Boss From Hell

Arachnophobia

This email was forward to me by Al. It's from his daughter's boss who seems to have a little aversion to spiders.  I can't help but have a mental picture of "Dave" barricading himself into his officer, taping up all the cracks and securing the flaps of his trousers. I can see him with binoculars keeping an eye on staff members at lunch time and making them go through security check points when they come back into the building.

Irrational fear mixed with irrational control issues.

 

 

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"All,

Another spider was spotted in the office this morning.  In the six years we’ve been here we haven’t experienced a problem with spiders.  We don’t have spiders breeding or living in the office.  There is no food source for them.  So, any spiders spotted in the office are being brought in. 

It seems that recently more spiders are hitching a ride into the office from unsuspecting employees.  I’ll have some spider traps purchased to deal with these uninvited guests.  However, since they are coming into the office from outside, I need everyone’s help in dealing with this. 

Please be aware of where you spend time on breaks and lunches.  Any time spent under the trees outside of the building provides opportunities for a spider to hitch a ride on you when you return to work.  Please be aware of this and help prevent unwanted hitch hikers. 

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dave"

This guy is certifiable and creates a hostile work environment of perfectly natural occurrences of a "Spider" in the office, where do these people come from?

Al

Delphina

Well employees - I was recently contacted by Lara Celenza and she sent me a link to her short film that she has made. I think it's really good.

 

Here's the email...

Hello,

   I'd like you to check out "Delphina", my short film about mobbing in the workplace. It's set in Italy where mobbing and sex scandals are a commonplace.... so I thought of making something funny and a bit surreal about the absurdities of office life. It's the story of an extremely dedicated office nerd who leads a double life. "Delphina" is a zero budget project and most of the people who took part in the movie were temporary workers who were experiencing mobbing for real... It was recently presented at the Crime & Punishment Film Festival in Istanbul in the context of movies about justice and the workplace. I hope you enjoy it and maybe feature the movie or a short clip on your interesting blog!

Lara

And here is a link to the film

Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QejzzPoWaIc

Full movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD8XyhzL8Wo (PART 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akcpx76gY2o (PART 2)

Enjoy

Nice and Smooth

Warning, this post contains a complete despot who uses some choice language. I love it when foreign people swear in English with a heavy accent. For me it's like listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter or hearing Angelina Jolie call my name - I never tire of it...

 

Anyway, what I also love about Jacques is this is someone who has existed and will continue to exist in a bubble. Completely out of touch with not only how to speak to people who work for him but probably reality itself. Enjoy.

 

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I had been warned about Jacques even before my first interview.

I was told that I’d meet his PA, if I passed that I’d meet the Chief of Operations and if I passed that I’d meet the CEO, Jacques himself. This last meeting was apparently highly unlikely, but that didn’t put me off. I needed a job and this seemed like an interesting company to work for.

I completed the first two interviews fine and when I was leaving the second, I stepped into the lift with two other employees. They asked if I had been for an interview and asked who it was with - when I told them it was Paul the COO, they smiled and said I’d be lucky NOT to get an interview with Jacques. Needless to say I did. The actual interview was ok. He was a little erratic and a bit intense but it was fine. I got the job.

Jacques was half English and half French. His accent was a bad mix of both, dropping in the odd french word here and there. He came from a very good family and had spent some time in the French Foreign Legion as an officer. I’d later suspect that he was probably in the Foreign Legion for about five minutes as he was pretty useless at most things. Managing (or commanding as he liked to call it) staff was no exception. He was a man who liked to be in control and know exactly what was going on, just didn’t “know” what was going on or have any understanding thereof.

He would rule with a rod of iron or like to think he did. He was an awful people person and was probably the most inappropriate boss I’ve ever had. He would often come out and shout about how our IT company were “ass raping” us with their charges. But anyway, I digress.

There were many incidents that I’d heard of relating to Jacques and other people that worked for the company. I have no doubt he’ll appear in the blog again - there’s probably a book to be written about him but first things first.

One day I was sat at my computer when he breezed in. He said ‘good morning’ to me in a very odd way and when he got into his office and sat down, I noticed that he was staring at me. The phone then rang and he called me into his office. Once in there I stood as he leant back in his chair hands together (as if in prayer) placed under his chin. He started waving his hand towards me, “What’s this? What’s this?” I was confused. “I’m not with you,” I replied. “This, THIS...” he gestured harder, “Your tie, where is it?” I checked my collar, true enough there was no tie. “Oh I seem to have forgotten it today,” wrong answer. Jacques stood up, puffed his chest out and started to pace like some kind of fire and brimstone cockrell. “YOU! are the Office Manager, YOU! are the face of the office, the company and it’s up to YOU to set and example to everyone else. Your lack of tie is unacceptable! Find one now.”

I think I bought a tie and as I was adjusting my ‘double windsor’ in the mirror, I actually had to check myself and reassure myself that this incident had just happened. It had. I then kept a spare tie in my drawer just in case.

A few days later, it was like Deja-Vu. Same greeting, same walk to the office, same staring through the glass, same phone call and eventually same spot in front of Jacques. Again he started waving his hand towards me, “What’s this? What’s this?” I checked my collar - there was a tie. “I’m not with you,” I replied. “This, THIS...” he gestured harder, “Your face, your stubble (pronounced stooble)?” I checked my face, there was a slight growth from when I’d shaved the day before. “Oh I didn’t shave this morning...” wrong answer. Again Jacques stood up, puffed his chest out and started to pace like the same fire and brimstone cockrell. “YOU! Are the Office Manager, You! are the face of the office, the company and it’s up to YOU to set an example to everyone else. Your stubble (stooble) is unacceptable! Don’t forget to shave again.”

As I shaved the next morning I again couldn’t believe that I’d again had a major dressing down for such a minor (non existent offence). I then kept a razor in my drawer, with my tie...just in case.

A few weeks later I’d forgotten about Jacques’ aversion to facial hair. Although I’d shaved the night before, I’d grown a little overnight and not shaved again in the morning. Thankfully I didn’t get the walk past in the morning so my prickly protrusion went unnoticed until we had an email outage then we were off. First came the shouting in the office at his computer, then he marched over to my desk and started waving his arms around shouting about the IT company “ass raping us” and “treating us like school girl hookers” (all in his distinctive accent). Mid rant he noticed my stubble (stooble) and went off on a tangent rant using his favourite speech, “YOU! Are the Office Manager, You are the face of the office, the company and it’s up to YOU to set and example to everyone else. Your stubble (stooble) is unacceptable!” He then moved the rant back on to the IT company before retrenching back into his office, slamming the door. Almost immediately I got an email with the header “Discipline”

“James,

I am your boss and I expect my orders and commands to be followed. This is the second time I have to tell you about your lack of shaving and it is unacceptable. It shows lack of discipline.

Please remember that I look to you to set an example to the rest of the office.”

So, the next morning I was fully shaved and working on my computer. Suddenly I felt a presence behind me. I heard breathing. I didn’t move and then suddenly I felt a finger brush down my chin and heard a husky laugh in my ear. It was Jacques. “Yes!” he proclaimed. “That’s what I like. Nice and smooth...” he started to walk off before pointing his finger in the air, “NICE and SMOOTH!” He clapped his hands, walked into his office and slammed his door.

I think this may have been the first instance of Jacques strange behaviour directed at me but it certainly wasn’t the last! I guess that means I need to write some more...

James, 30, London

 

Charity Begins On The Phone

 

Well, the last post notched up nearly a thousand hits and is still going! Comments were posted and though it's always good to inspire interaction and debate - the anonymity of the person posting the story is incredibly important to this blog which is why all names, company names and Boss from Hell names are changed. so if you did post a comment and it's not there, it's simply because I wanted to protect the source (how very pullitzer of me!).

And so, moving on to this one. And yet again another one that just beggars belief at the existence of such a person. Reading the stories and interviewing the contributors of this blog suddenly make films and TV shows about office life, work and terrible bosses seem relatively tame. There's also a sense that when people read these posts they don't think their experiences can compare until they start talking about them. When you're surrounded by insanity everyday it suddenly becomes the norm. It's only when someone asks you about your day at work and you nonchelantly drop in that request to keep an affair secret or having to travel forty minutes for a special breakfast muffin that it all starts to become apparent that you have a Boss from Hell. And if you do, I want to hear about it, so why not drop me a line sirliamjstratton@googlemail.com

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Lydia gave me my first job out of uni. I studied psychology and really wanted to get into the charity/volunteering sector so started volunteering myself at a small charity, set up by Lydia. After about six months I’d “proved myself” and Lydia invited me to join another charity she was in the process of setting up with her husband. I was flattered and excited at the prospect of a real paid job, doing something I really wanted to do. Lydia had created a job for me, I couldn’t be happier! I also really liked working with Lydia, she seemed like a warm genuine person. The relevant phrase there is “she seemed...”

There are many things that made Lydia a Boss from Hell and I probably won’t list them all here. I suppose these are the highlights...well lowlights at least.

The first instance where I realised things weren’t as they seemed came quite early on. My new role was the merging of a few different roles following the departure of another manager. Brad was a lovely guy and had been head-hunted to join a major national charity. Knowing what I know now, I imagine that new job or no new job, he would have left anyway. As his last day came to an end, he stood up and in front of the whole office said, “I wish you all the luck in the world...keep your wits about you. Here are the keys.” This didn’t go down very well with Lydia or her husband. In fact her husband grabbed Brad by the throat, pinned him against the wall and told him never to disrespect his wife again. To say the atmosphere was a little thick...

So, Brad left and things seemed to be quite normal. I actually questioned whether I’d imagined the Brad incident. Then things started to really kick off.

I was at a mates birthday drinks and when I looked at my phone I noticed I had about fifteen missed calls from Lydia. As I was looking at the the phone, my Dad called and said that Lydia had called him to find out where I was. He was my emergency contact so she must have got his number from my records. I also discovered that she’d called my landline and my parents landline. When I called back she said that she was in A&E and really needed me. Apart from the fact she barely knew me, where was her husband. So I trudged down to the hospital only to find her fine. She said she’d had a panic attack but was fine. She really appreciated me coming to be with her and the next day at work bought me a lovely bunch of flowers.

A bit odd, yes, but these things can happen. But it happened again and again and again. Eventually I started to ignore calls etc. When this happened she’d call another member of staff and they would go and see her. I’d then be on the blacklist and would be ignored have files/papers thrown at me. However when I did answer the call, I’d get flowers, chocolates, lunch. There was no middle ground.

During one of the nice days, she took me aside and told me that she was having an affair with the guy who did the maintenance at the building our office was in. She swore me to secrecy, I couldn’t believe it. Her husband worked for the same charity! She told another girl in the office as well and one day I saw Lydia watching this other girl and the caretaker chatting - nothing sordid just passing the time of day etc. I went home that night and all seemed fine, got in the next morning and this other girl was in floods of tears. Lydia had been bombarding her with text messages all night calling her a “cheap whore” and warning her off the caretaker.

When Lydia got in she asked me my opinion of this girl and if I thought she was carrying on with the bloke she was carrying on with. I didn’t really know what to say. But after another week of continued abuse, this girl left. Looking back she could and should have taken them to the cleaners but both her and I were only twenty-one. First jobbers. what did we know?

So the affair continued and the phone calls continued. I discovered that the phone cals were down to the fact that every time she had a row with her hubby, she ended up at A&E. Let’s just say they rowed a lot!

When I started working with Lydia she was a big girl. She rapidly lost weight. I don’t know if it was the affair, the stress of work, stress of the marriage but she went stick thin. The caretaker eventually left and their affair ended but it didn’t seem to matter to her as she already had another four or five men on the go whom she’d met through social networking sites and dating sites. And yet she still had time to end up at A&E on a regular basis.

She’d pop pills and chew Valium like they were sweets. On a journey to a meeting once she was driving and told me she’d taken some, just before she went all drowsy and we actually crashed. Wasn’t a major smash but still....

At meetings she would refer to me as her sister. in a very serious way. Not, she’s like a sister - more like she IS my sister. It got really inappropriate at times. Well all the time in fact.

After a certain amount of time dealing with all this, it was me that needed the Valium. She turned me into a quivering wreck. I’d sit there at the weekend waiting for the phone to ring. I’d expect the 2am texts - I was almost on first name terms with the staff at A&E, I felt like I was an extra in ‘Casualty!’

The final straw came one Christmas. It was Christmas Eve and my family had all gathered for dinner and drinks. For some reason my phone wasn’t on/wasn’t working but I didn’t realise. For once I didn’t have the texts or obligatory phone calls. I should have known it was a little too quiet. The landline at my parents house rang and my mum came in looking a bit pale. Lydia had screamed down the phone at my mum that she needed me immediately. As I got up to take the call I could feel everyone looking at me. I walked as slow as I could and when I lifted the receiver to my ear the abuse came thick and fast. She also told me that she thought she was pregnant by the caretaker. After five minutes I was told that if I didn’t get down to A&E straight away, I would face the consequences. She hung up. I went back to my Mum and Dad and just burst into tears. I told them everything and they told me to do what I should have done a long time ago. Leave her to it. So I did. Not only did I not go down to A&E but I didn’t go back to work in the New Year.

I was a bit afraid of seeking new employment as the charity sector was so small and Lydia knew everyone. On the plus side everyone knew her and what she was like. My first proper job was truly a baptism of fire. So when Brad told me to keep my wits about me when I first started, I never realised that working with her would drive me to my wits end!

Jodie, 29, Manchester, UK

 

1000 Hits: If Music Be the Food of Love...She's on a Diet!

Well, the last post went absolutely insane! Nearly 1000 hits in about three days and still going but I wonder how many of these readers have had their own Boss from Hell? If you have, I would love to hear from you (sirliamjstratton@googlemail.com)

Many thanks and keep reading!

If Music Be the Food of Love...She's on a Diet!

Who'd of thought? A bad boss in the music industry? Surely not! The thing that gets me about this story (if I may have a rant) is that people want to work in the music industry and most will do anything/work anywhere. This Boss From Hell is clearly one of those that has not only taken advantage but milked everything out of her workforce and in doing so damaged their view of the industry. Yes it's a competetive industry bit come on love...

 

Anyway, such was the negative feeling of Vicky that she really wanted to name and shame this Boss From Hell. No matter how bad the boss, the one thing we - and when I say we I mean me - guarantee on this blog is that anonimity is key. All names and companies are changed however I have a feeling that if you worked for ****** PR you'll know who this story is about.

 

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It’s no secret that the creative industry is tough; it’s all about experience and more of who you know than what you know. You can work for months gaining experience at a Music PR company and walk away with little more than being an expert at making tea, a talent for scanning and a detailed knowledge of how Royal Mail operates.

So when I finally got my ‘break’ in the music industry, a 3 month unpaid internship at ****** PR, I felt extremely lucky. I was determined to do everything I could to impress and gain a full time position at the end of the 3 months.

On my first day as an unpaid intern I was literally thrown in the deep end – it was sink or swim.

It didn’t take me long to realise I hadn’t so much gained my big break but a big fat boss from hell, Gloria. My fellow employees quaked with fear whenever she was in office. Staff members were pitted against each other and it really was survival of the fittest. There were never any rewards or praise only shouting and criticism. Let’s say she favoured the stick over the carrot approach to management.

 

Gloria believed that cold calling was the way to music PR success. The whole of the PR team were expected to be on the phone constantly throughout ‘call time’ (10am-1pm and 2.30pm-5pm). If Gloria arrived in the office during call time and everyone wasn’t on the phone, she would scream “Am I in a fucking library? Why is no one on the bloody phones?”.

She became so obsessed with call time that she introduced Call Sheets. Every day you had to complete one noting how many journalists you had successfully spoken to in a day. At the end of each day you had to hand them to the Gloria’s second in command. At the end of the week call numbers would be added up – whoever had made the least amount of calls was then on tea and coffee making duties for the entire office morning and afternoon for the whole of the following week. Even now, the words Call Sheet still send a shiver down my spine.

Slowly she wore her employees down to a shadow of their former selves. Most people survived by shutting down all emotions. It quickly became apparent that Gloria got a big kick out of other people’s misery it was her drug and if you were sensible you didn’t deal.

Time off work for a family death? No chance. One guy dared to ask and was told “What difference does it make whether you attend the funeral? She’s dead she’ll never know the difference”. Maybe this was the first warning sign that I should run and never look back but I was so determined to succeed that I just put my head down and got on with it.

So I survived my 3 months unpaid internship. I worked my ass off; on top of working full time at ****** PR I also held down a bar job having to work 2-3 evenings a week plus Saturday and Sunday to afford my rent. At the end of the 3 months Gloria summoned me to her office. To my delight and amazement, she offered me a full time position (hurrah!). However the money she offered was pretty poor even for a junior role. However, in return for her offering me a full time position she expected me to give up my bar job (apparently she couldn’t risk split loyalties - with a bar!). How she expected me to live on the salary she was offering still baffles me.

Christmas time! Staff Christmas party, secret Santa, bonuses, fun times. Nope, not if you work at ****** PR. We didn’t have a Christmas party, Secret Santa was banned, we didn’t get a bonus and we certainly did not have fun. Instead one year, we moved office. Now when I say move office I actually mean that we lifted and carried every single item from our old office to a new one. This included carrying leather sofas, down stairs, down the High Street and up the stairs to the new office. And it wasn’t just sofas; we carried desks, computers, printers, cupboards, chairs and boxes of CDs, DVDs, and Books. No removal companies were involved and not even a removal van! And where was Gloria? Shouting...sorry working from home, constantly on the phone asking why we weren’t completing our Call Sheets. We weren’t even given a lunch break on moving day instead we got “treated” to 2 small pizzas to share between 8 of us from Pizza Hut!

Everyone loves Friday night – well nearly everyone. Everyone who worked at ****** PR knew the feeling of dread experienced on Friday evenings when your plans go flying out of the window……

“Hi I’m sorry I’m stuck at work and I’m going to miss your birthday drinks but I’ll see you at the restaurant later…..”

“Hi, me again, sorry to do this but you should go ahead and order. I’m still at work, don’t worry I’ll make the gig……”

“Yeah, so it’s me again, erm the thing is I’m still at work so I think I’m going to have to give tonight a miss I’m so sorry!”

You see in music PR world Fridays are reports day and at ****** PR this meant that you were not allowed to leave the office until every single last report had been written checked and then emailed to the relevant client. You weren’t allowed to send a report unless you had 5 new pieces of national coverage, 10 new pieces of Local and Regional coverage and 15 new pieces of online coverage.

Some weeks you would be optimistic, knowing that you had achieved this target and reports would be a breeze. So you sit there smugly at 6pm knowing that your reports have gone and the evening is yours for the taking. Then it dawns on you that just because you’re on the ball this week it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. Your evening is slowly slipping away as you make phone call after phone to change and rearrange your plans before admitting defeat and cancelling plans. After a few weeks you learn the hard way that there is no point making plans for a Friday evening.

But those evenings were never wasted….if you were lucky enough to have finished your reports by 6pm on a Friday you got the pleasure of cleaning the office (emptying bins, hovering, polishing, dusting etc). I wish I was joking.

Everyone at the company became brainwashed into thinking this was how every PR Company in the industry operated. You were constantly told that you were lucky to have a job. Gloria made you believe that she was doing you a favour by keeping you employed. But she never gave out a contract longer than 3 months and at the end of each 3 month period you would be appraised and told you’re not up to standard but she’d give you another 3 month contract and you’d have to impress during this time or else its P45 time!

Time off for ill health? No chance – I made the mistake of asking for an afternoon off to attend a doctors appointment. My request was denied. 3 days later I collapsed at work, got taken to hospital and was kept in over night. I emailed to ask for the following day off. My request was denied. I was back at my desk by 9.30am the next morning and Gloria never once enquired about my health.

So how did I escape? It came to a head on a miserable Thursday in July. I had survived at ****** PR for just over eighteen months but it was to end there. Gloria attempted to pull me up for something really petty and unfair - not to mention something I was in the right about. I argued my case in a calm and collected manner, she on the other hand flipped. In front of the entire office she started screaming and launching magazines/books/staplers in my direction. At this point something inside me snapped and I realised that as much I love the industry nothing was worth being treated like this. I turned on my heels and never went back.

It’s been 2 years since I left ****** PR and there is not a single member of staff that currently works there that I know. Staff turn over is extremely high. I regularly meet up with my old colleagues and hold annual ‘We Survived ****** PR Parties’ that act as an alcohol fuelled group therapy session. At the last one I heard two classic stories which optimises Gloria and makes me feel better, that I wasn’t imagining her being a Boss from Hell.

First, a guy in the office had got a bit fruity with a date and she had given him a hickey/lovebite/shag rash... Anyway, Gloria told him that he looked like a tramp and would have to wear a thick scarf until it healed. It was summer!

Secondly and best of all, Gloria’s second in command eventually got his own P.A. One morning before said P.A had arrived at the office Gloria called her second in command into her office. She told him that his P.A had an annoying voice and that he would have to do something about it! For someone whose natural way of talking was the shriek in your ear, seemed a bit ironic, don’t you think?

Vicky, 26, London, UK

 

Pants On A Stick

 

Have you ever used the phrase "You couldn't make it up?" Well when I was talking to Jo about her experiences with her Boss from Hell, the phrase must have popped up every second sentence. There were so many stories relating to Gerard and his "interesting" ways that it could keep this blog going for the next ten years. He'd actually make a brilliant book/psychological study.

What Jo's experience and the majority of the stories on this blog throw up is how the hell do these people, these Bosses from Hell, get to be where they are? How do they get to be responsible not only for the well being of their staff  but actually running a business/department? Does the person above them see something of themselves in this person? If so, that's even more worrying. 

However difficult it is to find a good boss, it's surely a million times more difficult to BE a good boss. Google have an interesting approach to helping create a good boss, outlined in this article from the New York Times <click here>.

Whatever the approach to creating good bosses, you surely have to have the building blocks there in the first place...unfortunately with Gerard anything built with his building blocks would be condemned as unsafe.

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“How the hell did I end up here?” A question I started to ask myself daily as another farcical incident would take place or another person would get blasted or fired. I’d tell friends about Gerard and nobody would believe me. It was like only those of us trapped in the office with him could believe what he was like because we had to live with it. It was like being stuck in a really bad sitcom. The only thing that made it bearable was that we were all in the same boat, a boat cast adrift on a sea of despair - haha! I’m surprised we didn’t all walk the plank!

I wanted a job where I could use my language skills, with an interesting company - so when a recruitment agent contacted me and told me about a job with a Luxury Services Company, I was really interested. Interesting roster of clients, organising and attending prestigious events and the possibility of international travel, seemed like a dream job.

I had three interviews - the first with the outgoing PA to the CEO, Jane. It was more of an informal chat. She told me she just wanted to move on, didn’t really give me much of an overview. Second was with a more senior sales/client relations guy and then the third was kind of a tag team with the two Directors.

So in the third interview after meeting the relatively normal Chief of Operations, I met Gerard. He kept me waiting for ages and then sauntered in, didn’t say a word and dropped into a chair. He picked up my CV, waved it around nonchalantly then threw it to one side. “Tell me about you,” he said like some kind of fat toad.

Despite the awkwardness of the interview, I got and accepted the job. On my first day, Jane took me to one side and told me that Gerard could be a bit of a nightmare. I also learned why she was leaving. After being tormented on a daily basis the final straw came after a simple visit to the loo. Gerard had come out of his office in a foul mood and asked everyone where Jane was. Somebody said the loo and he headed down to the ladies toilets. He walked in and knocked on the cubicle door “Jane, I need you to email this person and call this person...hurry up!” Fair enough that Jane had had enough! And now here I was, however I wasn’t employed as his PA...at first.

I suppose I started to notice Gerard’s odd behaviour (apart from the interview) about a week after joining the company. It was before Jane had left but a morning when she was away. We were all working away when the door of Gerard’s office flew open and out he came, red face, bulging eyes - it looked as if something truly awful had happened. He started shouting about something being “f*****g” ridiculous and completely unacceptable. Eventually I worked out that it was because we didn’t have any milk in the office. He was going ballistic! Alice from Marketing got up and said she would go and get some, Gerard shook his head and told her that she was responsible for advertising and marketing and NOT getting milk for the office. Guy from Sales said he would go and Gerard told him that he was responsible for sales, not getting milk for the office. Pretty much everyone from every department said they would go...even me and Gerard told them all it wasn’t their job to do it. After everyone had chipped in, he exclaimed once again how ridiculous the situation was, went back into his office and slammed his door! Nobody batted an eyelid, it was like it hadn’t happened. I thought I’d imagined it!

After Jane left, I began to take on more and more of her role. They were actively seeking to recruit a replacement but nobody wanted the job after meeting him. So eventually I was parachuted into the role.

One thing Gerard was a stickler for was people saying “Good Morning” to him when they came into the office and “Good Evening” when they left. A blatantly obvious way of keeping track of people’s time keeping but also another bizarre way of him being treated like some kind of monarchical despot. Nothing demonstrated this better than when a colleague didn’t offer a formal greeting.

Gerard came in late one day and paraded through the office inviting ‘Good Mornings’ and graciously giving them back. A colleague who sat on the next desk from me, Jilly, was on a call and simply waved when Gerard glided past. He looked a bit taken aback and went into his office. I could see him, watching, waiting, driving himself mad with rage as Jilly finished her call. He ordered me to tell Jilly that he want to see her, even though I sat right outside his office and she sat next to me. He could have just asked her in himself. Anyway, I looked across and told Jilly Gerard wanted to see her but she was already up and on her way in. I heard “Close the door” and once this was done a full tirade of abuse flew in Jilly’s face. Everyone in the office could hear how disrespectful she was, how rude she was, it was obscene! After about ten minutes he stopped and she returned to her desk. She looked more confused than upset.

Gerard was a man of routine. He would take lunch for about two hours regardless of how busy we were. He would either go to the gym where he would listen to techno music whilst running or he would go out and slink back in wreaking of booze and slurring his words. A colleague went down to our basement storage unit to fetch something and came across something very unpleasant. Underpants on a stick. When asking around the office Gerard proclaimed they were his, and they needed to dry out after his excessive run. Again, another speechless moment in the office.

At one point (wishing to further his despot dictator image no doubt) Gerard employed a driver to ferry him about. On the company of course. He announced the fact with arrogant pride about how Cedric drove a Mercedes, very classy car. It was a ten year old saloon that smelt stale and had old “Now” magazines stuffed in pockets behind the drivers seat. Gerard was so rude to Cedric it was untrue. One time, I was in the car with him and we were sat in bad traffic, Gerard instructed Cedric to beep the horn and keep beeping it until we started moving. Cedric didn’t want to then Gerard commanded it, so we were sat there, the only car parping it’s horn, not going anywhere. I could have died of embarrassment.

One day I thought Gerard may have turned over a new leaf. He walked into the office and plonked a big bottle of flavoured mineral water on my desk. He acted like he’d bought me a diamond necklace or something and made a really big deal about it. True, it was only water but he’d actually done something thoughtful for a change. It was short lived. The building cleaner came into the office, looked at my desk, pointed and in a high pitched Nigerian accent said “That’s my water!” I asked Gerard if this was true and he said he’s found it in the lift and thought it was going spare. Again, speechless and so embarrassed!

Surprisingly he doesn’t work for the company anymore, even more surprising is that he has another job. The last I heard he was a freelance consultant for a private Hedgefund. How? I don’t know.

I could go on and on about Gerard, it’s actually quite therapeutic writing it all down and a lot funnier in hindsight than actually living it.  Even writing the last part of this post, I can think of another five or ten stories. Maybe I’ll come up with some more and send them in, after everyday was a new chapter of insanity and we worked together for nearly three years.

Jo, 29, London, UK

 

The Lawyer's An Ass

Angela, Angela, Angela - when I orginally thought of starting this blog I expected more stories like the start of this one. Maybe there are more out there and this is just my first one.

 

The first mini-story or vinyet (YES!!!! finally used that word) is of course something that a lot of people (mainly girls/ladies/females) have had to put up with. The main body is a standard Scrooge meets idiot but the end  is fab! The blindness, the complete...oh just read it, you'll see what I mean.

 

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I have two stories...well the first is more like an incident and the guy wasn’t really my boss, more a senior colleague. I imagine in a disaster situation he could assume command or something but then again we’re lawyers not crew on the Starship Enterprise.

Anyway, I was a trainee about half way through my training contract, out for the team's Christmas drinks. Late on in the evening after a few sambuccas this senior colleague was congratulating me on being 'the best trainee in our team, much better than my trainee' [each senior lawyer has a trainee share their office and their work for 4-6 months]. I thanked him but said that since I hadn't actually done any work for him, I wasn't sure why he thought this.  He responded with 'well, what I mean is, you're really fit and I'd love to f*** you, so if you want a job [the training contract is a fixed term employment contract], come and see me.'  My horrified expression resulted in this additional comment from him: 'it's not how good a trainee you are that matters, it's how much you can swallow.'

This really truly happened, I thought this kind of attitude and incident were consigned to the annals of urban legend. Fortunately I was filled with drunken brash courage so I started shouting at him about the unacceptability of these comments.  He then just wandered off and no doubt annoyed another ten or so people until he slipped into a drunken coma.

To give him credit (not that much is due!), he did look very sheepish the next day at work and comment generally to the office that he'd had too much to drink and should have left straight after dinner - though he never apologised to me personally.

And so to the main event and what has a shocking example of being so self involved you don’t actually know what’s going on in your own office. There are basically three complaints.

Firstly, his complete inability to manage anyone or even let people know where he was going to be - despite having a PA. On one occasion, he was AWOL and it was a super busy week. His PA was at her wits end fielding calls from clients, colleagues all wanting to know where he was. There meetings that needed to be rescheduled, draft agreements that needed approving and he was nowhere to be seen or found. After calling his family who had no idea, one of his kronies (more like one of the Krankies) mentioned that he’d jetted off to Dubai for ten days!

Secondly, when he jetted of to Dubai and anywhere else, I’m pretty sure he went Business Class all the way. Perfectly acceptable on a long haul flight, unfortunately a view he only shared when referring to his own travel. The firm-wide approved (followed by everyone) policy of flights was that anything over nine hours would be upgraded. Despite his own glowing air-miles account, my colleague and I flew economy 13 hours to Beijing and went straight from the flight to the client's office for an 18 hour working day, without having had any sleep.

When it came to the again firm-wide approved (again followed by everyone!) expense policy, his approach would have made Scrooge look like the worlds greatest philanthropist. He was positively miserly. The policy stated that you could claim for anything you reasonably incur in the course of business, ie that you wouldn't have paid for otherwise, will be reimbursed.  So food when you’re away on business is accepted. However, when I flew on a budget airline for a client visit, I had to pay for my 7 euro soggy pizza cardboard slice myself!  Not a big deal I know but when he’s charging chateauneuf du pape...it kind of makes you think...well angry.

Finally, and possibly in some way explaining the above, it transpired on my last week in the office that he thought I was 7 years' qualified. This would put me as pretty senior, possibly about to be made a partner in the next 3 years or so. With that level of experience I would generally be expected and capable of being landed in shit at the last minute, making all these business trips on my own with no support, and having to draft all these agreements without him checking them or giving me any guidance in any of the clients I was handling.

In fact I was 2 years' qualified.  I really cannot understand how in his mind I had suddenly been there in the office for THE FIVE PRECEDING YEARS before I was actually there.  Unless he mistook me for someone else who left?  Upon finishing my training contract, I did move into the office of a senior lawyer who left, but I really hope that someone as important as my boss might manage to work out that I was a different person.

He made an amused reference to this in my leaving speech, which was met with appalled silence by the team who, of course, knew that this absurd level of responsibility I'd been trying to deal with for 2 years WAS the reason I was leaving. He still remains at a very well respected law firm in the City and probably thinks I’m still there.

Angela, 32, London, UK

 

Blind Fury

The silent assassin - someone who doesn't interview you but ends up being your boss. Then being a Boss from Hell. This story, kindly submitted by Liz, seems to throw up common themes when taking a job and finding out that someone from the year below you at school/younger than you is your boss. Is there an in-built reaction to this where the boss regresses back to head being flushed down the loo or being pushed into a random classroom?

It's odd that even though the employee is not and has probaby never been a bully, the boss in question projects everything negative from their own school days onto them. A lot of anger there. Or are they just not a very nice person?

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Not a great job but one I needed at the time. I worked, for a while, packing blinds in a factory. I wasn’t expecting it to be all glamour or anything but thought it would be a simple, straight forward, head-down get on with it job. Essentially it should have been.

I had my interview with Matt, the production manager - a really lovely guy. Good humoured and really put me at ease about the interview, after appearing a bit nervous. I was chuffed to bits when I found out I’d got the job. May have been a bit dull but at least I could have a laugh with Matt and the rest of the guys.

So, my first day. I turn up at reception and get shown through to the factory floor where I’m told to wait for my manager. As I stand there, I have a look around at people doing their work. Nobody looks overly happy but I didn’t really expect them too. Five minutes pass, ten minutes, fifteen minutes...eventually, thirty minutes later a girl stomps towards me. A girl I thought I recognised. Apparently, I was late.

Liz was to be my supervisor although I didn’t meet her at interview. From the first instant I saw her I tried to think where I’d seen her before. She solved the problem for me. We went to the same school. She was two years below me. She told me that with an air of pure joy because she was now my boss and yet younger than me. I let her enjoy that thought because I realised the reason I hadn’t recognised her straight away was because she’s tripled in size since school.

It soon became apparent that she didn’t like me. Why? I don’t know. I’d never realy had anything to do with her at school. I think she just got overly excited about managing someone older than her that she’s known before. When I say manage, I should say it very loosely.

Some days she’d be nice, some days a bitch from hell. She was very lapse in her role. We’d never have enough of the right supplies to do our work or we’d have too many of one thing and not enough of the other. As we were on piece work (earning for each item we finished) it was important to have the right kit - if we couldn’t complete, we didn’t earn. The team seemed to think she did it on purpose to keep productivity down to the minimum required, that way her team would be the most cost efficient. Weird when you first think about it but then makes sense - she didn’t want her targets to go up if we did really well. However, the less we did, the less we earned.

So I confronted a few times about her sabotaging our piece-work and she was always super defensive but would never give any satisfactory answer. She was good with the bullshit. Me confronting her didn’t go unnoticed though - not in a good way. She reported me to the bosses about not meeting my quota, even though she’d ensured none of us could do that with the supplies we had! I received a warning, her a pat on the back, I mean really...

After four months of being there, I had my review with her. She brought up a load of points based on productivity, personality as well as general work stuff. I fought my corner with the productivity stuff as she’d also started giving me more difficult stuff to work with though classing it as the same items as everyone else! I knew I couldn’t win with that, but when it came to personality, I had to have my say.

I didn’t let rip. I was refined, polite and professional. She wasn’t. At first she listed to me and then shrieked for about half an hour. I asked why none of my “personality problems” had been raised before and she shrieked that she’d had family problems and nobody at work understood or cared and she was all alone. She swore at me, abused me and told me to get out. An hour later, she was nice as pie and making me (and the team)tea.

She was Jekyll and Hyde all the way. One minute giving you cake, the next swearing at you for not fulfilling your daily quota. She’d pick who to pick on week by week, day per day. It was like a clause in her contract that she had to  be rude to at least one person a day. Unfortunately, I was always the default person. However for all her split personality traits, she was popular with bosses and could really turn on the charm with them. Soon became apparent why.

There was a rumour going around that she was having an affair with someone a work. Funnily enough, all the guys were quick to distance themselves from her. Liz was in a relationship and didn’t know that anyone else knew about her indiscretions. Her boyfriend had a bit of money and she lived rent free in his house. It soon became apparent that the person she was having a thing with was her boss. He was also in a relationship. They were hideous together and really REALLY obvious.

I continued to have disputes with her about my performance or supposed lack of it until I could take no more. Eventually I decided to leave. The annoying thing is, I think she thought she’s won. I felt a bit deflated...for a while.

A few weeks after I left I found out that she’d turned her evil eye on the wrong person. There was a guy, Rob, quite good looking, in the loading bay that she’d started gunning for. If truth be told, she flirted with him and asked him out and he said no. Anyway, she’d been picking faults with him for ages and trying to get him sacked. There was a major problem with a delivery that could possibly of been his fault - perfect opportunity for her to stick the knife in and get him his P45. She didn’t, for some reason.

The guy she was having an affair with had taken some pictures of their latest session and was quite free with showing/sharing them with “the lads” at the company. Rob kept a hold of his copies and chose just the right moment to share them with Liz. Rob knew Liz’s boyfriend. Suddenly Liz had a vision of having to pay her own rent. Rob knew she wanted him sacked and she knew that he knew. So him having a “Joker Card” over her was something to make her very angry but there was nothing she could do - other than allow Rob to carry on as normal. Getting to know her the way I did, I know this would be something that killed her a little bit inside everytime she saw him.

Last thing I heard, her boyfriend and bosses girlfriend had found out about and seen the pictures. Liz and the boss had shacked up together and both were still at the same job. I never heard but with his bargaining chip gone, I reckon Rob didn’t last long, though to be honest working with Liz, it’s not really a great tragedy to be on the dole.

Liz, 31, Merseyside, UK

 

Cancer? Hope He Dies!!!!

Well, so far all of the stories have been from girls/women/ladies/females. So clearly boys/men/gentlemen/males have the most amazing bosses! Of course, the bosses from the previous two stories have been male and female (nice to get a balance) but it seems that the ladies are far more forthcoming with stories of hell at work - which is odd. Being a male myself (yes, it's true!) the amount of whinging about work/life/relationships/blah/blah is always male dominated, so why so quiet boys?

Anyway, let's get on with it. This post is from Jayne and is girl on girl action...settle down, don't get too excited, it's a female employee with female boss. This has always been an interesting subject of conversation when it's come up as (it seems) girls have issus working for girls. Am I wrong?

Wrong or right, this story truly belongs on this blog - what starts off as "Sisters Doing It For Themselves" soon descends into a family feud.

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I got what I thought was a really great job as a Production Planning in the manufacturing industry. Really great position as it was only my second job after graduating.

At the interview I met Lauren. She came across as quite hard-nosed, but this was a very male dominated company and imagine she had to put up with a lot of crap. Especially as she’d worked her way up in the company. In a way I respected her and accepted her no-nonsense approach. After being intimidated within an inch of my life, yet fighting my corner, she gave me a big smile when I left and made a point of saying I’d done very well. I found out I got the job about a week later. I was chuffed and really looking forward to it.

For the twelve months or so Lauren was great. Really took me under her wing and I looked up to her. The way she ‘bloked’ around and gave as good as she got in an environment with more testosterone than LFC’s changing room! I did start to notice that as time went by, Lauren didn’t seem to have a good word to say about anyone. At first I thought it was funny - bitching about some of the idiots we had to work with was funny but then it just started to be constant. Even people who did nothing wrong got the treatment. Not usually to their face...well hardly ever to their face. It was vicious and suddenly I had a horrible thought that I was now her accomplice. That is, until, I was to fall foul of her.

My Auntie was really ill and was living with me whilst getting better. Unfortunately she took a turn for the worse and died. The next day, I called in work. I was in bits and needed some support. Did I get it? No way. “You can’t just call in sick for any old reason!” I explained the entire situation and she continued to go mad at me taking time off! I couldn’t believe it.

When I went back in to work, she was in a foul mood with me. She used to change moods like other people breath. She’d slam doors, slam papers down on my desk, bang drawers, tut and sigh every time I came into or left the room. I could do nothing right. In fact, I’d now been relegated to the rank of everyone else.

If you thought my Auntie incident was bad...one guy requested some time off because he needed to have some tests for possible cancer. Not only did she make him feel awful for taking the time off and make the actual process for doing so as difficult as possible, but when he finally got this approved and she signed off his holiday (yes he had to take it as holiday) sje turned to me and said she hoped that he actually had it! I was speechless! Wish she was.

She was malicious and poisonous within the team. She had one guy sacked, another demoted and blocked promotion for one guy three times! Bizarre considering everyone knew what she was like. She was awful with everyone without question, she really gave off the impression that she had never been a manager before and suddenly all the power she had (or thought she had) made her go mad!

Were their any reprisals for her behaviour? Well she had her car scratched on numerous occasions, malicious phone calls, nasty mail to her house and worst of all, mail to her future husband about her having an affair just before there wedding (none of this was done by me I might add!). But true justice did prevail when she was eventually asked to leave the company.

I heard recently that she had got another job elsewhere but had been sacked from that one as well. She is in the process of taking them to court for unfair dismissal, though knowing what she’s like, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one taken to the cleaners!

Awful woman!

Jayne, 29, Merseyside, UK