July 2009:
I was working in a cinema company and was ready to quit my job because my manager was clueless, underperformed and he made me do my colleagues’ and his work because he knew that I was the only person in that department who would get things done.
August 2009:
That manager got sacked so I spoke to my CFO regarding me getting promoted and he seemed to keen with the idea. I was jumping in excitement thinking that this might be the time for me to shine. Until that CFO quit his job and the new CFO, AA, came for replacement.
October 2009:
In the beginning, AA seemed to support me with the whole promotion idea.
Me: So how and when do we start the probation? Have you discuss this with the HR Department?
AA: Who needs the HR Department when we have the CEO to back us up?
He added some extra work to the job, such as being his messenger to the COO, who he didn’t want to talk to, and spying on several people in the office on his behalf. It was outrageous, but I took it on my shoulder anyways because I wanted the promotion. I finished the probation after three months in January 2010.
AA: There’s a problem with your probation. I’m having difficulties with the HR Department and they want you to have another three months probation.
Me: WTF?!! I thought the CEO would back us up?
AA: See, the problem is you’re not the only one who’s getting promoted. There are several people from another department and they deserve to be promoted as well. And the HRD have decided that all of you will get promoted altogether by April 2010.
Me: How much will I be getting anyway?
AA: Ummm…20% from your initial salary.
Me: But that is not the standard salary of managerial position (head of department) and that wasn’t even half of the former manager’s salary.
AA: Well, we’re not really looking for the managerial position. What we wanted is you to “act” as a head department like what you’ve been doing so far.
Me: But the work itself is “real?”
AA: Don’t be childish. Sometimes things aren’t always fair.
Me: (*swearing inside my brain)
A week later, I gave him my resignation letter and gave one month’s notice. After I quit, I found out that he lied to my CEO when my CEO asked him of what has happened. He told him that he tried to lure me with a bigger package, but that I just wanted out. I knew that because I got the forward email he sent to my CEO by a person who was also cc’d in the email.
MVWJ was bartending at a sports bar. A so-called friend of mine got me the job and I had a lot of fun at first. The bar was owned by a husband (J) and wife (B) and they seemed pretty cool at first. There was an upcoming pool tournament that I would be bartending so I was to get there at 8am to set up and get everything started and the owners would be serving food. I got there five minutes late since the electricity went out that night, and I got yelled at. I apologized profusely and we still had an hour to get ready. As the pool tournament started, it got unbelievably packed. I was making drinks as well as taking food orders. At this point, I could hardly even get out of the bar to bring J the orders. I had to push through all the bodies of people rammed up against the bar and I’m a small girl at 5’5″ and 105 pounds. During this time, I had to act as my own barback as well. With 200+ people, me the only bartender, and no barback, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.
About two hours in, when orders were flying, J screamed at me that I also needed to bring the orders out. I told him that I was having a hard time just bringing him the orders and making the drinks. He told me he didn’t give a shit. I somehow worked six hours doing this non-stop. At long last, I had a break and I grabbed a bottle of water and started drinking. This is when my so-called friend came into the bar, telling me that since I am not doing anything I need to wipe down the bar. I looked at her and told her I just got to drink some water. A regular customer actually told her that I was working my butt off and this was the only time I had a chance to stop. She told him that she’s worked non-stop herself before. He told her, “No you haven’t.” She then started trying to boss me around and I told her I didn’t need her help and she needed to get out of my bar since I was the bartender on duty. This didn’t make her happy.
It was finally the end of my shift and I had everything cleaned up and the owners were back in. My so-called friend came in to work, and as I was sitting there, drinking a beverage, she was on the phone telling me loudly enough so everyone can here that J said if I wasn’t there on the dot tomorrow I would be fired. So, I did a really crappy thing and quit. Oddly enough, J called me the following summer and asked me to bartend again. I told him straight up that I wasn’t going to put up with the crap I did from last year. He said “okay” and told me I would have a barback every night. Turned out false. I’d close alone at night and walk to my car alone. I was always afraid of getting jumped. On top of that, I was the designated whipping girl. Anything and everything was my fault. I was so happy when J went back to his hometown for a month and his wife took over. During this time, the barback was a known man-whore and slept with every female bartender and most of the regular female customers. I didn’t fall for his charm and I didn’t realize he was a good friend of J.
One night, the barback was playing pool and not helping me. I lost my temper with him and told him he needed to at least help with the ice. On top of that, the two times that I went to the restroom, a drunken regular kept going behind the bar to make her boyfriend a drink. I yelled at her to cut it out or I’d have to kick her out (she was also a good friend of J). The very next day, J came back to town. But the next day I was at the beach and I got a call from J saying they were missing $50 and told me to call him when I found out what happened. So I call the girl I had worked with and she told me she found it and that everything was fine. The following morning J calls me and yells at me for not calling him about the $50. I told him that my co-worker said she found it and was even talking to him when I called. He said that didn’t matter. What mattered was he told me to call him and I didn’t. I apologized, again.
The next day I went into work just to get fired. He told me that several “people” claimed I had a free for all at the bar the day before, meaning I let everyone behind the bar to make drinks. I told him the only person who got behind there was the drunken regular customer and I even gave her a warning. He said he didn’t care. It was what he heard. He even said that he heard I was always late. Which I was not. I asked what proof he had. He said it didn’t matter, it was what some people told him. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere without payment for having wasted gas driving there when he could have called me and told me. He did give me some money. What happened next was shocking. He moved back to his hometown because he and the wife were getting a divorce. The wife took over for a month only to burn the place down in an attempt to get the insurance money. The last anyone heard from her she was on the run to Florida.
I worked at a call centre for travel insurance in the UK. I was there for a few years and went beyond my duties. Not only did I do the job I was paid for, but I also did my supervisor’s job when she wasn’t in, trained new employees, monitored colleagues’ calls to see if they were saying the proper things, organized things in the office to lift morale, such as “for every five insurances you sell, you get a raffle ticket for a new iPod” and so on. I also went in on my non-scheduled days to attend training courses to get more things under my belt. I did all of this without getting paid extra.
My annual review was always perfect and I received a pay raise each year because of it. So when a new supervisor’s assistant position came up I knew that I was more then qualified for it. I put in my application for it and sold myself pretty well on why I should get the job. There was only a handful of people who applied, because the supervisor had to approve you before you could do it. So I was almost certain I was going to get it since I was more qualified then anyone else who applied. I waited…and waited…and waited, but heard nothing and didn’t even get an interview.
I came to find out that someone else (who had way less expierence then me and often left early because she had hip problems) got the job. When I asked why I was over looked for this position, I found out the reason was because I am tattooed. Mind you, this is a call centre, so there was no face-to-face interaction with customers. And at the time I worked there, I didnt have any tattoos on my hands or neck. But because the higher ups didnt like tattoos on females, my application was tossed away. I left a couple months later and I now work in a tattoo shop as a body piercer. And yes, now my hands and neck are tattooed.
I was 15 and worked nights at a fried chicken take-out store after school. My bosses were a husband and wife with enormous chips on their shoulders (as you often encounter in the food service business). They would alternate nights.
One of the employees was a deliveryman named Amos: sweet, fat, jovial guy with six kids and meager income. After work one night, Amos returned to order a combination dinner for his family (the combination was 12 chicken pieces, two sides and two dinner rolls). The rolls came in sheets of six, each no bigger than a wallet-sized photograph.
Amos’s order was at the height of dinner rush. Wife boss was on. I was in charge of preparing the sides and packing. Knowing that Amos had a large family and was a colleague, instead of the usual two dinner rolls, I decided to pack six. I gave him a smile and packed the next order.
Next thing I knew, wife boss sharply turned her head to meet my eyes and hissed, “I saw what you did. Go home now!”
Frightened and unsure if the extra rolls meant my job, I removed my apron and walked home, her words still ringing in my ears, the look on her face etched in my mind.
The next afternoon, however, I received a call from wife boss asking me to cover another employee who called out. Although it was Saturday, I happily complied, figuring that she had come to her senses about this pettiness and all was forgiven.
When I walked in, Amos was standing there, tail between his legs. Amos didn’t work Saturdays.
Before I added it all up, husband boss raged in from the back, “You stole from me!”
He was talking to both of us!
“All you had to do was ask! I’d give you anything!” he shouted and threw a wad of money he had prepared for this speech on the floor and it scattered all over the place (nice touch).
My adolescent 15-year-old mind was too timid to react.
“You steal from me again, I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head and throw you through the fucking window!”
Scared and in disbelief, my lower jaw and chin snapped back and tightened, I thought that I was going to cry. I knew that if I spoke just one word, tears would have burst forth. I slowly pulled my apron off over my head, and began to walk out.
“You’re leaving?!” husband boss asked incredulously.
I still couldn’t talk. Amos stayed. He had to.
“This is what separates the men from the boys!” husband boss yelled ineffectually to the back of my head.
I was free.
MVWJ was when I was 14 years old. It was at a fish market in a farm stand that was a bike ride away from my parents’ house. A friend worked there also, and it started out gross but ok. We would cook some dishes to sell, sell raw fish, and had to clean up before and after opening hours.
After about two weeks, I realized the boss was completely insane. She would come in, accuse us of “writing off’” items we needed to prepare the fish and really stealing them (what 14-year-old covets parsley so much that they would steal 5 bunches?). She would have enormous cases of frozen fish delivered, or fresh fish on ice, and would always conveniently not be there for the delivery. This soon left me (weighing barely 90 pounds at the time) to try and drag 40 and 50 pounds crates of fish through the entire stand and to the back room, unpack them, store them, all the while tending the counter and cooking the prepared foods in back. I strained my neck so badly one afternoon I couldn’t turn my head to the left for two days.
Because fish can be nasty, there were heavy duty chemical cleaners also, I started wheezing badly after about a month and asked my boss if the chemicals might be irritating my asthma. The boss scoffed and told me to “toughen up.” I finally had to tell my parents how awful it was when I couldn’t carry in a huge crate with 75 pounds of expensive salmon inside, and had to beg my mom to drive down and help me carry it in. She saw the container of cleaner, clearly indicating on the side that a fume mask was required, and told me to quit. That night before closing, the owner gave me a form to sign indicating that I was an “independent contractor” and was therefore not covered by her liability insurance, she insisted I sign before I left.
My mom is a legal genius, and later told me the form was null anyway because I was a minor. I quit via telephone after I told my mom about the form and she refused to let me go back.
On top of the nightmare boss? I smelled like fish for an entire summer.
