Job Swill

I used to work for a music PR firm in midtown and my boss, who was also the company founder, was a complete pyscho. The type who would breeze into the office no earlier than 1pm and then scream at us for not doing things she never asked us to do. She also had a considerable coke habit (dealers used to come to the office to make deliveries), which may have contributed to her paranoid delusions.

One evening after I'd left work, she went on my computer and read all the emails in my sent file. When she found several pitches I'd sent editors seeking freelance writing assignments (to supplement the pathetic "salary" she paid me), she assumed that I was doing publicity for my own clients using her resources and contacts - which was an absolutely absurd accusation. She stuck to her assumption that Monday morning however, when she fired me and went so far as to accuse me of planning to start my own PR firm to compete with her and steal her business.

(Posted by Anonymous)

Why I hate my co-workers? Because I'm tired of cleaning up their messes after the come in the next day hung over. I hate it when the "forget" how to do payroll and the fuck it up so much, we get charged for the mistake. I hate my co-workers because they drink in the office while I'm working on cleaning up their messes. I hate them and their fake attitudes. Bull shit your sorry!

I deal with this day in and day out and no matter what I do, I'm the whipping girl.

(Posted by Anonymous)

So I was working at my glamorous new job as a bookseller when we got in a new book called the "Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit." Of course, having been through two vastly different but still idiotic corporate worlds before deciding retail was amazingly more honest about it's negative aspects, it piqued my interest.

Flipping through, I found the entry for "fired" where the book proclaims that it's actually really hard to get fired because of the possibility of lawsuits, so usually companies just make your life miserable so that you quit on your own.

Really? Is THAT what they were doing? I must be just too stubborn for my own good because I've been fired not once but TWICE. Not only that but at two consecutive jobs, both of which lasted only a month or a week shy of a full year. Did I mention they were my first full time jobs since graduating college?

Yeah, bitter isn't always a strong enough word for the emotions that come up when I think about the whole thing. But it makes sense in a way, because a lesser person would never have put up with the stack of indignities I faced.

The first job was a glorified receptionist at a hotel. Here I am with a Bachelor's Degree, fresh out of a liberal arts college with a major in film and photography, and I'm answering the phone and taking credit card numbers from people who don't speak English. It was thrilling.

When I took the job, it was after being promoted from within, so I knew a lot about the position, having dealt with the person who occupied it for months. She had her own office, she was in charge of things, she got things done, she didn't have to wear a uniform.

I started working at this great company in 2004. I went through 3 Interviews, IQ tests, and one accounting test. I thought I was set since I had been unemployed for 8 months, and the pay was great. The boss seemed nice and everyone there was wonderful, as I was introduced to them. Except when it came to the person that was going to train me. She was quiet and very cutthroat. She never smiled and was very standoffish. She was this tall fat African-American lady wearing a cheap wig. I immediately felt a chill. Her voice is that of a mosquito buzzing in your ear on a hot July night, when you're very sleepy. I kept clearing my throat wanting her to take the hint, but up to this day she hasn't.

Well the training has been the worst, she changes and omits information on her own will. She doesn't give me any information, and ignores and makes fun of everything. She criticizes my clothes. She makes my life really hard and if I don't get things right the first time - too bad, I'm assed out.

I was hired to take half of her workload, but we have equal positions. She talks down to me and doubts everything I have said or done. She's goes through everything I do. When she goes on vacation, I'm her backup. She will change all the passwords, so we have to get the IT person involved. She goes above and beyond to make me look like an incompetent fool, and tells everything I do wrong or right to our boss. The first week of me working there, she invited me to lunch and straight out told me no one informed her of my existence or that I would be her equal. She thought I was her replacement. Then when she comes back she makes sure to tell me all the mistakes that I have made.

1. Every day at 10:00 comes to his desk, which is right next mine (we don't even have a cubicle wall separating us), with a can of Coke and a bag of chips--Dorriots, pork rinds, funyuns, or fritos. He then loudly slurps his Coke--slurp slurp slurp and then crunches down on his chips with his mouth open so I can hear every crunch happening in his mouth. Then to top it all off he burps, constantly and loudly until 10:15 AM when his morning break is over. The sound of the burping are the loud long ones, the kinds that one does in the privacy of one's home. Finally, to make it better, the office smells like burped up pork rinds, dorritos, funyuns.

2. He steals chairs! Yes, he does. His previous work chair was a bit disgusting, to say the least. Our chairs at work our burgundy, but his was such a dull burgundy color. It had these stains all over them and if you sat in his chair it sort of leaned forward so you felt like you were going to fall off. His chair was definitely recognizable--the only one in the office that looked so weird and gross. One day we get to work and my other office mate notices that her chair looks different. Her chair used to be a bright burgundy, now it is dull with stains and slopes forwards. Seemed a bit coincidental, so we go to "Allen's" desk and see that his gross chair is no longer there and his chair is, all of a sudden, bright and burgundy. Methinks that someone swapped chairs without saying anything. When confronted, he played dumb, like we didn't know.

She takes advantage of the free coffee and employee discounts, bosses us veterans around, dresses like a 2 dollar hooker when she should be covering up, smothers us in saccharine sweetness, and just generally makes everyones skin crawl. Last week, my boss thanked me for not bitch slapping her. I have a feeling she won't be around very long.

I knew the second the new girl walked in that she just wasn't going to fit. I work with all females and a male boss at a local coffee shop. We all get along and work well together and even spend time outside of work together. The new girl, we'll call here Trixie, is a 35 (so she says) year old mother of three horribly behaved children, whom she brings to work even after being told not to. She loves to brag about how she is just a super mom, and has time to make tacky beaded jewelry! She admits she's poor, as are most of us working there, but comes to work in knee-high boots, tight skirts, tight velvet shirts circa 1995, and her hair all done up. She loves to brag about her deals at Good Will...hey I shop there too but I make it look good. Anyway, one day she had the nerve to tell one of our best workers that "we could probably get more tips if we all dressed nicer". Trixie was all decked out in her normal ridiculous attire while my coworker was wearing the company t-shirt and jeans. The next day that coworker and I worked together in t shirts and shorts and made a killing on tips. Maybe it's more about the service than cheap skanky clothes.

Ok, so here's my "firing" story. I haven't forgotten it for 5 years it was so bad, so please, please, let me have this book.

The year: 2001.

The job: "Volunteer" editorial assistant. I was a few years out of school, and I was having trouble getting a job on a magazine, so I called a small magazine and asked if I could work for free.

Job tasks:

--opening mail during the Anthrax scare. I was scared and wore gloves and a mask. (Don't laugh; we were all paranoid, remember?)
--walking a mile to their old office to get their mail. Every week. No cab or bus fare provided.
--carrying a package so heavy it almost delimbed me.
--cleaning out bookcase of editor who gave me the evil eye the entire time.

The result from all my hard work?: Rarely did a thank-you ever escape their lips. Never got even a stipend.

Funniest moment (but only in hindsight): My editor asked me if I could refrain from wearing "the ER getup" while opening letters. A camera crew was coming in to film them.

I realize that I chose my job but it's still my job. I'm a stripper, I work at a large club and I have a lot of customers after 3 years. Therefore, I don't dance or talk to people that I don't know. I don't NEED their money and it's a waste of my time, I have customers of my own.

So why do they think that I HAVE to pay attention to them, that I HAVE to treat them nicely? I don't, it's NOT a requirement. It's NOT my job, my job is to be hot and sexy, not nice and stupi. Don't get all pissy because I won't shake my ass in your face on stage for a FUCKING DOLLAR. If I shake my ass for a minute in your face that's 7 bucks in the back in a room. Yeah, I don't give a flying fuck about your dollar. You obviously need it a hell of a lot more than I do.

Oh, and by the way: Just because you give someone $20 does not mean you get to suck their nipples either...

Sitting at this desk all day makes my neck hurt.

I'm so effing bored I could rip out my hair & strangle myself with it.

Let me regale you with a tale of the best part of working at the mall when I was 16...

WORST EMPLOYEE EVER.

I went through a pretty ugly punk rock phase in highschool, complete with shaved head and nothing but plaid pants so the only place I could get a part time job [looking a mess] was one of two really tacky/trendy clothing stores. My responsibilities there included greeting customers, I was really no good at that...mostly I'd sit on the folding table and kind of roll my eyes at anyone who walked in. Working the cash register, but I was usually too high to handle that. Watching over the dressing room area, except when my friends came in & I let them take whatever they wanted. And straightening up & keeping the store organized...yeah, I was really good at that...just kidding.

Mostly I would just wander around the mall. Friends would come visit and hang out behind the counter. Everyone would take turns watching the store while we smoked pot in the back room.

So it's a few years ago and I was living about an hour from where I grew up I had just had my daughter and her father came home and proclaimed he "had changed his mind"! Can you do that? So there I was with an infant no job and moving back to my home town. My mother was working for a Steel Company it was an office they bought and sold secondary crap really. Well I started coming in part time to help them get organized it was a husband and wife who owned the company. The husband whom I now refer to as Shrek (I wish I had a picture if there were ever a human who looked like a cartoon)! He calls me in his office and says I really like your work ethic you seem to be catching on I would like to offer you a job.

So cut to the good part about a year later he had hired an "old friend" who was a female, oh look I smell divorce! And that is what happened a few months later he and his wife are getting a divorce now Shrek up to this point was a pretty okay boss he liked to yell and scream and stomp his feet but that was about as far as it went. I was good at my job. Well the "old friend" then hires her sister who PS is a HUGE DRUNK and normally comes into the office after lunch smashed! So what does Shrek do he rewards her with a red mustang! Wow is it really possible he is nailing both of them! YEP as Drunky the clown let me know in one of her drunken stupors!

The saga continues, after the jump.

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