Crazy Steve
There were 3 managers in a fast food place that I worked, two that loved their jobs and the other, Crazy Steve, who clearly didn't give a shit.

Some of his highlights include:

1. Shooting an attractive girl in the face with a mayonnaise gun because she was complaining. (They have pretty impressive range actually).

2. Often just telling customers to get out if they complained and even dragging one out by his shirt.

3. Turning the cctv off and helping 3 guys that pulled up in a van lift the statue of said food chain's famed mascot into the back. (He didn't even know these guys, they just pulled up and tried to steal it randomly).

4. Leaping over the counter and having a fight with a tramp outside the store.

5. Giving a kid a giant ice cream in one of the buckets for chicken and acting like it was normal.

6. Closing the store one time because he wanted pizza and phoning up Dominoe's and offering a trade. They accepted.

7. Setting the fire alarms off accidentally about once a week and giving all of the fireman free food when they showed up. He also found some gizmo in the office draw and was dancing around clicking it until the police showed up and informed us it was some panic alarm thingy.

8. We had some points reward system; he'd just give them to us regardless. 'You want a new playstation game Jonny? Here, have 4000 points and get it out of the catalogue.'

9. Would give children the whole set of toys with one meal.

10. Giving some guy's dog an ice cream outside.

11. Would just park his car in the drive thru and pretend it had broken down if we were too busy.

12. Writing bizarre complaints about the other managers, such as 'I don't like Dave's ears' and putting them in the drop box.

13. On a few occasions he'd take a bunch of french frie bags into the office and write the names and numbers of the employee working the stand on them and slip them back in to the pile. So I'd then inadvertantly hand some girl a portion of fries with my number on. I even got a call once.

14. Told me to take the trash home, which I found bizarre, but put it in the boot of my car anyway since he was so persistent, to find he'd just filled a black bag up with bags of mini-eggs from the store.

15. (one I forgot) He threw out all of our name badges and ordered us new ones from head office, including 'Fanny' for some gay bloke and 'Lil rem'. I was given the appropriate 'Ahmed'. I'm white.

16. (Another I forgot as it's not so much crazy, but just nice) We had to monitor the waste at the end of the shift and put it in some bin, incase we had a surprise inspection the next day and they counted it for the week. But he'd just pretend to put it in there and let us take whatever we wanted, then give the rest to homeless people on the way home. The other two managers were strict that it MUST go in the bin.
( Regger, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 14:37, 16 replies)

'Ominous' Integrated Creative Consultancy
Not quite sure if it’s the boss or the owner but the term psycho is to say at the very least apt. Around March last year I was approached and offered a job with a creative agency, a friend I had worked with in another nuthouse recommended me. I met with the MD – one of the most corpulent land mammals I have ever circumnavigated. I noted that his fingers had grown so fat around his wedding ring that only a fire crew could possibly remove it. I also met with the owner of the ‘international group of companies’ a tall pale worried looking man with beady eyes and an odd inverted smile, a sort Beaker from the Muppets crossed with Vlad the Impaler but with a distinctly more malicious slant. When my wife asked after the interview, I described his demeanour as that of an aristocratic vampire. I had my doubts about the whole thing.

Never the less they looked at my folio, loved my work and apparently raved about me the following day to my mate. All seemed well. Our next meeting was when they offered me the job of Creative Director, not in the UK but Dubai with a nice tax-free salary and relocation package. A thrilling development you might think. At that point I had never set foot outside of Europe never mind far-flung, exotic Arabia. So they offered to fly us over for a look around and time some to make up our minds. When we arrived they put us up in an impressive 5 star serviced apartment, whisked us around all the supposed glitz of Dubai – it’s hard not to see things as nothing more than a haphazard building site on a steroidal scale. But the beach club and the spacious apartments and all the other shiny things they dangled in front of us sadly had us mesmerised. We were whirled round for a week and shown all the good bits I guess. We’re not greedy people my wife and I, we have a modest wee home in Scotland, I had a little sports car that I loved and we had a VW Golf for sensible purposes like moving our little boy around to and from the nursery he loved and doing the shopping. To be fair we have never been good with money – I’ve always been paid reasonably well but we had no savings or pension and were fast approaching 40. Dubai seemed like a chance to enjoy a warmer clime and maybe squirrel a bit away. Seemed like fun too… what’s to lose we thought.

So we discussed things, got excited and I quit my job and moved out leaving my wife to tart up our wee house with a view to selling it and getting a place in Dubai – not in the hope of making a killing on the property market but partly because we wanted to put down some roots there and more so because the rents are just crazy – 30 grand a year for a modest two bedroom apartment.

After a few weeks in my new job it became clear they had an entirely ruthless if not heartless employment policy “one in one out” they would sneer at management meetings. It turned out my predecessor had been lured in, moved his family from the USA sold his house and set about his new job. For three months it was his new job. Then they sacked him, gave him one week’s pay and basically told him to get lost, this was a week or so before I arrived, I had no idea at that point it was to make way for me I thought he was just a member of staff that was not performing and knew little about it. For the first six months I was busy, doing well, winning pitches and whipping my small department into shape. I loved the sunshine, the heat and all the strange and exotic people. But the stories of hiring and dumping people continued – get another job you might say. Not that easy in Dubai, aside from complicated visa issues I looked more closely at my contract. It seemed I would have to pay back all flights freight and allowances if I left before the first year. Allowances made up nearly a third of my total pay. This is a hangover from when companies were expected to house expats – then the market went stupid so the law was simply changed so that an inadequate amount of money could be offered as an ‘allowance’ to rent a place… neat and tidy, but then things are always made neat and tidy for employers in Dubai – they even manipulate public holidays to fall on weekends. Oh and if you take a couple of weeks off the weekends come out of your holiday allowance too… yeah, I know!

Back home my wife was struggling with builders and a spectacularly effete man who claimed to be both married (to a woman who looked suspiciously old enough to be his mother) and a 'professional interior designer' but in reality was simply the worlds least handyman, cack-handed painter and bodge it decorator and raving closet queen in my humble opinion. The items supposed to be shrouded from paint seemed to have more Apple White on them than the walls. Holes were burned in carpets – half my tools went missing or were spattered with paint or simply broken. After months of being apart for the first time in almost 20 years together my wife and I realised we were not going to sell the place. The market had crashed – this at the time seemed like a massive setback. In hindsight it is the BEST thing that ever happened to us.

Just prior to Christmas there were murmurs at a management meeting that things were not going well. The attitude was ‘fuck it if we have to get rid of some of them we will’. I was asked to draw up a list of whom I could afford to lose from my small tight knit team who I had grown to love, and whom after recent developments and their support help and encouragement, I have realised respected me greatly. Naturally this 'list' was upsetting, I didn’t want to lose anyone. We weren’t actually losing money - we had just stopped making it. The owner is loaded but miserable, every penny is a prisoner - he doesn't do cars or yachts or anything it would seem but worry about the thought of losing a few quid when he has millions. A joyless, charmless man. So I went to my boss and said “listen mate, you're just about to have my wife and child move out of our home, send all our possessions over here and rent our place out – should I be really doing this?” I was confidently assured that we needed a ‘core management team’ to run the business and not to worry at all. So I went home for Christmas, then packed everything up and came back to Dubai with my family on the in January. About a week or so later I was told not to get a flat as I was up for redundancy. They tried to cut my salary and when I refused so they whacked the rent up in the company flat to about 2k a month (which was of course illegal). The company flat is an impersonal badly furnished halfway house intended to give new recruits a chance to find their feet. In the end I was there ten miserable months.

So one day they dumped around a third of the workforce, just like that, having them sign papers on the spot while they were still shell shocked – papers that signed all their rights away. They knew one bloke had just borrowed the money to pay an entire years rent - not uncommon in Dubai. They noted he 'might be a bit pissed off'. I now know what 'callous' means

It soon became apparent Dubai is a miserable place to live. We’re simply not meant to be there – it’s a desert maintained by armies of Indian slaves to provide a thin veneer of greenery at catastrophic cost to the environment. The tax-free thing in Dubai is a smoke and mirrors piece of chicanery, a lie – everything costs a fortune. The produce in the supermarkets is generally awful and you need a licence to buy a bottle of wine from a few special shops that look like a 70’s illegal bookies from the outside. Buying pork is a laugh too - they have special back shop areas that have signs 'pork - no Muslims' you'd think they would remember that aspect of their faith - "well bugger me (actually that’s out also) if I haven’t blundered in and bought a sausage". You’ll also pay 3 times the going rate in the UK for your plonk then there is 30% municipality tax. There are stealth taxes on many things. In truth costs an utter fortune to live there. Everything requires some sort of permit and they all cost money – lots of it. It became evident that even on a decent ‘tax- free’ salary my wife was going to have to work. This was not the plan – she does not keep very well and is often in a lot of pain from which she rarely complains.

Dubai also has what is basically legalised slavery – all those Indian construction workers toiling in the 45+ heat are conned into selling their land or taking loans to pay for their transit to ‘dream jobs’ in Dubai. As soon as they arrive blinking in sunlight that makes India seem somewhat Scandinavian they are forced to sign new contracts in Arabic and their passports are taken – illegally of course. They are housed in abject sewer ridden squalor; concentration camp would not be too unfair an assessment. It then takes on average 4 years paying back loans to the construction worker supply agencies before they even start to earn money. They get paid a few dollars a day for 12-hour days 6 days a week. It is not uncommon for them to throw themselves in front of cars – if it is your car you face jail and have to pay up to 120K in ‘blood money’ to their family back home in India. Like I say truly medieval laws. If an Emirate driver hits you, and fuck me are they bad drivers – 120 mile an hour undertaking on the hard shoulder, happens every day – however its your fault regardless – basically you are not local so you shouldn’t be there so the fact you are means you caused the accident. Which of course also means jail for you.

Almost everyone in Dubai has a ‘maid’ this is in effect some poor Filipino girl with kids of her own back home she sees for maybe 3 weeks a year if she is lucky. Generally a maid is on call 24 hours a day to look after unruly fat brats. To cook, clean, shop (if they are allowed out alone, which is very unusual). They usually have tiny rooms with a bed and not much else. They are not allowed friends or relationships of any kind and are often have a poor diet and no access to phone or Internet to contact their family. One local looked appalled when she told me her maid had asked to use the computer to mail her family “I mean I give her 1 day off a month and her own shampoo” was her response. Taxi drivers are in the same boat – most work 12-hour shifts 7 days a week to send home money to families they see for a few weeks a year. As a result they are tired and cranky – they drive like nutters as they are paid by mileage not meter time.

So we lived under constant pressure for months with the ever present threat of redundancy, then on one day I was told all was well and to get a place of my own. Shortly afterwards they then moved a well meaning but very loud brash young lad into the flat from the UK. This is illegal in Dubai. You can’t share a flat in Dubai with someone who is not a blood relative – my wife could have been carted off for adultery or I could have been accused of homosexuality – both hugely illegal. The laws in Dubai are from the dark ages. So we were even further encouraged to find a place. We found a lovely little villa, which due to the property crash was now just within our reach. As I didn’t have a chequebook I asked my boss for a company cheque for the deposit and to deduct it from my salary – “no problem mate, we’re here to help”. We were so excited – our own place at last after almost a year of living either apart or in some crappy halfway house. We unpacked all our stuff that had been in storage for months (at no small cost). Aside from our TV, hi-fi, books, DVD’s furniture and all the little personal items you accrue over 20 years we also had all our little boys toys, a small mountain of them, it seemed half of the 80 odd boxes unpacked were marked ‘toys’. He hadn’t seen them for six months. Some were still wrapped as Christmas presents. He was over the moon running around with Woody from Toy Story and it seemed the entire ‘cast’ of Disney Pixar's 'Cars'. For the first time in almost a year we felt like a family together at home again. My wife bumped into the owner in the café downstairs from my office “Hi! How are you, how are you settling” in he beamed.

Two days later I was called into the boardroom “Bad news. We’re laying you off, the company is going in a different direction, we’ll pay for your freight back and your flights and give you a months notice - sign this”

My mouth went dry my throat closed over. I was thought I was going to choke. “But I have just moved into a villa – you know that you helped us! I’ve just got all our stuff out of storage” To say I was gripped with utter panic would be an understatement. I was close to tears but was too flooded with adrenalin, my fingers went numb and I started to shake. They just shrugged. “It’s a business decision, that’s it, you can leave today, we want your phone and laptop now”

I was told the decision had only been made the previous evening. UTTER BULLSHIT. It turned out they had some other person to take my place (as is their way) and that the whole moving the bloke into the flat was to force us out, the help to get our own place made it easier to dump us. You can’t just evict a family from company accommodation easily – not even in Dubai. However employment law is very erratic and staggeringly vague. To be perfectly honest there are no real binding laws – the head bloke wakes up in the morning waves his arm and there you are, a new law. As Tommy would say: “Just like that”.

So after not even ONE week in our new villa after almost a year in their crap flat and half our stuff still in boxes, except of course all our wee boys toys, and all my big boys toys – home cinema system set up, PS3, broadband and cable hooked up all that palaver. There we were having the same movers pack it all up again less than a week later. All 97 itemised boxes.

The following day I went to sign the final severance papers – I knew I was due three months compensation but did not have the money or the time to fight this through the courts. So I simply expected a month’s salary and our flights and freight home. The legal system in Dubai is patchy and disorganised to say the least, there is also a lot of ‘who you know’ going on it can take months to resolve a case and visas run out after 30 days unemployment. We have a friend who is an employment lawyer out there. It work’s like this: when you lose your job the employer is legally required to inform your bank. As soon as that happens they freeze your account and call in all loans credit cards mortgages etc. Pay us the lot right now! If you can’t its simple – you go to straight to jail. Since January 2009 over 4000 cars have been dumped at Dubai airport as a result of this policy

I was told if I wanted my money I would have to surrender our passports so the Visas could be cancelled – ‘should take around 3 days’ I was told. This is not how it is supposed to work. It’s final payment; then Visa cancelled. They gave me a cheque for the cost of the freight and said they would book one-way tickets for my wife and child but I had to stay. They told me that they would also be informing the bank immediately - which would me a major problem for me. Basically they stiffed me on my last months pay and engineered it so that I would have no choice but to run.

We got on a plane the following morning at our own cost – or should I say at our father in laws cost. When we arrived home we checked on the progress of our freight. The bastards had tried to get the cheque back so our goods would not get home. They made all sorts of threats even calling the police. Thankfully the freight company have seen this before and could see what they were up to and calmly told them - 'do what you like we have lawyers' too and cashed the cheque. Because they don't trust each other cheques are as good as cash in the UAE – they have to be, the whole system is so dodgy. But aside from the cost of few grand to return all our wordly possessions to us considering what they owe me - how this benefited them other than sheer malice remains a mystery. After a week of sheer panic and misery we were told the goods were on a boat on their way back to us.

But aside from compensation i am still I am owed a month’s salary - about 6 or 7 grand UK terms. This is a HUGE amount over here that would keep us going for a good while and get us back on our feet. In Dubai we struggled to live off that each month and pay rent. Seriously - it’s that expensive.

So here we are back ‘home’ with a few suitcases, 500 quid, camped out in a tiny room in my father in laws. We’re already at each other’s throats. The chances of me seeing my severance pay are as likely as seeing human decency in Dubai. I’ve emailed the boss and pretty much begged for my cash. It would seem silence means ‘get fucked’.

Aside from the fact I need the money to look after my family I cant get over being burned like this – particularly in such a calculated and cruel manner. I have found out they have done this to around 20 or more people in 3 years - I am good at my job. I have 16 years experience and have produced award-winning work for major brands, chances are you have seen some of it - these guys don’t have a clue so just keep changing staff in the hope it will cover up their hopeless management.

What have I learned from this? Never live in autocracy. Never visit the UAE. At any point you could be in jail. Poppy seed bagel stories may be urban legend, but a woman was jailed then deported merely on the unsubstantiated accusation of adultery by her husband just a few weeks ago. She will never see her 3 young children again. Just because her husband accused her, no evidence just his word and a few concocted emails. Read your contract. Then read it AGAIN.

I have been told the owner of the company actually enjoys sacking people – he gets a kick out of it. Apparently he has a particular tie he wears for such occasions. Given the chance I would cheerfully choke the bastard with it.

Lets say for now the company is called 'Ominous' – if some poor sod searches for their site and stumbles upon my tale then at least it might prevent more lives being ruined.

Even if we could afford to move back into our home we cant – the family that rent it are just about to have a child – I don’t have the heart to evict them.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 16:47, 32 replies)

I used to work in a sales office for a complete and utter cock
His name was Matthew and he basically made me do all his work for him. I'd research the presentations, I'd write the presentations, I'd use one of these here magic computer boxes to design the presentations. Then he'd go and present the fucker and claim the work as his own. Fine. No big deal. I was getting a decent wage. The prick used to keep out my way for the most part and anyway, I'd just been offered a new and better job down in Landan, so I was working my months notice anyway.

But then Matthew committed the cardinal sin. One night while we were out for drinks after work, my then girlfriend Emma met up with us after she'd finished at her pit. Most of the people in this mortgage brokerage were nice, friendly, cheery people. But Matthew wasn't. He was an oily shit who thought he was God's gift to womankind. To cut a long story short I ended up going home that night with Emma. She eventually told me Matthew had attempted - quite well as it turns out - to get his hand inside her bra as she was making her way back from the bogs. Emma started crying. I was fucking livid. If anyone was gonna attempt to fiddle with my girlfriend's knockers in public it was going to be me. But I had no proof and I could hardly go into work the next day and chin the cunt. I needed a reference.

So I bided my time. I knew Matthew, the colossal bastard that he was, would still expect me to sort out every fucking presentation on his behalf. And I did. Impeccably. I came up with some pretty decent stuff in that month. And then on my last day, a Friday, Matthew put a big bundle of paperwork on my desk and demanded I come up with one more presentation before I left. The utter, utter shit. No sitting on my arse doing bugger all on my last day. No.

This presentation was for a very important Midlands-based building society that were looking to use our firm to peddle their wares. It was a BIG fucking deal. Now, I had the dubious pleasure of sitting in on all of Matthews excellent presentations. He was a tedious twat who always stood in the same place to the right of the projector, flicking through the slides without paying them too much attention, leaving them up on screen for far too long to hold anyone’s interest, his dull as fuck voice droning on and on and on...

So at ten to five on my last day I went through the new shiny presentation with Matthew. He seemed pleased. It was a great piece of work if I do say so myself. Then he fucked off a little early to try and get his love stick in one of the poor temps he'd been sexually harassing in the local work's pub. That gave me enough time to fuck about on paint for a bit and put an extra page in the presentation just between the loan to value stats. I knew Matthew wouldn't bother checking over the weekend or on Monday morning. The extra page went something like this:



Then I put my jacket on and left.

The following Monday, sat on my arse watching the test match, I suddenly received five or six congratulatory texts in the space of a few minutes from my former colleagues. They were all rather pleased with my last presentation though apparently the client wasn't...

And who got a in a whole world of shit for this? Matthew. After all, he wrote and checked all his own presentations (for spelling mistakes, factual and gramatical errors, or - as the case may be - impressive meter-and-a-half tall bright pink projected spurting cocks).
( SpankyHanky, Wed 24 Jun 2009, 10:58, 12 replies)

Pay rise
I left a note once on my bosses desk, saying:

"Can I have a pay rise?"

The next day when I came into work, there was a similar note on my desk, it read:

"No, you can't."

You'd think at her level, she'd be able to spell properly, wouldn't you?
(dchurch bah, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 14:47, 5 replies)

Pea toasted
When I was in my second year of university, I worked in a KFC to make some bucks. I only worked twice a week, and I also got to have as much food as I could eat on my break.

All the food I could eat turned out to be usually 3 to 4 family buckets of chicken that found its way to the industrial fridge so that I could take it home and share it with my housemates. It was a pretty sweet deal and I was relatively happy.

Then a new manager was appointed, and was not all that cool. He leched on the 16 year old girls, stole money, didn’t authorise overtime when it was done (“oh must be a payroll error!”), chronically understaffed the entire place to lower costs (“I am just sweating my resources here pal.” He cut my hours without asking me so he could give them to the under 18s, and introduced the rule where you had to pay for your food on your break.

I complained and he said that if I didn’t like it, then I had to lump it. The weasel. This is a man that brought his own bottle of coke to drink on his shifts as he couldn’t stand to drink the pepsi from the KFC taps. What type of monster does that?

Anyway, I am a pretty happy-go-lucky bloke so I gritted my teeth, took the money, and accepted these changes.

Then he gave me 2 weeks notice because I hadn’t fucking scrubbed the floor properly. I was glad at the time because then I couldn’t be bothered to work in his fowl regime.

So I planned my final night. I won’t document the sleepless revenge filled nights that led up to it, only what happened.

Picture the scene.

10pm on a Saturday night in Exeter, two hours after my last shift starts.

£9.95 spent on an ad in the local paper that promised a free meal to the first 200 people that came through the door after 10pm.

Me switching off all the deep fat fryers (that take an hour and a half to get to temperature).

‘Killing in the name’ by Rage against the machine (last 2 minutes of the song) repeated and burnt onto a custom CD playing on the branch stereo (glued shut) at 95% volume.

Me, and 4 other Colonel Sanders refugees, vaulting the counter, past the baying drunken chicken hounds brandishing copies of the local rag, with our middle fingers up.

Finally, dickless clown losing it as the place gets mobbed.

Then I went for a maccy ds.

EPILOGUE.

Its probably cooler in my own mind than what actually happened but what the hell.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 23:09, 10 replies)

Gaylett: Part One ('Flash' photography)…

I used to work in a car parts warehouse. Every sorrowful day I would leave my dignity at the turnstile and waste my time pushing a trolley around. Imagine a glorified ’Supermarket Sweep’ but without any trace of glory…and lots more sweeping.

As you can imagine in a warehouse filled with troglodyte mongs, the deeply emotive and philosophical topics of conversation that floated about the place were a veritable cultural delight….(what I mean is that if you didn’t talk about football, booze or shagging then nobody knew or cared what the fuck you were going on about.)

I’ve posted quite a few times about the management from this place before – and they all deserve it...but I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned 'Gaylett' yet…particularly as I’ve got so much material on him that I could write a book.

Although his name sounds like a cross between a ‘gayer’ and a ‘piglet’, this bollocks-spouting bellend was so called because that was the combination of the initial and surname that adorned his namebadge.

With his short, stumpy, overconfident stance, his weasly, beady eyes (one of which used to be lazy) and sporting a bald spot like a monkey’s ringpiece that actually grew larger before your very eyes, Gaylett was a colossal mimsy of the highest order.

I have worked for some putrid cunt-stenches before…, some egomaniacal workplace wankwobbles, some turgid, turd-tasting terrorist tyrannasaurs of trade and industry in my time – but this winnet of crusty jizz not only took the cake, he dipped his dongler in it, then put it back on the canteen shelf to be eaten after the traditional Friday Curry.

Gaylett had worked in the same place since he was 17, and at the time in question he was 30-something and scraping the dizzying heights of team leader. He had no friends, no hobbies (unless you count ‘brown-nosing’ as a hobby)…and generally no life. Every relationship he had ever entered into (3 marriages and counting to date) was the result of work flings and an unwanted pregnancy here and there.

Now, one thing about bosses is that they all have an Achilles heel, some point that you can expertly exploit to gain some foothold over the puddle of misery that is your dreary workday. Gaylett’s weakspot was the simple, yet ravenous and insatiable craving to be popular. Unfortuantely for him however, every ruse he attempted to endear him to his colleagues always ended in catastrophic failure

Despite his blatant lack of sexual experience, He would perpetually brag to anyone who’d listen about shags that he had ‘scored’ behind his wife’s back whilst he was working away. Although we all knew he was making it all up, he would still try and turn on the ‘Casanova’ act to a bored audience of minions who would grimace through the experience solely because it beat working.

On one such occasion there were a group of about a dozen of us who were gathered in a team cabin bantering between ourselves, when Gaylett shoulder-barged into the conversation, and launched into his usual self-indulgent hyper-twaddle, spouting what he considered to be the immortal ‘ultimate male’ lines. He poetically stated:

“Are you lot talking about sex? I get more fanny than all of you lot – and I’m a fucking brilliant shag!”

Eyes collectively rolled in everyone’s heads. Some people ‘tutted’ and tried to blank him out, but he continued:

“…and I’ve got the biggest cock as well!”

Then, to her credit, one of the team scrubbers, a hardbitten hariden harpe called Sharon, spoke up first. She nonchalantly said:

”I find that when men always go on about how big their tackle is, it’s because they’re overcompensating, and they’re usually hung like a castrated maggot! ” She stylishly accentuated her point by waggling her little finger.

Everyone laughed, and Gaylett was enraged to be shot down in flames in such a way. He roared: “Right….you fuckers…I’ll show you!” before marching off in a huff.

Nobody thought any more of it – But little did we know that Gaylett was on a mission to prove us all wrong.

That night, he went home, went up to the bathroom, stripped bollock naked, and proceeded to take a POLAROID OF HIS COCK.

The next morning, he brought the picture in for us all to see, and rushed up excitedly towards the group of us before thrusting the sick-inducing schlong snap into Sharon’s unsuspecting palm

Then, with his hands on his hips, he proudly stood there and smugly declared: ”Well, what do you think of THAT?”

Sharon merely glanced at the photo, turned it to a 90 degree angle, raised one eyebrow, then said in a monotone, unimpressed way: “Hmm……it kind of rings a bell I suppose…it looks a bit like a penis……only smaller.”

As everybody guffawed at him he looked shellshocked. He then tried to cover his embarrassment by demanding she ‘repay the favour’ by taking a photo of the’ filthy kink in her minkle’ for him to look at, but she only retorted straight back with:

“Nah, only a fucking TWAT would go and do something as stupid as that to try and show off...”

Defeated, and with his protests going unheard over our laughter, he then slumped off and started his backpeddling 'damage limitation' exercise. He desperately tried to stifle any resultant rumours by lying that it wasn’t his todger in the photo. This of course, merely made things even worse as it implicated him as being someone that proudly carried round and displayed a polaroid of someone else’s cock...which had been taken in his bathroom.

What stunned me about the whole thing was that he genuinely thought that people would be impressed. On reflection, this sums up the arrogance of the man. I mean, what was he expecting? For all the girls to drop their kex and bend over the filing cabinet, whilst all the lads queued up to ‘high five’ him and salute him as our 'whopper-cocked hero'?

He really was an unadulterated cuntwhistle. It was probably only out of our naievity (and pity) that we didn’t get him sued for sexual harassment at the time. Worse still, he’s got away with it now…as he’s now the warehouse manager, and one of his first acts in charge was to ensure that everybody that knew about his ‘incidents’ first hand was driven out of the place or made redundant.

Who said the bad guys never win?

Next part here...

Third part here...
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 19 Jun 2009, 13:15, 8 replies)

My First Job
Was a summer job for 6 weeks (in between 1st and 2nd years A-Levels).

I worked in a large department store on the furniture department. After an unsuccessful stint in sales (too honest to the customers), a woeful attempt at delivery (put holes in the walls of a newly built house with the wardrobes we were delivering) and a highly suspect few days working in the offices, I ended up as a warehouse monkey looking after the receipt of furniture. This was OK except that the boss was an alcoholic who was totally unpredictable. He was known to attack warehouse staff with whatever implement was handiest, normally a hammer or a crowbar. The other staff had decided that it was my turn to suffer the wrath which would be visited upon the bearer of bad-tidings, namely that an entire shipment of leather furniture had been treated a wee bit roughly. To be honest the whole lot were scratched to fuck. It was therefore with great trepidation that I approached his office with the latest bad news.

I shook my way into his office and blurted the whole lot out in one sentence. “thefurnituresknacked.Allthesetteesarescratchedandsoarethechairsandthepouffeethings.” I shut my eyes and waited. Only for the mad Irish git to say “Here take this.” I opened one eye and spotted the tenner held out. As I took it he said “Get me a bottle of vodka and two of the big packets of felt tip pens from Woollies.”

My job for the rest of the afternoon was to drink vodka with the Irish Loony and colour in the scratches. Surreal to say the least.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 18 Jun 2009, 14:03, 3 replies)

Rob the twat
After sitting the mandatory tests and interviews with management and directors, I was given the good news. I was hired! I was quite surprised when the customer service director introduced me to my new boss, Rob, whom I’d been to school with, some ten years before - small world and all that. I'd remembered him as a cocky, weasly little gobshite but I figured that time would have mellowed him as it did everyone else. How wrong I was.

I guess I should have objected to the custom of a 09:01am fag break, which invariably left me as the sole non-smoker in the department to field 20% of the day’s support calls. Fifteen minutes later, the smokers would return noisily while I struggled to placate a back log of exasperated clients unable to pay their staff for whatever reason. Did I mention our product was flaky? Well, it was flakier than the Singing Detective’s scrotum and half as user-friendly.

We had a problem on our hands, but I was assured that through teamwork we’d all pull through. Rob’s response to my personal and professional enquiries was generally silence which was only broken either by Rob’s phone as he was summoned to the customer service director’s office or by intermittent sniggers between Rob and the one of the other support guys on £5k less than me while they avoided my eye.

With a nicotine-stained leer, Rob insisted on micro-managing everything I did whilst berating me for every conceivable misdemeanour, imagined or not. Despite never using the office internet myself, I was apparently being watched and monitored, unlike my colleagues it seemed. The moment senior management appeared on the scene, bullying Rob would be replaced by simpering Rob, intent on arselicking favour as best he could. He proudly sported the badge of egotistical middle management - no, not the mid-spec BMW 3-series - but the carefully cultivated and completely non-ironic goatee beard.

I was due to get married in a few weeks time and had a fair few other things on my mind to concern me. I didn’t want to screw up so close to being hitched, I was careful to log each and every one of my actions on our creaking helpdesk database, after a couple of weeks of silence, save for the usual spiky remarks and sniggers from my colleagues, 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 professional, you must make sure they stay out of the office." he said sternly, commanding all the respect of something I might scrape off the sole of my shoe. However, anxious to avoid rocking the boat I nodded and apologized.

“It’s all right to be nervous” he added, before continuing with an entirely unwelcome and unnecessary monologue about the precarious state of his own marriage. His wife didn’t understand him; he was trying to keep her and his young son together, etc, etc. I indulged him and returned to my desk. However, two hours later I was gobsmacked by the following exchange between him and a client spending a not inconsiderable amount of money on a support contract:

"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 nearly spat my coffee out in disbelief. Professional or what?

On the Friday before I was due to fly off on honeymoon, I went through my outstanding helpdesk calls I’d been assigned with Rob. A client had reported disappearing database records, an issue I’d thus far failed to replicate. I queried who to assign it to in my absence.

"Close it" barked Rob.

"You sure?" I asked

"Yeah, I'm sure it's the client. They’re a bunch of fuckwits and don’t know what they’re talking about" he replied. I duly completed the log and saved it while he went for another fag.

Two weeks later I came back to work and coffee scarcely poured I 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, who are now refusing to pay their support fees" 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 your line manager is a very serious disciplinary matter" brayed Rob solemnly, playing the part for the Customer Service director who sat behind his desk nodding. I was handed copies of reports from the customer service database, which seemed to bear no relation to the comments I’d saved myself.

“Database crashed on the Friday just after you left. We had to restore it. Seems convenient that your comments weren’t saved doesn’t it David?” Rob grinned.

Cunt.

Rob was about as trustworthy as the rhythm method and twice as slimy. The fucker had deleted my helpdesk log details. I sat there utterly bewildered as he launched straight into his bad cop routine.

"You have to buck your ideas up sunshine". I was given a verbal warning on the spot and sent back to my desk, tail between my legs.

I decided to try a different tack and wrote down the date, time and a brief summary of everything Rob said to me on a notepad, which I was careful not to leave lying around. This seemed to enrage him even more. The following Monday he beckoned me into the boardroom again.

"You're not pulling your weight sunshine. You spend too much time making unnecessary notes, about confidential matters"

Au contraire. I had access to the helpdesk statistics, without a word, I printed the stats proving I was resolving more issues than anyone else on the helpdesk including Rob, together with a few emails that clients had sent to me personally thanking me for my help and pinned them to the notice board, leaving copies on the Customer Service Director's desk.

Determined to prove a point, he started to take more calls himself and reduced my allocation of calls. At least three times a day he’d beckon the other two analysts outside for a fag break, while I was left with the toxic clients on the phone. My colleagues weren’t speaking to me openly, save for a couple who professed sympathy on the quiet. It was clear I was being lined up for the door.

I wasn’t leaving without a fight though. After buying the IT manager a couple of pints one lunchtime, I managed to “acquire” some of the emails Rob had sent to my colleagues (both technically my subordinates) about me. The I discovered that instead of being busy building a SQL database (his main justification for offloading work onto me), he was in fact playing Age of Empires and that I was a cunt for making him look bad and causing him to do some work. The timing of a job offer from another organisation was most fortuitous, the following week I stood up as Rob coughed and cursed his way back into the office.

"Rob, we need a meeting" I smiled.

"Yeah mate. Maybe later?" replied Rob over the top of the sound of ringing telephones as he wandered out for another cigarette break

I’d already placed my written resignation in his in tray, knowing he wouldn't read it. I put a copy on the Customer Service Director's desk and sat back in my chair waiting for it to kick off. Rob’s phone rang, his face registered momentary panic and he left his chair with uncharacteristic urgency and disappeared into the Customer Service Director’s office.

Fifteen minutes later he comes out looking like he’d been on the receiving end of a bollocking. The repeated denial of my requests for an appraisal meeting which I’d recorded in my resignation letter had not been well received, nor had my documented instances of blatant favouritism. I'm delighted to say that worse was to come.

"Don’t you ever go over my fucking head again..." he quietly snarled as he walked past me.

I worked my notice to rule and that was that….

…but not quite.

I arranged a drink with a colleague just before I left who filled me in on a few colourful details about Rob’s private life. Rob's missus was a very difficult woman, she'd been knocked up at sixteen, consigned to life on a council estate and had managed to seduce Rob three years later when she’d seen the obvious meal-ticket potential. She’d controlled his every move, phoning him every hour or so during his carefully orchestrated cigarette breaks. Just lately, she'd decided that life with Rob wasn't much cop since discovering the delights of MSN and was having second thoughts now she had a kid by him and was anxious to enjoy her youth before it passed her by. She’d managed to con the idiot into taking saucy pics of her so she could email them to potential online suitors…

Moral of the story? It pays to delete your emails. Especially if you're an arsehole.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 22 Jun 2009, 17:15, 9 replies)

How to make the worst possible first impression
During the first day on a previous job I arrived at the office early, suited and booted, met up with my new boss – a likeable fella named Nick who did my interview – and he offered to take me out for coffee over to the wanky, poncy-arsed coffee shop round the corner. He wanted to talk to me about my new sales role in a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere. Never being one to turn down a free anything and desperate to make the right impression, I went along. We sat in the window seat, I ordered the most expensive coffee on the menu and we started chatting about selling shit to shits; the usual guff for a sales monkey like myself.

The coffees came. Time ticked on. We ordered another coffee. We started to relax and talk about our out of office lives. It was pretty obvious Nick wanted to get to know me better as a person, which was nice. The waitress came over with our second coffees and after she’d placed them on the table he leaned into me and said conspirationally: “I’d give her one!” I nodded in agreement. Fuck me, this beat doing some work for a living.

We sipped at our fresh drinks, we talked about footie, holidays, nice places to go out on the beer; just the usual stuff. I was gazing out the big coffee shop window, watching the traffic go by. Nick was sat with his back to the window facing into the shop. What with it being London (down in Borough near London Bridge), it was fucking busy on the roads. It was also a really hot day. As if from nowhere a gorgeous Italian-looking girl in a convertible VW beetle stopped just outside the coffee shop window. She had on such an amazingly low cut top that revealed such a perfectly pert set of knockers that she actually took my breath away. She flicked her long ebony locks and stroked her neck, did a little stretch.

“My God,” I said, “There’s a girl sat in a car just outside waiting at the lights who is absolutely amazingly stunning... I think I’d like to marry her...”

Nick, my boss but also my new best mate, went to turn to have a surreptitious perv. But in the time it took him to put his coffee down and twist his body the lights had changed and the traffic had moved on a little. My Italian beauty had moved up the queue a few cars. Nick stared for a moment. I could hear something, some statement catch in his throat. Then he turned quickly back round, put his head down, and drank his coffee in silence for a few moments. I did the same. Shit!

In the five or six seconds it had taken Nick to turn to have a butchers, another car had taken the place of my new girlfriend’s, parked up just outside the window moving further up the queue of traffic. It was another convertible. And there was a girl in this motor too. She was in the passenger seat, playing with her long blonde hair. She was wearing a nice flowery summer dress.

Only this girl was probably about six years old.

(It’s fucking hard work attempting to explain to your new boss of all of an hour that you’re not, in point of fact, a dirty paedophile)...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 17:17, 5 replies)

Mistaken identity
I once got berated by a boss in front of a customer for apparently ignoring her tannoys. She was away with phrases like 'unprofessionalism', 'disciplinary' and 'taking it higher'. I felt I had to say my piece. After all I didn't ignore her, not on purpose anyway.

"Sorry but I didn't hear you."
"I know fine well you heard them Gary, I've been calling your name for five minutes now. I could see you milling around at the other end of the store and there's no problems with the tannoy over there."
"Erm...my name isn't Gary."

The customer laughed and she stormed off. Now whenever I see her she makes an effort to drop my real name into conversation at least once.
(Peter Sutcliffe's Right Bollock, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 23:19, Reply)

Being used to settle a bet...
I grew up in the Midlands (factories, faggots and peas, mild ale, strong accents, you get the picture...)

I work down in that there London, with mostly posh types (especially senior management).

Once, when I was quite junior, I was standing waiting to get something off the printer when the head of department's door opened and he shouted to me:

'Snowy - come here a moment'

So I scurried over into his office, where another senior management type was sitting...

'Snowy - you're from the North right?'
Me: 'Well, the Midlands, which isn't quite...'
'Yeah, yeah, whatever... Important question: what do you have on chips?'
Me: 'Er, salt and vinegar?'
'Anything else?'
Me: Erm, I might have a bit of curry sauce, maybe some gravy if there's some going'
'Ha!'

...and he turned to the other guy...

'That's a tenner you owe me, I told you the poor have gravy on their chips. You can go now Snowy - I imagine you've got lots to be getting on with....'

Fucking. Hell.

This was the same guy who was sent on a Diversity Training Course and asked the trainer 'What you're supposed to call poofs nowadays', so I suppose laughing at me for having gravy on chips was quite mild, really...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 14:52, 7 replies)

How to get transferred in one easy lesson
"Is that a newspaper you're reading?"

I looked up from my copy of the Daily Telegraph to see the red face of the boss staring down at me.

"Yes. Yes it is," I replied, deciding it would not be wise to play silly buggers with a senior manager, especially a known spittle-flecked bully whose civil service career had stalled at the Ministry of Cows.

"You KNOW how I feel about people reading newspapers on company time," he said, in a voice that could be heard all the way down in accounts, "I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's stealing from the company. It's a disciplinary offence."

I turned the page and frowned at the unfunny cartoon, half amused at his description of an office full of civil service layabouts as "the company".

"Well? What have you got to say for yourself?" he boomed, fists clenching and unclenching with anger.

I folded the paper and filed it in the bin. Then, taking a glimpse at my watch, rose from my desk, walked the five yards to the keying-in machine and pushed my yellow plastic key home with a loud "Peep!"

I looked at the boss as if it was the first time I'd seen him.

"Back from lunch. Work to do."

He stormed away, barely able to contain his outrage: "Well... well... Don't do it in work hours. Y'hear?"

Within a week, I was out of his department. Minor WIN.

...And working in the black hole of Accounts with all the other unemployable misfits. FAIL.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 14:12, 5 replies)

Best boss I ever had
Donald. A great guy, hard-nosed businessman and THE most charming man I have ever known. I knew I wanted to work with him as soon as we met.

When I went for interview with the board of the holding group for my job as European technical sales liaison manager I decided to be a little belligerent after Donald asked me what I could "bring to the party"*. So I asked each one in turn what they 'brought to the party'. Each answered in some detail (never get an accountant to detail his job FFS) and, when it came to Donald's turn (I didn't know at the time he was the de facto owner) he just smiled and said "I'm charming". I got the job just on the fact I had the balls to interview the board!

We had many many adventures together in the wilds of the former eastern bloc (see my posts abou expenses, bullet holes in cars etc) but the one that springs to mind is the time that we were in Paris about to close a very large deal with a French car company (not renault).
I could hear him swearing intermittently about the internet connection going down, then ranting over the in-house phone about it, getting reconnected, the line going down etc etc ad nauseam for about an hour.
I then heard "BOLLOCKS!" shouted in his best glaswegian accent, then the door slamming and him ranting his way down the stairs to the front desk.
Then I heard a few muffled screams. "Oh shit" I said to myself, "he's gone fucking postal" and ran down to see the carnage.
There was Donald, tearing a strip off the concierge, berating him for the crapness of connection, how important the internet was, how much this deal would cost if we lost it etc etc. The concierge was taking none of this in at all, probably because Donald was standing there, in a small boutique hotel (on the Boulevard des Italiennes if anyone's interested) at 7 pm STARK BOLLOCK NAKED!!

I ushered him upstairs, apologised to the concierge in my schoolboy French (what is the French for 'he's a bit mental'?) and got the connection sorted.

The working breakfast at the hotel with the buyers of the aforementioned company was a tad strained as the hotel staff all pointed and giggled. After the meeting I asked him about his 'plan'** when he went down to reception naked.
His reply was "It worked didn't it? Anyway I got three room numbers pushed under my door last night".

Great guy.

He died suddenly 12 days ago. We're burying him tomorrow at midday, the dress code is no black, cheery colours only.

RIP Donald, the world's going to be a lot less fun without you.



*And party it was! The absolute epitome of the work hard play hard ethos. Great days.

** "What the fuck were you thinking, you mental twat!?"
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 16:12, 6 replies)

ROBOCOP
Ben was a bit of a mummys boy. A straight down the middle, no nonsense, salt of the earth type of fella. He spent his time away from the office prancing about in a uniform being a cardboard cutout copper, or to use the correct terminology, a community support officer. He wanted desperately to get into the rozzers so he could punch hippies and plant drugs on ethnic minorities for a living. Ben had absolutely no sense of humor, no sense of fun, and seemed to live, eat, and sleep law and order. I swear that one day when he came into work he sat at his desk and removed his cycle helmet with the aid of a Black and Decker drill, removing the great big fucking bolts that were buried deep in either temple. He really was fucking Robocop. He was also my supervisor.

One time on a slow Friday afternoon we were sat round the office when one of my co-workers, a petitie girl named Natalie who had a bit of a thing for Ben, noticed something sticking out of his bag. “Oooh, Ben!” she cooed. “Is that your uniform?” And it was. A dayglo jacket thing. Ben explained that he’d come straight from working a nightshift as a CSO, protecting and serving, dealing death and retribution to criminals, smashing international drugs rings, giving tourists directions, and so on. Natalie continued: “Do you have any handcuffs?” Oooh, saucy! This got everyone’s attention. I even stopped emailing my mate a photo of an amazing oversized diseased cock I’d found on the internet so I could see how this developed.

Ben explained that he did have some handcuffs with him. Natalie, being a bit of a dirty minx and desperate to sample Ben’s baby maker – fuck knows why - went on: “Could you try them out on me?” Ben blinked. I could almost imagine the little computer printout behind his eyes as he scanned through his internal programming. Natalie’s request didn’t seem to fuck about with his prime directives, so he eventually said: “OK, stand up in front of me.”

Giggling, Natalie went over to Ben’s desk, stood in front of him and held out her wrists. I was quite looking forward to a bit of harmless office bondage, I have to admit. But Ben being Ben had to fuck it up. He reached into his bag, found his cuffs, and then without a word he reached forward in a flash, grabbed Natalie brutally by the arm, pulled her wrist back violently so it was sticking half way up her back at an uncomfortable angle, then with his free arm Ben rammed Natalie’s head forward so it slammed hard on the desk.

SLAP – SLAP !!!

The cuffs were on. Natalie appeared stunned and slightly concussed. “There you go,” said Ben. “That’s how you do it properly.” Fucking nonce, I thought. You’ve completely fucked that one up. I returned to my important diseased cock work. Natalie was released and went back shakily to her desk where she remained, quietly lost in a haze of stars only she could see, until hometime.

When Ben came into work the next day he looked a little flustered. Apparently somebody in the office had rifled through his bag while he’d been in a meeting. This individual had written in permanent marker on the back of his toy-copper uniform jacket: I’M A BIG GAY BEAR !!! And apparently this was pointed out to him by a real copper when he’d been in the police station – after they’d let him walk round like this for a couple of hours first...

Ben was not a happy chappy, not at all.

(Tchh, just can’t get the staff nowadays)...
( SpankyHanky, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 15:52, 9 replies)

My boss is a cunt
But that's Ok. I'm a dick. It's a symbiotic relationship.
(StinkyCheeseMan, Sat 20 Jun 2009, 13:28, 7 replies)

Worst boss I ever had
This was a while back when I was working as a plumber for a summer job. Anyway, this boss was really old-school - bit of a dinosaur to tell the truth. Basically, to cut a long story short, it turned out the princess was in another castle.

I was livid.
( Pretender, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 23:59, 1 reply)

Karen and Debbie
I used to work in Telesales, for my sins.

Our supervisor, Karen, didn't make calls herself unless she absolutely had to, and spent most of the day pursuing her hobby of horse dressage. There were dressage forums, saddlery websites, advice on diets for a better coat, etc. A whole world of horsey Interweb goodness. Interrupting her whilst she was looking at horse stuff online usually just made her moody, so we tended to get on with our own thing and bother her as little as possible.

Now, despite being totally idle, Karen was actually quite ambitious and wanted to one day ascend to a position where she supervised not just one, but several banks of phone-monkeys, like her boss Debbie. She sucked up something rotten as a result. As soon as she knew she was under Debbie's gaze, she suddenly became either a back-patting, smiling, tea-making nice boss or a shouty, firm, no-bullshit nasty boss as she felt was required in this particular case by the (somewhat evil) Debbie.

One of the best bollockings we ever got was, ironically, over Internet use. Apparently, our department was the worst in the company for spending time on the internet during working hours. The fact that she was the worst offender wasn't going to stop Karen getting us all into a meeting room (with Debbie overseeing from the back of the room) and laying down the law on wasting company time.

To be fair, we were all guilty as charged. We knew the company 'reserved the right' to monitor internet use, but they'd never actually bothered up to this point. It was ridiculous to be getting a bollocking from Karen on the matter, but none of us were going to say anything, as we mostly spent our days half-listening to customers whilst playing online billiards or bidding on ebay.

As Karen wrapped up with one more platitude about pulling together and not being the weak link in the chain when others were hard at work selling, Debbie chipped in:

'I also wanted to let you all know, that the monitoring the company has been doing actually shows us individuals as well as teams, so I have a list from the IT Department of the worst offenders and will be talking to them individually in the next few days.'

Ever seen someone's face go from smug to deflated over the course of a sentence? I have..
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 19:08, 3 replies)

*Riiiiip*
"So you've never given birth before then?" asked Ken, an orange-skinned man in his fifties to one of my very pregnant colleagues.

I'd only been in the office for a couple of weeks, but Ken was well loved by pretty much everyone, and had a habit of saying the kind of things that few others would get away with. Partly by being cheeky and partly by being the boss.

"No, this is my first." replies Lisa, rubbing her hand protectively over her rather full belly. I'd been brought in to cover her work when she went on maternity leave, so she was almost 9 months gone and each time we spoke she shared her concerns about giving birth.

"Just remember Lis' " Ken continued, holding an A4 sheet of paper in his hands and tearing it slowly as he said the next line "This will be the sound of your fanny next month!"

I've never seen a girl go so white so quickly as poor Lisa did.

I never did find out if the aural prediction made by Ken was an accurate one or not.
( SeasonTicketless is too often the statue, and rarely the pigeon., Thu 18 Jun 2009, 17:57, 3 replies)

Turkish Delight
My last boss was a bit of a xenophobic bigot, who didn't like people eating Turkish Delight because it was a bit "Muslim".

He even put up a sign on the break room door: "EAST TREAT BANNED".
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 14:36, 7 replies)

Chav 0, Boss 1
I did time years ago in one of those dodgy finance companies a few years ago in the north west - the kind of place that makes Ocean Finance look like the paragon of business ethics.
The owner was (and probably still is) a complete gobshite, who delighted on getting coked out of his skull and then throwing his weight around the office. One of the poor sods who was working in the incoming call office got the sack once for walking in still wearing his hat and scarf one winter morning, which was enough to offend the glorious leaders Colombian enhanced sensibilities.

He had a grovelling lickspittle of a bloke managing a seperate department for him on the ground floor,called D, who delighted in playing the alpha male with everyone he could get away with, and demanding things as aggressively as possible from the IT department (which I'd ended up part of after a few months there). He called up one day in a blind panic, as 'all the computers have stopped working'. cue me and N, my colleague and the nicest most laid back guy you could wish to work with heading over to that side of the building. N has a bit of a poke around his pc, then sighs and looks at D. the conversation then goes something like this -

N - have you knocked any of the cables or unplugged anything?
D - no...
N - are you sure?
D - positive.
N - come on D, tell me the truth.
D - I havent touched anything.
N - ...
D - well... I plugged my mobile phone charger in...

turns out he'd unplugged the router for his floor (which true to form for this place, was just sat on the floor in a snake's nest of cat-5). mong.

My immediate boss however, was a bit of a legend and great to work for (we remained friends after I walked out and still are to this day). We all went out one night after work, which ended up with us having a bit of a lock in at a bar where he knew the owner. So well lubricated, we leave there and set off across town - the munchies have struck and my boss wants a pizza. On the way, we pass a club that at the time was chav heaven. And lo and behold, sat on the steps outside is a particularly outstanding specimen - shellsuit in a variety of eyebleedingly dayglo colours, (presumably) nicked trainers with those horrible rubber spring things on the heels and baseball cap perched at a silly angle on the back of it's head. And for whatever reason, he's got his arms tucked inside his top so it looks like he's got no arms.

'fuck me' says a very drunken and so slightly more observationally disadvantaged than usual tjn, 'that lads got no arms'.

to which I recieve the stunningly erudite response of him poking one of his hands out of his jacket, and giving me the finger. I laugh at him and keep walking, but my boss is a bit less than taken with this response to say the least. (I should also say that he's a 6"4 skinhead, as a bit of background.)
He tells this lad if he doesnt put his finger away, it's going to get broken.
To which our sartorially challenged (I mean, where do these silly twats get these clothes from for gods sake?) responds with 'f*** off... or I'll get so-and-so and so-and-so from inside the club and then you'll be sorry' - and reels off these names of his mates that presumably we were supposed to be intimidated by.

My boss isnt taking this lying down - he says 'Am I supposed to be worried? I grew up in bloody Belfast, you silly sod.' And then grabs hold of this lad by the foot and starts dragging him down the street. shellsuit boy cant get up because of the angle of his leg that my boss has hold off, and is sort of bouncing down the street. We get about ten yards down the pavement, and his trainer comes off in my boss's hand.

my boss then drops it on the floor... and promptly takes a wazz in it. shellsuit boy starts screeching that 'he's going to f***ing kill us', I'm crying laughing at this point - it's juvenile I know, but bloody funny if you've had a skinful as well.

We continue our way down the main road to the pizza shop, and after a few minutes I'm aware over the usual noise of traffic and punch ups over who's getting in first at the various taxi ranks we're passing, I can also hear someone shouting 'Im going to f***ing get you fat c**t... and you you bald tw*t...' and so I look around to see where it's coming from...

And see it's our friend from outside the club... about a hundred yards away, hopping after the two of us as fast as he can...

...clutching a trainer still steaming gently in the autumn air.

length? I didnt look to be honest. but great aim on my boss's part.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Sun 21 Jun 2009, 17:05, 3 replies)

I hate my boss
I work for a pretty famous company known throughout the world, for the sake of anonymity and the way I’m describing things I will keep the place name off of here.

The boss is seen by most people as a good bloke who loves his job but to be more precise he is a total ass to everyone and enjoys mistreating his workers (Myself included). His hiring policy is to use immigrants like me to do everything for a fraction of the cost. I know that we were shipped into the country illegally and he dosen’t give a monkeys as if anyone comes to review the site he will happily pay them off. As we are also cheap workers he uses us to try out all manner of unsafe chemicals etc he plans to use.

He also goes by the policy of hiring people that are shorter than him so then he has a feeling of superiority over the workforce (my mate who was 6 foot 2 was turned away). I have a feeling that this guy must be a member of the BNP or something as even though we speak English he also likes to call members of staff to him via a variety of hand gestures/ stupid sounds/ playing a flute he keeps in his pocket (I know this sounds weird but we low level staff have got used to it by now).

I have to go now, the boss has arranged for me and a few mates to sing a few songs to entertain a few kids that have won a trip round the place with a golden ticket. I just hope that one of them comes a cropper so we can take the piss.

I hate being an umpa lumpa

(P.S Before any of you say anything about forming a union or something we tried that but a few days later the union leader was found drowned in the lake with an everlasting gobstopper placed in each of the now hollowed out eyesockets)
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 10:57, 7 replies)

Terry. Greatest boss on earth and the tale of the scratchcard.
My boss and I got on famously well when we worked at the boomboomshakalakalakaboom plant. Terry would always complement me on my collection of putney elbows, and every lunchtime we would down flanges and wongmuppets and head off to shant in search of ferret weasels.

"Same again gents?" the barman would ask us. This would usually result in Terry unzipping his microscooter and spewing forth an acid like rainbow liquid from his marmite jar. "Balackomormanat" Terry would say, hand over a £7 note, and we'd eat our steak.

Anyway, back at work, Terry ruled with an iron fist, or as I liked to call it, an iron fist. People were scared of him at first, but after a few weeks of rape, limb removal, and 'tracks of my tears' being played over and over in the office, people got used to him and would often bring him in little treats such as wagon wheels (real ones, not the chocolate snack) and speculums. All in all, the team got on well, and production was on the up and up. It came to the point when Terry had to hire in a group of robots from the Terminator films to help assemble the new B566667/OA4 model we had been working on, which proved very popular with the clients. After all, it was lemon scented and very sharp.

The robots happily downed thier lazer guns and worked very dilligently, and when production bottomed out, Terry had to let them go again. He didn't relish having to tell them, but whilst he could tell they were distressed at the news, thier emotionless faces were an added bonus as he settled up with them. Even at thier leaving drink he was quids in, as they didn't drink. A few bags of McCoys between them and that was it.

All this came to an end last week however. Terry was arrested after 6789 indecent images of waffles on his computer. He had taken it to PC World and the engineer alerted Birdseye. The company has now folded, and Terry is looking at 5 years in prison. I still can't believe that a person I respected and admired is nothing but a filthy potatofile. It was the best job I ever had, and now it is all over.

I'm very quiet and enjoy backgammon.
(Spaff_Quaffer Wise fwom your gwave., Fri 19 Jun 2009, 9:20, 8 replies)

Curses!
I’ve just had a great meeting with one of my bosses after an accident this morning.

I was about to wipe my ass after my morning dump when the plastic cover that holds the toilet rolls on the wall accidentally opened. From the look of it the cleaner had not sealed the thing when she replaced the roll earlier and the front half of the case fell off at a perfect angle to hit me in the eye and temporarily blind me.

It hurt like hell and I will admit that I did yell a few expletives while doing a strange mad stomping effect with my trousers still round my ankles at the time (I was still on the loo its not like I could have done anything else. The sound of me yelling (and also beating the hell out of the toilet roll holder-Take that inanimate object) attracted a bit of attention from my work colleagues (we work in offices that were built with walls made of crackerbread so that’s unsurprising really).

Upon returning to my desk (with a now semi closed eye) my boss came in to find out what happened and has been doing nothing but take the piss for the past hour.

He has written the report into the company accident book, not for legal reasons but just so he can go back to it when he is feeling bored and have a good laugh at me making a prat of myself. He has also asked me to phone up claims direct so he can see me grinning like a mong in one of their adverts with a re-enactment of someone being blinded by a bog roll holder.

Thank God I’m only on half day today.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Wed 24 Jun 2009, 10:11, 1 reply)

Malcolm
Malcolm was a lovely man. As gay as a jamboree though. And he took a rather deep and focussed liking to 17 year old me. One which I did very little to discourage when I realised I was getting bonuses and free meals and perks that the other staff weren’t getting. (£15 an hour for working Christmas day when everyone else was on £8 was no little thing to a skint teenager)

He gave me a £300 trench coat (which took some explaining to my parents who I think to this day still assume I ‘serviced’ him in return)

He took me shoe shopping when he decided that the shoes I had weren’t smart enough for his restaurant. He gave me the keys to his Landrover the day after I passed my driving test so I could ‘fill her up’ when she needed it.

He tried very hard to get me drunk enough to do things that I am not naturally inclined to do. (and, given my age at the time would have been illegal anyway) But he failed. I just got drunk on leftover wine from weddings and staggered the few hundred yards home on my own.

I eventually left when he took me shopping for a new suit and tried to hold my hand while we were walking around the store.

Even then, I may not have left if it hadn’t been for the fact that a girl I had a crush on had a Saturday job at the store and told everyone at college on the Monday that she had seen me out with my boyfriend. Yet another person that I never got to have sex with. (her, not him. Wait…that sounds wrong…I never had sex with him either)

God bless you Malcolm, I hope you found the boy of your dreams eventually. (I’m 35 and still available if you’re still rich…but I still won’t let you fuck me)
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 17:30, 2 replies)

My boss
My boss was a bully. Always on at me to work Saturdays, always haranguing me about TPS reports, lording it over the other guys I worked with too. Mind you, that all changed when I had this hypnotherapy session which really changed my outlook, I moved a wall from my cubicle to give me a better view, ripped down his stupid motivational banners, destroyed a fax machine and stole his parking space – and despite this I got promoted!

Unfortunately the two other guys I was working with got sacked so we hatched a plan to steal fractions of pennies from the company – it worked a little too well and we ended up with nearly a third of a million. Anyway, long story short, the quiet mumbly guy who everyone ignored ended burning the entire place down. Still, I’m in construction now, which suits me better.
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 13:17, 12 replies)

My boss is the worst in Britain - officially. ACTUALLY officially.
I work for an organisation that is managed by an ageing dictator. Let's call him... Mr Footcosy. Physically, imagine a cross between Mr Burns and Mr Rumbold from Are You Being Served? and you won't be far off.

Now, I say dictator, for dictator he is. All the classic signs are there:

- Extremely rich? Check.
- Policy decided on a whim and changed according to his mood? Check.
- Ex-lovers, illegitimate children and cronies shoved into positions of power? Check.
- People mysteriously vanishing? Check (dismissed rather than dismembered, we hope).
- Vaguely Communist tendencies? Check (doesn't extend to paying the workers more though).
- Grip on reality becoming tenuous in old age? Check
- The gossip is he was involved in some African coup a few years back. I'm not convinced this is true, but the thing is, knowing him, it IS actually plausible. He was certainly in Africa for several years.

Anyway, the title of this post states that he is officially the worst boss in Britain. A bold claim, you cry. But I can back it up. Wavy lines alert...

~~~~~~~~

The organisation (or should I say disorganisation hahaha) in question employs a lot of writers. Several years ago now, Mr Footcosy happened to piss off a couple of the hacks who were working for him. This in itself is nothing unusual. He pisses everyone off, sooner or later. But these two left the company and eventually found themselves working for a tabloid newspaper.

Where they penned a brief article entitled: "Is this the worst boss in Britain?" adding a photograph of Footcosy with devil horns drawn in for good measure. This was pre-internet, but I have seen a photocopy of the article in question.

Naturally, upon reading said article, Mr Footcosy was slightly disgruntled. Indeed, he took it upon himself to write a letter to the tabloid's editor expressing his complete lack of gruntlement. What was in that letter I have never found out, but it must have been pretty juicy because, rather than winning damages for libel, the two journalists sued HIM for defamation in front of a third person (the editor). He lost, and was forced to settle.

The tabloid was never forced to retract or apologise for the article it had published. So, when I call my boss the worst in Britain, I have LEGAL PRECEDENT backing my claim up.

*

Other stories I have heard about him. Most I know to be true, the last two are only hearsay. All are entirely believable.

- Once asked a girl at interview 'if she had ever had a Spaniard.'

- Said that the grandfather of a half-German guy he was interviewing 'was probably a Nazi.'

- My own interview with him consisted largely of a discussion about the politics of Korea - a topic I know nothing about, and that had no relevance to the job I was applying for. I got the job, so going 'hmm' and nodding wisely at intervals was clearly enough to impress him.

- Requested massages from various female staff members.

- Hired a girl to edit the mildly pornographic memoirs of his "uncle". Worked closely with her for several months before realising book was shit. Got someone else to fire girl. When girl confronted him to ask why he hadn't had the decency to fire her in person, slapped her arse as she left. Too many other stories of harassment to relate. It's like working in 1973 sometimes, it really is.

- He's incredibly tight, so our offices are decaying, and smell strongly of dead rat in the summer.

- We are now banned from our most recent Christmas party venue because he refused to pay a perfectly reasonably wine bill.

- Once slept with a woman he was interviewing, and then didn't even offer her the job.

- Banned from the local baths for swimming in his underpants.
(The Phantom Postgrad, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 23:21, 2 replies)

Rix
His name was Rix. I won't give his first name as I don't want to go to court. He'd only been in the company for six months when I was put in a new team under him. Well, more of a double-act really, just me and him. Due to my 10 years experience in various parts of the company and the exams I'd taken, I'd finally managed to get a job in a relatively interesting area: Strategy. He, supposedly, had had similar roles in different companies and came highly recommended.

LIAR.

How can I put it? He was so clueless that if he was chained down in front of a Bumper Book of Crosswords, with Inspector Morse on his left and Sherlock Holmes on his right to help him, he still wouldn't have been able to discover a single, fucking clue. I can honestly say that he added absolutely no value AT ALL in the year or so I worked with him. Mostly, I did the work then he picked over it. He fussed like an old woman and knew nothing and nobody that would help in our role. He was 100 percent free of gorm.

Funny thing was, I quite liked him at first. He was fairly easy to get on with and although ten years younger than me, that wasn't a problem for me: virtually all the managers I work for are younger than me, because they've had a decade's head start. But then his habits started to annoy me. Constant stories about his car, some BMW or other, e.g. it had a scratch and he spent the best part of three weekends sanding and spraying it until he'd ruined a whole panel and had to get it done professionally. OK, but why tell us the whole story every single day? Also, he'd constantly, but surreptitiously sniff his fingers - yuk, and when he said 'marketing' it came out as 'margeding' and WITHOUT FAIL, at every single meeting we ever went to (and there were lots), he'd use the word 'predicated'.

He would moan about how the work we were getting wasn't interesting enough. He thought he should be advising the executive board on strategy. The sum total of his knowledge was a passing familiarity with the BCG Growth-Share Matrix (see Wikipedia), which is probably taught in term one of A-Level marketing [that's Marketing 101 for our American cousins]. Imagine going to the top guys at NASA and suggesting that to get more thrust for their rockets, they should have a look at skateboard propulsion technology principles.

This numpty I then discovered, was actually two grades higher than I had originally supposed and, as a consequence was earning over £50,000 a year, while I scraped by on roughly half that, while I did his job. Towards the end, we weren't given any new work to do. Stuff we should have been doing was given to other people and what did Rix do about it? Did he have a frank discussion with his boss, ask why, suggest stuff we could usefully do? Did he fuck. He'd call a 'team meeting', which meant we'd get up from our desks with our pads and pens and wander off to find somewhere to sit. Then he'd bitch about everyone and everything and I'd advise him to pull his frigging finger out of his arse, stop sniffing it, and get something done. Then we'd go back to our desks no further on; this went on for a year. Gradually, he started taking more sick days and 'worked from home' a lot, it was only a matter of time.

In the next reorganisation he opted for redundancy and was refused, so he had to resign, while I finally got a decent job. Hurray! That was back in 2007...

About six months ago we were recruiting for a new strategy manager, our department boss (a very nice guy) came over with a c.v.

'Che, you were in the team when this guy Rix worked here weren't you? What do you think of him?'

So I said (pretty much verbatim) 'He was a complete and utter waste of space and if you give him a job I'll leave.'

'Well, that's fairly clear. I think we can forget him then.' and he dropped the c.v. into a re-cycling bin on the way back to his desk. Out of curiosity, I fished it out of the bin and read a more imaginative piece of fiction than even SpankyHanky could manage - though a hell of a lot less entertaining.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 11:32, 1 reply)

Mr Hoppy!!
My boss at my last proper job (i.e. not academia) was an enthusiastic, dedicated man who always did his best to listen and respond to the concerns of his workforce.

Unfortunately, he had the voice of Ivan Dobsky, the Meat-Safe Murderer. He may have been talking about a new client design, or a change in order quantities, but I was hearing "I never done it. I only said I done it so they wouldn't give me another jalfrezi enema..."
(Concrete Cow, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 14:48, 5 replies)

How to get a-head in business
While I was flogging mortgages I had a fucking useless boss named Lynn who looked like a pasty-skinned Mekon wearing a Slash wig. I spent ages trying to figure out why this woman who was scared of operating a calculator was in charge of a bunch of fuckwits who had to crunch numbers all day for a living. To compensate for her inability to do absolutely anything fucking right, she’d regularly go on a mentalist power trip rampage and managed to completely fuck off every fucker in the fucking department, the fucker... Overtime – cancelled. Holidays – cancelled. Lunchbreaks – cancelled. In short, she was was a fucking cunt.

Then on a team building works night out Lynn got really, really, really drunk and spilled the beans. I think she was trying it on with me, but I didn’t fancy adding another lady-who-looks-like-an-alien to my dis(honour) list, not after the Greek girl I fucked in Uni who – when I got her cloths off – actually resembled a fucking big-titted Wookie. Anyway, after that brief drunken conversation with Lynn it all suddenly made perfect sense.

A few days later Lynn and I were running a client meeting; it was going tits up, as these things tend to do when you’ve got someone who’s incompetent, my boss, and someone who’s far too fucking lazy to prepare a proper presentation, me. The clients looked bored and uninterested. I looked bored and hungover. Lynn was fidgeting as if she had a super-sized blood sucking mutant space crabs infestation going on in her knickers. She pulled me to one side and whispered:

“What should I do?” She looked completely and utterly fucking lost. I shrugged. “I need to get them back onside, concentrate on what I’m good at and impress them...” Me, Me, Me – that pretty much summed Lynn up.

I looked over at the group of clients. There were about nine or ten of them sat in a row, wondering what the hell we were whispering about.

I leaned into Lynn and whispered in her ear: “Yeah, but I don’t think you’ve got enough time before lunch to give all these people head. Well, not properly at least. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed but two of them are women – do you think you could handle doing some work in the basement on another woman...?”

Then I stood back, regarding Lynn with false concern, then I resumed my place behind the projector, and waited for Lynn’s prompt to continue with the shitty load of old donkey bollocks slideshow.

Lynn looked fucking angry, she throbbed a strange kind of red, but she carried on with the presentation. Warbling her way through in her high-pitched, dolphin-friendly banshee wail, shaking like a heroin addict outside a methodone clinic, sweating like a serial rapist. And, after the presentation when the unimpressed clients got up and left, Lynn didn’t say a word. Not one fucking word. You see, on the night out previously when she was absolutely shitfaced on alcopops and snakebite she’d let it slip she got her promotion by regularly and repeatedly fucking the area manager in a travel inn on the outskirts of town. She’d told me how she was particularly good at sucking the meat lollypop, while she eyed me up suggestively. She even laughed as she retold the tale about the time she got back to her boyfriend’s place with this area manager’s spunk-tacular load drizzled in her hair and down the front of her jacket –

Now, I’ve got to point out the MARRIED area manager must’ve been sixty years old and was the spitting image of David Blunkett (only with working eyes; otherwise I imagine he’d have had a shitload of problems on the motorway and doing that parrallel parking malarkey). I think Lynn was trying to impress me. I was not impressed. Not at all. But this little bit of info gave me the leverage to toss it off (proverbially speaking) at work for the next few months until I decided to go and get a better job.

And the next time I saw David Blunkett aka my area manager in the lift at work, I’d be lying if I didn’t for one fleeting instant consider hitting the emergency button and going to work on his luncheon meat like a rabid dog with a particularly tasty bone - hey, a promotion’s a promotion at the end of the day.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 18 Jun 2009, 14:01, 3 replies)

Re-Wipe
Setting the scene:

Monday Night:
A cheeky after work drink for our tattoed, bodybulding skinhead (the nice - non racist kind)purchasing director turned into a gigantic piss up with lashings of the black stuff and the obligatory 1 am collie kebab.

Tuesday Morning:
9:10 N. ,the aforementioned skinhead purchasing director rarely a pretty sight when sober and not hungover, drags his knuckles from the entrance of the office to his desk and orders one of the minions to go and get him an "expresso" (they've even go that printed on the onsite cafe menu!)
9:20 N. announces to one and all that he is now "going for an eartha" and he recommends avoiding the toilets for the forseeable future.

9:33 N. returns from the toilet looking relieved and visibly lighter.

9:35 A colleague of mine, had two chinese clients come to visit us in crewe to sign off on a potentially massive bit of business. As N. is sat with his back to the door he can't see them coming as he stands up and lets out the most gutwrenchingly vile fart I have ever heard/smelled/felt. He then loudly says, "Oh shit, I'm gonna have to go for a re-wipe now " He then turns round, stares directly at G. the accounts manager and the gobsmacked clients, grabs and shakes their unresisting hands, introduces himself as someone completely different and calmly walks towards the exit.
(Fausted Sticking his faust where the sun don't shine, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 16:45, 1 reply)