Tulsa, Ok- Conrad “Hammerhead” Hansen hasn’t had much luck holding a job in his post military career. After serving 30 years in the U.S. Marine corps, the last 20 of which as a drill sergeant, he decided it was time for a change. Hansen, who turned 50 years old in September, is finding it difficult to make a seamless transition into civilian life.
His aggressive style of getting right in the face of the person he’s talking to and screaming insults at them has not gone over very well with customers and co-workers at the various jobs he has attempted since leaving the corps.
“Mr. Hansen’s, how do I say, unique people skills, did not really fit in with our company’s policies regarding customer service,” said Todd Creighton, a manager at the Olive Garden in the Utica Square Mall, “our rule of unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks is not usually met with anger and profanities from the server. That’s one of the main reasons why people come to the Olive Garden. When your waiter gets about two inches from your face and screams things like, ’don’t you think you’ve had enough of that God damn soup, you filthy maggot!’ it’s really not good for business. I don’t think that customer will be coming back anytime soon. Would you?”
In the past three months, Hansen has been hired and fired on the same day on 13 different occasions. He lasted 3 days, which was his longest, as a therapist for the hearing- impaired, but was let go after several incidents.
“I was under the false impression that Mr. Hansen was quite adept at sign language when I hired him. Apparently his way of communicating with a person who is hearing impaired is by screaming at them at the top of his lungs. That isn’t the kind of treatment that we give here, and quite frankly, it is mostly useless with a lot of our patients. However, many of them are capable of reading lips, which is one of the reasons that he is no longer employed here. That, and the fact that Mrs. Davis hurt her back trying to do his ridiculous push ups,” said Robert Huggins, PhD, director of The Hearing Loss Center, “she comes late twice a week because of her dialysis appointments. He didn’t think that was a good enough excuse and made this frail 83 year old woman do 100 push ups. To her credit, she made it to 97 before she passed out.”
Hansen’s latest dismissal was from Tiny Tots Daycare Center, when he decided to make a group of 3 and 4 year olds go on a 15 mile hike while wearing 20 lb backpacks.
“I thought he was taking them out back to play on the jungle gym,” said Miss Trish, one of the teachers, “I couldn’t believe that he took a group of pre-schoolers on a 15 mile hike. Most of them went to the bathroom in their pants because he wouldn’t let them stop. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also taught them some profanity laced marching songs. A 4 year old boy went home singing, ’your left, your left, your left, right, left. My back is achin, my belt’s too tight, my balls are swingin from left to right.’ The poor parents were horrified.”
Hansen finally came to the conclusion that civilian life wasn’t quite the right fit for him, and has returned to the structured and disciplined environment of the military.
“I fear for the future of our country,” said Hansen, “we have a bunch of spineless sissies out there who don’t know how to follow orders. If we don’t toughen up, and damn quick, we’ll all be speaking fluent Russian and eating borscht by the time it takes you to spell communism.” DD
His aggressive style of getting right in the face of the person he’s talking to and screaming insults at them has not gone over very well with customers and co-workers at the various jobs he has attempted since leaving the corps.
“Mr. Hansen’s, how do I say, unique people skills, did not really fit in with our company’s policies regarding customer service,” said Todd Creighton, a manager at the Olive Garden in the Utica Square Mall, “our rule of unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks is not usually met with anger and profanities from the server. That’s one of the main reasons why people come to the Olive Garden. When your waiter gets about two inches from your face and screams things like, ’don’t you think you’ve had enough of that God damn soup, you filthy maggot!’ it’s really not good for business. I don’t think that customer will be coming back anytime soon. Would you?”
In the past three months, Hansen has been hired and fired on the same day on 13 different occasions. He lasted 3 days, which was his longest, as a therapist for the hearing- impaired, but was let go after several incidents.
“I was under the false impression that Mr. Hansen was quite adept at sign language when I hired him. Apparently his way of communicating with a person who is hearing impaired is by screaming at them at the top of his lungs. That isn’t the kind of treatment that we give here, and quite frankly, it is mostly useless with a lot of our patients. However, many of them are capable of reading lips, which is one of the reasons that he is no longer employed here. That, and the fact that Mrs. Davis hurt her back trying to do his ridiculous push ups,” said Robert Huggins, PhD, director of The Hearing Loss Center, “she comes late twice a week because of her dialysis appointments. He didn’t think that was a good enough excuse and made this frail 83 year old woman do 100 push ups. To her credit, she made it to 97 before she passed out.”
Hansen’s latest dismissal was from Tiny Tots Daycare Center, when he decided to make a group of 3 and 4 year olds go on a 15 mile hike while wearing 20 lb backpacks.
“I thought he was taking them out back to play on the jungle gym,” said Miss Trish, one of the teachers, “I couldn’t believe that he took a group of pre-schoolers on a 15 mile hike. Most of them went to the bathroom in their pants because he wouldn’t let them stop. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also taught them some profanity laced marching songs. A 4 year old boy went home singing, ’your left, your left, your left, right, left. My back is achin, my belt’s too tight, my balls are swingin from left to right.’ The poor parents were horrified.”
Hansen finally came to the conclusion that civilian life wasn’t quite the right fit for him, and has returned to the structured and disciplined environment of the military.
“I fear for the future of our country,” said Hansen, “we have a bunch of spineless sissies out there who don’t know how to follow orders. If we don’t toughen up, and damn quick, we’ll all be speaking fluent Russian and eating borscht by the time it takes you to spell communism.” DD
2 comments:
Gollllly!! I can't believe Sarge is having a such hard time keepin' a job. He's just about the nicest man I've ever met! I can't tell ya'll how many times he's helped me out with things like findin' my soap in the shower after I drop it. It just slips out of my hans' time an' agin' an' we jus' look an' laugh an' have jus' about the bes' ol' time rasslin' an' what not! He can jus' come on over to Goober's Filin' Station any ol' time he wants an work with us!!
G. Pyle
Great stuff! I've often wondered how civilians would act if I busted out my military persona on them. Really funny article.
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