October 30, 2004

>> Loyalty?

[ Rant ]

Grins writes...

"I have been w/ a RE/Prop. Mgmt. Co. for 8 of the 10 years in business. Two person office: Me and The President. The basic philosophy was providing the clients with the same care as you would a family member. Likewise, our families were considered an important aspect of our daily lives. While our families did not socialize, we were acquainted and pleasantly conversant with the various members of both families and extended hangeroners. The President immediately discovered that I was good natured and we regularly bantered between the two of us in the office. Also, there were never any two people who worked as hard as we did on building his company. Customer service was paramount and many times we performed duties well above and beyond the job description. But never were we sorry that we went that extra distance. Although rare, an irate customer would call, casting aspersions on the company's and/or the President's honesty, integrity etc. and I would defend them calmly but firmly. There was no one more honest than The President. I always found it odd that he didn't want to be defended. I thought he was being humble.

Early in 2001 the President purchased another company to enlarge his own. This entire business deal, which took over four months, was accomplished without my knowledge, nor that of most of his family, friends, associates and clients. We worried together that something was terribly wrong with him because his consistant and predictable manner changed and became rather irratic. Many of us thought he was dying because he lost a lot of weight and looked haggard. Finally we were all informed of the purchase. I was just grateful he wasn't dying.

For many months after the acqusition, he spent much of his time at the other office trying to merge and blend the businesses. I continued to run the original office as before. I became acquainted with and came to enjoy the personnel of the other company but our activities did not put us together. Eventually the President split his time between the two offices and added a person in my office.

Because of the larger volume of business, policies that never would have occurred to us suddenly were a necessity. Customer service had not been the strong suit of other office but I doubled my efforts. Pertainent operational procedures from both companies were implimented but soon there were checks and balances on the checks and balances. Follow through became trouble some because any action had to be sanctioned first by the President. For much of 02 I fielded calls from concerned clients wanting to know why phone calls, emails etc were not answered by the President and I would cover for him, giving plausible excuses, placating them. Then, I would give him an urgent message (after message) for him to respond. Frustration in the office became common place and the joy and exhiliration of going to work and doing good work became tedious. Often times, the President would declare that established policies were wrong, yet we were not given the benefit of what he considered the policy or procedure to be. And most disturbing when clients called to express their distress regarding any of the employees, the President never defended us, never gathered information on the transgression but would tell us that someone had taken issue with our expertise, demeanor etc, that we should correct it and never let it happen again.

At various times from December of 2002 to February of 04 I made noises about wanting to quit due to issues arising out of the problems mentioned above. But I stayed on, out of loyalty and because I still felt that I couldn't do better elsewhere. There were no stringent number sick days or vacation days per year. When I required surgery and 4-6 weeks of recovery, my salary was still paid. I came back before the required time. The last surgery in 03 jumpstarted THE CHANGE, (but went on HRT, tried to be mindful of my demeanor though still had problems with hot flashes etc.) While I didn't have young children, others did and regularly brought them into the other office on no school days or snow days or when sick and the day care worker would't take them. One gal had to stay a month in another state for an adoption and it was okayed! In recent years, my 87 year old mother required more care since she didn't drive and needed to go to doctor's appointments. I regularly arranged for church ladies to take her to appointments unless I needed to go into the examination room with her for clarification of instructions. And if I felt I had taken liberties with the amount of time out of the office I was regularly still in the office at 7 or 8 or later as needed and necessary. I always made sure that time sensitive material was ready on deadline. Just as I had been given leaway to take care of personal business during the day, I sacrified my son's award ceremonies, husband's spousal events and parents needs in the evening. I felt that it was a matter of a give and take office policy. So bascially it was a good place to work. In spite of the problems, you felt that there was hope that things would improve.

Oct 03 the company turned 10 years old. I planned a surprise party with the knowledge and cooperation of all the staff and the President's spouse. He found out and she told me that I couldn't hold such a party because after all it was his company and he didn't want it! I had spent quite alot of energy and paid non-refundable deposits on things for what was to be a very small, dignified but happy gathering of people who were equally delighted by the company's milestone. I was stunned and dismayed by the turn of events but couldn't do anything about it. When I looked back on it I should have changed the venue and anyone who wanted to attend could! Hindsight. . .

My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary late in February. On the 18th it became apparent that the President was considering rehiring a lady who had been an employee (and infatuated with the President) who wanted to return to the other office. Those staff members were vehemently opposed because this lady caused more problems with clients than solved them, if she messed up she blamed others and since she had been gone, everyone including the President felt that production & office morale was up. So if she wasn't being hired back on merit, then w...h...y...? But no one wanted to think ill of the President but still didn't want this woman back. They begged me to say something since I had known the President the longest. Not the least bit hesitant since the President and I were quite candid in our dealings, I said I would speak to him. He actually brought it up first, saying that we WAS hiring her back and that the other office was in complete agreement with the decision to hire this lady back again. I suggested that he check with them again. He asked if I knew what their concern was about hiring her again. I said that besides the fact that everyone knew she was infatuated with him, (which was an only an annoyance factor), they didn't understand why he would want her back in the office. Much a do went on, the other office wrote a letter restating all the above. He then recanted that he had hired her back. That weekend, my husband and I held our celebration and had a grand time. The next week was business as usual. When the President was in my office early that week, the banter was lively between him, me and the other employee in the office. It was really wonderful. It was a surprise that the President was in the office on Friday that week. It was a rarity. He was not his normal happy self but very agitated and out of sorts. I repeatedly tried to see if I could do something to help him and was told no. Finally he said he wanted to talk with me. I assumed he was rehiring the lady and said as much. He said no, "but I am going to ruin the rest of your weekend, I am letting you go." I won't go into the gory rest of the story. When I asked why he said that "it was because of my medical and health issues and that I couldn't keep pace with the busy summer work load". I mentioned that I didn't think you could fire someone on the grounds of their health. Then he said he didn't say anything about my health. Well, because he doesn't seek out medical assistance because of his faith, his words immediately jumped out at me and I know full well he said them.

So. I was left not knowing the meaning of loyalty. I suddenly realized that he never wanted my loyalty or anyone elses because he never had it for anyone else! I never heard from the staff either even after I wrote heartfelt letters to each telling of my admiration for whatever quality they held that I admired. I began seeing that the President was not a good manager, would not allow us to do the job he hired us for and was very often dishonest by omission. I began to wonder what about the 8 years had been the truth and what had been smoke and mirrors. I tried hard in the beginning not to allow this horrible event to change me. The last thing I didn't want to happen was for him to "win". While I may have had to have major surgeries and "life events" got in the way, he was wrong to "let me go". By their own admission, none of the other employees cared about the company the way I did. In fact they were stunned by the President's decision to dismiss me. The accountant said that if he could do this to me, none of them were safe. Two have "left" since I did. It was painful to see him make decisions that were harming the company and not be able to do anything about it.

This "time off" has made it possible to do projects that had been permanently put off because time never allowed. It has been somewhat rewarding but knowing I had to find work has been looming large on the horizon. I have no desire to set myself for failure. Not because I am not confident in my abilities or providing those talents to another company, I just don't want to give my all and my loyalty. I don't want to get to know anyone in the office either. I don't want to be mean or nasty to them but besides their names, I don't want to know about their spouses or children or the name of their dogs or their hobbies or what they fixed for dinner the night before or where they are going on vacation. I don't mind knowing all that about my clients but it is far too painful and exhausting to care that much for the people of another company the way I did about those in my former company. But to be that way that means that we will all suffer as a result. My very nature will not allow me to act indifferent or aloof toward anyone, whether it is a coworker or someone in a grocery line. I doubt that I can function if I don't have complete devotion to my next employer. But I fear the cycle will repeat itself.

Now, how on Earth can I interview feeling this conflicted?

Thanks for reading."

01:15 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 29, 2004

>> What's in a name, really?

[ Boss ]

IT Guy writes...

"The guy that I used to work for is actually a successful entrepreneur in a sales industry who decided one day that he would start a software company. He's never written or published software before; he doesn't have any computer experience; he's never worked in a software company, or even a company that has an IT group... yet he was absolutely certain that it would be a piece of cake to sell software the way that he sells his other product. There are so many stories that I could give you guys, but I'll only share one for now.

So we got our main product done, and we were getting together some of the extras for it like packaging and stuff like that. At this point, we hadn't entirely settled on a name for the program. The name that us programmers were using (which I won't give here... let's just call it XYZ) was brief but descriptive of what the program did. We also had a cheaper and less feature-rich version that I was calling XYZ Lite. Well, my boss didn't like this name, because "it makes it sound like it's a worse product than the more expensive version". Well, duh! I didn't argue the point with him, though. Instead I suggested that we could do what Microsoft does and add a fancy word to the end to get a different version. The examples that I threw out there were XYZ Enterprise, XYZ Professional, XYZ Ultra, and XYZ Executive. He loved this idea and decided that we would do that.

So far so good, right? Fast-forward to the packaging and the final title of the product: Enterprise. Not XYZ Enterprise, mind you... just Enterprise. What, are we renting out cars with this program now? Has Captain Picard agreed to do voice-over for the program? It's just about the most vague title that someone could come up with. At least XYZ described what the program did. A product called Enterprise could be anything! Absolutely stupid. And to top it all off, what was the name of the more expensive version? Enterprise Ultra!

I was only there for 4 months, and I have a multitude of stories that are just as bad. I heard later that he ran out of money in less than a year, and had to sell shares of the business to his buddies to keep it going. I guess it wasn't a piece of cake after all."

01:11 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 28, 2004

>> Are you kidding???

[ Fools ]

Kate writes...

"I was working as a manager for a small retail chain, in one of the busiest stores of the company. I'm fairly young, so most people have a hard time believing I'm the manager; either that or my employees think they can pull a fast one on me because they are usually the same age or only a few years younger than me. Little do they know I'm a hard ass. Anyway, we were coming up on the busiest season of the year, and I needed to hire reinforcements to my staff. I interviewed and hired this girl who made an excellent first impression on me: she was well- and appropriately dressed, spoke well, and was confident, and also had experience in retail/sales. Boy, she was a great faker. I scheduled her for training over the next 3 days - the first day she was an hour late, the next day she didn't show up at all. (She called an hour and a half later and said she had gotten in a car accident and couldn't call. She didn't have a cell phone, so I gave her another chance...) The third day she shows up (late, mind you) in JEANS. We had a very strict dress code, which I had made clear to her when I hired her. I told her that she needed to change, and she acted surprised!!! Are you kidding me? So then I tell her that if she didn't change she should just go home. She told me she didn't have a car, she had to get a ride, and there was no way anyone could be there anytime soon. (This is getting exasperating, isn't it??) So I told her to go into the mall and buy herself a pair of pants to change into. She explained that she had no money. I was so fed up at this point that I gave her my credit card, sent her across the hall to Express and told her to buy ONE pair of pants. (I could see into the store, so I knew she couldn't get anything more past me.) So she comes back with 2 pairs (they were on sale, 2 for $20. Hey, I never said she was a bad shopper!) So fine, I figure I scored two pairs of pants. When her shift was over, I told her to go back and change so I could take the pants home. She looked at me like she thought I was going to let her take both of them!!! After all that, she thinks I'M going to pay for her clothes!!!! Are you SERIOUS? So I made her change, and told her not to bother coming back to work the next day. Can you believe the balls on this girl???"

01:31 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 27, 2004

>> Patchouli does not equal bathing!

[ Fools ]

Joanie writes...

"An important tip about perfuming...

21 years ago, I worked at a small newspaper, where we all shared one huge room, with no separations. The only divider was at the front door, separating the front door and receptionist from the rest of us working slobs. I was in ad sales and had the unfortunate luck to sit beside another sales lady we'll call Ann.

Ann, apparently, did not have similar bathing habits to the rest of us in the office. She would come in with her hair stuck out as if she had been shocked, and slept on it (flat on the back, or the side), and she REEKED of patchouli, which only temporarily covered the stench that made it obvious that she did not believe in bathing OR that she believed the patchouli would cover it. When she got warm, her personal bodily scent would overpower even the drenching of patchouli.

The editor, thinking that perhaps it was a physical problem (and not a decision) and wanting to be kind to everyone, had - on 2 occasions - given her $100 to "go to a day spa, or private hairdresser." She never put it to its intended use, and arrived in the same condition after each "gift."

Now, patchouli - like any scent - should be used sparingly, and should only be perceived by someone close enough to touch you. However, we aways knew when "Ann" came to work, because as soon as the front door opened, we could smell her all the way in the back of the office.

On one occasion, Ann had a client at her desk, who, understandably, could not stand her scent. He kept edging closer to my desk, and she would scoot closer to him, following relentlessly. Soon, he was basically AT my desk. I was certain he would jump and run. I could absolutely understand his horror...

21 years later, the scent of patchouli *still* makes me gag."

01:19 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 26, 2004

>> Government Red Tape

[ Rant ]

dragonfly writes...

"I work for the government. Benefits are pretty good and if you are a fool, it is hard to get fired. However, we have forms for everything. Sometimes I'm surprised we don't have to fill out a form to go to the bathroom! Anyway, years ago I worked for a fool who could be the subject of many other stories. We were going to throw away some tools that had broken handles. Some people who worked for another government agency came by and saw the tools. Since they had some spare tool handles, they wanted to take the metal tool heads and fix them and use them in their work. This seemed like a win-win situation for everyone, but my boss said no. She said it would take so many forms to be able to give the tools away that it would be better for us to throw them away. She told me to put them in the dumpster instead. When she left I just gave the tools to the other agency people. Everyone benefitted. We got rid of tools we couldn't use, the other people got more tools, and we recycled instead of tossing stuff in a landfill. Sometimes rules are just too foolish to follow."

01:02 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 25, 2004

>> Follow the Bouncing Fool

[ Fools ]

MontrealGuy writes...

"This is a story of a fool and how he scarred an innocent girl for life. A number of years ago there was a very cheesy fool. One of the people at the C*O level had decided it would be a good idea to have some members of staff up to their family cottage for a bit of a breather after a very hectic quarter.

One the way up to said abode, various carloads of people were speculating on who would be the idiot to wear a Speedo swimsuit at this cottage in front of everyone else. Lo and behold this complete fool appeared at the cottage resplendant in his super extra tight Speedo. Now everyone knew what religion he was to say the least.

But wait, it gets better... as it turns out the C*O has a trampoline. The fool decides it's a great opportunity for him to show off his gymnastic prowess. It should be added at this point that this fool was a short, pasty, kind of fat guy. He didn't exactly posess a massive amount of sex appeal. Anyway, wearing only his Speedo this fool starts bouncing up and down on this trampoline. Higher and higher, at which point the C*O announces that the rule for the trampoline is that when someone's bouncing, someone else has to be a spotter.

I pity the poor girl that had to be the spotter for the pudgy fool wearing next to nothing and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination while bounding fifteen or so feet in the air.

She quit two weeks later."

01:12 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 24, 2004

>> Monkeyboy

[ Rant ]

Anonymous Coward writes...

"This might not count as it was not strictly on the job...during a training course there was this fuckhead whom I'll call Support Column in reference to his real name. He put down the women because they were women and he put down myself and a couple of other guys because we did and said the right things instead of climbing to success by stepping on the heads of others. He was borderline rascist as well as having crappy communications skills and absolutely no self-confidence; merely its uglier cousin arrogance. A bunch of the guys flocked to him because he exuded in massive doses qualities incorrectly percieved by knowlessmen as good leadership, including but not limited to a list far too long to post here. He wouldn't listen to logic, reason or emotion when we tried to show him the error of his ways and was prone to retarded displays of something called the "Happy Dance" whenever he didn't feel like listening to you. The course staff told him outright that he had crossed the line - they told him at least three dozen times - but ignorance is bliss and I guess he just didn't care.

Sadly he passed the course and is staffing it this year. It just goes to show the old curse - TANJ - is right. There Ain't No Justice.

Spoke (also in reference to his real name), wherever you are, remember: nobody really likes your attitude. We're just pretending, because we're supposed to be kind to dumb animals"

01:28 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 23, 2004

>> Cooking Fun and more

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"I work for a rather large company that provides personal care to individuals with disabilities. The home I work in has 4 young adults who use wheelchairs to get around and are quite nice, cool people. My duties include cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes and of course all personal care issues for the clients like showers and phisical transfers, etc..

Anyway, the company's president has been a liberal loon most of her life and a few years back instituted a new policy to help encourage "diversity in the workplace". What this ended up entailing was hiring recent immigrants from West Africa. Most of my co-workers speak little or extremely poor english and can't understand our clients. Modern appliances baffle them to no end. I had to stop one guy from sticking in a couple of full, unopened metal soup cans in the microwave. He didn't understand my explanation of why this is a bad idea so I just told him it would explode and injure him just so he wouldn't do it. He now stays on the other side of the room when I use it. The same guy has to be reminded to put soap in with the dirty clothes when using the washer and to not just rinse plates and glasses off under the faucet and stick them back in the cupboard. After a couple of food poisoning incidents, my boss (also an immigrant from the same area) posted detailed instructions on how to use these wonderous machines. Too bad it didn't work as the employees don't seem to be too keen on reading instructions. I mean, if you can't get them to read the steps on the side of a box of frozen pizza and they ask a client to do it, how are you going to get them to read something a bit more lengthy?

Failing to follow proper techniques actually resulted in a client being injured and later dying due to the low quality of employees that my company hires. I fire off an official complaint to the state agencies about once every month (as I am mandated to do) in the hopes that the problem will be corrected. So far this hasn't happened and the hiring of clueless douchebags continues unabated."

01:07 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 22, 2004

>> A study of the social habits of Homo Sapiens in the office environment.

[ Boss ]

Curator of Large Primates writes...

"I work at an everything-under-the-sun-and-then-some store. Assuming, of course, that it doesn't go bankrupt in the next couple of weeks. We've got several product lines, based around the common theme that, if people don't really want to buy it much, we stock it.

My job? Curator of large primates. I study these creatures and report on their activities. They believe that I'm the computer guy.

The abilities of the computer guy are many and varied. They include, but are not limited to, removing malware from the machines, webmastering, programming, removing malware from machines, moving heavy objects, climbing on high shelves, sorting porn, and removing malware from machines.

The troop consists of seven individuals:

The Designated Log. He was laid off a month ago, yet keeps coming back for more. His duties include auctioning stuff on ebay and keeping track of the Windows install media. He used to handle sales for a product line that the Silverback decided we should stop selling.

The Silverback's Store Business Partner. His duty is to keep up a constant stream of chatter about various events that he saw, was involved in, or caused. Some of them may even have actually happened to someone he heard about somewhere.

The Band Member. His duties (when he's not on tour) include cleaning, moving heavy things, causing paper jams, and all organization that actually gets done. As he's does only the hard work, it follows that he gets paid less than the rest of us.

The Fanboy. His duties include sorting cards and comics, mostly because he's the only one at the store who's willing to be PAID in cards and comics.

The Silverback. His duties include making most decisions, installing malware on machines, downloading pornography, and handling triage for time-dependant work (by sitting on it until it's either irrelevant or an emergency).

The Silverback's Roommate. His duties include keeping us up-to-date on the state of the high-tech world (for example, telling us that the store's website should be a Java applet), giving us the benefit of his five years experience using Lindows (he knows all about any unix program I mention!), and keeping the workstations' Gator and BonziBuddy installations up-to-date.

The Silverback's Internet Business Partner. His duties include collecting 50% of the income from our websites, going on vacation, and telling us that he can work faster than we can.

Some exemplary incidents:

INCIDENT 1 (Sans cherubim)

Designated Log: "ebay took some of our items offline. They say they're infringing copyrights."

Silverback: "What items?"

Log: "They're all ones with videos."

[These items are in a genuinely murky area: the country they were made in did not honour copyrights at the time of manufacture. Now, they are a signatory to the Berne Convention, but that only covers work done AFTER the ratification.]

Silverback visibly cogitates, then comes to the conclusion that, as the videos in question date to the Legal Loophole, ebay must in fact have decided that they were infringing because they were videos. Therefore, the Designated Log should call them clips when he puts them back up. Me: "If you put them back up, ebay will delete your account if they notice."

FIGURE 1:
>--------- ) o o ( ------>
In one ear and out the other...

And a back-and-forth about whether it's more likely that ebay thinks videos are copyright infringements or thinks that it's something about those SPECIFIC videos.

Two weeks later:

Silverback: "We've been kicked off ebay!"

Me: "What happened?"

Silverback: "They said one of the videos was infringing copyright." (And, according to the Silverback, the most likely person to be reporting said video as infringing would be none other than... Silverback's Internet business partner, who interprets the loophole as simultaneously letting him use other people's stuff if it falls in the loophole period *and* preventing other people from using his stuff from the same period.)

INCIDENT 2: (Sans volcanoes)

Silverback's home computer won't access the network. After some poking, I determine that the incredible pile of malware, ad-trojans, and worms on his poor machine has somehow eaten the TCP stack. And, since it's XP, using the new NTFS version, I can't even begin to untangle it. (With a great deal of nuisance, I could. It'll take less time to do a fresh install, though, given how much else the various pieces of malware have eaten.).

His OTHER home computer is "working, but slow". The "slow" probably has something to do with the fact that it's continuously either trying to notify some worm-author of its location, helping DDOS something, or hunting for infectable machines. Same verdict. And, by then, it's late, so I may as well go home rather'n dick with machines all night. It's only been slow for the last few days, after all.

48 hours later, Silverback's "working" machine has been portscanning like mad (his ISP doesn't mind, and he wants to use the Internet...), and it's time for me to reinstall.

However, the Silverback has asked the Designated Log for advice, and his advice is to setup a new XP install instead of a new 98 install. That being the case, we shall wait for the Designated Log.

When's he coming in? The Silverback doesn't know.

(Four hours later, he guesses... "not today.".)

There was more. But I forgot. Mercifully. Except for the bit where there is a large box of seashells blocking all traffic."

01:18 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 21, 2004

>> Entitlement Princess Work Ethic

[ Fools ]

Cha Cha writes...

"The resident Entitlement Princess (I'll call her Eppie) at my office has tested my self control more times than I care to remember. The latest chapter in this ongoing saga occured this past week.

Eppie doesn't like doing anything that is potentially difficult, challenging, boring, time consuming, etc. Not that anyone does. But Eppie believes the shit work is for OTHER people to do. People like me. I'm a researcher, and Eppie needed some research done. Fair enough. However, as usual she didn't want to take the time to determine specifically what is was she needed researched. She submitted a sloppy, half-assed request, fully expecting me to spend the rest of the day cleaning it up for her and making sense out of it. I gave it back to her, and let her know I fully expected her to do it herself.

That's when the fun started. I used to think Eppie was stupid. She's not stupid... she's pathologically lazy. I have never before encountered anyone so blinders-on determined not to do their own work. First she tried the cutesy dumb act, complete with giggling and batting eyelashes. Hello? I'm not a guy. So she moved on to the sullen teenager routine. No soap, babe. Whiney child: not gonna work. That's when she launched into the relentess questions campaign. Calling every few minutes asking me to explain some minor point to her in excruciating detail. It was agonizing, but I didn't cave. Eppie finally filled out her request form correctly.

So I won that battle. But what did I win? A project that should have taken an hour ended up taking 3 days. I documented the incident and brought it up with my supervisor (again) but Eppie has been getting away with murder so long I'm not sure it will do much good. At least she won't be getting away with it with me."

01:10 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 20, 2004

>> No phone line = no fax

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"My timesheet was supposed to be faxed to the office (I work out of my home and just started this job). Our home phone line stopped working so I called the office on a cell phone to ask what to do. I was told to email my hours to the boss and fax the timesheet in later. I tallied up my hours, explained why I was emailing instead of faxing, and sent the email to my boss.

My boss emailed me back, asking if I got my fax working and if so, would I fax my timesheet. I explained again that our phone line was down--we couldn't make or receive calls. I offered to bring my timesheet to him over the weekend. I also asked him to send me the electronic file of the timesheet so I could print them out myself.

He emailed me back and attached the timesheet file as requested. His note said, "here is the time sheet--I didn't get it faxed from you yet." For the third time, I explained why I didn't fax my timesheet. He hasn't replied to that email yet. Let's hope the the message finally got through."

01:05 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 19, 2004

>> The Two Evil wicked witches of the west

[ Fools ]

The Patient One writes...

"There is only two people I trust and like out of our small company of about 20 people in a small office.These two people and I share our exact thoughts of these evil witches. One evil witch I have worked with for about 5 years and I hate her more everyday. She is my age but thinks she is smarter than everyone in the company. She tries to act like a manager even though there is no hope of her getting promoted to manager. She even got buddy buddy with another witch that is a manager that came to the office about 2 years ago.

The first witch tries to reel in the second one so she can use her to learn how to be a manager. And the manager is near retarded level of blonde bimbo. Anyway, the two witches constantly stare and walk by my friends and I feel like they are stalking us. They tattle tale for anything and everything they find out about us. My friends and I just came out of a meeting recently for typing in a personal file about them and the first witch overheard talking about the file and told the boss and we all went into a meeting. The boss said the witches were being petty and all of us need to get along or we're fired. I live paranoid and feeling like I have to watch every move and noise I make because the witches will know."

01:20 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 18, 2004

>> Be bold

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"My former boss was dictating a press release to me. After I presented it to him, he decided he wanted to make one of the paragraphs bold for emphasis. I made the change, but it still wasn't enough. He thought everything in the release was important enough to be bolded. Finally, at the end, there was only one paragraph left un-bolded.

I pointed out to him that now it was the un-bolded paragraph that stood out, and now everyone's eyes would go right to that one first, ignoring the important things he wanted to highlight. I was hoping he'd realize how overboard he'd gone on the bold, and have me undo some of it.

Instead, he said, "Well, we'll bold that one, too."

01:14 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 17, 2004

>> Government Workers are Lazy Morons

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"There's a woman that I work with that is such an idiot that she has alienated just about everybody in our government agency, which employs 15,000 people. She is extremely unreasonable, unhelpful, and generally difficult to work with. Until yesterday I thought she was a moron and couldn't do any better. Then I found out that she thinks that because she isn't paid a lot of money, she doesn't have to do a good job, which means that she isn't a moron at all! It's a caculated act! And finally, today, I have proof: while she refuses to learn how to save a file to a shared drive or attach a file to an e-mail, she figured out how to use a complicated new program all on her own. From now on I'm not going to be as helpful to her as I've been.

***

Another woman, who sits in the cubicle next to mine, is hardly ever at her desk. Since we don't have voice mail, I do the right thing and answer her phone when it rings. But I recently I've seen her walk right past her cubicle and not stop to answer her ringing phone. Forget it. That's the end of my helpfulness to this woman, too. I'm not her private secretary. In fact, I'm not a secretary at all."

01:05 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 16, 2004

>> Crazy File Witch

[ Fools ]

bitchwork writes...

"Ok so years ago I work for a company that paid crappy and treated you just as bad. The only moderatly amusing things about the job was hearing the cumstomers crazy stories and working with a crazy witch who retreaved files all day long. She was in her forties and thrice divorced, by the way from what she said all three were from other countries and she brought them here and all them used wheelchairs hmmm. Anyways when I first started there she seemed ok, just odd. After a few months she started going really down hill. She began to make weird accusations about random coworkers like she had seen them having sex in their cars on lunch or she just knew they were on drugs or drinking at work. She made racist remarks openly etc. Then she got even stranger, this where she really goes full blown crazy, she began to tell us that in her apartment at night while she slept men were coming in and turning her water cooler off and that they tore up all her panty hose and other bizarre antics that I being young found greatly amusing. Oh also she once gave me several pcitures of herself and said she wished I was her daughter so sad. Anyways while working in her room a peice of the file cabinet thing came off I picked it up and taped it to the side of it so that it would not be lost and maybe someone could fix it. Well when she returned to her room she notices and apparantly thought that someone who knows who had planted some type of listening device in her office! She alerted everyone she came in contact with and when I heard about the mass confusion I felt really bad and went in and explained to her what had happened. I even had to take it off of where I had taped it and show where it used to fit to get her to understand it. Shortly there after I got moved to another department but I continued to hear awful stories about her wierd and nasty remarks to people. One more funny thing she did was ask why we put up little bunny decorations and when we told her about Easter coming up she said she was inspired to write a poem about it all and laughed manically then she worked furiously on the poem for days and when she finished she posted it an employee board with her name on it. The poem was something like about a man and woman falling in love and him being called home to heaven it was very insane to say the least!!"

01:16 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 15, 2004

>> Thou shall not..

[ Boss ]

rocketman writes...

"I work for the government. My female co-worker and I were recently reprimanded by our "weasel" supervisor for not pumping out enough work and spending too much time being "freindly" with one another. Before you jump to any conclusions, I am a hetro, married man and she is a lesbian in a committed relaionship.

In any event, our supervisor Niles wanted to see more work out of us. We agreed to work harder, but when we went to his office to ask for direction, he was on the internet looking at road-racing sites and sending personal e-mails on company time to his running buddies for their great athletic efforts.

To make matters worse, we both had our government vehicles taken away because of government cutbacks, but he was rewarded wiht a new Chevy truck because of his leadership!

Long live this website!"

01:22 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 14, 2004

>> Loser or User or both!

[ Work ]

miss wong writes...

"My husband and I have an adult foster. He is retarded and has Post Traumatic Stress related to a fire in which he lost his hands and severely burned his face. As a result he has serious fear/anger issues and can be scary when he gets set off. We work through an agency that hires day program workers and respite workers who are unfortunately, often low life losers who think they can make full time money for basically "baby-sitting". We had one woman who was a real piece of work. Mouth like a long shoreman, got married at 16, husband in jail for drugs, 2 kids and living with the inlaws in a trailer til husband's release. Every other week we have team meetings discussing the progress of the team and the individual and every meeting we keep remnding every team member who has not had the pleasure of seeing it, just how bad it can be if this guy "loses it". They all say "Of course, we understand, no problem." Finally after 6 months of this, the guy loses it with this woman. She had picked him up at our home and less than 10 minutes later she's back saying "I'm not going to put up with this crap! No one ever told me he'd do this! I quit! I've got another job lined up working at a prison." leaving us high and dry. Now she calls another team member on the phone and tells her that we are druggies and smoke weed all the time with the foster at home and will she back her up on that in a management meeting? The other worker says NO WAY. I never saw any sign of that and I don't know what you're talking about. So she applies for unemployment saying the working environment was so bad and so stressful that she was forced to leave. She was trying to blame this all on us with entirely fictitious claims. So we talk to the head of the agency and he says "Don't worry about it, we're not. Consider the source." Good for US but he proceeds to let her claim unemployment.This really burns my butt that she can get paid for lying and if anyone makes any waves we get investigated and possibly lose our livelyhood and the agency could lose their accreditation as well. So we are all forced to sit tight and let her take money! Oh, BTW she did NOT get the other job either. Low life loser scum!"

01:20 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 13, 2004

>> Backstab

[ Fools ]

Guy writes...

"I work with a non-profit organization involved in a variety of social programs and projects. However, my office is constantly in turmoil with one employee. You know the type: been there for 20 years, thinks she knows everything, can't really do CRAP, screws everything up, talks bad about everyone behind their back to everyone else, plays dumb when necessary, tries to act like she could have solved a recently corrected dilemma 'if we had only asked her,' etc etc etc.

Anyway, SB (as we'll call her) had been bitching steadily to our new CEO for a while about nobody including her in anything, which was basically true, so the CEO sent out an email to the rest of us asking us not to 'gang up on SB.' Since I really like my boss, I decided to give SB another chance the following week.

My organization had been sitting in on a series of meeting among several other non-profits in the community with the goal of getting some federal grants to build a homeless shelter, which the community badly needed. Personally, I had attended the previous three meetings to work out a collaboration between the homeless project and another project that I am currently running. My boss had made it pretty clear to me that he wanted us to 'sit in' on the homeless collaboration meetings, but not really join the inner circle of agencies who would be doing the real work. We could possibly be in a position to contribute funding 2-3 years down the road, but could not lend any real expertise to the programs as it was.

In a foolhardy attempt to follow orders and include SB, I asked her to attend a homeless meeting that I was going to miss. I made it VERY clear that I just wanted her to go and take notes, and NOT to do anything or volunteer us to do anything. It pleased her to be involved again, and I got the admiration of some coworkers for being so civil to SB. However, the next day after the meeting, SB was starting a week long vacation, and I arrived at the office to find a stack of paperwork on my desk concerning the homeless project, from SB. It included directions on how our organization should fill out the forms to become an official member of this coalition (which my CEO had expressly forbidden), and made reference to the fact that SB had told the coalition that they COULD US OUR ORGANIZATION'S LEGAL NAME on all their paperwork until the coalition had applied for a new non-profit tax number from the IRS. Not to bore you with details, but this could mean that we could lose our non-profit status with the IRS for a few reasons.

I took this packet to my CEO, who was hypersensitive to any issues with SB at this point. He read the packet and declared that I read SB's intentions incorrectly, and she did not mean for us to apply for membership or for the other organization to use our name. In his defense, SB's grammar is SOOOO bad that it's not uncommon for two people to have fundamental disagreements over the meaning of her emails.

A week later when SB returned (and my CEO left for 3 days), I politely asked her about the paperwork. I had been right about her wishes. She claimed ignorance about the CEO's requests for us to stay uninvolved. Whatever.

There was another meeting of the homeless coalition that day, and again I asked SB to attend in my place. At this point, I just wanted to stay clear of the thunderfuck which was evolving. She agreed, but seemed really unhappy about attending. She went to the meeting and came back a few hours later, unable to tell me anything that transpired at the meeting. Later, I get a call from my wife about the meeting. See, my wife works for another non-profit in town, which had been sending my wife's supervisor to the homeless coalition meeting. Her supervisor had told my wife that SB had gotten to the meeting and proceeded to blame our organization's inactions on ME, instead of explaining that the CEO didn't want us involved. She simply stated that she had left all the paperwork for our application and the legal name stuff with me while she was on vacation, and that I simply hadn't done any of it. I was furious.

Also in the room where she said all this (in addition to MY WIFE'S SUPERVISOR!) was another non-profit executive whom I contract with on a private basis to develop and maintain a website, and another executive whom I deal with on 2 OTHER PROGRAMS!

ARRRGGHH!!!! To top it all off, when my CEO returned later that week and told SB in no uncertain terms that we were not going to be involved in the homeless coalition, this bitch had the nerve to come over to me and whisper 'Well, I KNEW we shouldn't get mixed up in that committee anyway.' This after she offered the use of OUR LEGAL NAME AND ADDRESS to the group, and volunteered us for membership!"

01:01 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 12, 2004

>> The Computer Speaker Caper

[ Fools ]

El Jeffe writes...

"I work for a public safety department for a large University. About a year and a half ago, the department upgraded all of their computers to new fancy Dells. When they ordered the computers, they specifically didn't order speakers for the computer at the dispatch desk, because they didn't want noise from the computer interfering with radio transmissions. Makes sense huh?

So we'll fast forward a year. Over the summer, the majority of the students move off campus, and everything in the office is calm and tranquil. Actually, it's quite boring. So one of the dispatchers pulled the speakers off one of the other computers, so he could listen to music and what not while in dispatch.

Three months go by with those speakers at the dispatch desk. THREE MONTHS.

Then one day, I come in to find out there's been a massive investigation launched as to who "stole" the computer speakers from the other computer. Confidential reports have been taken... statements written. I'm absolutely dumbfounded.

So my boss shows up for work and asks me if I know anything about the missing speakers. I said, "Why yes I do, in fact, I've solved the dastardly caper. They're right there, where they've been for the past three months." as I point to the dispatch computer. At this point Sgt.Schultz (name changed to protect the profoundly ignorant)"Those aren't the missing speakers, I saw the speakers at that other computer a week ago." I explain that in fact he did not see the speakers there, as they had been at the dispatch desk for THREE FRICKIN' MONTHS. We proceed to go back and forth, and the conversation escalates to yelling, and then screaming.

Finally, my boss asks to see the department's property log, which has serial numbers assigned to various expensive items in the office. Sure enough, 30 seconds later I was proved right. I proceeded to lose all professional decorum and do a victory touchdown endzone dance in the middle of the office while shouting warcries of "YEAH, IN YOUR FACE BITCH." To which Sgt. Schultz would only respond "I don't care what it says, those speakers were in there a week ago, and somebody must have stole them then brought them back and left them at dispatch."

Don't you just HATE people who have been proven wrong with concrete evidence and STILL think they're right?"

01:09 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 11, 2004

>> What's her malfunction?

[ Fools ]

Strong Bad writes...

"I teach Spanish at a junior high school. I share practically all of my students with a drama teacher down the hall since they rotate halfway through the year.

One of my students invited me to bingo night in his neighborood. I thought this would be a good chance to meet his parents. Well, his other classmates were there and one of the kids let it slip that the drama teacher is talking smack about me.

"Mrs. Caca [made-up name] is telling us that you cannot control your class," one of the kids told me. I bit my lip and wondered what that meant and I took a mental note.

I asked Mrs. Caca about that when I got home. She, of course, denied it.

Other students complained that Mrs. Caca was badmouthing other teachers. The typical comment would be, "All your other teachers might let you act like demons but I am a professional who will make you behave."

I was down in the dumps because I wondered if I was such a bad teacher. Then one parent said that I should not feel bad. She said that her son [Dojo] enjoyed learning in my class. The problem, Dojo's mama said, was that Mrs. Caca is a dictator and makes the kids submit to her will. Mrs. Caca demands complete silence and expects all other classes to be like hers.

I find it troubling only because Mrs. Caca will smile in my face and then talk a load of smack about me (and other non-boring, non-pretentious teachers).

Obviously, she didn't get hugs when she was small!"

01:04 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 10, 2004

>> Whole office of fools

[ Work ]

Fool helper writes...

"Years ago I worked in a large manufaction company in a office clerical position. My story is about two fools in that office. One gentleman in a supervisor position used to fall asleep at his desk during working hours. (At the time we worked second or third shift) He would pick up a sharpened pencil before falling asleep. We (the fool helpers) would wait until we were sure he was asleep and then silently creep up and take the pencil out of his hands so he wouldn't stab himself when his hit the desk.

The other fool was so insecure that when ever several people would get together to discuss work in a separate room with the door closed, she would come open the door and invite herself to the meeting so she would be "up-to-date" with what was going on. We soon got wise to her tricks and from then on, we would leave the door open and we were not bothered from then on."

01:15 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 09, 2004

>> Liars Never Prosper...except where I work.

[ Boss ]

FedUp writes...

"I work at a flower shop/produce market. I don't work there full time (thank GOD), but I get about 30-35 hrs a week.

Anywho... a friend of mine had applied for a job at this market for about a year. His first 2 applications he handed in were ripped in half and disposed of. Hm...ok. The 3rd aplication was miraculously taken into consideration, and he was hired.

He was scheduled to work Monday and Tuesday, 10am-5pm for training that week.

So Monday morning comes, and, we'll call him Tim, arrives at 10am for his training.

My manager then informs Tim that she "forgot" he was coming in, and had hired somebody who had moved back home.
Rather irate, Tim returns home to explain the situation to his roomate. After venting, Tim decides to speak with the owner of the store, explaining the situation. The owner calls down to our store, and speaks with the manager who had supposedly hired Tim. My manager denies ever putting Tim's name down on the calandar to work, and the conversation ends.

The next day, I stroll into work to get a bitch-in-the-face from my manager, telling me what my friend had done and how she never wrote his name down on any calandar (mind you I saw her write his name down). So standing there in complete shock, I'm thinking "why are you bringing me into this...". So later on that day, I'm doing the usual bitch work...and under a pile of old newspapers that I was instructed to throw away...a calandar appears. This isn't just any calandar...this is the calandar with Tim's training schedule on it.
To this day I've yet to show my findings to my manager."

01:22 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 08, 2004

>> Keyboard Klassic

[ Fools ]

techsupportwife writes...

"Im the wife of a tech support guy that has loads of stories similar to many already posted here. One recent event had me wishing for the "rain of fire and flood of oil and following rain of more fire" he often prays for after a long day of dealing with total morons.

He recently upgraded the computers for a local medical building and then installed the same billing software that that company had used for years. After he returned to the office he gets a phone call stating the "insurance page" is not functioning. He asks for a detail of the problem and the person on the phone proceeds to inform him that when she presses the insurance button, the insurance screen does not open. Familar with the software he asks what insurance button she means. She then states that the new keyboard has a button marked "insurance" and that she assumed that was the key that led to the insurance screen. He asked what the button looked like and she said "It has INS written on it."

It seems that her other computer was so old that the insert key label had worn off. With the addition of a new keyboard she saw the "INS" and assumed since it was a medical computer, it was a medical keyboard.

He had to explain that this was an INSert key and not an INSurance key, and apparently she was very disappointed. She wanted to know why there was no insurance button.She then asked (about the SAME software they had been using all along!) how she was supposed to open the insurance screen to do her job??? He asked her how she used to open up the insurance screen. She told him and he responded that was how she shoud do it then. Some people think new computers equal less work, boy are they often wrong!"

01:10 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 07, 2004

>> Consultants

[ Work ]

Why_Me writes...

"So I got my job from a guy...let's call him Topher. When Topher left my current place of employment, he recommended me for his old position. He left the job because he didn't feel appreciated enough or something of that nature. He pretty much just up and quit, not having somewhere else to go...just up and left.

Fast forward nearly 4 years later.

Topher was contracted to write some custom software about 2.5 years ago, sold it to another company, and then flailed out on the deal, not meeting deadlines, etc. The other company switched to another program since they weren't going to put up with his shit any more. I pushed for us to keep the software, and I now maintain it.

One thing to note about Topher is that you can't tell him no, and he is NEVER wrong. When I was doing the network side of things and he was doing the custom software, I told him I wasn't going to set up some software for him the way he wanted (not even critical to what he was doing), and apparently that night he had a near nervous breakdown and probably destroyed some inanimate objects in his room. Topher, at one point shortly after he left my company, became so angry with something that he destroyed his computer and SEVERAL other _expensive_ bits of electronics in his room with a hatchet. This is the level of maturity I'm dealing with at work.

The fun really started when my boss contracted with Topher to help with some network streamlining and maintenance, even before he'd finished all the software stuff he was obligated to do. His reasoning for this is that it would let him work on something besides the software side of things, thus recharging his batteries. He decides the way the network was set up previously wasn't at all right and restructures EVERYTHING, causing downtime (E-Mail was down for 2 FULL DAYS at one point, effecting 500 or so users) and other malfunctions.

He somehow convinced my boss that re-installing EVERYTHING on our companies 1000+ computers would be a good idea over the summer. An insane 2-3 month schedule was worked out, which included several weekends working ALL weekend. My boss left for a 3 week vacation in the south-west last Sunday. On Monday, one of the sites that Topher took down had one of the business manager's people stranded and in need of network access to DO HER JOB, so Topher VERY reluctantly restored her network access. Several more events like this happened, to the point where my co-worker (we'll call him Jim), got fed up with him as much as I have been these past couple years.

Everything really hit the fan when he asked me "What are you working on now?"
"This report, that report, etc., etc.)."
"Oh, OK."

An hour later he comes into my office:
"Yea, I talked to Dave (one of my Boss' bosses) and he says that stuff you're working on can wait, so you need to free up your schedule so you can come out with us to the site on Wednesday"
"I don't think that's going to work"
"Well, you need to free up your schedule" as he walks off.

Wednesday comes, I'm out getting a diagram printed, and he calls me up:
"Hey, where are you at?"
"I'm headed out to get this thing printed."
"Well, you'll need to meet us at the site afterwards."
"Sorry, I'm not doing that today."
"No, you're coming over to meet us at the site after you get done."
"No Topher, I'm not doing that today, OK?"
"Fine."

While I'm getting the diagram printed, I get a call from Jim who informs me that Topher has changed several of my accounts settings and other petty stuff like that. Luckily, I'm able to get into the servers and change everything back before I returned, so nothing terrible happened.

You see, in Topher's mind, my boss has put him in charge of Jim and myself which simply isn't true. If anything, we pull the plug on what he's doing, no vise versa. Since he didn't get his way, he decided to go home, drink some vodka, and if he was feeling better, come back. After some of the idle threats he had made after the incident Monday, we decided enough is enough, and locked our shit down but good.

We've decided that he really shouldn't come back until our boss gets back and we'll sort it out then.

Now I'm just worried our boss will still want him around..."

01:26 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 06, 2004

>> The Slug

[ Boss ]

Henry writes...

"I for a publishing company in the UK, on a particular magazine. Things were going well until they hired a new editor who is straight out of the Hell's Angels (almost literally, he used to be a biker). Anyway, in this great lumpen's wisdom he brought along as chief subeditor a woman who was once banned from the magazine, and indeed the entire company, for being a 24 carat Problemator. In short, she is nuts. She'll sit at her desk and burst into tears for no reason at all and even if you wrote a piece like Hemingway, she'll chop and change it simply so she can say to people, "I wrote that." As I say, she was kicked out of the company for similar behavior and it took this new dickhead editor to argue pationately for her return (for reasons that only God could possibly understand because nobody else does). Anyway, the magazine in question is a men's magazine, and she is a feminist. Within a week of her starting she'd decided that most of our editorial is sexist and has to be cut (in future this ended up costing bags of readers, but hey, who cares?). Her job is strictly as a spellchecker, but the Hell's Angel lets her exceed her station and encroach on job areas that are not her province at all. Spellchecking and fact-checking are her sole province and she can't even do that properly... Anyway, she's always walking behind you while you're writing a story and trying to read your monitor to make sure you're not writing nasty emails about her. If she even suspects you are, she'll go straight to the Hell's Angel who'll haul your ass in and proceed to breach just about every Human Resource rule ever written. Indeed, then (as we call her) The Slug will walk around triumphantly. She looks almost exactly like Cartman from South Park, only with platts in her hair...and Cartman is funny. So far she has cost the mag two writers and the previous chief sub and she's constantly striving to have everybody else sacked. None of this is selling magazines, and her behaviour grows more intolerable by the day. She's a drunk, for instance, and will bugger off to the pub for most of the day, and when she comes back of course no work has been done. So then she'll cry and complain that it's everybody else's fault that the work isn't done and the big stupid Hell's Angel will take it out on everyone but her. He is going to get sacked one day and it'll be her fault."

01:13 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 05, 2004

>> The Boss

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"My office has been running fine for the past 4 years with the current management. But all that changed when my former boss (and head of the department) decided he didn't like writing 15 reviews every quarter so he appointed our office manager as head of our group in the department...this is something I and 2 others were already doing quite well. The funny thing was she had no idea how anything worked because she was just a glorified admin assistant, and now we were in a position to teach our new manager how to do our job. And to top that off, we now had 4 managers for about 15 people...it was the dumbest decision in the world.

So the plan was us current managers would keep all of our responsibilities and the new manager would simply make sure we were headed in the right direction. Boy did they lie! Instead she's been treating us like common supervisors, making all decisions for us and not allowing us any say about the people we manage. We recently hired a new person and he was designated for my team. I pointed out that another team had just lost someone and was in more need of a person than I. She basically responded like, "Aww, that's so thoughtful of you to be concerned, but I think he will do better on your team." It was so condescending I wanted the throttle her.

So us 3 "supervisors" got together and made a complaint to the head of the department after we could do nothing else. But she's got him in her pocket (or as we like to assume, giving him some love under the desk) and he basically shus his ears when it came to any concern we brought up about her.

And in addition to her annoying micro management, she shows up at 11am and then yells at one of the other managers for showing up at 10 and setting a bad example...dead serious. We have an open floorplan and as soon as she gets in, I have to put on my headhpones and jack up the volume until my head hurts because she has this horrible habit of popping gum ALL DAY LONG. I mean like 8 hours of loud-as-you-can-get gum popping. You can hear it down the hall...and she does nothing to stop it even though she knows it annoys people. She does it in meetings too when people are giving presentations.

I've decided that she just doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself...great management!"

01:14 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 04, 2004

>> Mandatory empty time sheets!

[ Fools ]

Mudshark writes...

"So I'm a salaried worker (termed 'exempt' in our state) and my witch office manager has demanded that we are to hand in time sheets every two weeks. That's not so bad, the employer must account for time somehow even for salaried workers, and because she's a lazy type of witch, this is how she has it done.

But check this out...the time sheet cannot have any TIME entered onto it, it must be empty. And if I don't hand it in ON TIME it holds up payroll! How does an empty time sheet hold up anything including payroll?

This is a no shitter!!!

This kinda crap drives me nuts..."

01:36 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 03, 2004

>> Super Amazing Man

[ Fools ]

Grape Ape writes...

"He's done it all.

He's been a Navy Payroll officer. An ordinance loader. Program Manager. DBA. Software designer. Architect. Minor-league baseball player. Street racer. Collegiate football linebacker. Soccer coach. SCUBA instructor. Certified Sanitary Inspector. Card puncher. CFO of a University. Turned down CEO to be a bottom-level analyst as a sub-contract to a sub-contractor.

He's the Taj of India, the Mahatma of Persia, and the Princess of Tasmania. He was a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. He airlifted ebola-infested monkeys from Africa and ditched the KC-135 in the South Atlantic to contain the outbreak. . .swimming for 32 days and nights to reach Iceland. Turns out it was too cold, so he continued swimming to Morocco.

He was on the grassy knoll. He was at Ford's theater. He has a crush on Jodie Foster. He was the mechanic assigned to Vince Foster's jet.

He has a big blue ox named babe, lays golden eggs, and sells real magic beans from the back of his customized, 300-foot RV.

Some folks tell that he's 300 years old if he's a day. For no mortal man could possibly achieve as much as he has. A thousand men over a thousand lives could not see half of what he has seen. Do half of what he has done.

Well, I say. . .it only takes 30 seconds to come up with a line of bull$hit. I can do that before even getting out of bed in the morning.

I hate that guy."

01:20 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 02, 2004

>> Self-Centered Needy Fools

[ Fools ]

I wanted to puke writes...

"I worked with a girl who was so needy. She happened to be on vacation in NYC on 9/11. Back at the office we were, of course, concerned about her safty. But when she gets back home, she doesn't talk about how scary or awful it was, but goes on and on about HOW IT RUINED HER VACATION. I think about 2800 other people had a worse day. And people actually sympathized with her!! Oh, how awful the stores were closed! How awful the Statue of Liberty was closed It must have been just AWFUL. The boss was a good friend of hers so when I didn't act concerned about her vacation being spoiled, she took it out on me with lots of crappy jobs.

Needy #2 would cut out obituaries for people who had died in her town (small bedroom community). It didn't matter if she only knew them in passing or knew them 20 years ago. It didn't even matter if it was a child who died. It only mattered if it had been reported on TV. Then she would take this newspaper clipping, put it on her desk, and sop up the sympathy as people would come by and say "Oh, did someone you know died?" She would act very sad and say "Yes, We lost one" She barely knew most of these people. That is just sick! Once again I was looked down on by my boss for not being sympathetic to her plight. What plight?

When they got a new computer system the didn't train me on it (we'll train you later)and then fired me for poor performance because I was having trouble with the new system. Boy, I sure was glad. (Got unemployment too, I think they were afraid of a hostile work environment lawsuit:)"

01:02 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

October 01, 2004

>> From "Suit" to Janitor

[ Fools ]

jimbo writes...

"I was in my 20s and had the first really important sales meeting of my career. Two of us had set up a lunch with the vice president of finance of an investment bank, and had prepared a presentation that had taken weeks to put together.

I had just started working with this JERK that month. He wanted to do the presentation himself, but I didn't know how much he wanted it.

We arrived early at the restaurant to wait for the "head man" from the bank. As for me, I had dressed to the nines - blue pinstriped suit that cost a month's salary, perfectly knotted silk tie, starched whiter-than-white shirt, cufflinks, freshly polished black shoes that put me back more than I'll admit. Impeccably groomed, neatly combed hair - the works. I felt like a million bucks. The JERK had gone casual - although we had planned on doing the suit thing.

We were sitting in an outdoor restaurant. The waiter brought a jumbo pitcher of iced tea. JUMBO. The JERK picked it up - why? who knows? - and stood UP to pour it. The waiter reached out to help him - but he insisted. It slipped. And fell. On ME.

The first splash fell directly on my tie, shirt and suit jacket. The next hit the trousers. But the bulk of it landed smack!

All over my expensively shod feet, thoroughly soaking the mirror-shined shoes and fifty dollar socks with sticky cold tea.

He stood in shock. "This isn't happening..." At that moment, the boss walked in....

We had to find something for me to wear. The waiter took me into the kitchen. The best thing they could come up with was a custodian's jumpsuit. So I traded the tailored pinstripes for a custodian's outfit and waited in the kitchen in my bare feet, my clothes piled on the table - a formerly dignified coporate "suit", exec in training. I looked like an exhausted janitor. The jerk went back to the table and explained that I wouldn't be able to attend the lunch because of an "accident". I was beyond embarrassment. I was beyond anger. The two were fighting together inside me - I felt like exploding. The waiters and busboys, though, were great - though I think they enjoyed the spectacle a little bit.

He got the job. I left the company a year later. To this day, I don't know if he did it purposely. I think he did, but I'll never know."

01:30 AM - Posted by Disgruntled