"Can I bring my canoe?"
I had a middle-aged woman called Margery working for me in a pretty senior role (ie 'should know better') a couple of years ago, and she was probably the most ineffective person we ever hired.

It got to the point when the sensible, professional approach the books recommend ("Let's address one or two areas for development because I think you could go a long way in this organisation....") patently wouldn't work. So in the end I scheduled on the whole team's calendar a DAILY 10-minute kick-off meeting called "Bring your Margery issues to me first thing so I can deal with them all in one go".
HR told me to take it down but I like to think I was a hero to my team - who had quickly grown to HATE her - for 48 hours or so.

How crowning achievement, however, was when she emailed our clients to respond to an invitation to attend a Walkathon for cancer support. Instead of just saying "Yes, I'll come", she actually offered to show up at a certain point on the walk, where it passed near a large lake. And she said for "PR purposes" she would show up in.....her canoe. Because....."it's the same colour as your (product name) branding colour".

My phone rang off the hook that morning. I still have the email and the attached photo.
(Shudders at the memory)
(Thomas_The_Spankengine, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 17:13, Reply)

A shower of bastard colleagues
Where a friend works: The individual concerned is fine and oblivious to the meriment she creates in an office of complete bastards - about 500 of them.

This particular lady works in support for a company that makes stuff (i won't say what as it would be bleeding obvious who), anyway she is blessed. She is blessed with the most magnificent pair ... of sideburns. These things are awesome - dark, big and bushy lampchops earning her the nickname "Elvis".

Should you need to speak to support it is essential that when put through to Elvis anything she says is answered with a full on "uh-huh" just as the King would have done himself before that toilet incident. Points are awared to any employee who can sign off a conversation with a southern drawl "thang-you-very-much".

Elvis lives - (s)hes a legend - its everyone else who is the bastards.

At the same place noobs are always fooled into setting off an alarm system - then being told they've irradiated themselves with a lifetimes dose - this is 'proved' to them by waving a sound meter at them under the pretence that its a Gieger counter.
(i anglepoise, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 16:40, 2 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)

at the moment
im the manager and the shop floor gimp and the gait analyser and the mechanic all rolled into one. i dont really have any colleagues

it can get a bit boring. but i dont hate myself

i do have to lock up the shop for five mins when i need a poo tho.
(magictorch, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:51, 1 reply)

I
work in a bar/nightclub and probably 80% of the people behind the bar have had 2 or 3 ecstacy pills on any given night. Since a good percentage of the patrons are in the same state (we serve alot of water, and I find alot of those little zip lock bags) it makes for a strange experience. I don't really mind though, there's some pretty good characters. Like the guy who confessed to us all that he lost his virginity to a hooker and auditioned for a gay porno, or the guy who turned up to christmas party in just his speedos (to be fair, it was "ocean" themed) having the night before bogged his car on a local beach while drunkenly "off-roading". (any b3tans living in Newcastle, Australia may have seen this in the Herald)

Anyway, I squeezed that one into the QOTW, so I'm Happy.
(woo who?, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:49, Reply)

Fast track?
Julie C. She'd been appointed on a 'fast track' program for uber PhDs at Zeneca, the same one I failed to get on after my 'ambiguous' psychometric test results (q.v.)

She was nightmare - the usual shit, bossy, opinionated, obstreperous.

Nominally my boss for a few months, it was painfully clear she'd slipped through the (sanity?) net.

She had a PhD in Chemistry, which means she's had more than her fair share of exposure to the more esoteric "10 to the power of" terms micro, nano, terra, femto etc

Rather worrying then, when she asked her boss "how many grams in a kilogram again?"

He was hell bent on trying to get rid of her after that, he put her on a dangerous practical project using hydrofluoric acid gas (etches glass, turns bones to jelly sometime after exposure, very nasty indeed).

An experiment went wrong one day, and a small amount escaped which she was convinced she'd inhaled.

I was in the office later when the phone rang, and he was asked what had happened, and how much he thought she'd inhaled.

"Not e-fucking-nough" was his reply.
(Countryslicker, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:09, 5 replies)

Maxine
Many years ago (funny how all my posts seem to start like this. I must get a life!) I worked for a theatre group. This was jointly controlled by Rotherham Council & the Rotherham College of Arts & Technology. There was one guy in charge and two of us on the level below. We always had two groups going at once and in theory Maxine was in charge of one and I was in charge of the other, writing, rehearsing, making costumes, scenery etc etc.

Problem was whenever the going got tough Maxine could be found in the office - colouring-in pictures!
WTF!
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:08, Reply)

Car Fun!
Some of you may remember that, last year, I managed to get myself run over (www.b3ta.com/questions/reallyscared/post72673).

I'd just started a new job at the time and, after having gone to the hospital and spent a fitful night not sleeping due to the pain, I went to work the following day. Even in this situation, I took the 'it's better to be sent home ill than look like you're skiving' viewpoint. I'd just started, like I say, and did not want to be in trouble.

When I got to work, I showed the MD the accident report (still amuses me that it said 'Car vs Pedestrian), at which he laughed. I then showed it to my manager, who said 'ooh, I bet that hurt'. You could actually see the bruise that covered my back through my shirt.

Eventually, I asked to leave as the painkillers were wearing off and I was getting decidedly limited in the movement department.

The answer? No. If I was well enough to come in, I was well enough to be there.

Bastards. Just goes to show that recruitment consultants are soulless bastards. And yet I still do the job because no-one else will employ me! I've got skills! I've got ambition! I just need a chance!

Whoops!

EDIT: Damn. Can't make the link work. Sorry!
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:07, 3 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)

Broken Hearted
Ok, so it's not my story, but no-one (apart from this poor bastard) has been stabbed and killed by a colleague for coming back late from a tea-break:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7212975.stm
(DoppelFrog Twice the frog, twice the fun, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 14:36, 2 replies)

Oh so many tales
But this is perhaps typical.
In a fanfare of shiny presentations and webcasts, the corporation's five core values, as decreed by our CEO and senior board, were unveiled to the masses - so, we are:

Straightforward
Helpful
Inspiring
Trustworthy

Oh and "Heart" but no-one can figure out how to be "Heart"...

Credit to whichever bright spark managed to bullshit senior management into picking those. God knows how much time and money they wasted on it, perhaps it's telling that they have stuck with it and either haven't noticed or don't care.

In case you're wondering, I work for a large telecommunications company based in Britain.
(fridgefreezer inserted a topical reference into his sig on, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 14:29, 4 replies)

More teacher stories..
Sometimes I wonder how anyone who has gone through the state education system manages to retain any of their sanity. Some of the people who supposedly 'care' and 'teach' the nation's children are horrible examples of the human species , and having had the unpleasant job of working in schools, here are some prime examples;

"Miss A" - 22st, 5ft5 bulldog, who's job was officially to teach maths, but spent most of her day using school resources to run her private tuition business. Legendary amoung male members of staff and most of the sixth form for playing 'hide the sausage' in classroom cupboards. Believed herself to be the most attractive and 'hip' members of staff in the school. Actually slept with a another teacher after pkying him with drink, knowing full well he couldn't handle his drink and was getting married the next week.

"Miss F" - Absolute religious nutbar. Would scream blue murder at any kid or other staff member who questioned any element of the catholic faith. Refused conventional treatment when diagnosed with cancer, believing that her faith and prayer would heal her... it didn't.

"Mr P" - Worked in the science department. No-one sure what the guy did exactly , but would be caught having a quick wank in the laboratories, asleep in the staffroom and dispite claiming to have a degree in chemistry, his only prior work experience was 'in sales' (in Currys).

"Mr F" - The office manager - outstandingly camp, lived with his elderly father. Famously annouced, via email that he was just waiting for his Dad to die so he could come out, 'without shame'? Would bore you to death with tales of his plane-spotting adventures. Office PC chock-full of gay porn. 'Retired' very suddenly when new network software was set to run search for *.jpg files on workstations.

"Mr G" - Ex-army PT instructor. Left the school due to 'personal issues'. Six months later he murdered his sister 'to get rid of the devil insider her'.

I'd say that I've exaggerated these slightly, but this lot all worked in the same school! Names omitted to prevent them hunting me down, the bunch of freaks.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 14:05, Reply)

Bryce the Scheiss
Okay, so he wasn't really a scheiss, being French and not German, but merde doesn't rhyme..

Anyway, we once again find a young BTBB doing agency work, this time for a company making catering trollies for schools and hospitals. BTBB is told this work is for a month, and it seems like a bit of a doss.

All he has to do is test these things for bugs. That involves pressing a few buttons on a menu, and looking for flickering- that takes a grand total of about a minute, every quarter of an hour or so. Bearing in mind these things take at least 45mins per cycle, that doesn't leave BTBB with much to do for a day that lasts between around half eight and four every day.

So he decides to entertain himself; doodling in a pad, reading a book, generally making himself look busy whilst he isn't; and the two guys who are his immediate bosses- M and S- are fine with it. They chat to him, ask him what he's reading ask him to draw doodles for him, so on and so forth, and everything is great and fine.

Except for Bryce.

Bryce is the section boss, sent over from the French parent company, and..in a way, he's a nice guy. Doesn't seem too bad at first, if a little quiet and businesslike.

Anyway, one day, BTBB turns up for work, and M, who gives BTBB his trollies to test, isn't there. So BTBB pulls out the manual to read, and takes a little break; which involves standing up and wandering around idly.

And in comes Bryce, flashes a glance at BTBB, and asks him while he sn't working. A conversation(with a little of 'I can't work if I don't have anything to do' 'you work if we pay you to work' thrown in for good measure) ensues, and it ensues Mr French guy isn't happy with BTBB, who's done nothing wrong.

Later that day, M and B are in the office next to where BTBB is working, and there's raised voices- and BTBB hears his voice mentioned.

The next day, BTBB turns up, works for an hour or so, and is then told his contract will be terminated that day- after only a week of work.

----
Technically, this is probably just sour grapes on my part, but it still seems so petty. I wasn't doing anything wrong, and yet they still decided to get rid of me.

I won't apologise for length; the trollies were only about three, maybe four feet long.

And I'm not gonna ask people to click 'I like this' or anything.
Nuh-uh.
no way.
No way, Jose.
No sirree ma'am.
(BornToBeBemused was born,feeling bemused,on, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 14:03, Reply)

Let me tell you about my arch nemesis
He's toast now... but this is his tale.

He was a freelancer on contract - like me. The downside was that he was admin, whereas I am one of those awkward talented types that does real stuff. His role, apart from writing policies that nobody adhered too, was to collate timesheet's and get a permie (someone responsible on staff) and sign them.

He told me he could not scan a signed timesheet and email it to me because he didn't have a scanner. when I pointed to the scanner shaped object on his desk and asked "what the fuck is that then?" he said it wasn't plugged in. I could have told him to "plug the fucker in then" but I knew I had more chance of coming in the queen mother's mouth than winning this one.

Then he sends me an instant message saying my timesheet was ready, where should he email the scan to. When I reminded him he said he didn't have a scanner he said he was joking. He did have a scanner in the photocopier but he would have to walk across the office to use it. Again, I should have stated that he should get off his fat gay arse and do so, but mentally I was lining up other members of the royal house to do...

The final straw. My 6 month contract was up for renewal, so I ask for a rate increase from my agent. My agent who also sees my contract as up for renewal, she starts the ball rolling. My nemesis explains that I am not on 6mth contract, but 12 month, so no chance of a rate rise. Both my agent and I ask to see the work order. This muppet had taken the original, crossed out 6 and inserted 12.... a full two months after the initial contract started.

I hope he catches teh bummer's disease and dies painfully.

Apologies for length. If you don't like it cross some of it out in biro.
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:55, Reply)

A good first day? I think not.
In my time I've had to work with:
-A girl who, at age 18, had to be shown how to put things into numerical order. (Lovely girl, mind you. Nice norks too.)
-A boss who was such a pain to work for that when she walked into my elbow the entire office was convinced I'd done it deliberately.
(And most of them wanted me to do a better job next time.)
-The section who spent a year telling me they had nothing for me to do then complained to my boss because I wasn't "supporting them"
-The guy who couldn't walk from one end of the office without a break, went off for six months sick-leave, came back the day before he was to go onto half-pay then went off sick again two days later. And was once caught sneaking up on a pretty blonde co-worker. When asked what he was playing at he cheerfully told her that he was planning to fart on her head. It turned out that his previous section had axed his post just to get shot of him.
-People from Penkridge. Inbreeding capital of Staffordshire.

But the cream of the crop has to be D. D was sent to us because we had a lot on and needed a replacement in a hurry. He was an odd fish but he was all we were offered so we said Ok.
He lasted half a morning before things went horribly wrong.
D arrived for his first day and was promptly taken into the manager's office to sort out paperwork, tell him where the snack van was and so on. Then the shouting began.
Things had been going swimmingly right up until the boss had told him there'd be a bit of a delay in getting his car pass.
D went nuclear. Red-faced, screaming, swearing loco. Over a car pass,
Ten minutes later the boss had physically manhandled him out of the building and started a long series of phone calls to Personnel.
Personnel said we'd signed for him, we had to take him. We said we didn't want him because somebody would end up in hospital.
He showed up for work the next day and spent it in swinging around on his swivel chair while we tried to avoid his gaze. Then he was gone, returned to the limbo of the redeployment pool. Unfortunately this triggered a feud with Personnel that lasted for the next two years.
Still better than the inevitable punch-up though.
(Big D, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:48, 5 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)

And more from me....
I got a phone call this weekend asking if my previous post was about Caroline, and it wasn't. So here's Caroline.

Back when I worked for a finance house (do they still have them?) I was part of the fledgling 'Marketing Department'. At that stage it had been put together because it seemed like a good idea, and was more correctly as sales support department, but I digress. Caroline was brought in as a new recruit. Not hard to see why - she'd been working as a temp and was tall, blonde, and large of mammary.

Aside from the usual dull stuff, Caroline began to work on 'projects' within Marketing - ie cushy stuff that didn't involve much thinking but did involve going out and wooing potential business partners.

Sadly, the management babble that she got exposed to sunk in too deep. She went on a letter-writing course (?) and came back evangelising to us all about how we should write business letters. Really. Had she had a tambourine to bash, she'd have done it.

This behaviour went on and just got better. Buzzwords would drop from her lips like sh!t from a seagull. She remains the only person I have ever, ever heard use the line 'don't present me with problems - give me solutions' in total unironic seriousness. Like that was going to fix a busted printer. Similarly, if she felt a job was 'beneath' her - last-minute collation of a rush job, proofing something that needed to go out the door *now*, etc. - she'd always have something more important to do until about 5 minutes before the job finished.

Anyway, rumours began to run that she was shagging her way to the top. As this place was a haven of back-biting and nastiness, I ignored them and never really thought much of it.

Turns out, she was. I only found this out years later on talking to one of the company's senior managers and former super-salesman who is (a) a bit of a ram, and (b) actually quite a nice guy. Turns out he had, and so had many more.

According to him, while she was attractive and enthusiastic, her crying out 'I can't believe I'm fncking [his name]' in the middle of it was a little off-putting. Obviously shagging senior management was exciting stuff for her.

Last I saw of her, she was looking like Wendy Richards - which is nice, but not how a 30-year-old should look.

(Edit to change 'James' to 'Richards'. I meant Richards, but my hormones swayed me.)
(uncle whippity, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:36, 5 replies)

General Ignorance
Working Nightshift with this guy was soul destroying. Nicknames varied from 'The Ginger Ninja' for his ability to sneak up behind you and then just 'hover' until you asked him what he wanted (this could be a long wait for him - meColleague kept him waiting for half an hour once).
'FourMore' - as in that's how many more brain cells he'd need to be considered animal rather than vegetable.
'Gerbil' - He looked like one sitting in the corner of its cage looking petrified.

The guy was (is, but I don't work there anymore) useless and a bona fide oxygen thief. He has somehow managed to procreate, so conversations with his kid probably go along the lines of "No, daddy, the square peg goes in the SQUARE hole!"

One night he sat and WATCHED as the channel he was looking after fell off air, oblivious to the alarms going off until meColleague got up, walked across the suite and pressed the button to fix it.

He rewound an episode of The Simpsons while it was on air ... TWICE!

He loaded a tape into a VT upside down because the barcode label on the spine was the other way up.

A message appeared on his screen to say "Load tape [whatever code] into VT" so he did ... Without taking the one that was already loaded out first!

The collective 'will to live' evaporated whenever he was on shift. Dear former colleagues I feel sorry for you.

Length? Not as long as a shift with him ...
(Dionysian Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:25, 4 replies)

.
How many other people are sitting looking at them right now?
(jennymnemonic, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:21, Reply)

Let's call this guy Derek 'Del' Lynch,
as that's his name, and we'll call the place he works Lucking & Clark, as that's where he works.

While I was there, he spent his entire time downloading porn and dodgy software off P2P sites, going out for a fag 20 times a day, phoning in sick at least twice a month (always on Mondays and/or Fridays), and slagging off everyone else's standard of work, even though most of them passworded their job directories to stop him from getting into their drawings and trashing them with his terrible terrible CADing.

I never did figure out why they didn't fire him, but then I only stayed a couple of months. When they asked me why I was giving in my notice, I grassed him up completely, but he's still there apparently, so he must have had something on them. The unspeakable little cunt. He did offer to shake hands with me as I left on my last day, so I spat in mine and held it out. He turned down the offer of a handful of gob.
( pxyzyzygy, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 13:19, Reply)

I have been mostly fortunate with my colleagues
but there are a couple that spring to mind. Very foolishly during my A-levels I applied for the coveted* "job" of editor of the fascinating and widely read sixth form newsletter. This meant that I wasn't technically a prefect as I'd wanted to be, and also that I spent the next 18 months chasing up people who had been coerced into writing me five lines about some open day they went to or a course they'd been on. Nine out of ten times the cunts were too lazy to do it and I'd end up making most of it up myself.

Worse than this, I was not alone in my newsletter hell. No. My partner in despair was Tris, the bitchy guy I've mentioned in past QOTWs who was Stalker Boy's best enemy. Tris used his "authority" as newsletter prefect to acquire himself an enormous "entourage" of girls who were dying for a gay best friend (at this time Tris was convinced that the character Jack from Will & Grace was based on him, so much so that he would walk into a room and do that "just Jack!" thing. This made me want to hit him and I did even more when he started referring to me as his Karen (OK, at the time I had shoulder-length dark brown hair and wore a suit because I had to for school and was partial to the odd few shots of vodka, but seriously). All this schmoozing meant any time I asked him would he mind giving me a hand because I had to run to a class, he would sigh and roll his eyes and tell me I had "such issues" (he fancied himself a bit of a psychologist but sadly his analysis never stretched beyond "such issues" and "you have to accept" something convoluted about yourself). So much so that one day near a deadline (these were the end of every term) I entrusted the disks to his care (this was pre-pendrives too) while I went off to a Latin class "of course I'll type it up, sweetie!".

Twenty minutes later when I am drinking tea and gossiping with my Latin teacher poring over a long and wordy passage of Catullus, Stalker Boy appears outside the door. This was not unusual, as in between his bouts of pretending to be gay he had the hots for my Latin teacher, who looked not unlike Kelly Brook in certain lights. I digress. Stalker Boy makes his presence apparent by swanning in and immediately launching into a conversation about turkeys with my Latin teacher (who can't stand him, sensibly). He then turns to me and says:

"Ooh, the minute you went out the door he alt-tabbed and went back to looking at Gaydar, dear."

This was enough and I ended up writing a letter to the head of sixth form (who looked like Snape from Harry Potter in a skirt, if you'll forgive the disturbing analogy) telling her - politely - to stick her newsletter up her arse. She bollocked me, and thereafter reminded me at every opportunity how many of the trustees loved the last newsletter and how worthwhile it was.

Eventually, when I came to leave, because all the lower sixth had seen me stressing over it so much, none of them applied and apparently it was referred to a committee after that. I was more annoyed I'd not been allowed to "concentrate on my studies" which I was always reminded, even when the floppy corrupted (again) on deadline day, were more important, BUT THE NEWSLETTER MUST BE FINISHED BY THE DEADLINE OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE.

I did learn to hide from the head of sixth form and cringe at the mention of the word "newsletter", and that I didn't want to be a journalist, though. And it made me laugh the one time she wanted me to type something up in front of her and typed "cunty" instead of "county". I also should add that my duties included Teaching Mrs Snape to Use Word 95 Even Though It's 2004 Because She Can Barely Type.

* read: "usually left to whoever was dumb enough to apply".
( Maladicta, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:51, 4 replies)

Duuuuuuuuh
Working in a removal company is physically challenging as a worker. All you think about all day is how to take the piss out of your colleagues, and where that sofa you just man-handled out of a house is going to sit in the wagon.
One day, me and my driver of the day pulled up to a house worth 750k, not including the 4 hectares of land it sat on.
We get buzzed through the gates, drive about a quarter of a mile to reach the front door, and are greeted by the lovely well-to-do female owner.
I jump out of the cab, walk over and engage in pleasantries. Being an Potential Officer, I know how to deal with toffs and put on my best Queens English accent to boot.

My driver then gets out of the cab and before he can open his mouth, his phone goes off.
The lady then chirps up, hearing the classical ring-tone of the office mobile, coo-ing over how she "just loves Vivaldi's second in A" and "how nice it is to see such elegant tastes in such a worker".

My driver then answered the phone, pressed it into his face and, with all the warmth you can only get from growing up in East Hull, said "ah-lugh. Yuh. Yuh. Naaah maaate, tote-al fruit and nut-case she is. Fukkin min-ted laaake. Baaaah maaate."

Surprisingly, we didn't get a tip from that job.
( Pointy Head poked another hole in my anorak on, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:43, Reply)

When I was just 18
I had a couple of crap boss experience.

I worked for an advertising agency in Mayfair and at first got on great with my boss, going for a beer after work and such.
Later, however, this all went wrong and he became an unpleasant enemy. The reason - I signed my own name on my own letter insted of his.

Another job was supposedly an admin position. Within days I was given basic accounts training ( the debits are on the side by the window....) and sent out to do the accounts for various small firms of solicitors around London.

Added to this after the regular Friday afternoon meetings in the pub he would try (unsuccessfully ) to get me drunk and have a grappling session in his car ( he took me home).
The second time I resigned on the spot.
I hope you read this, Hajaj.
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:37, Reply)

You're doing it wrong!
I've already posted this guy but I shall post it again.

When I was in high school, I worked part-time jobs to fund my CD/fashion/partaying habits. As you do. I worked at a newsagency for a year, and was bizarrely made redundant because they'd accidentally hired too much staff. Oh well, no matter. I easily got another job at another newsagency.

This other place required me to start at 7.15am in the morning to help open the shop, which I'd never done before. No worries, right? WRONG. My new boss was the most pedantic, anal man I have ever met. There was a constant furrow in his brow and lines like trenches in his forehead.

I was told to put the poles that hold up the doors at the front of the shop away. OK, sure. After a bit of fiddling around, I pulled the fucker out and started marching to the back of the shop.

My boss appeared, grumbling, "No, no, no, that's not how you do it."

He marched me back, took the pole off me, and PUT IT BACK into the entrance.

"You have to push the pole up...like this... swing it out to the side, gently now... and pull it out." So he did.

Then he put it back in and made me demonstrate to him that I knew the intricate art of pulling a pole out the shop entrance.

Once I had mastered this, i started marching back to put it away. Again, I was stopped.

"No, no, no," he snapped. "Don't carry it like that. Carry it like THIS, with your hand here and your other hand here..."

I had been lectured for a good ten minutes, with active demonstrations, on HOW TO PULL OUT AND CARRY A POLE. Which is funny, because we were only given about fifteen minutes to open.

It wasn't until that afternoon when we were cleaning up when he told me HOW TO SWEEP THE FLOOR ("No, no, no, hold the broom THIS way and sweep like THAT") when I frantically rang my friend (who owns a video game shop) and begged him to give me a job.

I ended up working a cushy summer holiday job at a video game and talked to nerds all day, instead of being pestered by a man who stresses about poles and brooms. Oh, and apparently that newsagency has gone bankrupt. Result!
(TheChicken Five hundred thousand points from Gryffindor, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:29, 2 replies)

The Wicked Witch of the Midlands
A few years ago now I worked as FC for a hotel (a large american chain ending in 'Inn').
Following a restructuring we got a new Regional Financial Controller called Sharon - she needs to be named & shamed.
She was a complete control freak & had all the other FCs in the group singing from her hymn sheet - except me. I was older & more experienced than the others and was not being told how to do what I already did better than anyone else (she actually admitted this to a colleague, I'm not being arrogant).
She used every tactic she could think of to wear me down. At important meetings she would refer to information we had not been given and when I mentioned this she would say she had emailed it & I was either lying or incompetent (not in those words). Afterwards the others would admit they hadn't received it either, but were too scared to say. She also did an exit interview on one of my department and told me that he had made complaints. He visited me a week or so later, it was all made up. It got so bad that the Hotel Manager and other Regional Heads were aware of the situation, but they were too scared of her to do anything. I considered taking the company to a tribunal, but when I realized even her own boss wouldn't stand up to her I thought sod'em all and got a much better job elsewhere.
The hotel closed within a year, so Pppphhhhht!
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:15, Reply)

Colleague voted in 2004 as "most likely to go postal"
A stroll through their mind.
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 12:04, 3 replies)

'Directors'. Oh, and 'Management Consultants'
Or "grey-suited personality bypasses" as I refer to them if the expression "goat-felching twat" would be out of place.

Some advice.

Don't do 'Power' Handshakes.

Just don't. Never, ever, ever.

I have met and worked with people from every walk of life. From members of the peerage to outright confessed criminals and everything in between. Even the Welsh.

You, yes you with your 5 series,obsessive emailing, conspicuous Red Bull consumption and physically unsatisfied wife who is getting her ration from the window cleaner... will NOT impress me by trying the power handshake that you were obviously shown at some wanky photocopier sales training seminar in the early 90's (when you weren't getting pissed up on watered down Stella, nicking complimentary biscuits in the local Travel Hell or failing totally to get your leg over the bar staff or the token female on the course). You're still a twat, just a twat with a silly handshake.

Don't amuse me with attempts to 'control' the conversation. If it's blatantly obvious that you aren't listening and are providing your own script to the conversation in what laughingly passes for a brain, then I'll hand you over to the most boring, anal member of staff and go and have a coffee instead.

I just felt I had to share that.

The number of these 'magically improve your sales' courses I've endured while in a complete vegetative state, all hosted by a 'consultant' earning stupid money who can persuade equally thick Directors that their system will transform the planet and make FatBastards(UK) plc mega-bucks...

(they could just try honesty, returning phone calls, doing what was promised and the mandatory culling of all 17 year old sales trainees called Kevin)
(osok Rebel without a clue, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 11:50, 9 replies)

The compulsive liar
I sympathise with other posters who have had the misfortune of working in higher education with utter useless cockmunches about whom nothing is ever done.
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working as part of a 2-person team of techies supporting a degree programme. The guy I worked with at first seemed like quite a jovial chap, although when I went in for a 'taster day' a few weeks before starting my job and got trapped in his office for over an hour listening to him ramble on about nothing alarm bells should have started to ring.

During my first week, someone popped in to our office to have a chat with my fellow techie. I was on my way out to do a job somewhere, and when I informed the other guy where I was going, he suddenly started to refer to me as 'sweets' and 'toots' and other such delightful names, presumably to impress his friend with his new female lacky. Things went rapidly downhill from there.

He never came in to work before 10am, usually around 10.30. His reason was that he stayed later in the evenings. He probably did, but not in the office or any of the areas he should have been working in.

The 'stories'. He'd have an anecdote for every situation, ever. Never funny, never interesting, always long. A lot of our students were under the impression he'd been Whitesnake's lighting designer. None of them semed to question why he'd choose a low-paid technician's post in HE over such a rock'n'roll lifestyle.

He would disappear for hours, literally. Having worked on his own for years he'd got used to doing whatever the hell he liked, and never really had to face the consequences as he was rarely in the office. I would frequently be confronted by people who had been promised stuff by him; lab setups for lectures, software installs, equipment loans. They were understandably unhappy at these things not having been done, and I'd have top try to placate them whilst sorting stuff out. When I was knew and didn't really know where stuff was kept this was particularly frantic.

I started trying to organise things, making equipment loan out at certain times, keeping a record of who had borrowed what, keeping everything in one place, and throwing out loads of old useless crap that made our office a veritable obstacle course to walk through. My line manager and I hired a skip once and chucked a load of stuff in it. My colleague got most of it back out again, stating he could use it at home. It then sat in the office for another year or two. He'd just let people take equipment away, sometimes scribbling their name on a bit of paper, most often not bothering even to do that. The department had been losing stuff left, right and centre and this continued.

After I'd been there a year or so (and had grown to hate his fat, lazy presence with a passion) he started to have personal problems. Unsurprising, if he acted at home in any way like he did at work. He started taking lots and lots of time off. He started to come in even later, except now it was because he had to take his kid to school apparently, and couldn't afford childcare, although he never left early to pick the kid up. So I was left more and more in the lurch with no notice. The later he got at coming in, the more bizarre the excuses became. A bird got into his house, his next door neighbour's washing machine flooded, the exhaust had fallen off his car (this one happened every week it seemed, as well as many many dentist visits) He couldn't just say that he'd fucked up and got up late or something. That's what really got to me. The lying. He had to lie. Not just to me, but to everyone. If someone managed to catch him in the office and ask him why he hadn't done something he'd make some shit up on the spot, tell them he'd do it right away and then disappear for a long period of time, ensuring his absence when they returned. I swear he believed what he told me and everyone else, no matter how far-fetched.

Now during this period I had an awesome line manager. He knew what was going on, and tried every way he could to get rid of this guy, but to no avail. Eventually things came to a head when this bloke used my computer while I was out of the office, and found a thread on a forum where I'd been whinging about him to some people I know. He printed it all out, highlighted all the stuff about him and sent it to the Faculty Manager. It was probably the most work he'd done since I started there. I got a telling-off for 'calling a fellow member of staff a fucking twat on the internet', but he really got it in the neck. They knew I'd reached a stage of desperation and he was told in no uncertain terms to sort himself out, and stop using the fact that he was single parent as an excuse for never doing anything.

Not much changed though, although I caught him trying to look on my computer a few more times. The relationship had completely broken down. He hated me for disturbing his nice habit of doing fuck all, and I resented him for making me do the work of 2 people for the last 2 years. He didn't stop coming in late or lying about why he was late and I really stopped caring. In the end he was moved to another department on the same pay and I got a new colleague for the next 3 years, who is still to this day a very good mate. On his first day though, my old colleague asked him what he thought of "The Alpha Female" as he'd termed me. I often wonder how much of his shit was down to the fact that I was female, younger than him, and wouldn't be patronised by a big fat know-nothing.

Sorry for all that. It's good to vent though :o)
(VestanPance, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 11:45, 2 replies)

If I can't be happy, neither can they.
I find it curious that my collegue's back is too bad to clean and yet he feels well enough to have a quick "secret" shag in the staff room (we all have to use those sofas!) with his impressionable young catch. I also think it's great his libido hasn't waned even though he's supporting a fiancee and two children at home.
I never let them be alone together and chuckle inwardly while they give me cold evil glares and she refuses to talk to me.
(reducedfatLOLcat, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 11:39, Reply)