case, I was told I'd "never work in this town again" and celebrated by getting not one but two job offers before the day was out. In another, I abruptly and without notice retired from a trucking job in Montana after realizing I'd just gone from golden boy to nasty bast*rd on the dispatcher's list.

Overall, in a working career covering roughly 50 years after high school, those times of getting the job I wanted (let alone needed) probably count as slightly more rewarding than the times I told 'em to take this job and shove it.

But it's a close call.