Journal logo

Teacher's Pet

The Brat Anthology: Three

By Amanda LyonsPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
2
Photo by João Paulo de Souza Oliveira on Unsplash

This is a story but it is not fiction. This is a story that comes from my personal experience. Wherever I've forgotten a detail I might make something up close to what I think may have happened. There will be no huge embellishments or exaggerations.

I didn't even notice I was bratting until later reflection. I imagine I will reflect upon this day numerous times in my future since it was so much fun. It was also an eye-opening experience concerning how I operate, what I want from others, what excites me, and how others react to me. Also, and more mundanely, how my workplace operates.

If you somehow stumbled upon this story and are not familiar with what bratting is or what a brat is, the term comes from the kink world. I'd like to first say that kink is not inherently sexual. For me, it is about power. Many things can create and maintain power. The kink world, once again for me, is about gaining power, power exchange, submitting to power, all CONSENSUALLY. Bratting or brats is only one type of kink among a multitude of others. It's a type of behavior that challenges a power dynamic. It teases, it questions, it's mischievous, it pushes boundaries, but always in a playful way. Depending upon who is involved there are certain limits and punishments when brats 'act out'.

I've only recently identified as a brat. I've always behaved this way with men, especially men in the workplace, in power positions. Until a couple years ago I didn't realize it was bratting, which is the action of carrying out this behavior. Now that I know I'm not alone I've taken this label and run with it. Bratting is such an intrinsic part of me I can't cut it out and I don't want to!

On with the experience...

One day, at work, the boss came in. He is a district manager, so he is above everyone else. We'll call him Rick. Rick and I go way back, over a decade. I watched him move up in the company. We also have a personal history- I've written about him before. He and I have a special relationship where I'm able to 'get away' with speaking to him in a super relaxed manner. Flirtatious also. Always.

Rick begins complaining to Dave (not his real name) who is our department manager. Rick is angry that we are not doing our jobs a certain way, the way home office would like us to do it. Enter Steve (also not his real name...duh), who is a step below Dave. He's more of a supervisor than a manager. Steve and I also go way back. We have a very special relationship. We're very close. Steve also popped up in "The Heckler". Dave and I are starting to get to know each other and so far so good.

Rick picks me to shadow today. What a day to do it too! Since it's so busy, I'm preparing myself for how fun it is going to be ducking and weaving through customers. We work in retail. I'm a personal shopper. It is Rick's goal to figure out why certain items aren't making themselves into customers orders. I feel like the answer is pretty straightforward- we don't have them. But Rick doesn't like to hear that. I keep telling him that I left my magic wand at home so I can't 'poof' items out of thin air today. He smirks at me.

Part of me thinks he's just doing this in order to justify his paycheck. To me it's clear why we can't get every item for a customers order- because we're picking from a store that has a steady flow of customers also taking things from the shelf. If we had dedicated warehouses from which to pick then this wouldn't be a problem...or less of one. He's too smart to not know this, so I imagine following me around is just busy work, especially since he's done it several times with my co-workers in the past for the same reason.

But there is a huge difference between me and my co-workers.

I'm a brat.

I also don't sugar coat, have no filter, and I'm not scared of managers.

Let the wild rumpus start!

It's so satisfying having three men follow me around while I work. Everything revolves around me. Under my mask I am beaming, smirking, giggling, and sometimes outright laughing. In the second story of this series I explained how if I know something is wrong or can be done better I will say so, I don't care who is in charge or what they think. I had a lot to say on this day.

The history Rick and I share definitely affected how I treated him and how marvelous I felt that day. Rick is the "Un(?)requited Love". If you aren't familiar with what I'm referring to it's one of the first stories on my Vocal.

We started our first walk. This walk was only eleven items and I took them purposefully on an ambient walk. This means we'd be picking items from the grocery aisles. This walk is the most problematic and I wanted to show all three of them why. First item we get to is out. Not there. Nada. Nothing. We all see this. I take a cursory glance to the riser, which is the topmost shelf where stockers will put overstock- this could be a couple small boxes or a couple or so items. It's not meant to house anything more than that because of safety issues. I immediately push the 'item not found' button. Rick does not like this. Without saying anything to me he addresses Dave and Steve, "Do you see how much time she spent looking for the item?"

Dave and Steve exchange glances and wait for it...because they know how I operate.

My head jerked in Rick's direction and he just looked at me.

"Well, how long should I search for an item that's clearly not there? When we can all see it's not on the shelf or the riser?" I widened my eyes, challenging him.

He made an exaggerated move to show how he searched the riser with his eyes and stuck his face into the empty spot on the shelf where the item was supposed to be. We all stood in silence but I was the only one who'd pulled their mask down to show my facial expression which was one of amusement and indignation. After he made his show of sweeping his head from side to side and going through items on either side of the empty spot he seemed satisfied.

"You done?" I looked nonplussed at him. "Did you find it? Can we move on?"

It was his turn to jerk his head in my direction. "You didn't even look at the riser."

"What?! Of course I did. Just cause it doesn't take me a billion years to clearly see that it wasn't there doesn't mean I didn't look for it. I'm not stupid."

I was standing so close to Steve that I could feel his laughter.

Rick's serious expression wavered as he tried to hide a smile. "Did you check the backroom location?"

Jesus Christ.

"I don't need to check it because there is a huge blank space eViDeNt where the location would be if we had it."

"What's the onhand?"

OH MY GOD.

"Probably wrong, " I looked down at the device, "Thirteen."

"Let's go." And Rick started marching toward the warehouse.

I rolled my eyes at Steve and Dave as they fell in line behind Rick. We managed to make it through the throng of customers with my cart and we rounded the corner into the warehouse where we keep all the overstock.

"What now Rick? You wanna search through all these god damned pallets to find one box?"

He had his back to me and just turned his head, "It's back here somewhere."

Dave breaks off and starts searching dutifully. Steve hangs back to watch Rick and I because he knows it's futile.

"Look Rick, I'm not wasting my time on this. If it had a location and I could get to it I would look for it."

He turned on me after rummaging through the nearest pallet which was not labeled by the way, "So you're satisfied with the customer not getting what they ordered?"

I scoffed at him, "You can't always get what you want and they need to learn that. That's the problem with management nowadays, they let these customers run all over them. Too much ass kissing makes spoiled people. Besides what about the other customers who's items or substitutions I can find readily? What about the customers that have to wait out in their car because you're forcing me to take too much time trying to find something that might not even be back here in the first place?"

"Hey, as long as they get what they ordered." Classic evasion tactic.

I started to walk back out to the floor, "Clearly it's not back here...can we go to the next item? It's been ten minutes and that's too long already to look for one fucking thing."

Dave came back just in the nick of time to hear my curse and Steve stifling a laugh. Rick glanced at me before asking Dave if he'd found it. Of course not.

Rick rolled his eyes and threw his hands forward, "Let's go then!"

I smiled widely at him and caught a glimpse of his smiling eyes before turning around and going back out to the floor.

The walk continued on in much the same fashion- Rick would try to undermine my work ethic, I would argue sweetly with him, while Steve and Dave just hung back. The arguing never got seriously heated because it was always punctuated by a smirk or smile from me and on occasion I wagged my tail which Rick thoroughly enjoyed.

My absolute favorite part, which took me totally by surprise, is when Rick did something I told him to. Earlier he had pointed out how we have to make every effort to look all the way to the back of the shelves because product could be hiding. We came upon an item that was out on the very bottom shelf. I got down on my hands and knees, reaching my arm all the way back making sure to search well. When I looked back up all three men were giving me a look. I smirked under my mask and did a slow blink letting my eyes rest half-lid. Rick had been in the habit of going behind me to double check. He couldn't bend over and check on account of his huge beer gut, so he leaned back and tried to look.

"Uh Uhn." I said while beckoning him toward me. "If I gotta get down here so do you."

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Steve and Dave glance at each other but the most surprising thing happened. Rick, who is well above six feet tall and well over 200 pounds, waddled over to me got painfully on his hands and knees and did a nice search of the bottom shelf.

He positioned himself on purpose so that he'd be really close to me and when he came back up all red faced I gripped his shoulder and I asked him, "Did you find it?"

He sat back on his haunches and looked at me as I leaned into him. I braced myself on his thighs, not caring who witnessed it, got close enough so that only he would hear and I whispered, "I fucking LOVE this."

A smile reached his eyes, "I bet you do," he whispered back, "I loved when you bent over."

As he struggled to get up I laughed quietly to myself, "You all did."

After we all exchanged a few glances I declared how inefficient it was to pick the way Rick wanted. I could tell that I'd worn him down a bit and before he had the chance to resist I said, "It shouldn't take an hour and a half to pick, what?, ten things? Yeah, ten. That's not gonna fly because the picks will end up being late."

Dave and Steve agreed with me. I could tell they wanted to please Rick but they couldn't ignore the truths I laid out in front of them. Rick had a harder time accepting this...probably because his bonus depended on the accuracy rate. But seeing as how I didn't get to see any of that bonus, I didn't really give a fuck.

Rick agreed that there were certain problems with how the store was run that needed to get addressed so it would make our jobs easier. I expressed my concerns for several of those problems and he told me that I should make a list of them and give them to Steve or Dave to deal with on a daily basis. I agreed to this after he acquiesced to receive a text of those same problems from me.

And this ended the beautiful experience of my bratting. There were many other flirtations that I can't fully remember so can't share with you, treasured readers, but that day was one of the most fun days I've ever had at work. In fact, it might actually be the best.

~~~If you enjoyed this consider reading my other pieces in this continuing anthology called The Brat~~~

humor
2

About the Creator

Amanda Lyons

Eclectic stream of consciousness and dark surrealism. What photography does for life I do for thought, emotions, and experiences. The genres can range from romance to horror but my favorite is suspense.

[email protected]

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.