You don't get to choose your nicknames

I don't know if I've told this story before, but I'll tell it even so.

My very first real job, the one I had 9 jobs ago, was working at a grocery store called County Market in Wis Rapids. I was hired on to bag groceries, but when I work a job, I rock that shit, and people take notice. I was promoted to work in the produce department, for an evil tyrant of a man by the name of Don Ruffi. I did the job, and was good at it, so they put me on Sunday mornings. I worked from 5 am to 1 pm. It was just me. I set up the department after busy ass Saturday, and broke down the load of produce that came in on like 3 huge pallets.

One Sunday morning, a transformer blew and we were without power for like 2 hours. It was pitch black in the cooler and the department so I couldn't do anything. The power came back on, and I still ended up getting the looking awesome before all the good people came in from church wanted to buy shit. Don stopped by to see how things were going. I told him the story of how the power went out and how I was able to get back and get a nice little department put together, all the fresh fruit and vegetables calling out to be bought. He glanced around, took a look at some fresh bunch carrots and proceeded to bitch me out about how they had dirt on them. My eyes glazed over as I struggled not to punch him. I nodded and he left. No "nice job" recovering form that loss of power, nope. Just a lecture on cleaning fresh bunch carrots.

One of the better moments of my life up to that point was telling him that I was quitting to go work at the Boys and Girls Club. He was singing a different tune then. He told me he'd try and work my schedule a bit or do something so I would stay. He knew he had a sweet deal with me. Cheap labor that worked hard. The shift of power at that moment was fucking delicious.

Anyway, that was like 12 or 13 years ago.

In an unrelated story, I am currently working on my machine in a giant freezer. It pretty much sucks. We start at 16 degrees Celsius and work our way down to magic -40. I have to run the machine at each step down because I'm the hydraulics dude.

Today we ran at 16, and that's not really cold, it's just for baseline data. I was activating the quick drop on the machine, which lets the blade free fall. It made a loud bam! on the floor of the freezer every time it was done. The dude that runs the cell was not expecting this. He decided to give me the nickname Bamm-Bamm after I came out of the cell. From then on during the day I was questioned and addressed by that name. Awesome... I guess he at least likes me so the next month should go smooth.