So, I, and many of my friends, have recently graduated from college some few months ago; some of us have found jobs, while some of us, like myself, have not found jobs. Now, this's a bad thing; a person needs to make a living, y'know?

But some of my friends are making me squeamish about finding a job. How? They're telling me their employers and co-workers believe in some pretty sadistic stuff, like initiation rites, and crap like that.

My one friend landed an office job; he tells me that, his first 3 days, they locked him in his office, and he had to work straight for those 3 days, without eating, sleeping, showering, or using the bathroom...

Another of my friends, he got a job working at a car rental place...he had to free himself from his necktie...while it was being inhaled into a car's exhaust pipe!!

...

So...did you have strange experiences like these when you were first hired at any of your jobs?

your friends are playing a joke on you.

either that or they are idiots for not reporting any of that.

I think there is a difference between having strange things happen at a new job due to a little razzing (such as someone not telling you to do something so something funny happens but is in itself a lesson on why you need to do something) and having co-workers that are just full-out a$$holes.

I made a post about a few of the things that bothered me when I started my current job (well, I was laid off for the third time this year last Friday) about a year and a half ago... the biggest annoyance was how prevalent the weenie tap was. I've never understood why that was considered to be cute and funny, and really, only men could find humor in such an activity. I mean, I know the environment inside a factory is going to be a lot looser than a office, but a little resistant, especially when it comes to something like that, is nice to have in those around you. Thankfully, the majority of the people that didn't fall into this category aren't around anymore, though we still have a lot picking on each other in other ways. For example, I sure got it when I showed up at work with two different shoes on one day, everyone pretending to aim for my non-steel tow shoe with heavy objects and sending pictures to their friends with their phones

Bernhardt, like Dais, I've got to wonder if your friends are just winding you up. But then, are you in the US? Some of you USers seem to go in for that whole hazing thing, while the concept of ritual abuse just leaves me baffled, so it's possible people have just taken from the military, through the colleges, to the workplace. I don't know. It sounds unlikely to me though.

I guess I'm hoping it's unlikely.

So, to answer your question, no, nothing like that has ever happened to me.

That's what I thought at first, too...except my friend showed me his burned, chewed up tie from the incident...and that was his favorite tie...and it was an EXPENSIVE tie, too!! Somehow, I doubt he'd sacrifice his favorite, $60 tie just to get a reaction out of me...They probably had an attitude about him showing up wearing a tie that was more expensive than theirs, I guess. Moral of the story, don't try to out-dress your superiors. That's my guess, anyway.

I guess companies think they can get away with this stuff, because people won't complain since they're so desperate for jobs...

I mean, really, though? No one else has gone through any rituals like this for the hiring process?

If that's the sort of stuff that happened at my workplace, I would try to figure out a way to get a different job as soon as possible.  It is just not worth it.  The culture of a company does not change easily, and if this stuff is going on now, it's going to keep going on and will likely get worse.  There is no place for hazing in the workplace.

Strangest thing that ever happened to me at a job was getting hired.