Directors and Managers are by far the worst.
This is simply a rant about directors and managers who think themselves higher than royalty, higher than god and higher than the laws of physics themselves. These people are a race above human.

Working in IT, I’ve had my fair share of dealings with Directors and how they must be treated completely differently to the rest of the workforce. And wow I've seen some stupidity in my time from these people. With rich and power, common sense and reality gets lost, as they cocoon themselves in their own little self important bubble.

They come in two varieties. First, the older generation. The mid-life crises 55 year old, who drives around in his oversized, over powered BMW. They get the only parking space in the city, and retire to their country mansion at night.

These people literally expect the earth to move around them. They see themselves as a higher level of being to anyone else, and as such, the cockroach workforce should feel obliged to even glimpse this wonderful powerful being.

They have their plush oversized offices with multiple personal assistants running around after them 24/7, ferrying coffees and anything else they want on demand. I honestly believe these people do nothing but sit in presentations, smile for corporate photographs and sign the odd sheet of paper. They always seem to be out of the office playing golf or taking holidays.

These people may have a PC, but would they even bother using them? Course not. The PAs will read their emails and print them off, if it’s important enough for him to read.

The time they do touch technology, it will undoubtedly screw up due to total lack of common sense, and of course I.T gets the full brunt of the blame.

Once, one of these dingle bats put transparent glossy paper in a colour laser printer after we told him not to. Result was, the paper melted onto the fuser unit and caused severe damage to the printer. Damage that would require parts ordering and a service technician calling out.
"How long will that take? I want it working in 5 minutes, I have a meeting."

Because of their godly like importance, the supervisors are running around calling every tom dick and harry to come and fit new parts to this printer. Result was a bike transport costing an extra 600 pounds from the other side of the country and an emergency call to the printers manufacturer to come and fit it. Total cost 1800 quid. This was a day after we had to go round 100 PCs switching them onto Toner Save options to save money. The director never did print the stuff he apparently wanted.. Which turned out to be something personal anyway.

I also had one of these numpties demand that 4 members of IT would be used to configure his daughters laptop so he could take it to her university, as he was going in 10 minutes. Installing a fresh copy of windows, office, itunes generally does take more than 10 minutes no matter how fast the machine is. But that was irrelevant. And quite how 4 technicians huddled around one laptop would make things go any faster I have no idea. But worst of all, this was at the same time as we were experiencing a major router fault. Crippling 40 offices UK wide. But his daughter had the priority.




Next up. You’ve got the arse lickers. Those that have given sexual favours to get promoted up the ranks. The 30 year old kids. At the dizzy heights of the 4th floor on a major, and I mean, major power trip. How someone of 30 who is 5 years out of university can be making decisions for huge corporations with all of a few years experience in the world of work is beyond me. But wow these guys are the worst.
They act like your best mates, and try to be cool. But would happily drop you like a sack of potatoes if you happen stray on their wrong side.

Because they grew up in the 80s, they feel they are on the tide of the technology boom, and want nothing more than the best. Seriously I've seen directors surrounded by 4 23" widescreen monitors hooked up to dual core graphics cards. 4GB RAM PCs with dedicated 10Mb broadband connections when the rest of the company are sharing a 2mb.
I’ve seen these directors with PCs more powerful than the applications servers. So what do they use them for? Browsing the net and checking email of course! I’ve also seen cinema sized wide screen plasmas fitted to their offices with full sky subscriptions... So they can keep an eye on Bloomberg.

They demand the best, and they get it no questions asked. Yet when some poor sod is suffering on a flickering 14" CRT whilst trying to design tools in AutoCAD requests a bit of extra memory, there’s about 4 forms and 6 signatures required to sign off. Requiring at least an essay to explain justification and five quotes for the cheapest price.

So what do these 30 year old directors drive around in? Well of course it has to be Lamborghinis and Ferraris. They have to show that they have something cool and prove to the world that they are successful... Successful in giving blow jobs in my opinion.
These people also love their plush offices and having 17 year old blonde bimbos known PAs running around after them. (and are usually having sexual affairs with them)

The worst thing is, these 30 year old entrapanoures are just as stupid if not worse as their daddies. Unthought-of, rash, stupid decisions. Such as "Block Google now!" so people can’t search for that news report about how dodgy the company is. These people also expect the laws of physics to change to suit them, and Bill Gates to personally come and fix their PC problems.

"You left my PC on Administrator mode!"
"Umm no I'm sure I logged it out after I installed that printer for you."
"You calling me a liar? It says Administrator here"
"Aaah yes, just change it for your name and then put your password in as normal. It just remembers the last person to log on"
"How do I do that? Come up now and do it! CLICK"

This particular occasion resulted in me having to ring Microsoft to see if they could change something that was hard coded into Windows. Well you have three choices. Auto logon as him. Remember last person to log on, or don’t remember last user to log on. He wanted neither. But a call to Microsoft was required to clarify this.

Oh the law doesn’t matter to these people either. I’ve seen them wondering around the offices smoking. Yet everyone else has to go shiver in the outside bus shelter in the rain if they want to smoke.


So yes, you get your numpty work colleagues. The office Judas. The idiot who will try and self repair printers by ripping fuser units out when they’re switched on. The office joker who will superglue your mouse to the desk. The guy who will do 3 hours overtime daily and wonder why no one else does. The slackers. Those that come in stinking of last nights booze. The self important supervisors who’s stuff is always more important than anyone else. The sexy lass who is just a cocktease and she knows it.

Yes I’ve experienced them all. But nothing makes me groan more than the managers and directors. How much I loathe these people. I am a fond believer in treating everyone equal. We are all human. This is just one little company in a little company on a little planet in the whole big universe. It’s just a job; it’s not the be all and end all of life. We work to live, not live to work. But nope, this isn’t good enough for them. Nothing is ever good enough. Your loyalty stands with the company, not with your family or friends.

I hate the tippy toeing, the stress, the nerves that these people put on their minion workforce. You do a million things correct for everyone else, and one thing slightly wrong for a director and bang, your career is over. They quite literally have lost all grasp on reality.


Yup big rant, but I'm sure there’s a lot of you there nodding your head as your reading this.. In which case.. Clicky please!!!!
(Miggyman, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 13:11, 19 replies)

Way back when
before I stopped pissing about doing ski seasons I worked as a ski guide in Courchevel in France for one of the more upmarket holiday companies. All in all it was a quality gig. Loads of time skiing, loads of freebies and a decent crew of lads for beers on the day off. The exception to this was our head of customer service, who was, I'm afraid to say, a certifiable window licker.

She couldn't ski, was allergic to alcohol and was openly obsessed with Disney films (immediate nickname). Not exactly an ideal combination in a ski resort. Despite this, within a month of the start of the season Disney was advising me and the three other guides how to ski with the punters and where to take them. Now being a laid back fella I laughed it off and ignored it but one of the other lads took a different tack, after the tenth screeched “suggestion” and told her to do one in fairly blue language. This went down like the proverbial lead balloon and from that point on she refused to talk to, or even acknowledge, my compatriot for the next 6 months, the mentalist.

Adding to the overall nightmare was her sudden decision halfway through the season that I and one of the barmen were evidently madly in love with her and that we should watch ourselves in public as "open displays of affection between staff are not allowed". Some truly hideous flirting on her part followed. Now she wasn't an unnattractive lass but the barman in question was quite happy with his girlfriend, who happened to be one of Disney's reception staff...and yours truly was doing the no pants dance with her other dolly bird. Neither of the ladies in question were particularly impressed by Disney's delusions and told her as much in a frank and open discussion that resulted in all three of them being kicked out of the local seasonnaire bar.

The next day she's behind the desk with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp and I could see that she was determined to make peoples lives even more of an utter misery than she had so far. Shifts started being changed so that me and the barman never got to see our respective other halves, except on the one day off a week or after work finished (normally 9-10pm). This finally flipped me over the edge and so an evil revenge was planned.

From the first week Disney had been harping on about the guy she’d ridden senseless in training, another ski guide who was working in a different resort. The lad in question had wangled two nights off and blagged a lift over to spend some “quality time” with her. Now the thought of Disney doing a Meg Ryan in the staff accommodation was not a pleasing one, especially for the barman and me as she’d frequently denied us from making our ladies do the same. Cue the arrival of said victim and low and behold it’s only a fella known to both me and the barman. We insist on his arrival that we go out for a few beers and watch the footie in the aforementioned local. Disney arrives three hours later to take the young gent out for dinner as a precursor to taking him home and raping him to find all three of us propping up the bar with him in what can only be described as an “absolute state”. No sexy time for Disney on night one as she spent most of it holding her would be suitor over a bog. Result.

Day two, repeat with interest. Have the slightly peaky looking boy join my ski group for the day. He’s perked up by lunch and we proceed to navigate the slopes via the many and varied mountain restaurants all afternoon. I was guiding a group of good old boys who were past it in skiing terms but bugger me could they drink. We set up in a bar by the slopes at 5pm or so and set to work on giving our livers an absolute shoeing. 8pm comes by, when Disney gets off work and rushes to find us as a little bird told her that her gentleman lover might be out on the beers again. By that time we are way past beers and have sampled pretty much everything in the bar with the exception of one last mysterious bottle with a green tinge. Chartreuse, for the uninitiated, is basically ethanol with some herbs in it. Now a shot can floor a rhino, or in my case make the room spin in an extremely disconcerting manner so that I had to sit down, on the floor, and hold on. Disney arrives to see her man taking an extremely long pull on the bottle itself at the prompting of the old guard (bless you boys). He turns to see his would be lover approaching spitting and snarling with a blood vessel about to pop and he does the only thing a man could. Vomit spectacularly all over her. I have never laughed so hard in all my life. I promise you I almost shat.
(DarkHarlequin putting babies on spikes since, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 12:35, 12 replies)

Reuben
There was a management position in one company i worked at that was repeatedly filled by a series of incompentent fuckwits. From the one guy who made 6 discplinary claims against his own staff of 10 in one week, to the guy who actually said to us "you know, if you'd seen my CV, you'd never have given me this job" and to the guy who on his first day said "I want you to know that I take this job seriously, and will give it my full attention 24/7 with the exception of one thing - nothing will take priority in my life over my first love - my love for our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ".

That last bit was jaw dropping. Trying not laugh in that meeting was so difficult. One guy snorted so loudly stuff came out of his nose.

Then they hired Reuben. We fucking loved Reuben, not because he did the job well or even slightly compentently but because he was the single worst person to ever be in any kind of job. But he did it with a child-like innocence that we couldnt help but love. Reuben was obsessed with food and could sniff out a free snack a mile off. He wasnt a fatty, just loved a nice sandwich.

The job was service delivery manager, and he didnt really know what it meant. But for his first assignment, he was due to join our sales director for our annual begging meeting at Barclays. With the board.

The Sales manager is in full flow, presenting to the old boys in Barclaycard's boardroom in Northampton somewhere. Even some of the US board have joined in. Its serious shit, these guys mostly know their banking. Reuben is late. He strolls in unannounced to the boardroom causing everyone to stop and stare. He is wearing chinos, loafers and an untucked polo shirt, carrying no briefcase, phone or anything.

The sales manager is mortified but makes a big show of introducing our new, but brilliant (hinting at eccentric to cover up Reubens astonishing business faux-pas) SDM. Reuben takes his time shaking the hands of everyone at the table, all 16 of them and making everything just awkward. He sits down and the Sales guy gets on with the presentation.

About 11.45, 2 of the admin girls sneak in and arrange some clingfilm covered platters of sandwiches at the back of the room, you know the sort of thing, usually includes some bowls of crisps, little sausage rolls and some cans of drink. Only one person in the room has noticed this.

Reubens eyes havent left the food arrangement in 15 minutes, and he's fidgetting, putting off our sales manager who is becoming increasingly maddened.

Suddenly, in the middle of the talking, Reuben stands, coughing slightly to 'cover' his intrusion, and he walks over to the food. Sales man is gobsmacked, as is everyone else who now are utterly transfixed on Reuben,

Oblivious, Reuben starts peeling off the clingfilm from all the food, and picking at some of the sandwiches. seemingly not finding a filling to his liking, he dismantles a few sandwiches, flicking bits of lettuce around and freeing up some little bread triangles. Now having about 6 or 8 of the bits, he grabs a huge handful of crisps and assembles 3 or 4 little crisp sandwiches.

He returns to the table and looks confused as its all gone quiet. Sits down, eyeing up his little plate, (think Mr Bean eyes), picks up a sandwich and CRUNCH.

The salesman telling this story usually peels off about now, having not the words to describe the reaction. Somehow we renewed with Barclays and life went on. Reuben lasted a couple of weeks after that. He even did something better later on which i might type up later.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 12:19, 8 replies)

Suffer the little children
"Why has Colleague X been given a parking space?"

"Because she has children. She has to do the school run."

"And that would be why she gets her teaching scheduled for post-10am and pre-4pm?"

"Yes, she has to arrange child care."

"And that would be why she's done no research for five years, and why we have to cover for her at the drop of a hat?"

"Er, yes."

LISTEN UP BREEDERS! So you gave the gift of a child to the world. Thanks a fucking bunch. It doesn't make you special, it doesn't make you a better person, it does not give you some unique and lofty perspective on the world, and it certainly should not entitle you to a bloody car parking space. You made a lifestyle choice; deal with it. And if you ever, ever say to me "if you had kids you'd understand" then I'll unleash the paedophiles.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 16:31, 31 replies)

Mini Michelle
Michelle was five foot nothing high and a complete pain in the arse. Working in an office with her for 7 hours a day was like working with a furious spitting feral cat, every time the phone rang she would throw whatever she was holding down and exclaim “Oh for FUCKS SAKE!” before picking up the receiver. She also claimed to be the world’s biggest fan of Manchester United Football Club. In fact, she wouldn’t shut up about it. Most of the lads in the office were Bristol City fans, and whenever they had a chat it would invariably turn to football and how Bristol City were doing, at which point Michelle would pipe up “Not as good as Man U”, and “Man U would kick their arses” and “Why don’t you support a proper team, like Man U”….

Now Michelle came from Trowbridge, a town near Bath, and we worked in an office in Bristol. According to Google maps, Trowbridge is 197 miles away from Manchester, so Man U was hardly her local team. One day when she was spouting on about Man U, I called her a “Glory hunting wanker”, much to the amusement of everyone in the office. Looking totally gobsmacked she explained; “ACTUALLY, my dad comes from Scotland, so THAT’s why I support Man U!”. (For anyone who is interested, the Scottish Border is 131 miles away from Manchester).

One day the shit hit the fan. We all had what looked like a white Toblerone box on top of our monitors with our names on. One of the lads in the office had cut a face out of a newspaper and glued it to Michelle’s name, and she was going mental; “RAPIST! It’s that rapist! That’s disgusting! Who did this?! This is bullying! I’m taking it to a tribunal!” Eventually our manager got involved: -

Manager: “What’s going on?”
Michelle: “Somebody stuck a picture of that rapist on my monitor! I want this taken to a tribunal!”
Manager: [Looks at Michelle’s monitor] “That’s Roy Keane”
Michelle: “Yeah, that RAPIST”
Manager: “No…he’s the captain of Man United”
Michelle: …..”oh”……

That was the last we heard about Man U for a while.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 15:10, 6 replies)

my new colleague can be an absolute nightmare at times
She doesn't speak a word of English; seems to be manic depressive: one minute crying her eyes out, the next minute all smiles. Worst of all, she's incontinent and more often than not it's me that has to clean up.

I'm at home with a new baby. I just wanted to join in.
(housetits is channelling Natalie Cassidy - then, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 16:19, 6 replies)

Sorry,



i thought it said border collies.
( krang, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 2:07, 6 replies)

The Demise of Disney Part II
As a couple of you lovely people wanted a little more on the car crash that was the colleague known as Disney I shall oblige by writing about her eventual demise.

Following the events described in “Way back when” (see below) we thought we might have convinced Disney to be less irritating/condescending/bullying/mental. Unfortunately it became apparent that we’d merely waved a red rag at a bull as, after denying her the chance to bump pelvises with an unwilling victim, the pinch faced loon really went off the deep end. For those of you that can’t be bothered to read the other post Disney was Head of Customer Service for a holiday firm that I worked for a few years back in the ski resort of Courchevel.

Muggins here was a ski guide for said company, and this translated to minion/lackey/slave/bitch in Disney’s personal lexicon. We were forever doing her bidding for the first few months, she being a head of department and all. Our boss however was less than understanding when her general uselessness resulted in a group of skiers hanging about in resort all morning waiting for one of the lads to finish collecting a prescription for kid with the shits in the hotel when she could have done it herself. He being a proper mountain man from Scotland told her not to be such “an incompetent hag” and get off her expanding behind and do her job. Grins all round when we got back in that day and heard about it.

The smiles were short-lived however as the next morning all four of the guides were hauled into the resort managers office along with our boss and the spiteful bint to address “workplace bullying”. The vile sack of bones had accused us of making sexist derogatory comments and “lewd innuendo” as well as belittling her in front of staff and guests. Cue tongue lashing from the big boss and orders to sort it out “or you’re on the next flight back to blighty.”

Next day being transfer day I was glad to be out of resort and down to Geneva for a few hours talking shite with all the other reps. The trip back up saw us sharing a coach with another resort so once we hit the last town before the climb we were dropped off to be met by three lush people carriers and the company minibus for the extra luggage. Arrive at the car park and it’s just the minibus. Sigh... So I call the hotel to get them to chase the cab company and it’s Satan’s bastard offspring on the other end of the phone:

Me: Hi Disney, it’s me. Do you know if the cab firm has called? I’m at Moutier with the guests and O is here with the minibus but no cabs.

Disney: No, they haven’t phoned, why would they?

Me: Er, because I’ve got 16 guests here waiting in the freezing cold and no cabs for them.

Disney: Why?

Me: What do you mean why?! I’m here with guests and the cabs aren’t here to meet us!!

Disney: You can’t be cos we’re only expecting 4 guests in a cab this week. You're such a prick Harlequin, I won't fall for that one.

Click...

After I retrieve my jaw off the floor I phone my boss and explain what just happened, in between grinding my teeth and trying not to go purple in front of all the punters.

Eventually get the cabs booked and two hours later than it should have been 16 extremely annoyed holiday makers and one mightily fucked off guide make it to resort. I grin my way through the welcome drinks and then am quietly taken aside by the hotel manager. He informs me that Disney has again complained of the guides and kitchen staff (top boys, all of them) of making inappropriate remarks and deliberately trying to trip her up and make her look stupid. I open my mouth to put him right but he holds up a hand.

"I was in the office earlier and I heard her on the phone to you this afternoon. I checked things over and she was reading from last week's manifest. She then blamed one of the girls for putting the wrong folder out. It’s her folder.” (I confess I got a semi in anticipation at this point.) He dropped his voice, “Don’t worry about the head case, I’ll have her out of here in a week.” He was a man of his word too and when she got driven to the airport he even coughed up for a cab so our poor handyman/driver wouldn’t have to endure her company for two mind shattering hours. Her leaving present? Everyone from the hotel, and I mean every single member of staff from housekeeping, management, ski guiding, bar and kitchen, turned out to send her off in style. She started to feign emotion and was blathering about how much she’d miss everyone (she hadn’t taken a single number or email) when the Sous Chef (my roommate and a true legend) rumbles from his considerable height, “Oh just fuck off already, you really are an utter cunt you know”.

Absolute silence…Apart from the suppressed sniggers going round the entire group, chief culprit being the hotel manager.

She then very quickly gets into the cab and as it’s moving off turns to deliver a less friendly variation of Winston Churchill’s famous sign. Only to find that every staff member has pre-empted her pithy comeback by giving her the finger. Pure, unadulterated genius and nothing less than she deserved, the rabid bile filled bint.
(DarkHarlequin putting babies on spikes since, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 15:35, 3 replies)

The worse one ever
I used to have a job working in the City of London. I was happy there, just sort of plodding along every day - big drinky lunches and even bigger drinky after workies. My work was always finished though, and I managed to bring the profile of our department to something better than "Those fucking cunts in accounts"

And then, then the company brought in a new manager. She was an utter, utter, utter troll. Short, fat, frizzy hair haridan. We started installing a new accounts package about 2 months after she started. I started doing some serious overtime (not getting paid for it) getting into work at about 7.30 in the morning, and not getting home until gone nine most nights. A couple of times I was there till 11.00. I would like to point out that I had 2 small children at the time, and my husband had run off with a coke whore about 3 months before she started. Anyhoo - she called me into the meeting room one morning and told me that I wasn't "committed" enough to my role, and as I was having "personal problems" it had been decided by upper management that I should either take a demotion (and drop £5k)or be willing to put in more hours.

I think they were planning on setting up a little camp bed under my desk - bless 'em.

Rather predictably I told her to stroke it and poke it and handed my resignation in on the spot. She shat herself a bit then as there was no one else in the department who was as brilliant as I (this bit may be a little fib)

Well - I worked out my notice and about a week before I was due to leave I had an interview with HR. Man, I stuck the knife in - it was fantastic, every petty little nasty shitty thing she had ever said or done was brought out into the light and pored over. Her line manager got involved and when I told him what had been going on he actually went a bit pale. Constructive Dismissal appeared to be a phrase that worried everyone in that meeting. I said it a number of times.

Anyway, I left and 1 month later she was sacked; and I went back as a consultant. SCORE!

Don't fuck with the cat.
( my_cat_has_no_shoes meh meh meh MEH MEH, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 9:48, 8 replies)

Chuck
.
I worked for a large American/Canadian telecomms company and one of my cow-orkers was a Redneck-Hilbillly called Chuck. He was, ostensibly, my team-leader but I normally ignore him or told him to fuck-off. Actually, on one occasion I physically went for him only to have him run away screaming like a girl.

Luckily my boss regarded Chuck as a useless waste of space and was just biding his time until he could get rid of the useless mouth-breather.

I had a few run-ins with Chuck.

One day I wandered into work at 11am and headed straight for the coffee station Chuck came barrelling across the room.

"Legless!! What time do you call this" he shouted.

"11 o'clock you retard. Can't you even tell the time now?" I growled...

"And what's your excuse?" Chuck spluttered

"My *excuse* is that some cunt who was on-call last night wouldn't answer his pager. So ops paged me at 4am. And, seeing that the same cunt who was on call switched his mobile off, I had to come in and fix a fucking mail-server." I growled stepping menacingly towards him, red-hot cup of coffee in my hand..

"My..my..my batteries must have packed in" says Chuck backing away from me

"Legless!" barked the boss. "Down.Sit.Stay. - Chuck? - My office, now!"

Bloody boss had ears like a bat.

So Chuck went into the office for yet another bollocking and I slumped into my seat. It was then that I typed out an e-mail and sent it too my team, sans Chuck.

Now this is an old joke that I adapted for the situation but I swear to God this happened....

I Had A Dream.....

I had a dream last night that Bob, the company president, came to see us all in the social club and give us all our Red-Indian names in honour of the good work we were doing.

First up was Terry.

"Terry!" boomed Bob. "I shall call you Owl for you are wise and all seeing and don't mind working while lesser men sleep..."

"Bob! Bob!" Squeaked Chuck "What's my Indian name"

"Soon Chuck, soon" murmured Bob

"Adam!" quoth Bob " You shall now be Eagle for you are strong and far-seeing"

"Bob! Bob!" Squeaked Chuck "What's my Indian name"

"Soon Chuck, soon...."says Bob

"Legless!" booms Bob "I shall call you Swallow for you are swift and sure"

"Bob! Bob!" Squeaked Chuck "What's my Indian name" - now jumping up and down like a wee girl

"Chuck! says Bob turning to him. "I shall call you Thrush!"

"Oooh" says Chuck excitedly "Why am I called Thrush?"

"Because you're an irritating cunt" says Bob kindly....

***************

And I saved the e-mail and sent it. About a week later, I got the same e-mail back in my in-tray, forwarded on from someone in the Asia-Pac office - with a list of headers showing that this mail had done the rounds of the entire company - and beyond.

From then on, the whole company referred to Chuck as Thrush. And he never knew why.

Until now....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 9:18, 5 replies)

On The Buses
Not me, but my uncle:

My uncle Rae lived and worked in a small, rural town on the south coast as abus driver. This is the kind of town with an hourly bus service, not one the runs every couple of miutes.

Rae used to work the early shift, so had the "pleasure" of having his boss get on his bus every morning to get to work.

Guy was a complete twat and would keep a close eye on what time the bus arrived and left certain stops, berating my uncle if the timings weren't spot on. As a result, Rae has to be one of the few people in the country who has a conviction for speeding in a bus.

One morning, my uncle was summoned to his bosses office and was screamed at for a good half hour by his boss, who demanded to know why he had stopped 100 yards short of a stop to pick up one of the regulars - a little old dear who volunteered at the local hospital, who was clearly running late that day and hadn't quite made it to the stop.

This was against company policy and resulted in Rae getting his final warning (he had previously got into trouble for being caught speeding in a company bus).

Next day, who should Rae spot 100 yards from his stop and waiving his arm like crazy? His boss. Did my uncle stop to pick him up? Did he fuck. Did my uncle have a job by the end of that did? Did he fuck. Did he care? Did he fuck.

Length? 12m with a bend in the middle, evidently.
(ScousersPet, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 10:31, 2 replies)

Jesus Paul
We had a colleague at the Ministry of Cow Counting called Paul. Jesus Paul. The ministry had a vey lax attitude toward recruitment, taking anybody they could coax in off the streets, so we were blessed with a high percentage of loons.

Jesus Paul was known to be a bit of a God-squadder, completely harmless, but would make a habit of coming in early and leaving religious leaflets on Hell and Damnation on our desks.

One morning that changed. He came in looking a bit edgy and went up to one of the lads who had just settled down with a cup of tea and the Daily Mirror for a good, long day's skiving.

Jesus Paul: "Scuse us Pete. Do you believe in Jesus?"

Pete: "Well, actually, I'm not that religi..."

*BOFF!*

Floored him, with one great righteous punch to the noggin.

This continued for several minutes as our Soldier for Christ floored several other non-believers before trying it on with the office brick-shithouse Big Brian.

Jesus Paul: "Scuse us Bri. Do you be..."

*BOFF!*

A memo did the rounds later in the day: "Paul is on extended sick leave." There were very few takers for a 'Get Well Soon' card, for we were a heathen, unforgiving lot.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 9:51, 11 replies)

The List
.
Long ago and far away, there was a psycho chap I shall call "B". B had a notebook, and in the notebook was "The List". The List had been compiled over many years and contained the names of every single person in the building (and it was a big building) who'd offended him in any way. Going back to the day he started.

If you offended him and then left (or got really lucky and died) then your name was scored through with red pen. It was all rather sinister, really. Not the sort of guy you'd ever trust with a weapon, that's for sure.

It didn't take much to offend him. I made it onto The List by laughing when, at the staff Christmas dinner, the toy fell out of his cracker and into his glass of wine. If he could have burned me at the stake, he would have. Instead, my name went into the notebook.

The years passed oh so slowly, and after being incarcerated there for far too many years, his retirement date beckoned. We all began to wonder - what would he do with The List? Would he work his way around the building on the last day, slapping offenders, righting wrongs (real or imaginary)?. Or would he buy us all a special present (not likely).

However, fate conspired against him. Poor old B. Denied whatever satisfaction he'd have gained from whatever he intended to do. The night before his final day at work, his manager got the maintenance guy to jemmy the lock on his desk and removed the notebook. He was unsurprised to find his own name entered on numerous occasions - apparently you got noted down every time you offended. If I'd known that I'd have gone for the record! I asked the boss how many times I was in it and the reply was "Less than me". I felt cheated!

B arrived on his last day at precisely 9am, clocked in and sat down. Noticed the busted lock and opened the drawer. Noted the loss of the precious notebook. Stood up, put on his coat and walked out. All without a single word spoken. No one I know ever saw him again. Although security were on alert for several weeks in case he came back and went postal.

Perhaps not so much a bastard as just downright weird. But there was a sense of hidden menace about the bloke, lurking just under the cheap scruffy shirts.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 28 Jan 2008, 16:02, 4 replies)

Anger management.
OK, J wasn't a bastard, but he was amusingly angry at times, and had a very short fuse. Let me give you an example:

All is going well, when, from the other end of the building, we hear
"Bastard! Fucking shitting bastard! Cunt! Jeezus Christ! FUCKING BASTARD CUNTING ARESEHOLE FUCKING BOLLOCKS SHIT!"

J works with heavy and expensive stuff, so there's naturally a few people who are concerned - and more who want to see the carnage that must have prompted such an outburst.
"J! Are you OK?"
"FUCK!"
"What's wrong?"
"I've dropped my FUCKING PENCIL! AGAIN!"
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 15:17, 2 replies)

Darren.

Real oddball. About 27 but dresses like a 45 year old did in 1950. Never uses one word when he can ramble (although rather eloquently) for twenty minutes. Took his mum to the xmas do. Very serious, tries to be uber-professional.

Caught him today pretending to balance along the join in the carpet with a happy grin on his face when he thought he was on his own.

Suddenly noticed me smiling and went bright red.

I like him.
(inflateable, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 20:39, 5 replies)

'Kevin from Sales'. A Ballad.
Before any B3tans who happen to share the name start sharpening the scythes, this isn't specific to any Kevin. In fact, before the ladies start organising howling lynch mobs it also applies to 'Sandra from Sales' but I work in what is still a male dominated industry. Sorry.

The basic ingredients required by what I am convinced is a super-secret bio-engineering lab in a bunker under the Pyrenees are as follows:

Personality, lack of. Check.
Pale/skinny or pale/obese. Check.
Complexion resembling a cross between an extra pepperoni deep dish/explosion in abbatoir. Check.
If female, makeup so thick that it would act as rudimentary body armour if a shotgun was fired at close range. Check.
Inability to use basic English. Check.
Umbilical cord connecting them to mobile. Check.
'Business Attire' comprising a suit with such a high percentage of artificial fibres that small sparks are spontaneously generated and may in fact be hazardous in times of drought. Check.

The assembled herd of Sales Trainees are then shoved into an overheated chicken shed, and given their 'training'.They are not allowed natural sunlight or fresh air as they may explode spontaneously.

They then meet the 'Training Team'. This usually comprises of an orange faced Kilroy-Silk clone suffering the after-effects of 20 years of cocaine abuse, usually on at least his sixth marriage, second heart, and third liver. Likes to talk about his kids but is in fact not allowed to see them by law unless monitored by security staff. His sidekick (used to do the OHP acetates until Powerpoint came along and now stares vacantly until either brainless clapping or brainless repeating of the 'buzzword' is required): she is single, primarily as she resembles Jabba the Hutt on a bad hair day, is slavishly loyal to her boss, and would gladly cut off a major body part to get his perma-tanned floppy bits into her rancid Travel Hell room. And to be fair, that's probably the only weight loss that is even a faint possibility.

The terrible two, usually 'consultants' from ABC Brainwashing & Incitement to Bollocks plc, will then warp and twist the precious little (and I do mean little) brains of Kevin and Sandra until they can only communicate in Sales Scripts. They actually believe, people, with the fervency of the congregation at a Southern Baptist Church. Think of the church scene in the Blues Brothers. That's how much they believe in 'the message'. They've role-played until in their minds they are actually a 41 year old sales prospect from Solihull called Agnes. They know in their teenage hearts that they are only 80% warranty penetration away from the Ferrari and the Villa.

And then they let them loose. Tremble and Despair, Joe Public because they are out there....

To be fair, I've managed to avoid employing too many of these. However, you try and buy a big electrical thing, or a car from a 'supermarket'...

Firstly, you need to get within 50 yards of the thingy that you may at some stage consider purchasing without Kevin polyester-ing up to you in a cloud of static. Instead of saying "hello, can I help" and then bogging off when told that you are just having a fly shufti and will give him a yodel when his pustulent presence is required, he'll go into the dreaded 'features and benefits' presentation.

Now you're buggered. There is no way that you can escape now that the Script of Sales Doom has started, short of physical assault, pouring petrol over yourself and fingering your lighter with a manic smile, or pretending to be Greek.

Any attempt at communication that does not come from the script will naturally be met with a slack-jawed "I dunno, I'll have to ask".

If you are male and looking at a car, even if it is for your female companion, and even if she is asking the questions, Kevin will direct his replies to you. Unless she is well equipped by the Almightly (or Dr Feelgood) with impressive Norkage, in which case will mumble at the male while fixing his basilisk-like gaze on the mammary goodness.

If you do manage to get rid of Kevin for 5 minutes, often by the threat or use of insane amounts of red-mist drooling rage and/or violence, don't breathe easily, folks. Because the Sales Manager, Darren lets call him, has been on a course. On how to manage the 'structured 8 point selling plan for success or some such'. And Darren (call me Daz) will send Kevin/Sandra (call me legitimate target) straight back out. If you fail in that instant to agree to buy, then you may get Daz striding over, pretending that you are ever-so-important by being allowed to inhale his stench of stale Lambert& Butler and Lynx.

He will then go for the 'hard close'.

When you've finished laughing at the smartly suited buffoon, you can leave, happy in the knowledge that he'll sink an extra pint of rancid Stella that night, worrying if his 100% sales-godness has been dented a bit. And if we're lucky, he'll pile the company car over a cliff on the way home, to die slowly of bloodloss while being slowly eaten by assorted rodents.

But never fear, that means there is a vacancy for Kevin to become..........a Manager.

All is lost.
(osok Rebel without a clue, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 14:48, 11 replies)

law firms
seem to attract the ignorant and the arrogant. but the partner who headed up the insolvency team when i was a trainee was something else.

he would be at his desk, rain or shine, by 6.30am every single morning. sometimes at the weekend. and he made sure that we all knew he had exercised 3 horses or run 3 miles before leaving for work. at about 7.30am he would go for a stroll around the office. then the phone would be picked up.

"morning," he'd boom to the answerphone of whichever department head he had picked on that morning. "magnus here. just been up to your floor and it's like the marie celeste. where are you all?" thus ensuring that the hapless assistants got bollocked first thing.

did i see him going around after 5.30pm, or at 2.30am, telling people to go home? did i fuck.

magnus was (well, still is, unfortunately) one of those people who lives to make other people unhappy. with a shit eating grin on his face. he would say very rude things or fire career destroying missiles with a sweet smirk. a smiling assassin, i think the term is. my first experience of him coincided with the last experience of his 14th secretary of the year.

marnie was a really lovely girl and the best legal secretary i've seen before or since. i found her sobbing in a meeting room, two copies of a consent order in front of her. i asked what the matter was, and she sobbed, "it's magnus. he's sent these back four times and i... just... can't... see what's... wrong!"

i have a very anal eye (so to speak) for spelling and grammar, so i said i would read through it. there were no mistakes that i could see. one was to be sent to the landlord and one to the sub-tenant, and both covering letters were fine too.

eventually, the red-eyed marnie and i went to find magnus together. we explained that we just could not see the problem. magnus rolled his eyes in disgust.

"well," he sneered, "if you can't see that one of them is stapled this way (horizontally) and one this way (vertically) then you need your eyes testing."

FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE. even if that weren't the most sadistically anal thing in the entire world, they are GOING TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE YOU EVIL NASTY PULSATING BOIL INFESTED SPACKING CUNT is what i felt like yelling.

"sorry magnus," is what i murmured.

marnie walked out the next morning, and the "staplegate" story made it around the firm in record time. it didn't do him any favours. what a cock!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 0:41, 7 replies)

Oh, the ‘Corporate buzzword’ bastard…

I used to work in a car parts warehouse as a PC spanner (amongst other things). Now this company are huge and choc-full to the brim of the most annoyingly incompetent spackers known to civilisation…and most of them are in management.

They attempt to compensate for their laziness, ineptness and general spoddishness by indulging in the modern art of sucking up to their bosses in copious proportions. They achieve this through the media of spouting never-ending brown rivers of management buzzwords.

But high above them all, on a throne carved from the finest bull, horse and pigshit, sits ‘Burnsy’. A man of such extreme wankiness that my face contorts with rage as I reminisce.

Really, I cannot remember the last time I encountered such a waste of spunk and egg.

The very definition of ‘all mouth and trousers’ (with a lot of belly thrown in), Burnsy has blagged and mind-molested his way into the higher echelons of management.

Without.actually.doing.anything.

However, it’s in meetings where he unveils his awesome arsenal of buzzword bollockness. In front of all the managers and team leaders, he spouts off such gems as:

Burnsy: “Right then people…FOCUS! We need to push…PUUUUSH (with hand gestures) the company forward. Proactive not reactive, we must deliver and action to benchmark this synergy.”
Everybody: “Huh?”
Burnsy: “Thinking outside the box is best practice…we must empower to stretch the Kaizen”
Me: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”
Burnsy: “Well……..basically….I’m putting the targets that everybody couldn’t achieve last year UP by another 30%”
Everybody: “mmmf”
Burnsy: “WE ARE LEADERS OF MEN!!”

The upper management schlurp up this uberwank like a gaggle of Hannibal Lectors going at a bowl of scrotum soup. It is sickening to behold.

The only manager that actually sussed Burnsy was a twat has since been booted out himself for …erm…being a twat. That situation left his underling (Burnsy’s No. 1 fan and co-speaker of the language of pointless corporate gobbledegook) in charge.

That place is fucked.

Of course, when there’s actual work to be done, or (god help him) a decision to be made, Burnsy flaps and goes off like a cheap firework. He then hides or hops on his little electric truck and cocks off into the distance; only to return when the panic has subsided so he can take the credit for resolving the situation.

“I was glad to facilitate the inspiration for this learning curve scenario” he dribbles, as everybody mutters ‘cunt’ under their breath.

I’m sure he genuinely believes that he’s good at his job. Patronising to one and all, and despite having the mental capacity of a lump of turquoise plasticine, Burnsy is the epitome of turning it on when he feels he can benefit, only to metaphorically dump his muck and leave you with your arse bleeding in the gutter. His attempt to be ‘one of the lads’ makes you shudder.

Over the years, he has ‘managed’ to move between several teams, royally shag them ragged on a biblical scale and then bugger off to leave someone else to pick up the mess and mutinies… Following this, the first act in his ‘new role’ will be to slag off the shit state of his previous team and complain ‘It was never like that when I was in charge’. He’s the management equivalent of a tumour.

A mate of mine (Hi mudbutton!) is currently on the arse end of this very ordeal.

‘One day he’ll get what’s coming to him’ we all say, but he won’t. He’s been rumbled more times than I can care to remember but always seems to come out of the shite smelling of roses, usually with some other poor twunt carrying the can.

I managed to get out of there…far away from the blithering cumbubble. The look on his face as I told him I was leaving for a better job was worth more than the salary itself.

He prides himself on keeping you down. He failed with me.

Then again, I hear he’s on his way to another promotion.

Some things never change, and as sure as day follows night, Burnsy is a git.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 24 Jan 2008, 16:23, 14 replies)

I'm self-employed
and it's just me. Not much fun at the Christmas party I can tell you. Well, not until I have a few pints and start fancying myself.
(highly_defined, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 10:15, 8 replies)

Clicky pen
He has a clicky pen and sits all day clicking his clicky fucking pen. "Click, click, click, clicketty clicky, click, click...clickclickclickclickclickclick. Clicky click, clickclickclickclick....clickety click...." and on it goes, on and on and on, sitting there clicking his pen, clicking away.

When he is telling a hilarious story about his X-Box or latest graphics card the clicking of his pen gets faster. When he's trying to explain something to someone he clicks his pen slowly. When he walks he clicksd his pen in time with with footsteps. "Click, click, click, click, click, clicketty, fucking click." All bloody day. I've even started hiding his pens by throwing them out the window on to the roof, but some how he always manages to find a new clicky pen.
( The Duke of Prunes, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 13:17, 9 replies)

This is a staff announcement...
A while ago I worked in a large electrical retail outlet. I say large, but our store was actually the smallest one in the country for this particular chain. It was a sorry affair: mainly a shop front no bigger than your usual newsagents, and a stockroom that had room for maybe half a television.

Because of the small size of the store, there was one single Tannoy microphone, on the cash desk. This tannoy had two buttons: one for the shop floor, and the other one for the warehouse.

One Manager of ours used to enjoy giving a running commentary for the stockroom guys about what was happening on the floor. Things like "Lads: Code 88: two fat birds have entered" and "Pete, your mum's in: oh no, wait, just another ugly bint" were regular outbursts from him.

We noticed one day that the microphone basically had two jack leads coming out under the desk. So, being oh-so-grown-up, we decided to swap these round, so all shop announcements went out back, and vice versa.

We couldn't have picked a better time really. As we finished, I looked up and saw the best sight ever. A frankly stunning woman had come in wearing only a bikini (as it was a very hot summer), and to her left, was our manager, with a HUGE grin on his face, running as fast as he could to the cash desk. Before we could warn him, an announcement was broadcast over the whole busy shop front:

"Fuck me boys, I hope this birds' a thief - wouldn't mind giving her a full body cavity search! With my COCK!"

To this day, I still dont know how (a) he kept his job, and (b) he didn't realise when he started hearing his own announcement on the shop floor...
(Ant Marching And for my next trick... GWARGGHHGWWGGGH!, Tue 29 Jan 2008, 11:47, 2 replies)

Evil Horrible Bastard Man
A company I used to work for employed a number of home-based consultants. They were all lovely and amiable apart from one who I will call A. There's always one isn't there?

A was never the easiest chap to get on with - brusque on the phone, talked down to us girls in the office cos we were girls, etc etc. But that was ok, we could cope with that.

Then one day our boss noticed a discrepancy in A's monthly report i.e. he'd said he'd done something on a certain date when in fact he hadn't.

So our boss being a good boss asked him to explain, in a friendly "Oops! did you make a mistake here?" kind of way.

And A responded as a can of petrol to a match. He accused of our boss, who I will call Steve, of micro-managing him, of racial harrassment (he was Welsh!), and bullying.

This was just for starters. Over the next six months or so the relationship deteriorated so much that
a. Steve couldn't actually speak to A.
b. He had about five official complaints against Steve.

When the official complaints were investigated and proved to be bollocks, A then filed several more complaints about the staff who had investigated the original complaints. He then refused to
a. Work anywhere near the M25
b. Start work before 9am, which in his mind meant he would start his journey to whichever client he was visiting at 9am, which meant he was doing one two-hour visit a day instead of three.

By then, such was A's tirade of complaints of racial harrassment, salary discrepancies and all the other crap had reached such heights that not only did our manager have seven official complaints against him, but so did the finance director, the managing director, the head of the department managing the original complaints, his assistant, and me.

Yes, me!

I had had the unfortunate duty of being responsible for keeping the key to his new company car. He came into the office, grunted, snatched it off me, and went.

Two minutes later there was a call and it was A complaining that his new car was overdue a service by some 7,000 miles. I politely tried to point out that it wasn't. But A is never wrong, so he yelled at me. A lot.

So I complained about him, in a nice "I don't come to work to be yelled at, it wasn't nice, please do something" kind of way, so they did. They wrote him a letter along the lines of "Dear A, happylittletulip says you yelled at her. Is she right? If so, we would very much like to hear your views and response."

A day later a two-page fax listing all my shortcomings as an employee, colleague, and person spilled out of the fax in front of everyone. It wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. I might have cried a bit. My boss took it off me and said Don't Worry, We'll Deal With It.

I might have done so, had I not received, a mere three days later, a letter from A saying that he was claiming a five-figure sum from me personally for defamation of character and libel and god knows what else, running over his puppies probably. I handed this to my boss and went home all white and shaking and had to eat maltesers for about two hours to calm myself down.

The company responded to his letter on my behalf in no uncertain terms. "Dear A, you're talking bollocks and harrassing happylittletulip, stop it or we'll get you." This, I thought, would be the end.

But no. The next week I received another letter from A saying that, due to the malicious and unfounded reports I had made about him in response to his previous letter, he was now demanding another sum of money, twice as much as the first one, again for libel and murder and fraud and other heinous deeds I had probably committed against him due to my criminal and malicious nature. Again I handed this to my boss and ate maltesers to try to stop shaking.

By now mr happylittetulip had noticed all was not well, possibly due to the lack of maltesers but probably because I spent most mornings quivering under the duvet and sobbing "Don't make me go to work, I won't do it, you can't make me" and rocking backwards and forwards. Once I told him the whole story I had to confiscate his car keys to stop him driving to A's house and killing him to death.

By now you are probably wondering why A hadn't been sacked. "This is crazy!" you are thinking, and you're right. But the reason he hadn't been sacked is that the company we worked for specialised in employment law, and they were terrified of being sued for constructive dismissal.

So they let it go to tribunal, or rather, three tribunal cases by the time it came round. We waited a whole year, by which time I was working elsewhere. The morning of the tribunal arrived. I was champing at the bit to say my bit against this twunt who had decided he wanted to ruin my life because I protested when he yelled at me. (I mean, who has a spare hundred grand or so knocking around when they're in their twenties?).

We got to court.

The atmosphere was serious and tense, like a pair of black pants with too-tight elastic.

We all met beforehand in the waiting room.

A caught my eye and I returned his gaze with daggers of steel. Unfortunately the daggers were imaginary ones and did no harm.

The chairman of the tribunal arrived.

A approached the bench and... WITHDREW all his claims. And so we all went home for tea and buns.

What a knob.

*Apologises for length and hopes the girth made up for it.
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 15:52, 8 replies)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... myself.
I'm sort of a colleague, aren't I? I mean, you see me most days on here...

So why am I a bastard? Well, for starters, while most of you have been huddling in England in the lovely drizzle, I've spent the past few days in the Florida Keys. Here's a picture I shot this morning as I sat outside with my coffee:



When I called my friend Richard and told him that I was wearing shorts and drinking coffee on the sand, he called me a rat bastard.

But worse is to come...

Yesterday when we got back from exploring a beach to the south of our resort, we thought we might check out the pool. Well, January here is still a bit cool, so we concluded that the water was still a bit too chilly for our tastes. Apparently the rest of the adults there felt the same way, as there were only children splashing around in the pool. I suddenly thought of the phrase "dropping the kids off at the pool" and giggled for a moment, then shared that observation with the Lunatic Artist, who chuckled.

Then I noticed the poolside bar:



And then I noticed that all of the kids in the pool were either black or Latino. So here were a bunch of small dark brown shapes bobbing around beneath that sign...

Exit (hastily) one madly giggling Loon and one rather appalled Artist.

Yes, I accept that I'm going to hell- but I'll have lots of company, as I can hear you lot giggling too!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:41, 16 replies)

Mark The Cretin
I once worked at a pensions company in the Woking area (office now closed) where we had a couple of very "special" work colleagues.

The first was a guy called Mark (I'll see if I have more time later for others). Now Mark was intelligent, very good at his job and pretty efficient when push came to shove. The problem? He'd never ever been shown by his inbred bible bashing parents how to eat properly.

So what you might think.

I had to sit opposite this cunt whilst he tried to insert entire sandwiches into his mouth in one go and then proceeded to chomp on them with his mouth wide open. He would make squelching noises, spit food all over his desk and dribble onto his keyboard. The noise made me feel sick and want to pick up a heavy hole punch and repeatedly smash him in the face with it until he would be forced to take in any future nutrition via a straw. He would then sit there all afternoon with bits of food stuck to his face/in his hair/eyebrows/etc. Seriously - there is only so many days of someone doing something so annoying that you can take. He did benefit me (and all those who sat around him) in that we all took full lunch breaks wherever possible to get away from him. However he also made one of our senior management feel so sick in a "lunchtime" meeting where sandwiches were provided which he spat over half those there that we were never allowed food during meetings again.

He did provide a laugh in the end. An admin girl who got moved near to him lost it one lunchtime and after visibly getting increasingly agitated by his disgusting noises screamed at him "CAN'T YOU EAT WITH YOUR FUCKING MOUTH CLOSED FOR GOD'S SAKE?". Mark hung his head in shame and then carried on eating in exactly the same fashion. The pièce de résistance was that he then sneezed and covered (and I mean covered) his keyboard, PC and monitor in some variety of egg sandwich. I had to leave ten minutes later due to hysterical laughing at him whilst he tried to clear up only to have to repeat when on my return the IT Manager was telling him he didn't care the "D" key on his keyboard didn't work now, he wasn't having another.
( dan j the filthy bastard, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 14:11, 9 replies)

Working for Winners! You will be assimilated! Resistence is Futile!
One of my very first jobs was being the office admin spod for an offshoot of a large European haulage firm. We were sited two miles away from the English HQ in our own little outpost comprised of a hamster colony of portakabins built into an old corrugated iron barn.

My boss, Jon - also the MD's son - was a lovely chap, always a great source of stories about drunken nights out and he generally let me do my thing. He had won the position on merit, having run the operation single handed for a year before I was drafted in to cope with the increased workload as we were taking over the running of a haulage firm comprising some twenty odd trucks with depots in Liverpool and Crewe in addition to our own.

The working week was like this; Monday would be busy with delivery reports, Tuesday checking invoices, Wednesday payroll and invoicing for fuel, Thursday back to invoices and Friday was generally fuck about day when the drivers would come in, shoot the breeze/moan/show us a polaroid of a woman masturbating in her car whilst overtaking etc.

We turned a healthy profit too, had thirteen self employed drivers who's books we did - and who had an exclusive contract to haul for our parent company - who handed in their tachographs for us to read (some fairly amusing blatant pisstakes like the bloke who wrote "Tacho flew out of window" after driving an estimated 12 hour stint) and expenses.

Managing the haulage firm was generally an enjoyable doddle, thanks in no small part to our hilarious team of scouse drivers like "Little Billy" (all six foot seven of him) and "Steady Hand Harry" (caught wanking in his lorry, aged 64) and a number of salt of the earth types we quickly warmed to.

However our Dutch overlords summoned Jon's father to head office and retired him on the spot.

His replacement turned up. An alpha male Dutchman by the name of Georg, who prided himself on being a mountaineer. Yep, he couldn't even appreciate an amusing cliche when it presented itself.

Georg turned up and sneered at the English staff, before saying a cheery "Hello" to the other dutchman, the Swede and the German.

Georg decided that our company had three too many employees. Yep, Jon, myself and the other manager bloke called John (incidentally, guess what my middle name is). Georg was sent over to boost profits and slash costs, his managerial style verged between sneering and outright ranting. Everyone was made to feel guilty for sullying the office carpet in the mornings, except of course the other Dutchman, the Swede and the German.

Georg clearly had no idea of employment tribunals, when our female IT specialist was told that "women aren't to be trusted near computers, too complex for them". A newly married sales manager was told to "forget spending time with your wife, work harder and go to a whore at the weekend". Secretaries were harried and harassed until they resigned before having breakdowns. Georg even managed to convince our traffic planning staff to oblige our drivers to disregard traffic regulations and if the job needed doing, intimidate drivers into running bent, by ensuring the honest blokes got the shit local jobs the whole of the week.

Apparently this management style was called "being flexible", ie you could stuff a fag end into your tachograph and bypass the speed limiter to get the job done. If you got caught by the rozzers then you're bringing the company into disrepute.

Georg wanted trucks running 24 hours a day. We had to hire 2.6 drivers for each of our vehicles and both Jon and John were given stern bollockings when we failed to do this.

Our other dutchman, a tall balding bloke called Twan was first to crack. As a traffic planner, he was obliged to know the law. However, he ensured all his drivers broke it in the name of profit.

The Swede resigned and the German joined the ranks of the pissed of English in a rare moment of camaraderie, often seen goose-stepping behind Georg and making some very dry snide comments out of earshot.

Georg's moment of genius however came during negotiations with a well known motor manufacturer who rhymes with "bored". Georg didn't trust his inferior English staff to negotiate a deal to drive car parts from Dagenham to Purfleet docks. Oh no, he did it all himself.

We won the contract, beating our nearest competitor by a huge margin. Georg had pulled off a masterstroke! Holland would be very pleased with him.

However, upon investigation and the application of a calculator we discovered the flaw in the plan. In order to manage to meet the tight schedule using the vehicles we had and to make the job break even, the vehicles had to average 33mph for the journey from Dagenham to Purfleet. However, the ferries sailed at eight thirty am and six thirty pm... not a hope in hell. The timed average speed at that time of day was 15mph if you were lucky.

So it came to pass that our little outpost was summarily dismantled and we were assimilated into our head office two miles away. The office manager, who'd been given a promotion for no extra pay and ten more hours a week took a dislike to my screensaver. Every time I went to the bathroom, I'd come back and see some corporate bollocks on my screen like "Working for Winners!" (our official logo). All of a sudden, our contented workforce was being deluged with Corporate Megawank. It was all being wheeled out, in a desperate attempt to make us "feel part of a team". This enraged me, so I'd change my old screensaver back in an act of passive, but derisory defiance. The battle of wills continued for months until I had enough and changed it to a password protected "Winning and Wanking!" shortly before quitting.

I am delighted to report that my employment outlasted that of Georg. Thanks to his clumsy bludgeoning at costs with all the surgical skill of a drunken obese ranting Geordie waving a leaden claymore, the carnage of Georg's reign was there for all to see: Eight out of thirteen owner drivers we worked in partnership with went bankrupt, hauliers had to be bribed with higher rates to work for us as our reputation was so bad, good drivers resigned and were replaced with folk willing to break the rules but who ripped us off royally.

Georg was summoned to our Dutch HQ and the following statement was released

"With immediate effect, E**** C**** C*** BV and Georg ***** have reached a compromise whereby Georg ***** will have more time to devote to his leisure activities such as skiing and mountaineering."

Fuck me, let's hope the Matterhorn got him. eh?
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 24 Jan 2008, 23:58, 2 replies)

Spock Lives
Ahh Stephen, a bastard, and lazy with it.
We needed a new developer, so interviews were had, technical questions were asked and Stephen was employed...
He didn't turn up on his first day (bad sign one)
So boss rang him and found he'd not found anywhere close to live and still lived hundreds of miles away (we should have sacked him then).
Turned up on Tuesday and was given a bit of self contained work to complete, our senior developer had said it should take two days, so Stephen was given until the end of the week.
Didn't turn up on his third day.
My boss called him (never the other way round) and found the driving had been too much, so he was going to spend the day finding somewhere new to live. My boss told him to sort that out this week and start over on Monday.
Friday I'm asked to call Stephen, and find out if he'll be in on Monday. He still hasn't found anywhere, I ask his budget and find him several places to visit over the weekend.
He arrives on Monday and as far as I'm aware starts working away. He is however always on the phone, attempting to find better accommodation.
Friday arrives and boss calls Stephen in and asks how he's doing. Stephen has "almost finished" but asks if he can show it all working on Monday. Monday comes and goes, as does Tuesday, we other drones persuade Stephen to join us for lunch (a walk to the sandwich shop) we get half way there when he runs to a phone box and stays there, on the phone for 20 mins.
Friday comes and boss, who used to develop himself asks if he can see Stephen's progress, and if he needs it potentially help. Stephen graciously declines this offer and says he'll show boss everything on Monday.
Stephen starts arriving exactly 30 mins late and leaving 30 mins early.
Stephen starts making coffee just for himself.
Monday rolls round, as does Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
On Friday boss calls Stephen in and asks to see his work, when Stephen pleads to wait boss says "This has stopped being funny, and show me the work or I'll give you a verbal warning." Stephen accepts the written warning.
I find out Stephen's Password is Spock Lives.
Monday occurs and boss has talk with IT director re: Stephen.
Wednesday IT director and boss call Stephen in to the office. Boss - "Show us what you have been working on or here is a written warning."
Stephen - "I'll take the written warning."
IT director - "Seriously just show us what you've been working on."
Stephen picks up written warning and walks out.
We discover that Stephen is late because he's working as a cleaner in the mornings to pay the rent on his house.
We find out Stephen has 13 Chinchillas.
Friday comes round, this is officially the last day of Stephen's probationary period. Boss and IT director call Stephen in and give him the option of showing what he's been doing for the last 3 weeks (we've all noticed him coding) or he'll be asked to leave.
He said "Fair enough" and left.
It ended up good for me though, I got his computer, when going through the recycle bin I found two vbs files, containing a half finished novel set between Star Trek 2 and 3 entitled Spock Lives.
Epilogue
Head of HR decided that he hadn't been sacked properly so he was paid for the next 3 months, and then they failed to stop paying him so he ended up with 5 months pay for writing a rather poor Sci-Fi novel.
Sorry about the length, you'd have been sorrier if I'd posted the novel.
(nebbie, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 14:30, 3 replies)

Brian fucking Quin, Angus, and the cowering Swede
No apologies for the title. Brian Quin is a cunt of the first water and, if I was a religious man, I would pray for him to get a seriously agonising disfiguring and lingering disease with no hope of cure or any effective pain relief. It cheers me to picture him writhing in unrelenting agony whilst begging to die.
He was the manager of the Birmingham office of a Swedish office furniture company (not Ikea)who interviewed me and offered me what I thought was a great job. How wrong I was.
Brian had no social life. Really, none at all. He would ring my home at 3 a:m to discuss projects. If I didn't reply he would send a sarky email to me and the boss. He would fuck about with my diary and book me to see customers at night, weekends, whilst I was on a booked holiday and would take personal affront if I told him I couldn't see the client. He even tracked me down when I was on holiday in Singapore asking when that week I could see a client to amend a floor layout. When I told him that I was on the other side of the world he then tried to take me through disciplinary when I got back. It all collapsed in farce when I pointed out that:
1/ HE had signed my holiday form.
2/ HE had recommended the hotel I was staying in and had arranged accommodation for me via his contacts.
3/ He had been wrist slapped for precisely this same disregard for other peoples' time on several occasions before.
He hated me after that but I didn't care because he was a cunt.
Angus.
WHAT A CUNT.
Angus was one of the senior salesmen in the organisation and he decided to "take me under his wing" as Brian the cunt didn't want to talk to me anymore.
"Fair enoughski" I thought.
Wrong again. Angus was the scruffiest, smelliest, least organised backstabbing waste of blood and organs that God ever put breath into. He tried to get me fired for pointing out that he'd not only got the wrong DAY for a meeting, he'd got the wrong WEEK. He was always late for meetings with clients and had the worst bad breath I have ever smelt. Only once did I share a car with him and I could smell it on my clothes the rest of the day. Worse than that, he was short-sighted and slightly deaf so he stood TOO FUCKING CLOSE.
It came to pass that we were in Newport in Wales one day and, whilst driving out I'd had my car forced off a roundabout by a truck full of rebar. I remonstrated with the driver in my gruff Coventrian way advising him that, if I ever saw him again I would "tear off his head and shit down the hole". Angus was so traumatised by this exchange (in which he was not involved)that he had three weeks off with stress! Twat. He then tried to take me through disciplinary always quoting "you have to realise I've sold over £2 million in furniture so I know what I'm talking about".
It didn't go far.
The cowering Swede was the last straw. I had won a large furnishing contract for a midlands firm and was expecting a seriously large bonus.
When it didn't materialise I asked why?
It appeared that one of the Swedish members of staff once had heard of someone who might have walked past a van which had delivered to the site once, so it was HIS contract!
I was less than pleased with this so I took matters into my own hands. I followed him into the head office toilets for a full and frank exchange of views. My reputation preceded me and he started cowering and whimpering before I'd even said a word or got within six feet of him. I'd had enough of the snidey ways of the company by now and had another job lined up so, with nothing to lose I hauled up the now snivelling turdbag, marched him into the MD's office and proceeded to vent my spleen about the piss-awful state of the company and the utter utter cunts who worked there, then offerd the same treatment as the lorry driver to the MD, the cowering Swede and anyone else who came close. They wanted the sales manager to eject me from the building but he was having none of it.
I swanned round the office, picking up whatever I fancied and taking it with me. No-one challenged me.
I didn't even give them the car back for 8 weeks and they didn't ask for it.
Rant over



Apologies for length but I have an enormous cock.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 13:53, 10 replies)

Ouch...
.
Long ago and far away I worked as a consultant for TSB.

It was that far back that I was designing the rollout from Windows 2.0 to Windows 3.11.

We had an engineer called Rob. A really lovely bloke but he was ugly and had *zero* social skills - especially with women. But the thing was Rob *knew* he was ugly. He *knew* that women found him repulsive and he'd accepted it.

With blokes he was OK but quiet. He could take a joke even if he was sometimes a bit slow on the uptake. He could do his job - follow exact instructions on a crib-sheet and if it didn't work Phone me, mark the PC with a big red X and move on. In short, a nice guy who could do his (limited) job.

Then we hit head-office.

Within a week I had the HR Harpies circling. (aside: has anyone else ever noticed that HR are almost always women?..)They'd had a complaint.

The complaint came from the receptionist on the floor to The Treasury, which was also the floor where me and my engineers were based. Apparently, when Rob came into work, he got the lift up to our floor, the lift bells dinged, and the receptionist then put on a beaming smile. That was her job. Most people coming to that floor were important and an impression had to be made.

Sadly, a lot of the time it was me or a member of my team and the false smile would drop and she'd get back to what she was doing. (Filing her nails springs to mind.)

But with Rob it was different. The bell would ding, he'd come out of the lift, she'd beam at him, he'd go red and scurry for the safety of the engineers room. What he never saw 'cos he couldn't hold eye-contact with any woman, was the look of disgust that came over her face.

I'm woffling now I fear.

So the complaint went in. She felt violated and ashamed by his reaction. A smile from her put him in a frenzy that left her feeing unsafe (he went red and ran to the comfort of the engineers room.) He never, in the whole time he was there, spoke to her, e-mailed her, had conversations about her - in short, he didn't do a single thing wrong -except be shy and ugly.

And so the Harpies descended.

They demanded that I fire Rob. I mean, he wasn't a *real* employee - he was a contractor, brought in to implement my upgrades. And here was me thinking..

"I'm a contractor as well. I'm only here because you don't have the skills in-house to do this. And he's done fuck-all wrong...."

Upshot was a seriously shouty meeting with me saying "He goes -I go!" and a compromise reached.

I wouldn't let them sack him and they wouldn't let him work on-site as, and I para-phrase, "he's a potential rapist",.

"You mean - just like me? I'm a man. I'm a "potential rapist" I'm also, potentially, the discoverer of the cure for cancer".....

It ended up with me shifting Rob to the warehouse where he'd unpack the new stuff coming in, load my image, and make sure everything worked.

He kept "a job" - but I lost a decent engineer as some blonde bimbo "knew her rights.."


Shall I just mention now that I'm incerdibly drunk?.....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 14:48, 8 replies)

Helpdesk sweatshop
A long, long time ago in a town far, far away a young PJM was recruited by a software company as a helpdesk analyst.

I applied for the job and was invited in for a rather gruelling round of interviews and tests was conducted and I was hired.

I was introduced to my boss, who had been with the company since leaving school some twelve years before. He looked vaguely familiar to me. I wracked my brains and remembered that I used to know him when I was a child. He'd been a gobby shite, but time seemed to have mellowed him. How wrong I was.

A few weeks later Rob recruited another analyst and duly paid him £5k a year less than me. Then my problems started.

Rob quickly showed his true colours, he was both a monumentally insincere arse-licker and also liked to manage by fear. This dual side to his temperament rattled me, one minute he'd be publically praising me and the next the knife would be drawn. Being the only non-smoker on the helpdesk meant that at 9am every morning I'd have to deal with all the urgent shite while he went off for a fag and to stick the knife in.

Our latest release of software was as buggy as hell. I had been dealing with a particularly unpleasant client trying to resolve their issues for them prior to my wedding, however I wasn't satisfied that I was getting anywhere with dealing with the root of their issue.

Rob asked me to step outside with him.

"I can't help noticing that you're bringing your wedding nerves to work with you. It's not acceptable, you must make sure they stay out of the office." he said sternly.

I nodded and apologized. I held back, as Rob was going through a messy prolonged breakup with his wife. What's worse? A wedding or a breakup? I made the guy a cup of coffee as a concilliatory gesture.

Later that day I could not believe what I was hearing.

"Well, we have been talking to Marriage Guidance and I'm doing what I can. I don't want to lose the boy..." said Rob, on the telephone in front of the whole office.

"...she wants more excitement in the bedroom..." he continued.

I kid you not. Not only was he bringing his personal life into the office, but he was discussing it on the phone with clients who we were supposed to be assisting. Professional or what?

On the Friday before I was due to fly off on honeymoon, I went through my outstanding problems with Rob. We came to this issue and I asked how should I proceed and who it should be assigned to.

"Close it" was his response.

"You sure?" I asked

"Yeah, I'm sure it's a data input problem" he replied. I duly completed the log and saved it.

Two weeks later I came back to work and was duly summoned to a disciplinary meeting with Rob and the Customer Service Director.

"You closed a serious issue without due consultation and thus caused an embarrassing incident with the client" said Rob

My mouth fell open. I could not believe what I was hearing.

"You told me explicitly to close it!" I retorted.

"Trying to pin the blame for your actions on a manager is a very serious matter" replied Rob, much to the Customer Service Director's interest as he sat there nodding.

Fuck. I was being stitched up good and proper. I had no proof of this episode and obviously Rob was about as trustworthy as the rhythmn method. The fucker had also edited my helpdesk log details too.

"You have to buck your ideas up sunshine".

I had no choice but to sit there and nod.

From there on in, I was very, very careful with Rob. Whenever we discussed anything at all, no matter how trivial I scribbled a summary down next to the time and date. This annoyed the bejeesus out of him.

Then the outright bullying started.

"You're not pulling your weight sunshine" was a phrase oft uttered.

However, I had access to the helpdesk statistics and could prove that I was indeed pulling my weight. I was resolving more calls than the other guys - including him.

Without a word, I printed the stats together with a few emails from clients thanking me for my help and pinned them to the noticeboard, leaving copies on the Customer Service Director's desk.

He was enraged. Determined to prove a point, he started to take calls himself and reduced my allocation of unresolved calls. He got the other analyst geed up to compete and it was obvious whenever I was on the phone that the pair of them were emailing each other, looking at me and giggling. This went on for some months, with the most toxic issues being farmed out to me and Rob pouring over the stats every Friday afternoon. I raised my game and refused to be beaten, however it was clear that I was on the losing side.

My confidence was shattered, so I had one last move left. Without too much bother I got hold of some of the emails Rob had sent round about me to, which clearly crossed the line (stupid fucker didn't delete them all...). I took copies and compiled a small dossier. With another job to go to, a plan formulated in my mind.

"Rob, I need a meeting" I said

"Yeah mate. Maybe later?" replied Rob as he wandered out for another cigarette break.

I put my written resignation in his intray, knowing he wouldn't read it. I put a copy in the Customer Service Director's intray and sat back in my chair waiting for it to kick off.

Phone rings. Rob gets up and walks into Customer Service Director's office. Door closes.

Fifteen minutes later he comes out with his tail between his legs. Apparently Rob had taken a kicking for not responding to my requests for an apprasial (which I'd noted in my resignation letter).

"Fuck, we did need to talk!" he snarled as he walked past me.

Amazingly, Rob seemed to be the only person surprised by my resignation. The Customer Service Director was concerned that Rob had done fuck all to deal with some of my grievences I'd listed and had torn him off a strip. I'm delighted to say that worse was to come.

Six weeks after I left, I sent my dossier of Rob's emails to the Customer Service Director by confidential mail together with a summary of events, dates and times and my take on the proceedings.

And that was that.

*postscript*

I was enjoying a drink with an ex colleague prior to my resignation who filled me in on a few colourful details. Rob's missus was a very difficult woman, she'd been knocked up at sixteen and met Rob when her first kid was a toddler and she was in the final throes of a relationship of sorts with the good for nothing father. The suspicion was that Rob was her meal ticket. Being extremely needy she'd phone him at work and demand he came home to replace a lightbulb in the bathroom that had blown, as she was too scared to turn on anything electrical "in case the house burned down". She'd decided that life with Rob wasn't much cop (clearly possessed of a reasonable degree of perception) and had started chatting to guys online.

Just prior to my wedding, Rob had apparently been discussing with colleagues that his missus had asked him to take raunchy pics of her which she then emailed to one of her online flirtations, with the intentions of meeting for sex - with Rob's full prior knowledge.

Just to rub it in to the guy, like... He deserved it.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 24 Jan 2008, 9:19, 5 replies)

I once worked with someone...
...who was a complete bastard. You could say he was a BASTARD COLLEAGUE.

Shit. Harder than it looks this pun thing. Still, the interest level is about the same...
(misanthrope is so adjective he's verbing nouns!, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 14:44, 3 replies)