A few years ago I was working in sales at a company with a very interesting boss. This VP would do and say things that would just make you shake your head in disbelief. For instance, this lady who was making well over $200,000 a year at a $40million company could not leave a hotel without stealing towels or their soap dish. But by far my favorite story about her was when the two other directors and I were in a bitch session meeting with her. We were complaining about the hotels that our $100 limit would afford.
My co-worker said, “Our limit is so low and we often hit these cities late at night. So we end up driving around bad neighborhoods.”
Our boss responded, “Well J, if you are driving around and you see a bunch of niggers, just go to another hotel.”
Needless to say, my jaw hit the ground.
My Very Worst Job lasted only a month, but it was a month full of tears, moments of insanity, belittlement and a second month devoted to looking for legal advice. My long term contract at a previous job had come to an end after a year and found myself out of work in the midst of the recession. A little panicky, I took the first job I could as an administrative assistant at a snow plow company in the midst of summer. How hard could it be?
My first day there, they had me sign all the paperwork. One document was a form letter of resignation. I questioned this and was told everyone has one on file and that lots of places were doing this (red flag). Not wanting to rock the boat on my first day and desperately wanting to keep the job, I reluctantly signed the document. There was a large television set up in the office, but I was told we weren’t allowed to turn it on. I was also informed that we were under constant surveillance (there were cameras all over the entire facility), our computer activity was monitored and there was apparently audio surveillance, which I know is definitely illegal in our state. It also came to my understanding over the next few days that our entire lives basically belonged to the company and you could be asked to stay late, come in early or work off the clock with little to no notice, despite any other engagement or obligations you had, like say an urgent vet appointment or a weekly class which was “no problem” during the interview.
There was also a clear gender distinction, as in all the women were office help and the men were the managers or sales reps, who were also given a heightened sense of power. At any time my desk could be rearranged and my papers sorted elsewhere by a sales rep who didn’t think it was clean enough. The main sales rep also liked to micro-manage and hand out snide remarks whenever the opportunity arose:
Him: “Oh, your late.”
Me: “Only by 2 minutes.”
Him: “You’re still late.”
It became pretty clear to both sides that this wasn’t working out and I was actually relieved when they fired me after only a month. You would think it would end there, but it wasn’t so easy. After I reapplied for unemployment insurance again, I got a letter stating that the validity of my claim had been questioned. It turns out that the company submitted the letter of resignation they made me sign as proof they didn’t fire me! Fortunately the unemployment office believed my side of the story and I didn’t have to take further action.
MVWJ was at a Mediterranean pizza restaurant. I was in high school and tired of always being broke so I applied to almost any job with a “Help Wanted” sign. I met M there and was hired as a waitress from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, I didn’t make it to the weekend to figure out my schedule.
My young mind ignored the abundance of red flags that went up. They never threw away any food, no matter how stale. I didn’t see M or the other cook, A, ever wash their hands and the dishes were never properly or thoroughly washed. I didn’t eat there so I didn’t say anything about the hazardous handling of food. Aside from the occasional table in the ghostly restaurant, I took phone delivery orders. People would order strange things not offered on any menu, I’ve ever seen but I would take the order anyway thinking the customer was someone who has ordered from there before. M would scold me in broken English about not knowing the menu, I’d apologize and try again.
I became very irritated at M attempting to reprimand me thing that weren’t related to my job at all. I was scolded for not eating, he said, “How can you sit for hours and no eat?” I thought to myself about the food poisoning I would get if I did so. Another part of my job was to warm up individual slices of pizza, that was served on plain paper plates. The dirt cheap thin plates that couldn’t hold much. I would double up on the plates so they’d be more sturdy. Again, I was bitched at. I quit at the end of my shift, I didn’t go back for my pay.
I had a lot a bad jobs but the worst was working in an office with my bad boss. She had obviously no managerial experience but because she married into the family-run business, she got a high position immediately. I was desperate for a job near my home, which it was, tired of long commutes, so I quickly accepted it.
Right from beginning she was a horrible boss. She took sides and made snide comments, especially of a coworker she would catch looking at porn websites. “E was looking a naked men instead or working. Hehe,” she jokingly teased at our meetings before the store opened. The rest of us would stare at one another in WTF? fashion. Every morning was a different one, she would either snap or bitch at us randomly, or just start bitching from the get go. When we asked for our paychecks, since they were hardly ever on time, she would throw payroll papers at us and snap, “Well, you do the payroll then!” She would also inform us of her mensturation cycle, how much it hurt and that she was PMSing. Along with detailed accounts of her and her husband’s methods of making a baby through in vitro and others methods, it was all so nauseating. She would also moan and whine about how her husband made her move from Detroit, and how much she misses having girlfriends.
I avoided as much as I could because I needed the money and through lots of turnover, I had seven jobs: Front Desk Clerk, Receptionist, Warehouse Receiver, Trainer of New Employees, New Orientation Presenter, Sales Assistant and Merchandiser. I worked my butt off, and didn’t even have time to finish at the end of the day. She would turn off the light in the office room and when I would protest, she said unexpressively, “You’re still here?! Go home. Now.” Once she watched impassively as one mean girl kicked me on the butt while I was walking down the hall, laughing aloud when I tripped and stumbled.
Finally, I had enough and I told her that I couldn’t do everything. She said, “Well, what do I pay you for then?” I said she was unfair. She looked at me like I just called her the worst thing in the world. Like How Dare You, Peon?
I should’ve quit right then, but I REALLY needed the money. So stupidly I waited until she fired me, which was six months of this hell.
May 26th,2010
Bad Bosses,
Firing Squad,
Management Behaving Badly | tags:
bad boss,
cashier jobs,
Detroit,
family-owned businesses,
getting fired,
porn at work,
receptionist jobs,
workplace bullying |
12 Comments
After college, I was interested in copyediting and layout, so I answered a Craigslist posting for a gig doing just that. It turns out that the guy was self-publishing (ha!) these two books he wrote, one about his travels fucking his way through Europe, the other about his time in jail for crack-related offenses. It was unpaid for now, but he promised monetary compensation once his other projects started bringing in cash. I was naive, had some money to live off of for a few months, and thought it was going to be OK.
The guy was clearly an ex-junkie, if it wasn’t obvious enough from his (not actually bad) book. He had a zillion ideas for making money, most of which sounded vaguely promising to a green kid. He was contacting other authors whose books were out of print, wanting to handle the reprinting of their books. He had designs for an eco-friendly business and entertainment directory in our city. It all seemed on the up and up, and I wanted to get behind the eco-friendly thing.
I would meet with him a few times a week to go over the revisions I suggested, and we’d discuss the book. When discussing the “fucking his way through Europe” book, he asked me about my sexual orientation. I told him I was a lesbian. He pressed for further confirmation, as if it was any of his business as a boss significantly older than his intern, to know. Weeks went on, his crazy stayed at a minimal level–he would try to give me clothes he found at Goodwill that didn’t fit me at all, he told me increasingly bizarre stories about his ex-wife etc. I just got more and more uncomfortable around him.
Eventually, after being privy to a long ridiculous tale about how his ex-wife destroyed his life, I stopped returning his emails. So he called me. I have blocked out most of the conversation, but in it, he told me that he never believed me when I said I was gay, that he was just trying to feel me out because he wanted to fuck me. He told me that I shouldn’t be surprised because all the girls in the “fucking around Europe” book were significantly younger than he. I told him that I was going to hang up the phone, after refusing to “start the conversation over”and did so. He called me back several times in the next half hour, and I silenced my phone every time. He tried me a few more times over the next few months, but I recognized his number. And then, eight months later, I answered an unknown number…which turned out to be him.
Now I’ve completely changed careers and am much happier. But still, there is a reason I don’t answer unknown numbers any more. Both numbers I have connected with him are under “DO NOT ANSWER” on my phone book. Since he was a freelance crazy, there was no HR to report him to. The whole experience is still a little hard to describe. On the bright side, even working with middle schoolers can’t be as bad as working for him.
