Company rules give me extra time in bed
About 10 years ago i started at a new electrical contracting company,on the Monday i go to the office, get introduced to the lads, load up my van with materials and get given a job to go to that should see me through the rest of the week.
Next day,the Tuesday i get to site for 8 o'clock just getting my kit out when the phone rings, it's the boss asking my whereabouts, why are you not at the office he says, my reply being that i had no need to go there as i had all my materials so thought i'd go straight to site and start work like any other decent company would.
"We don't do that here" he says, people would just turn up late all the time, all the other lads report to the office at 8 o'clock whether they need anything from here or not.
"Fair enough" i say, so every day after that i poked my head through the office door to say that i was at work for 8 before getting in the van and going to site, never once actually starting any work before half 8.
Worked out in my favour though as the office was literally two streets away from where i lived so i could leave the house at 1 minute to to get to the office, rather than the half 7 i would have had to get up for to get to site for 8.
I didn't stay there long.
(gunthunt, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:41, Reply)

Internet Usage Policy
A friend of mine worked for a company which relied heavily on internet resources. After a takeover, the new internet usage policy gradually got worse and worse as you read down the page, until point 9, which read:

9. Under no circumstances must the internet be used for (a) upload or (b) download of data.

Sigh.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:34, 1 reply)

My Mother
Walked in on me and my then gf 69ing. She watched for a bit, I think, then turned on the light and said, "There, now you can tell her asshole from her other hole." And she went upstairs.

Sorry for lateness, my boss kept me over.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:29, Reply)

No one is less efficient
than the public sector. Except the private sector.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:26, 1 reply)

general/nominal ledger
I once worked for an accountancy software company where one of the directors was a total fuck nugget, but didn't realise it.

During an interview for a support person, he asked a candidate the question; "what is the difference between a general ledger and a nominal ledger". The chap thought for 10 seconds and replied, "about 3000 miles". At which point, Capt. Clueless said, "what?".

For those not of an accountancy bent, Ameritards use the phrase "general ledger" whilst Brits prefer "nominal ledger". They are one and the same thing. If you were a director of an software accountancy company, you would be expected to know this....
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:23, Reply)

Getting 'one over'
I had a meaningless job that I was way too smart for.

My boss was useless and clearly didn't know what he was talking about.

Anyhow to cut a long QOTW entry short, he got fired and I got to be the group director and had loads of topless models
and a Ferrari and honestly I don't work in a call centre or anything.

Cheers,
This Weeks QOTW Posters
( moohalaa, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:08, 8 replies)

baaaad boss
cherry poppin cheeky pearoast

I started the same week as ‘Jane’ and after about 3 months realised she wasn’t up to the job and then had a further 5 years of her incompetence, lies, bitching and backbiting and cover up for her abject failure.
As I write this I realise there is no anger or tension as I remember it when at one time my blood pressure would have gone through the roof and I would have been reaching for the prozac.

What made it worse that despite the grievances and complaints (not just from me) feedback from exit interviews, internal clients office survey’s and me like twat thinking it would change, forgiving each time, she never did.
I kept remembering the cartoon of Charlie Brown and Lucy with the ball she always took pulled away despite reassurance that she wouldn’t.

After a the second grievance we reached an unspoken compromise that she would do the minimum supervision/interference and we would play the game. But it would still send me mental that she had control of my salary, bonus and promotion and felt I had to be on the verge of paranoia to make sure she wasn’t doing something to put me into deep shit.
She could be sneaky and just slightly change feedback into criticism ‘forget’ to do stuff and absolutely never took any kind of responsibility when things went wrong and always blamed other people and downright lie to your face when you have the evidence in front of you.
She also had the knack of finding your weakness and using it to manipulate and control, mine was always looking at what I did in a situation and taking responsibility for that and seeing the positive in others. This is an insidious type of bullying as we tend to think of the usual type with aggression and intimidation. Like using shit nicknames for people that was to appear rapport building but was mildly degrading and heavy use of her ability to patronise.

She also had the habit of when you assertively made a point about something she would become aggressive and say don’t you dare shout and talk to me like that and completely divert what you had been trying to say.

She once took nearly a year off with ‘stress’ after one of the sales trainers accused her of bullying him and that really endeared herself to all of us, unfortunately he was a bit of a cock and she again got the benefit of the doubt and no company ever likes to be accused of causing stress so she had them over the proverbial barrel. But the benefit was the team had a great time despite the uncertainty over what would happen and her return was difficult as we had all been great at running our teams without any input from her.

I loved my job, I had a great time with my internal clients, the work was rewarding and challenging , the company was fun with trips all over the world. The department had the best bunch of people I ever worked and had such a laugh with in and out of work but she hung over the place like a Bhopal cloud and just had a constant, grating toxic effect on me that if I thought about it too much would just send me mental in frustration.
This was especially true when she got the credit for the success of the department and a massive salary.

I think she really disliked me as I tended to be vocal in team meetings or in the office and stood up when things went wrong and had great relationships with the business which were pretty untouchable.

Nobody really warmed to her but she managed to get on with and give the appearance of a caring boss while being the laziest manager I have worked with. The HR director just seemed to be blind to all the negative comments until it finally clicked that it might just be her at the root of peoples unhappiness.

I can honestly say she did not make any contribution to my progression, helped me learn anything about my job or how to manage in the whole time I was there. It did, however, demonstrate how not to be a great leader and manager.

I transfered to an even better role internally when I got to the point of realising I would never move up in the company where I was, and had 2 more fantastic years still having a great job with the travel.

When the company downsized last I took the generous package on offer and now run a successful consultancy and have loads of time with my family, I heard she had applied for her job and was completely uncomprehending and bitter that she was turned down, although the huge payout she got, which even a year later, feels wholly undeserved.
And I really don’t give monkey’s where she is now or to what she is doing, I do though feel sorry for the people or company she is working for though as these patterns of behaviour tend to be consistent over a long period of time.

She wasn’t a bad person, she just had the ability to present herself as being more effective than she was and was able to manipulate people and situations to her advantage.
She was no doubt scared of being shown up as not having the skills or capability to do her job and she probably saw herself through a mirror by my ‘feedback’ which was she was desperately wanting to avoid hence all the manipulation and snide behaviours to cover it up as it psychologically would all come crashing down.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:07, 2 replies)

Fantastic rules at Uni:
1. We have a new building, as our old department is basically a basement. Last week we were sent an email telling us it was nearly finished, but "Due to regulations you are not allowed to use it until another part of the university has been demolished."

2. Lots of lecturers are quitting at the moment. In some departments this isn't a big issue (one teacher of 30 leaves, still have 29.) Our department had 5 lecturers, now it has 3. Hiring a new lecturer would be useful, right? Wrong. "Due to regulations we're not permitted to hire a new member of staff to fill a position until it has been empty for two years."

Someone please explain the sense behind this to me? :-)
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 17:06, 3 replies)

Utter waste of time...
I once went to a 9am meeting on an industrial estate in Slough which a client had put in my diary.

When I got there, I joined about fifteen other people in the room.

The meeting was cancelled after five minutes when, under a sustained assault of Paxman-esque questioning from his boss, the guy who'd organised it admitted that he'd had no idea what the meeting was supposed to achieve.

'I just thought we should have a meeting because we haven't had one for a while.' He said. 'What's wrong with that?'

Numpty...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 16:57, 7 replies)

not me, a friend
who i shan't name, as it may cause him grief.
he's a fully-qualified animal carer and teacher. when he received his qualifications, the training school he was at offered him a job as a teacher at the start of the new term. of course, he accepted. being paid to do what he loved? hell, yes.
all through the summer holidays, he was phoning them to see where his contract was. "don't worry," they told him, "we'll get it sorted when you start." fair enough, thinks he, they know what they're doing.
the first day of the new term starts and my mate shows up for work. "sorry," the boss says, "we've been told we can't hire you as a teacher, we can't afford it. however, you can help out and drive the school bus." he wasn't qualified as a bus driver and the menial jobs they were giving him paid less than half of what he'd been promised. also, the boss had to answer to no-one, so she couldn't have been told not to hire him.
the next day, he found out why they hadn't hired him when in walked j, a much cheaper to hire trainee, who knew nothing about animal care and would regularly lock herself in a cupboard, crying that everyone was being mean to her. as a result, my mate ended up doing most of her work, which he wasn't being paid for, simply to ensure that the animals were being properly cared for. through that entire year, he was assured that, as soon as j's contract was up at the end of the year, he'd be given the job they'd originally promised him. so, he stuck around, worked hard and waited.
one year later, he walks in to work on the first day of term, only to find j still there, his boss still giving him bullshit, his hours not just cut but hacked and no chance of being given his promised job.
needless to say, he told them to fuck off.
i'd have done it a lot sooner.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 16:46, Reply)

As I was leaving the office one evening at 5:30pm
My boss says to me "Are you off already? The others stay later, sometimes until 8pm.". "Do you pay them overtime?" I asked him, "No" he said. "Oh well, see you tomorrow then" I said cheerily as I left the building.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 16:29, 13 replies)

Bournemouth Burps and Baby Batter
I once had a summer job working at one of the beachside kiosks in Bournemouth – selling overpriced ice cream, hot dogs and other snacks to the great British holidaying public.

Our manager was called Paul. He was gay. We called him Gay Paul.

Gay Paul went out with Mark, a security guard who worked on the beach.

One day I was selling a woman some lollies for her kids, when totally out of the blue Gay Paul walked up, burped and said to us: “Mmm. I can still taste Mark”.

I stared at the customer. She stared at Gay Paul. He stared at nothing in particular as he sauntered off, his mind distracted by his delicious treat - a mouthful of second-hand partially digested spunk
(geegee, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 16:26, 3 replies)

Tone of Voice management
My company have just brought in 'Tone of Voice' guidelines.

On the one hand it refers to the kind of language we use in communications... it also refers to, yes, your tone of voice.

One of my mates was 'politely instructed' to go on a Tone of Voice Training afternoon, despite the only thing wrong with his voice is, it's a bit low. Like Barry White.
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 16:05, 4 replies)

meetings
we have a lot of meetings at my work. This morning 6 of us were summoned to a meeting to decide the best time to have our next meeting.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:21, 7 replies)

Great manager, honest.
The first time my boss (that sits 5 metres away) has spoken to me (I bow to Vipros for saving me from 'dickheadedness') or my colleague since we both returned from 2 weeks away on annual leave on monday, was this morning at our monthly team meeting.
He doesn't speak to us at all between meetings and only communicates via emails out of office hours or when he works from home on thursdays and fridays.

This has been going on for 4 years. Happy days.
( Evil Bastardo, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:14, 5 replies)

About a year ago..
I started working at a brand new restaurant in Melbourne. The building had been an art gallery for about 20 years, and the people who owned it had more money than sense, and decided they wanted a restaurant.

I came on board just before the place opened, which happened to be about 6 months behind schedule, due mainly to the three partners' complete lack of organisation. (As evidenced by the fact that, despite having business cards printed to hand out on opening night with their web address on them, the restaurant's website wasn't even up and running for another 8 months..)

Anyway, I worked in the kitchen, and as a team we were all very passionate about the restaurant and worked our asses off to make sure everything ran smoothly at our end. (For all you I.T. lads, you know how you cracked a huge bone when you got your hands on your new PDA or iPad or whatever you kids are playing with these days.. Well that's what we were like with our new combi-oven, icecream maker, woodfire grill etc...)

The front of house side of things, on the other hand, was a clusterfuck from day one. While the kitchen staff had been working together for a week before opening night, the waiters and bar staff got about a 2-hour crash-course on how to use the POS system, where everything was kept, order of service etc.. No time was spent on them being introduced to the people who would be cooking the food they'd be carrying, nor having them see or taste any of the menu items.

The most incredible act of mind-numbing stupidity was the hiring of a restaurant manager who regularly drank a full bottle of vodka a night (while working), let the other floor staff drink on shift (for free), supplied the staff with cocaine when they started to lose focus from drinking too much and regularly gave free or discounted food to customers, to cover the floor staffs' fuck-ups (thus, blowing the kitchens budget out and making us look shit..).

Oh, I also worked there for 6 months without signing a contract or receiving a pay-slip. Needless to say, I left after 6 months, which is such a shame, because the food was fucking amazing. If anyone is in Melbourne and wants an awesome and reasonably priced meal in the city, PM me and I'll give you the details.. Just don't want this post popping up if somebody googles the restaurant in question..
(r0ach, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 15:05, 3 replies)

How about....
....a sexually incontinent walking mid-life-crisis of a line manager who has no time for anyone in their team other than one specific 20 years younger than them little strumpet on whom they lavish more time and attention than the rest of the team put together.

I ask merely as a theoretical construct.
(joe is troubled Got all married and teh stuffs, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:38, 2 replies)

Oh where to start...
The boss who told us "Our main problem is, we're too efficient".
(yesyesyes, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:27, 6 replies)

Aussie interview technique
Many years ago I was contracting in the great southern land.

I sat an interview for a large international company that rents cars out and it's pretty "Nifty" at it.... geddit?

Anyway, interview (by the Head of IT and head of Marketing) went like this:
Them: "We need someone to do some HMLT."
Me: "Don't you mean HTML?"
Them: "Bloody hell, we've got a good one here! When can you start?"

Among the many amusing things I saw was the Friday they realised the backup servers had not been working for nearly a month. So they dismantled them on the desks in the IT dept. The end of the day arrived and the management decision of "Finish that on Monday" was made.

That weekend an almighty power outtage during a storm put an untimely death to several old out of warranty servers with the most recent backup being 4 weeks prior, including the one that matched all the speeding/parking fines to the right customers.

Finally when I was reaching the end of my legal max contract length (Aussie Visas are strict!) I was asked to help interview for my replacement. After interviewing several no hope candidates the two dept heads say to me "These candidates are fucking monkeys!".... my response "That's because you're paying peanuts".

Yep, they genuinely expected to attract a $100,000AUD calibre interviewee to a job advertised at $50,000AUD.

I left, got word a couple of months later the international parent company was taking over and several managers got canned.

Nice guys though :-)
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:16, 1 reply)

Inept management
The people I work for are prime candidates for examples of inept management. A while ago when I started we had a boss that had risen up the ranks and gone from the position of blue-collar lacky to boss of the whole place. I will admit that I liked him; He was approachable, level headed and never afraid to get his hands dirty and work with us lowly workers. He also enjoyed being called by his first name which always made us feel like we could go to him when needed.

I was away for a few weeks and when I returned I was told that there was a change of management and we were now being managed by a bloke named U. From the look of things U was a pretty decent fit for the job as he was from the same mould as my first boss but a short while after taking the job a few flaws appeared. He had confidence issues and would always be whining about how he was no good, he also tried to act like everything he did was agood company descision, even the time where he was involved in an accident that involved the wrecking of a company vehicle-seriously I would say that ¾ of his vehicle was buggered beyond recognition and looking back I think that this may have been his way of trying to hide his stress and insecurities.

Naturally his flaws were spotted immediately and U was moved sideways and replaced by H. H was not a good choice and a number of staff actually blamed him for the departure of our original boss, from what I saw of him I’m not surprised.

H was a little too hot tempered for my liking, he was also outgoing to the point of irritation and unlike our original boss he started to insist that we called him by a different name. Anywhoo despite his failings we still managed to avert a corporate takeover and keep up a pretty decent atmosphere. I will admit that this guy was still pretty annoying and the other business competition was nowhere near as hard as it used to be, H also used to mention that he was not always too happy being the go to person (Not as much as U did but still a thing that in my opinion is a little disheartening to hear).

Thankfully some of the higher ups must have seen an error in their ways and we were eventually reunited with our original boss. I know that I was not the only one that was happy to see him back as everyone adores him. I don’t know how to end this so I will just do it by saying thank god you came back Optimus Prime the replacements you chose were woeful.

I need to go get some sleep. Sorry for length.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:13, 4 replies)

Schlomo the Maniac, part 1
I worked for a guy who ran a small company out of his home that I think was in truth merely a way for him to milk the US government for whatever he could get.

Ostensibly he was doing projects for the Department of Defense, making new weaponry for them to assist in the Middle East. When he hired me he agreed to pay be a healthy hourly rate and told me I could work on his high-end Apple computer that was loaded with AutoCAD and Inventor, and he'd be there for any questions I might have.

My job was to design a platform to carry weaponry on rails at speeds up to 60 mph, but to make it less than 100 lbs in weight total. It was a robotic device, controlled remotely by someone in a room safely out of the way, and it was to carry rubber bullets, 12 gauge shotguns and 40mm grenade launchers along with cameras and sensors.

His initial design had it running along the ground. I pointed out to him that its range would be impaired by being six inches off the ground, and it would be far better to have it six feet or more in the air on rails. He was surprised and delighted at this immediate improvement I had made.

At that point I should have known.

I worked on this for months- not because it was difficult to design, mind you, but because he objected to almost everything I suggested on one basis or another. Finally he agreed to a design, and I got some Item extrusions to build it out of and went to work. Meanwhile, the electrical engineer who had been working on the controls was about four states away from me and had never met me in person.

Then came the day to present it to the military. We were to present it on Thursday, so he brought in the electrical engineer on Monday to assemble it with me.

I'll repeat that. We had three days to assemble an untested system that was going to be presented to the military.

It turns out that this guy, while he may be a decent electrical engineer, had forgotten about a little consideration called inertia. If you switch a motor from "Off" to "Balls To The Wall" while it's sitting on a bench it will behave differently than if it's hooked up with a chain to a drive assembly.

So there, in front of an Air Force major, I watched as the chain slipped and chattered and almost stripped off teeth when the switch was thrown. I commented to the major that we were planning on having the final product start up as a ramp function- that is, gradually on instead of suddenly full power- and he nicely agreed that this was a small detail that was easily fixed.

We put it through its paces and the Air Force guys politely listened, then we went to lunch. After the Air Force guys departed and Schlomo went into a tirade over how badly we had fucked this up and how much money he had blown on this project.

I held my tongue, but perhaps I shouldn't have...
( Wanderer, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:12, Reply)

This one IS workplace related
I'll keep it brief. We got a new area manager, a lass who was transferred from working in some other company in a management position to ours. Didn't really know much about the company, didn't matter. We were always told by the company that if we stuck by their rulebook and just regurgitated their policies they would cover us.

I sang from the company songsheet on one occasion (thankfully near the end of my time there), when a customer was unhappy, and was supported by my assistant manager (who was present). That wasn't good enough, so I called the manager of the store at her home and she said I was doing the right thing and to tell the customer to deal with head office. The customer was having none of this and forced me to ring the area manager, who, on hearing my story just told me to give her a full refund via head office and basically made me and the rest of the team look absolute dicks. Would never have happened with her predecessor.

Still, what did I expect from a company whose senior management tried to make out that I'd (albeit accidentally) undercharged for a product, wouldn't relay details of my "crime" directly to me, and when it came to presenting "evidence" had actually lost all the receipts in question. Incompetent fucknuggets, I can't believe theyre still in business.
(zenmeban thinks the weather could be better, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 14:09, Reply)

Mac Support
A few years ago I worked for a Mac support company whose name sounded very much like it should be an opticians.

My job was sales, a task the company claimed never to have had a problem with as the product "sells itself". They were mac-focussed but claimed to also support PCs (even though the MD had never, ever, ever touched a Windows box in his whole entire life) and had "many technicians across the country".

These technicians consisted, in fact, of one part-timer, one pre-op transsexual and one sixth-former; as well as the (admittedly competent) efforts of the MD.

Soon after arriving I discovered the product was in fact almost unsellable. Why? Well, how much time have Apple spent recently telling us that Macs "just work"? This campaign has apparently been a little too effective, as no-one seemed to think support was needed, in spite of our conviction that without pre-paid support, fixing your Mac if it was borked would cost "hundreds". But that didn't matter, because of course I was taken off selling at every opportunity.

Need to develop a new DVD telling everyone how great we are? Need to go to Lincoln for three weeks to do some cabling for one of our few clients? Yep, that was me. Eventually, after three months of late and missed pay cheques, I was "made redundant" and told that it was because I was "not selling enough".

Really? Well it's hard to sell support contracts when you've spent the last month in a false ceiling re-running cables that the supposedly professional cabler fucked up!

The company recently went bust and re-opened the next day under a slightly different name (change the "UK Ltd" to "GB Ltd", you get the idea) - a tactic they have successfully used three or four times before. And always blaming someone else. Face it guys, you can;t sell Mac support - it just doesn't work.
(MightyX5 living on a small island on, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:54, 7 replies)

One springs to mind...
The company I work for does a lot of work worldwide - especially in Singapore. The boss returned from a trip to Singapore a couple of years ago with a great idea...
"snee," he said, coming into the office one morning, "could you create a website that does blah, blah, blah?"
After a little thought, I said yes, it was something I could do, would probably take about 6 weeks to create everything, then maybe a couple of weeks testing before going live.
"Hmm...the guys in Singapore say they can have it up in a month." he replied and flounced out.

And so, this is why, some 2 years later, I was sent out to Singapore (oh noes - I hate my job *grin*) to see if I could sort out the mess they're in. Talked with the designers and the code monkeys out there, got an understanding of what they're doing, and how, even managed to get a logon for their development server so I could work from the UK on the (admittedly brilliant) idea.
So I came back, and diligently worked away getting everything the way we wanted it looking, and making sure the various modules worked as they should on the development server - all that remained was to transfer the whole site to the live server and we're up and running and virtually printing money...

That was 3 weeks ago now. What's gone onto the live server is nothing like what I'd done, the modules don't work, and they have no idea why not.

Now, I'm not one to complain (especially as it looks like I'm going back out to Singapore for a couple of weeks), but my initial estimate was 6 weeks to get a working site - let's say double that, and it still comes in WAY below the £15k paid out so far...

On the bright side, the boss has stopped with the "In Singapore I could get that work done for half the price..." line due to my "Ah, but getting it done here means it WILL be done..." response.

Meh.
( snee held his breath since, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:48, 3 replies)

I work for a Japanese company. I have a beard. After 1 year's employment, this happens...
"We need to talk about your beard"
"Okay"
"It's erm... it's not the Japanese way"
"Okay"
"We'd like you to shave it off."
"You do know we're in the UK don't you?"
"Yes"
"And my beard isn't offensive or stopping me doing my job"
"Yes, but its not very Japanese"
"Have you seen me? I'm not Japanese, and this isn't Japan"
"But we require you to shave it off"
"Have you heard of the European Court of Human Rights?"

30 minutes later....

"You can keep the beard"

Like I needed their permission - fucking idiots. Can't wait to leave this place!
(The Moop, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:40, 32 replies)

Not a workplace ...
Probably worse, given that it's the house I live in. At least at work you are paid to be there (mostly) and this may lessen the blow of incompetent management. Where I currently live my landlady is live-in, and I'm refusing to speak to her at the moment on the grounds of ongoing incompetence and blatant hypocrisy.

1) The shower hasn't worked properly in months, alternating between hot and cold while you're under it.

2) The phone line has been down for about two months now, and her solution was to tell us, the tenants, that if we wanted it sorting we should ring up ourselves, despite it all being in her name.

3) The house is messy and it's largely been her fault over the last couple of months (yes, before that we were to blame but recently we have mended our ways and it really is just her).

4) We've not been billed in about 5 months, which sounds great except we know the bills are there, waiting, she just hasn't released them (have you ever heard of a landlord like that??), so she's losing money.

So she'll complain that "because the house / kitchen (especially) is messy, she's stressed and can't concentrate on studying" (or something). Which also means she can't deal with repairing the house and getting it up to scratch. She lives here, you'd think she'd be bothered by the crap that's wrong and the fact she's out of pocket but no. Apparently we're due for the bill anytime now (a huge sum I'm sure) her exams are over, but during exams she claimed not to have time to sort things out, yet somehow found time to go out dancing 12 nights in a row, then complain how much she ached from it.

The worst of it though is the line she fed me about not lining my curtain because she'd "supplied one, and I'd said it was good enough, and now I've decided it's not, if I want a nice thick lined one (which the rail would never support anyway) then I can buy it myself, because that's what any other landlady would do" ... but any other landlady would have sorted all the niggling problems with the house at the first sign of trouble too, so it's hypocrisy all the way.

Thank fuck I didn't sign any kind of contract.

Length? 10 months so far, another 2 and I can move out :)
(zenmeban thinks the weather could be better, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:28, 3 replies)

How can you tell if a new boss is a bad manager?
If they repeatedly use the word “yeah?” as a interrogative at the end of every verbal statement, odds are that they’re a shouty useless cunt.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:24, 5 replies)

Just add bloke for instant bitch
The last boss I ever had (and if my career plans come through, the last I ever will have) was a Polish lady who had founded her company together with her British boyfriend. He had another job in the City, so he left the day-to-day administration of the company to her. There was only one employee: me.

In the beginning we worked out of a poky little office with enough space for only two desks, so she and I manned the phones and chatted with each other in between jobs. I liked this arrangement a lot, as she could be a lot of fun when she wanted to, and she also happened to be pretty damn fit. Most of the time it wasn't even a boss-employee relationship at all; we felt more like 'colleagues'.

That lasted until her boyfriend started dropping in.

We had moved to larger premises by that stage and there was room for another two or even three people to work there full-time. The boyfriend thus appropriated one of the desks for himself and divided his time between handling the firm's finances and online betting on the football. This had two effects:

1) My boss felt that the presence of her boyfriend meant she had to show that she was the BOSS and I was the EMPLOYEE and that she could therefore order me around like her personal office wallah all day long. You would have needed a scanning electron microscope to make out her individual acts of micromanagement;

2) The two of them had frequent...differences of opinion on how to run the company. These disagreements typically took the form of literally screaming rows, and on several occasions she actually asked him to leave the office with her so she could shout at him more freely without worrying about me overhearing. It was like working in a dysfunctional couple's front room; I spent every day waiting for the plates to start flying.

It was around that point that I decided I'd had enough of bosses and went freelance.
( .Yeti., Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:16, Reply)

IT "support" at my work
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( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 10 Jun 2010, 13:12, 6 replies)