When I started a job one time I was invited by a group to go to lunch with them. The group consisted of the family that basically owned and ran the company. They were the VP of Technology, President of the company, Senior Programmer, A/R Manager, etc. Meanwhile I was a Jr Programmer making peanuts.

They all decided on Thai food. Yuck. But I was in no position to say anything.

At the restaurant I was lucky enough.. yeah right.. to sit next to the president. She seemed like a nice lady. About my age. Hmm, me Jr Programmer and her president. You can see how good I was doing in my life.

Anyway, I ordered the smallest thing possible as my truck transmission blew the week before. I watched as she ordered the most expensive sushi on the menu. No biggie, if you can afford it.. eat it.

Then, the bill came. I didn’t get a look at it, but they all said put in your money. Not wanting to look cheap, I slid over $10. for my $4 bowl of soup and $1.95 coke.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the president quickly toss in 2 singles. I didn’t think anything. Maybe one of her other family members owed her money or something and would pay the difference.

Well, they calculated the bill and came up $25 short. The A/R manager said, let’s make this easy, everyone toss in an extra $5.

 I about puked. Starting a new job, being broke and now sitting here with all the top people of the company. How was I going to get out of this one.

… I chickened out and just paid the extra $5 bucks.

In closing I would like to say that I never went to lunch with them again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 9:22 am and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.