Chemical Reaction
In 2005, got a job as a graphic designer for a well known print company in my area. I even bought a baby gift for the designer I would be temporarily replacing while she was on maternity leave. My work day ran from 5:45 AM to supposedly 4:00PM, but often I went home at 6:00PM or later. I was Designer, Secretary, Printer/Copy Person, Press Film Developer, Front Desk Clerk, Press Order Taker, Janitor, and cut/folded/scored paper products like business cards and brochures as well. I made $10 an hour and got a half an hour lunch break. This is actually not the bad part. My boss was the bad part. Never mind the numbing job of deleting of 200+ porn spam messages in the email inbox each day, never mind that we did not recycle anything, never mind that my boss was often called on by the town for dumping developing chemicals down the drain (well, actually do mind that).
We still made film and plates in 2005. The shop ran Mac OS 9 on candy colored iMacs and “beige boxes” from the late 90s. They used gigantic file folders because everything was on film and paper. This was all livable though. The horrible part of this job was my boorish boss. He had an air of superiority about him, but was very cheap. So, when he brought us a new computer it was actually a beige box with Mac OSX 10.1 running on it (by third party software), proudly declaring, “This isn’t supposed to run on these but I got this software – so it does!” I’m afraid I actually laughed. Abashed, he later bought a Mac Mini and a software set. Unfortunately I had already given my notice by that time. All because of old computers, you ask?
Oh no. Because of the extremist talk show he played at high volume. Because of loud rude phone calls: “Wait, this is American Express, right? THEN I WANT TO SPEAK TO AN AMERICAN.” He would later walk around the shop gloating to everyone about his wit. The last straw, however, was Hurricane Katrina. He said, “Nothing but the dregs of society live there. We should just leave all the blacks to drown and then build up a good city.” He was completely, dead serious. It’s 2010 and I still have nightmares about this job.
Sounds a bit like a bad job I had after graduation as a “graphic designer” where all I actually did was cut out pictures of products for advertising and store planning purposes factory style to tune of around 300 a day or so. I will never forget how to work a path at this point. On top of that management treated us like, and I qoute “bottom feeders”, even had to ask permission to use the bathroom.
That’s horrible! As a New Orleanian, I am glad that you took offense to his comment and that you QUIT.
Because your former boss? Obviously HE’S a stand-up guy, if he keeps getting called in for destroying the environment…THANKS….sheesh….I hope he doesn’t breed.
Never mind that the boss uses old Macs. Never mind that he listens to “extremist” talk radio. He’s forever one up for his American Express joke.
this guy sounds a lot like a local newspaper publisher…used ancient decrepit materials, treated employees like slaves, paid shit, toxic waste, said stupid racist crap…it’s not the same guy but they seem to be of a type. Lots of the people who work for him are young and new at their careers and they all quit within weeks…my ex worked for him for a year but it was in the graphics department, not as a journalist.