Sorry for the botchy write up everyone – I should have been more careful about some ‘wordage’ and grammar, but I hope you can all get through it okay. I know it doesn’t speak well for me that I am complaining about a job as an AA, yet my story about it is full of mistakes.

Something else I forgot about but wanted to mention — the boss was a 73 year old man who took naps in the company’s basement every single day. For that 1.5 hour period, unless the building was on fire, no one was to disturb him. If you were unaware of this unspoken rule and you worke him with an important piece of business that needed his immediate attention during said nap, you were screamed at and berated.

I was also not allowed to use the phrase ‘no problem’. Whenever I am awas to do things, I would respond with ‘sure thing’ or ‘no problem’. After saying ‘no problem’ once to a request his wife had of me (she often came in the office and requested me to handle her personal business), she went back to her husband and complained about my choice of words. My boss then explained to me that the phrase ‘no problem’ was banned from the office. He believed that saying ‘no problem’ meant I was hinting at the task asked of me to really be a problem because the phrase meant ‘I was going out of my way to explain that this isn’t something I would normally do, but this isn’t a problem for me to move things out of the way for you’. He said that it was a expression carved out of inconvenience and I shouldn’t have a problem doing my job. I explained that I simply meant to acknowledge whatever task was given to me and that I would take care of it and anything more read into that was of his own doing. He said to find a new phrase or I could leave. I slipped up and said ‘no problem’ a few times after that and had to have a conference with the CFO regarding my attitude.

These people sound like real jerks with absolutely no concept of what it takes to run a business. Glad you got out of there.

As soon as the guy threw the memo at me, I would have been fired or quit. Good job sticking it out and finding a better place to be.

Please tell me you got your last check from these people.

Yes, I got the last check thanks to the State.

Some people are amazing, and I don’t mean that in a good way. It’d be one thing if you were hired specifically to proofread important proposals, but proofreading a damn MEMO more than once is freaking ridiculous. It’s surprising that they ever got anything done. I’m glad you got out and got your check, OP!

May their office be afflicted with bedbugs. That is an amazing amount of BS. Congrats for sticking it out, making a classy exit, and sticking up for your rights.

As an AA, that job sounds absolutely horrible. My former boss was West Point-type crazy, but even he had a sense of professionalism to him. That really sucks, OP

I love that they tried to claim that you owed them money for deleted emails. Slimy and soo petty.

This rings all too familiar. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life working as a secretary or administrative assistant in some form or another, and I’ve encountered my fair share of bosses who see their assistant as the last person in the office who will take their abuse.

And it’s tough not to. We play so many roles, from mind-reader to mess-cleaner-upper to editor to babysitter, that we (or, more specifically, I) often end up smiling while we accept our rasher of bullshit dished out in a dirty ashtray. Or we don’t, and suddenly find ourselves in the unemployment line.

Plenty of people, including old bosses, have told me that abuse is part of the job. No, it’s not. Abuse should never be a part of any job. Irritation, tedium, mind-numbing boredom, stress, the occasional crying jag in the second flood bathroom, fine. But abuse and disrespect? Never.

I’m glad you got out and found something you love to do..and that you got your final paycheck.

I can’t believe you would put up with that. Food service is better than that.

I don’t think I would have lasted a week in that job. I have this really bad habit of standing up for myself and not dealing with anyone’s bullshit. Which is exactly what this was. I’m glad to hear you got out of there and got your last paycheck.

Thank you for your support everyone!
When the CFO threw the paperwad at me, I almost walked out. The only thing that stopped me was that I had next to no money in savings due to my stint of unemployement. I was seconds away from taking a restaurant or retail job because of how unhappy I was but fortunately found a career in the field I had previous experience in and called it a day.

The minute I accepted my new job with my new employer (I accepted on a Friday), I debated on going in over the weekend (I had a key), picking up all my stuff and just leaving a note saying I wouldn’t be returning. I spent all weekend debating with myself on how to deal with my exit and decided that I could at least keep the place on my resume if I bowed out gracefully. In my gut, I knew something would most likely derail me from having a graceful exit, but knew it was the ‘right’ thing to do so I gave my two weeks.
The bullshit they put me through after I quit was insane. The CEO holding my check for deleting emails. They were convinced that since I wouldn’t reveal my new job title, place of employment, salary informaiton, etc… that I was going to work for a competitor and was ‘hiding’ something. They accused me of vandalism (which is a criminal offense, not civil, so in order to prusue that, they would need to press charges on me) and said that I had managed to delete emails well enough to be hidden as their IT person couldn’t retrieve them. They said that I was clearly much better with computers then I had always led on. I threatened legal action on them, demanded my check in full (I went there physically) and asked for a reason of why I wasn’t getting my check (I had been coached by a lawyer at this point).
They said they were holding my check for damages caused to their system as I destroyed company property. I asked them to provide me with paperwork showing I not only A) was aware of a computer policy and signed it, but B) authorization a deduction and/or garnishment of wages. They provided nothing and I said that my lawyer will be in touch with them shortly. They laughed at me as I walked out. I really think they thought I was bluffing.

The lawyer said to report all of this to the Labor Board of my state and they were sent a letter demanding full payment to me within 3 weeks or they would be sued on my behalf by the State. I received my check the next day along with a ‘bill’ outlining what I owed them since they called an IT company to come out and try to recover these emails.

I laughed at it, filed it away, contacted the state that I was paid in full (after I cashed the check) and told the lawyer I received the ‘bill’ and the phone call at my new job. We were one more form of contact from them to suing them for harassment and retalitation, but I haven’t heard anything sense.

What really happened to the emails that cannot be recovered is that those idiots didn’t backup their systems on the Friday I left so they were unable to recover anything. About 90% of my correspondence was done with people inside the company anyway, so I said to just go talk to the other employees for this ambigious information and ask them to show them their received folders. They kept claming there was ‘an important email’ that I didn’t forward to my CEO prior to my departure. When I kept asking what this email said, no one would tell me what it was and said that I had already caused enough damage. There was no important email, they were just trying to snope to find out where I had gone and why.

The boss was 73? I take it this was a family business?

Yea – the boss was 73. His son was the VP of Ops and best friend was the CFO.

Doing you a favor by offering you a job? What a pig your boss is.

This is eerily similar to a job I just left a couple of months ago. It was a family business, the boss was 72, and I spent most of my days sending emails for him, since he didn’t know how to send them himself. And I was about the 6th person in the position in 2 years! I’ve been considering writing my own VWJ story, but I have a feeling people might think it was an accidental re-post of this story if I did.

This does sound like a pretty hellish experience. Incidentally, you *were* wrong to delete your emails, they were company property – but you were absolutely right not to let them keep your paycheck over that. Stupid of them not to have an IT policy.

I also think that some of the problems stemmed from the fact that you were more assertive than they were expecting a secretary to be. That can happen when someone is overqualified for the position. I’m sure that they were embarrassed to realize that you were smarter than they were and they probably resented you for it.

It’s also pretty standard to inquire about a departing employee’s future whereabouts. For example if there was a file they couldn’t find in the first few days after you left, they would want to know how they could reach you during the day. But I can understand given the circumstances that you didn’t want to have any more contact with them.

The old coot being 73 explains a lot. The guy comes from an age when men would have their secretaries running back and forth typing up their bullshit on a standard typewriter.

Over the last 20 years, we have had technology that should eliminate this office practice, but some men can’t let go. They love having people run around for them, typing up their red-ink scrawls like it’s fucking 1946. It is all about control.

The Boomers need to go. They are the only thing that is keeping us from fully embracing modern technology. They need to pack up their 8-track players, their manual typewriters, and retire.

OP: Good thing you didn’t use your key to go clear out your belongings over the weekend! They probably would have accused you of theft or something.

@Jeff – It wasn’t wrong unless there was a specific email policy in place. Otherwise, you’re implying every employee must keep every email always? It’s the company’s responsibility to both have a policy in place and have a proper backup system. If email is so critical, then keep them on the server by default until backed up. If she’d formatted her hard drive, that’s one thing, but removing email from her inbox? Harmless.

Glad you got out, OP!

The employers sound bad for a variety of reasons, but I gotta side with them when it comes to using “no problem”, when answering in the affirmative.

It’s a sloppy, overly-casual, and inappropriate for business situations, a good 50% of the time.

When a superior asks you to do something, answering with “no problem” does suggest that you’re granting a favor above and beyond the call of duty. If I were boss, I’d think to myself, “Yes, it’d better be no problem, since it’s your job duty, knucklehead!”

I know that those who habitually use the expression only say it to mean “okay”, or “aye aye!”; but it sounds slightly belligerent– as if saying “no” was an equally valid option, but you’ve thought it over and decided that it wouldn’t be a problem.

When a friend, or colleague of equal stature, asks you to bring them something, or do something; it’s totally appropriate to agree by answering “no problem”. When a boss, or a customer, requests the same, it’s appropriate to say “yes”, “sure”, “certainly”, “okay”, “of course”, or a dozen other things. Only “no problem” ain’t one of em.

@Lisa – I simply have to disagree. I think it’s just an acknowledgement whatever was asked and a positive thing. I see your point, but I think anyone who is putting that much thought into someone responding with ‘no problem’ is simply looking for error at that point. At least that is what it feels like to me.
Then again, I don’t necessarily ‘do well’ when I feel constrained to the point to where when I’m getting fussed at for simply being polite. I always said it with a smile.
That company had much bigger fish to fry then my polite response of ‘no problem’ when I was asked to make copies or asked to type emails for people.

I think Jeff hit the nail on the head. You were simply over qualified, over skilled and should have been in a upper lervel position so that your suggestions for improving the standard of work would have been welcomed and valued rather than seen as insubordinate. Your bosses sound like nightmares but it was the wrong job for you regardless. I’m glad you found work you love, OP!

Oops not sure how autocorrect came up with the word “lervel” for “level”!

Shea – If your company gives you an email account at work, they own everything you do with that e-mail account. They may not forbid you from ever deleting any of your e-mails, but you can sure bet they don’t want you systematically deleting them when you leave. Those e-mails do not belong to you. While you are correct that a company should have an IT policy in place and regularly backup the email server, not doing these things doesn’t change the fact that the company owns the data, not the employee.

OP– you suspect that they were being hypercritical toward you, in objecting to the use of “no problem”.

I, for one, have personally been irritated by this phrase for years– at my own workplace, and also when servers in restaurants use it when I make a request. Not irritated enough to ban the phrase, or admonish the person saying it, but irritated nonetheless— sounds like the person using it is granting a favor, when they’re simply being asked to perform their agreed upon job function.)

It’s quite possibly just a habit that irritates people, vendettas aside.

Lisa – I have to agree, I think it was more of a habit that annoyed the boss and his wife, or more of a pet peeve. Retrospectively I can see where I may have been sensitive to that because of all the other nonsense going on, but I did hear others at work use the phrase and they were never told not to use it.

@ Jeff – This point was all discussed with me after the fact. I just thought I was removing liability from myself and the company. To imply that I vandalized their systems is incorrect. One has to be intentionally causing harm and that was my main qualm (on top of them trying to ‘charge’ me for it. That was illegal and they had no grounds to hold my payment even if I did it intentionally to harm them. I never denied it and I apologized for the mistake, but I was not trying to harm their company nor was I trying to be slight during my departure. It was just doubly confusing because I have watched other employees there delete dozens of emails so I didn’t really think it was going to cause a problem.

I’m sorry, but I completely disagree with you Jeff. Short of the company providing her with a written policy that she was required to sign, she could do whatever she wanted with those emails (e.g., deleting them, saving them, etc.)

Even if they DID have a written policy, it would never be clear enough to cover regular daily/weekly/monthly deletions of stuff you don’t need anymore and deleting everything in your inbox when you leave the company…it would create a ridiculous gray area with a lot of loopholes. “So, you’re telling me it was totally okay for me to delete those 20 emails on Monday, but now that it’s my last day I’m not allowed to delete a few more? Oh, that’s cool…I’ll just leave one random email in my inbox then.” Where do you draw the line?

As for my company email…I delete stuff on a regular basis either because it’s crap that doesn’t apply to me or it’s relevant for about 5 minutes and then it’s just taking up space. Everything else gets filed away in my Email Archives and you can bet your butt that I’ll delete every single one of them the day I leave this job…in fact not only will I delete them, but I’ll first back some of them up and save them on a flash drive first. Why? Because it’s total CYA for any issues that could arise in the future…saving those emails (and even printing out copies and taking them home) have already saved me from losing out on almost $500 worth of travel reimbursments because I had emails telling me I HAD to take my personal vehicle to a training class. When they tried to claim that I’d been given the option of a flight and rental and chose to take my own car so I was SOL, I told them that no, they were wrong and here are the emails to prove it; gimme my money.

these people are lunatics! I agree, I would have wanted to run out when that idiot threw the paper at me but I understand what it is to be broke, and figuring you can just put up with it…..congrats on getting out when you did. I hope you have done better since!

Call 911 – If you’re too stupid to understand the difference between deleting occasional emails on a daily basis and mass deleting everything in your e-mail account the day you walk out the door, I pray you don’t actually work in emergency dispatch where someone’s life could be in your hands.

Why is it so hard to understand that an email is just as much a piece of the company’s property as the keyboard you type it on? Deleting day to day emails as PART OF YOUR JOB is no different from shredding old memos or throwing away a used pen. You are employed and therefore entrusted with the ability to create and destroy company product. However, once you resign, and you are no longer allowed to dispose of company property, that deletion can be considered to be conversion or destruction of company property. Do you think it would be proper to see your ex-employee (or even soon-to-be-ex employee) standing over the shredder with a stack of papers in his or her hand?

Moreover, having an entire FLASH DRIVE full of said emails leave the building is a wonderful goldmine of intellectual property theft, identity theft (depending on what is in the emails), and is what sends the employment lawyers’ kids to private schools.

You don’t need a “tangible property policy” to tell you that you cannot steal the chair you sit in or the box of pens or reams of paper. If caught stealing a printer would you say “OMG, like I totally did nothing wrong because the company never told me I can’t take their property?” But when faced with deleted emails or files or other digital property, people simply whine and huff and post on message boards that they “didn’t know” their ignorant behavior was actually wrong.

Okay – I spoke with two attorneys about them holding my check over this whole issue when I was dealing with it. Both attorneys said the company made a mistake by never educating me or letting me know that deleting was not allowed and that this was all grey area, but they can’t try to enforce something that was never there nor that I was ever made aware of. Furthermore, they can’t hold my pay from me since there was no documentation at all stating I agreed with that, etc.
I am not ‘whining’ or ‘huffing’ about it. I apologized and tried to offer help to find whatever it was they were looking for. (I even forwarded a great deal of communication to other people that day as requested of me). They instead wanted to say I had violated them and performed a criminal act. What I did was not criminal and I didn’t deny I did it. I made an honest mistake.
I thought my reasoning was good becuase I had everything about several members of that company except their social security numbers (but could easily get them if I needed them). The email could be accessed outside of the building on another computer so I figured if anything, I was HELPING them remove liability so that information couldn’t be accessed from outside their walls as I had entered the email system from my personal computer while employed.
Regardless, I will obviously now never do that again. I have learned from it. I didn’t want them to experience hardship, I wouldn’t jeopradize myself like that intentionally. I simply thought that they might accuse me of some form of identiy theft or something (should that happen) as I had extremely sensitive information at my disposal.

At one point, I even told the VP as well as D that I would be removing all emails from my system on my last day, during my two weeks, and they didn’t blink at that or question it.

I agree with the ‘tangible property policy’ that you are saying – I see your point on that, but I think it’s necessary to have electronic policies none the less to lay out a foundation of what is okay and what is not okay via any form of electronic correspondence. They had no policy, not even an employee handbook about anything in that office. Things just changed on a day to day basis on how things should be handled one day versus the next. I have worked at one office job before this and was actually advised to delete everything before the end of my last day there, so I thought this was a standard part of office electronic ettiquete.

OP – I think your past employers were obviously nuts. Since they apparently had NOTICE you were going to delete the emails, them saying you vandalized property is disingenuous. To re-use my shredder analogy from above, it would be like the soon to be ex-employee, with a giant stack of papers headed to the shredder saying “I’m about to shred this stuff, ok boss?” and have the boss say nothing only to get mad later on.

Ah, I see what you’re saying. That makes sense. I simply have used all of this as a learning tool… there is nothing more you can really do to try to make sense out of it all, LOL. I have lost enough sleep over that place trying to figure out their rhyme and reason for things so it is what it is. I have to say though, it has made the grass on the other side very lush and green. Often you hear the opposite of that, but in some twisted way, I am glad I went through that so I can really appreciate what I do and have now, you know?

Jeff – Are you kidding me? Why do people always fall back to that lame ass excuse? You’re right, I delete emails and have a differing opinion on the subject than you so I must therefore FAIL at my job…please. I was simply trying to point out the fact that it is a complete gray area that is very hard to enforce. Say she gave her two week notice and deleted her inbox over the first three days of those two weeks…whose to say those weren’t just typical “hey I’m getting rid of stuff I don’t need anymore” deletions (because she WAS leaving the company, she didn’t need them anymore) and “I’m intentionally destroying company product” deletions. Unless they provided her with specific instructions on it (such as an email retention policy, but even then those don’t PROHIBIT employees from deleting emails), they have no way of protecting themselves…not to mention any good business maintains backup tapes from their email server…and I’m highly doubting they emailed her their only copy of trade secrets that were lost in her mass email exodus.

Tronner – while I understand what you’re saying, I disagree. There is a HUGE difference between and email and a hard copy memo. Chances are, the memo being shredded is the only copy available, however with emails chances are that multiple people received it or it was backed up and able to be retrieved. She was doing what she though was right because she’d never been told different.

As for my flash drive of emails – you’re acting like they’re full of trade secrets and confidential information. Anything considered confidential by my agency is destroyed per their recommendations, certainly not saved or backed up in a private manner by myself (but it’s because THEY’VE made it clear what is confidential and what isn’t and have properly instructed us on how to destroy it). The things I’ve saved are basically email conversations between myself and another party (usually a supervisor) over personnel issues (but only those that somehow involve me), problems with 911 calls, 911 caller issues, etc. etc. Basically things that I would need to protect myself should a problem arise after I’ve left my dept. There’s nothing to stop people from bringing up problems 5 years after they’ve happened (especially since there’s no statute of limitations on this sort of thing) so it’s in MY best interest that I keep any and all things pertinent to these situations and I have every right to do so.

And these idiots wonder why no one works there for more than a few months. When you hear that from an employee or hear about how ‘hard it is to keep people’ that is a very bit warning sign.

Typo..’big’ warning sign. I wish we could edit our comments!

I also had an AA job where the boss would physically write up emails and have me type them out too!! I can’t believe there is more than one person in the world who does that. My former boss wrote them out though because he had NO IDEA how to even turn on a computer, let alone type and send an email. Absolutely ridiculous! I am so happy you don’t have to work there anymore!