while working for a paper merchant in Slough
I had this right cockend of a boss. He thought he was really sophisticated and funny but in actual fact was just a chubby little tit with a goatee. His assistant, (another total knobend who was in the TA) was always licking his arse.

Anyway, the company agreed to take part in a fly-on-the-wall documentary by the BBC. This just made him 10 times as much of a twat.

The worst day ever was Comic Relief and the company decided to do some fund-raising stuff. We had just witnessed a disco dance by the area manager and one of the girls which was nice, but then the boss decided he had to do one better with this almighty spazz of a dance which he reckoned was a fusion of "Flashdance and MC Hammer shit" He made a total cock of himself.

They made him redundant after that.

Oh no wait. This didn't actually happen to me did it?
( Griffin Saver Something, something, 2006, something., Tue 23 Jun 2009, 12:57, 2 replies)

Could be a fantasic job, but...
...my boss redefines "arse" in so many ways. He's the owner's son, and even somewhere in his mid forties is still trying to crawl out from under Daddy's shadow by Making His Mark on the company. He's a bully who's constantly reminding us that we're just figures in an accounts book at the end of the day. His response to my request for a pay rise (when I moved from being an admin type to editing DVDs - you'd think a rise was in order?) was to very forcibly remind me that Lincoln Uni is just up the road and he could get a graduate who would work for peanuts instead of what I was "demanding" - which was less than a lot of warehousing jobs...

His crowning moment, while I was still doing the admin job, was a fifteen minute lecture about the dangers of the Great Satan, the source of all the is bad in the world... ladies and germs, I give you... the COMMA!

Apparently, commas cost a lot of money. If I was to analyse my work (and I strongly suspect that I was expected to actually do this) and count the number of commas I used, then work out how long it took to type a comma, I could extrapolate the yearly waste of man-hours from using said previously-innocent punctuation mark, and thus realise how much my worthless, grammatically-correct carcass was costing him personally.

I didn't like to point out the waste of man-hours resulting from pointless lectures, buggering off early on a Friday and his fifteen-minute, building-clearing shitting sessions every morning at ten o'clock, as there's a clause in my contract that effectively says "if we don't like you we'll fire you just like that."

Apologies for length, it's my first post so it's a bit shy.
(torching_koroviev wax on, wax off..., Tue 23 Jun 2009, 12:05, 9 replies)

‘Crawl back under your rock’…

I worked for a while at an independant fast food ‘restaurant’. Despite my meagre surroundings and generally unhealthy environment, my humble job working on the grill soon became a labour of love, away from the pressures of modern business. I had an insatiable desire to succeed, and actually enjoyed my working day!

My boss (the owner), however was constanty stifling my creativity and seemed only committed to maximising his profit margin (and working my fingers to the bone). I have to say he was (and still is) the most tight-fisted, big-eyed fucker it has ever been my unfortunate pleasure to meet.

Basic things like quality, service, hygiene and customer satisfaction were constantly overlooked in favour of pure profitability, and there was nothing I could say or do about it. I know that times are hard and cost efficiencies should always be maintained - particularly during this recession - but this guy would properly take the piss with his bad management decisions and penny pinching! I’m surprised the place hasn’t been shut down!

Examples include:

Consistently dangling a promotion over my head, then reneging on it at the last minute…sometimes even cutting my salary or stealth-taxing me for sundries and uniform expenses!

Once, when he was in an accident, instead of handing temporary control of the place to me, who clearly deserved it and would have relished the opportunity, he gave the whole fucking place over to the miserable, lazy cunt working behind the till!...who then promptly fucked off for the day and left me to run the whole operation!. I’m surprised I didn’t have a nervous breakdown. Ironically, the bloke who was left in charge ended up doing just that – justice prevails!

He once traded me in on some bullshit ‘chef’s exchange programme’ which I thought was to ‘further my career’, but it turned out he just wanted to blag a ‘proper’ chef so he could go ‘upmarket’ and charge more for the food! That venture ended up biting him on the arse too.

We are in constant competition with the fast food joint over the road, and I’ve lost count of the times the owner of that place has tried to sabotage our operation, but despite my thwarting him every time almost single handedly, I am never rewarded for my efforts.

However, I think the worst thing my boss has ever done, was when he sold my soul for just 62 cents! And if it wasn’t for the fact that that I’m so annoying, I’d be with the Flying Dutchman in Davey Jones’ locker to this very day, not sitting here typing this from the safety of my pineapple.

And just when you think it can’t get any worse, my best mate is a certified fucking ‘tard. Fortunately, my other friend keeps my spirits up by going round in a bikini all day.

oh yeah…I’d totally do her.
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Tue 23 Jun 2009, 11:48, 7 replies)

I work in an estate agents.
Because of this we have a pretty nice digi SLR to take photos of the properties we have for sale.

When we recently took delivery of a new camera, the boss borrowed it for the weekend to get to know how it worked. This was no big deal, we often borrow the camera for the weekend when we need to use it outside of work.

After some appointments on Monday and having taken a few photos of the houses we were valuing that day, I took the camera back to the office to upload the pictures.

I plugged in the USB cable and opened the folder with the pictures to see an awful lot more photo icons than I expected. The photos were of my boss and his (quite fit) mrs going at it hammer and tongs. There were a couple of stranger ones involving him posing Patrick Bateman style in the mirror, naked and fully aroused. They had obviously had a fun weekend with the new camera.

I thought briefly about blackmailing him with them, then thought better of it. I deleted them and never mentioned it again.

I just hope they wiped the camera down before I had to use it!
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 11:09, 4 replies)

You'll all hate me, but...
...technically, at the age of 21, I'm the boss. I'm an elected officer at a students' union, and as such am one of 14 line managers for a lot of staff, all of whom have more experience, were born at least 20 years before me and earn more than i do. Sometimes it's tough being the boss...
(Holloway_Girl To err is to be human, to be a fool is to believe, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 22:30, 17 replies)

Dream Job Gone Wrong
At first it seemed like the perfect job. The organisation was huge, made more money than God and was only getting bigger. People were queuing up to work for these people and, lucky me, I got chosen.
Then I found out the truth. The five guys at the top of the tree turned out to be a bunch of surly, alcoholic, misanthropes who hated their customers, their workforce and each other.
The health and safety record was appalling. I personally witnessed a number of horrific accidents and nobody gave a shit, least of all the authorities.
I can't take it any more. The corporate culture is brutal and dehumanising. I'm just a number. A number.
I'd quit tomorrow if I could just find a way to get this brand off the back of my neck.
(Big D, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 20:40, 3 replies)

My years of bosses
Boss 1. My first real job I was 15 my boss was a weasly little man who used to send me out on errands in a black cab then count the change after, to see if i had given the driver a tip, if i had i got a bollocking, end result got well known in the West End cabbies refused to pick me up so i had to walk back or get a bus then get another bollocking for being so long.

Boss 2. This boss was an arsehole of the first water, he fucking knew it all our team of lab techs made his life a misery he collapsed at work and was carted off to a sanatorium for 6 months, he lost all his hair through stress when he came back to work it had grown back what did the knob head do managed to blow up a brand new incinerator about 60Ks worth and promptly burned all his hair off!!!!!
Sacked leaving yours truly to sort out the mess.

Boss 3. Rick was his name he was a gem a prince among men, I used to start work at 08:30 in the morning Rick was already there working his way into a bottle of brandy claiming that it made the coffee taste better, lunchtime staff social club 6 pints, after lunch another bottle of brandy, after work staff social club till it closed, after that prison officers social club next door.
He then used to blag a lift from coppers as he was too pissed to drive.
Plus side he left me alone, his female assistant made my life hell because i refused point blank to shag the ugly bitch and told her so across a crowded staffroom.
Me sacked

Boss 4 Delivering car parts he was a gem gave the key for the pick up a list of deliveries and said don't rush back, got a lot of sightseeing done

Boss 5 Senior tech was Polish couldn,t understand a fucking word he said he drank like a fish smelt like a goat thought he was gods gift to women I couldn't bear to be in the same room as him.
I left as quickly as I could.

Boss 6 By now I was working for a major car manufacturer this boss expanded my horizons by shipping me off to France and Spain for 3 years in my whole time I only saw him twice.
Me not sacked me very happy.

Boss 7 Back at college working in a pub to make ends meet, landlord drank himself to oblivion by 7pm, leaving me and his very fit 50 year old wife to clean up we used to clear out the customers lock up pull the curtains shut and fuck like rabbits, she was a howler he never once woke up once, went on for about a year, she ran off with a bloke who was 5 years younger than me, him sacked for being an incompetent twat.
Me not sacked brewery offered me a job with their anti fraud unit.

Boss 8 Working for a government dept by this time based in Bristol and Plymouth my boss adrian would turn up see if we were working OK, then fuck off to play golf.
Me made redundant

Boss 9 He was the chief accountant of the organisation I was employed by, a month after I arrived he resigned then spent 3 days in his locked office shredding every single piece of paper he could find when he was gone all his filing cabinets were empty, a week after that the police and inland revenue turned up looking for him.
Me not sacked MD lot of explaining to do.

Oh Happy Days
(raith50, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 18:14, 6 replies)

Vengeance pie
My first boss was a proper cunt, the type of wannabe-squaddie waste of meat that you would gleefully throw off the edge of a cliff and add your own silly sound effects.

I worked for him for just over a year until he informed me that I was gonna be let go but with the consolation that I would be able to contract from him for even more dosh. Result, thought I the idiot.

So last day he checks that I've got all the assets I need to carry on my projects at home, this included source code of projects and some databases, one being a massive database containing sales information on a popular fast-food chain.

I spend a couple of weeks finishing off my work and even travel the 40 miles to the new office to work on site for a day despite not being a driver. (Fuck trains, fuck buses, fuck em all!) All this worthwhile thinks I as it's for way more money then I was on before.

Then it happens, he fucks me over. I come home that night I come home to a nastily worded solicitors letter informing me I'm about to be legally raped for stealing source materials and client data from the company. Cunting fucking cunt fuck.

I call him up the next day and speak to his partner, funny that eh twatface not being around, who informs me how he's going to bitchslap me into bankruptcy and discredit me over the better parts of the industry (this chap was a squaddie cunt too btw).

Long story short, he falsely led on that he would give me contract work and just screwed me out of two weeks full of contracting hours, at a fucking cheapo rate too! I lost about 800 quid worth of business reckons I. We settled up by me saying to his partner 'oh I just took it to learn, I'm an idiot, dunno what I'm doing, so sorry guys, love you, blah blah'. the most bitter pill I've ever had to swallow. I was a young idiot of 19 though.

Anyhoo, couple of years later I get a job at a proper company where he ironically works as a senior technical manager. I play nice, don't call him names he deserves, even make him a cup of tea or two. Only when I pop out to the local bakery and the cunt asks me to pickup a pie do I realise that my time of vengeance had arrived.

I manage to secure him a pie that came directly out of the oven that's set to about 400 degrees C. Now don't think I'd settle for simply legging it back to the office to watch him strip the flesh off his tongue, I went one better.

Popped into the lavvies when I returned and proceeded to churn out some of the most potent man batter that side of England had seen and after smearing it all over the pie to give it that 'fresh cooked glaze' do I re-wrap it and drop it on his desk.

Cue a thumbs up later from the dick whilst he says that's the nicest pie he's had in years.

All is right in the world of the idiot.



For the length you have my apologies, finally popped my cherry with a semi-rant that's bugged me for the last 8 years.
( blitheringidiot semi-lurker status achieved, many thanks, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 17:33, 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)

Monster tranny cock
I started my career in newspapers. It takes a lot for a boss to have any impact on me at all. Frankly, back then, a day when someone didn't shriek in my face that I was a fucking uselesss cunt left me feeling uneasy, as if something were missing. I've worked for the incompetent, the incontinent, the drug-addicted and deranged. No problem.

The Nazi with the taste for tranny cock stood out, though. First of all, he was a lazy, slacking sod. He ran a small department but regularly promised the bosses that we would deliver more than your average Soviet factory. Then he would piss off for lunch and never bloody return, leaving us to deliver. He was racist, homophobic and liked to dress up as a Nazi.

And he liked tranny cock. I know this because I had to work on his computer once. It had an enormous screen but he didn't know about browser history. Deary, deary me. How awkward. TV69 this, Transsexual that, Tranny the other. On and on and on. He must have seen the meat and two veg of every tranny on the planet. Twice. Clearly, I told no-one (if you take "no-one" to mean "all other human life").

The icing on the cake came when he unlocked his office one morning and discovered that the wallpaper on his PC had been changed to a very, very large erect penis. He told the IT Dept that someone must have broken into his office to do that. A veritable locked room mystery, unless of course the stupid sod right-clicked a particularly filthy image and saved it as his wallpaper himself.
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 17:01, Reply)

'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)

One more then I'm reaching for the mind bleach...

I don’t do reposts (yet) but this comes a close second I spose…

I’ve spent a while this week banging on about a certain car parts warehouse, and in particular a putrid, smear-test-scraping of a man known as ‘Gaylett’. A trilogy of his exploits can be seen here:

The Nobfather: Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

But I’m not the only one who had to suffer the fate and fuckwits from that festering vestibule of the damned.

I would also like to bring to your attention Mudbutton’s post about a a crooked, bullying boss here which incidentally also mentions the same story I had posted about here on the ‘I Witnessed A Crime' QotW in Feb 2008…

On the subject of crooked, bullying bosses, does anybody remember the post on a certain ‘Head of Operations’ who, whilst rat-arsed, publicly stuck his thumb up the arse (amongst other things) of an employee at the Xmas do? It’s here if you’re interested. Mudbutton’s post also touches on the criminal behaviour of that man. Oh yes, it’s the same man.

For those with a better memory than I, there’s also the post I did about a year and a half ago about the ‘infamous’ ‘Burnsy’ - The clown prince purveyor of bullshittery and corporate megawank. If you’re still awake, you can read it here. It was part of the ‘Bastard Colleagues’ QotW. Apt.

Then there’s the offices…where GoodLord worked (me too, albeit briefly). He posts about his boss here.

These links are to name but a few….There’s also:

The fetishist who used to commit acts of self harm, and regularly described to anyone who’d listen about his cravings for his ‘ultimate fantasy’ – which was ‘laying naked underneath a glass table and feverishly chucking himself off while a woman squats down on top of the table and curls out a ‘butt cutlet’ of biblical proportions over his gaping mouth underneath. He also used to tell us all about his ‘sex dice’...where each number corresponded to a particularly depraved act that he was to do to his timid, suffering wife each night. He chuckled as he told us that he would specially ‘weight’ the dice every time beforehand so that when she rolled it, it would fall on whatever he wanted to do. Despite this *ahem* ‘eccentricity’ he was actually an alright bloke.

The young man who, despite an obvious amount of savvy, realised that hard work and getting noticed wasn’t getting him anywhere. So he abandoned his principles and pretended to take up golf and poker etc to ‘get him in’ with the big management nobs…After years of sucking up he finally scored a secondment position, which he mistakenly took as a guarantee of promotion, forgetting that there are no guarantees in hell. He then worked his arse off for months, promptly proposed to his long-patient girlfriend, and got her up the duff because he thought he would be more financially secure. .Then the recession hit, and he was bumped back down to ‘nowheresville’ due to ‘corporate cutbacks’. (I think he’s finally got the promotion now – good luck to him…he’s gonna need it).

There was also the mindnumbingly incompetent cretin who blagged his way into the job (and the aforementioned ‘flagship team’) from a false recommendation ‘on the outside’. With a bright red nose that an alcoholic Rudolph would be proud of, and permanently in a state of severe inebriation, he was totally oblivious to the goings on within the place, yet he would amble around amiably, spinning yarns and anecdotes about his old Rugby club drinking buddies, whilst the place fell apart around him. He mastered the art of ‘fucking off when the shit hit the fan’ and it got to the stage where he would carry a phone (that didn’t work) around with him. As soon as anybody asked him a question he would say ‘ sorry I’ve got to take this’ then hold the phone to his ear and walk off talking gibberish. I’m not proud of it but I was instrumental in getting this bloke fired…I have my reasons.

Not forgetting the Team Leader known as ‘Hopper’, who ruled like a cross between a mafia hitman and General Patten. He would walk round silently with a notebook, not saying a word…just scribbling. Turns out he was making a note of everything he saw…like people walking past litter and not picking it up etc. He would never mention it at the time, but waited…waited…until everybody’s end of year appraisal where he would dump the whole lot over them in one go.

“Why were you 5 minutes late returning from break on February 12th? ANSWER ME!”

The place was constantly rife with rumours of his return like some sort of antichrist. He never did – It seems even the Antichrist can suss out when he’s well shot of somewhere.

Then there was Mr ‘Gordon’ Bennet, who only occasionally broke his lifelong attempt to beat the world bone idle record by nipping into the valuables container stealing all the car stereos, and selling them independently to the dealers.

When it comes 'Braveheart' Bruce, and the man known as 'Flinty', I'm afraid it's there that I become lost for words.

What I’m trying to say here sweet B3tards is ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WORK AT THIS ONE PLACE... It’s no fucking wonder we’ve gone batshit mental. Please excuse my ex-colleagues and I for venting out over these illustrious pages.

I used to joke about ‘leaving my dignity at the turnstile’ every day that I worked there, but I still feel that not only myself, but Mudbutton and GoodLord too, were the lucky ones…Because we escaped.

We may have lost a bit of dignity along the way – but we didn’t sell our souls or lose our minds (completely) …and we’ve since managed to get some dignity back.

I have given a name to my pain…and it is Nissan Motor Parts Centre, Magna Park, Lutterworth.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 22 Jun 2009, 16:19, 10 replies)

Bosses? I've had a few
* Camp-as-knickers head of department in a secondary school. Married to the head of maths, a nice woman. Used to mince through the corridor and make exaggerated flourishes with his hands. Came out a few months after I'd left. His son attended that school.

* Head of department in next school. Paranoid, divisive, utterly incompetent as a people manager and bitter; loathed the guts of one of the other teachers and warned me not to speak to her (turned out she just hated the head of department for being an grossly incompetent irrational fucktard). Had a fake arm. Clearly promoted beyond her competence and consequently spent her time berating/aggreiving/undermining/pissing off her staff.

* Bar manager. Lesbian. Named Angela, given the nickname "Flangela". Didn't like you if you were male and straight so that was me fucked, even though I was the best barman there (although turning up drunk, giving away free drinks, and pouring the odd vodka into my soda water might not have helped).

* Shoe shop assistant manager. She was 19, but her parents had told her that she could have a big 21st birthday party. So her days were spent writing out the guest lists, or, if anyone had annoyed her, scrubbing their name off the list and writing out a new one. I hated her.

* Current boss: helpful, backs her staff up when they need it, can take a joke, wants the best for and from everyone. A genuinely nice person and an all-round good egg. My best boss thus far (in 12 years of work). She's a good 'un.
(McChinaman banned, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 16:08, Reply)

My colleague Greg
can get himself into trouble easily. Decent bloke, and I get on well with him, but he's a vindictive bugger sometimes. Anyway, many moons ago, he was working under a particularly loathsome professor whom we'll call Prof Mannion. Now, said Prof was the sort who looked down on lowly technicians like Greg, and treated them like shit. He was downright nasty to many of his students and staff, who couldn't be arsed with him at all.

Greg didn't take kindly to this, but was sensible enough not to do anything which could get him sacked. But he got off with it once. One day, when one of his colleagues, Leslie, had pissed him off. Leslie was an irritating type, who liked to boss folk around, and Greg had had enough. So when he spotted Leslie going into the toilets for his regular morning shit, he grabbed a bucket from the workshop and filled it with water, then ran back to the bogs to the door of the only occupied cubicle, behind which he knew that Leslie was sitting doing his business.

He chucked the bucket of water over the cubicle door and legged it, giggling to himself, out into the corridor. Where he met a perfectly dry Leslie, who had in fact only been for a quick pee and had since exited the bogs.

Quickly, Greg disposed of the bucket. Just in time, as it happens, as a rather soggy and incredibly irate Prof Mannion emerged from the toilets. Greg pulled off the acting performance of his life in keeping a straight face, and to this day the old Prof never found out who soaked him.

Because, lets face it, had he started to draw up a shortlist of potential candidates, he'd have had the whole department on the list. Miserable git that he was. Greg became something of an underground hero for a while for that one.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 16:06, 2 replies)

There was one boss I had, who I'm not allowed to talk about much for security reasons.
Anyway, one morning he showed up at the [MATERIAL DELETED] at his normal time and asked me if I could go to [MATERIAL DELETED] for a few weeks to organise a [MATERIAL DELETED].
I was a little hungover that day and didn't read the [MATERIAL DELETED] properly. To cut a long story short the entire [MATERIAL DELETED] was a complete mess up and in the end [MATERIAL DELETED] led to a very scary [MATERIAL DELETED] we got lots of abuse from [MATERIAL DELETED] and the [MATERIAL DELETED] ended up getting called the People's Princess.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 15:44, Reply)

Once upon a time in a car parts warehouse.......
Now most of you have read Pooflake’s and Goodlord’s post about said place, now please allow me to at my not quite as funny (Pooflake’s nicked all the good ones dammit!)tale.

I had done almost everything there in my quest for the easiest job, then one fateful Wednesday afternoon i was dragged in front of HR (this isn’t gonna be pretty I thought, and I was right HR was boil on arse fugly! but the news was quite good)

I had been chosen! Lucky me! To move into the new Project Team! Ta Da!

Ok this is good, my boss in the team is a top bloke, so much so I will share conversations and beers with him in my own time! So lucky Mudbutton, we were going to have a ball, and we did for the first time in my working life I was actually looking forward to going to work.

Now this is kind of a two pronged attack on the QOTW so bear with me. The only thing, the only little black cloud that was darkening out team was the warehouse manager, who incidentally was so bent he couldn’t lie straight in his probably company paid for bed!

Now we had a number of different project ongoing in this “10 year plan” all of which involved getting contractors in planning, managing, getting more contractors in, more planning and the odd spending spree on ebay.

My own fault entirely I know but because I was enjoying work so much I put that little extra effort in which got me involved in more stuff and eventually splitting the project down to a contract each between myself and my boss. All was going swimmingly we had a great relationship with the contractors and were well ahead of target with all our tasks.

Now this alerted the warehouse manager to yet another possible cash cow that he could milk to an inch of its poor existence and boy did he! We had quotes in place for work costing £8k he would steam in cancel them replace them with quotes for 16k through his ‘Friends’ company who would then in turn contact the first company who provided the quote get them to do it and pocket the difference Asda style. I am not so naïve to think this sort of thing does not go on but by jingo this guy had no shame!

A week after settling contracts he would be spouting on about his new car he bought for his daughter, the new 60 inch plasma TV he now has for his yes NEW summer house in his yes newly done huge garden. All of these services can be provided by his friends business…

It got laughable and frustrating, we were just monkeys pushing buttons again, but the important thing is we knew! He knew we knew and we weren’t buying it. Now avid readers of Pooflake’s work will know I no longer work in this amazing warehouse of dreams, but before I left the warehouse manager was made to resign, cover ups were made people were promoted (including me and my boss)

One asshole out of the way it seems, the place was in a state of (quiet) rejoice, me in my promoted role finally thinking it was recognition for my hard work (obviously it was to keep my mouth shut as to what I had heard). Readjusting myself to my new role was difficult, I had been out of this type of work for a good 3 years and it seemed that I had leapfrogged a very absent minded supervisor to this role, suffice to say she was not happy about it. Cue meetings with HR, meetings with now new warehouse manager, more meetings with HR and finally scooting around the warehouse gathering support to ‘Out’ me. All of which failed, now I may not be the cleverest bloke in there (I probably was, there was not much competition) but if I was her I would of just either, started looking for another job or just accepted the fact that I was in this position whether she liked it or not. Now this is the bit where “I may not be the cleverest bloke in there” come into play.

I am a nice guy most of the time like a laugh and am pretty easy to get on with, but she was a feisty one! I paid particular attention to her and always made an effort to involve her in everything, trying to imagine how she must feel I was making quite the effort and after a while we were getting along fine, telling jokes working well and the team was ticking over perfectly.

One Thursday morning she waddled in to find me laughing at my desk, I explained I had just received a ‘joke’ email from a colleague and shared the joke with her, cue us both laughing. She then asked if I could forward her this email so she could send it to friends…….That was it……bang! I now found myself 3 weeks later suspended and being asked to leave for sending inappropriate material to a colleague causing a stress related illness…bugger!

So in summary…..
One Boss getting fucked
One Boss doing alright
Me becoming a Boss
Another Boss getting fucked…..

Now how’s that for ticking boxes?

For those interested I am in a much better place now and my bitter assistant has been made redundant… lifes a bitch eh?

Length? Far far far far too long……
(MudButton does not mean to offend but......, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 14:47, 2 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)

Back when floppy discs were cutting edge technology....
omg I suddenly feel real old typing that out....

But this ex boss of mine, many moons ago.....

I'd worked for a council for about two years technically as a receptionist, but most of my time was spent fixing the various excuses for computers we had at the time.
Like all council reasoning, the reason I was designated to do it was becuase A, I was good at it and B, I sat next to the server so i must have picked up some tech savvy by osmosis or something...

At some point, after a reorg which placed me on a new team, on the other side of the room - they hired a real computer expert who set about building an IT team.
She was a nice lady, an ex school teacher who'd done a course in computers and talked like she knew what she was doing.
She made a point of head hunting me for her team, but due to some change in contracts, I needed to be rehired in this new position with a few amendments to my T&C's. One of these meant I was on performance related pay.
I wasnt too bothered as we got on really well & I knew what I was doing. More important I would finally be paid to do a job I actually wanted.
The honeymoon period probably lasted about 3 months before it slowly sank in that not only did she know practically nothing about computers (and had survived so far on being pretty and presentable) but she was also insecure, pighead and about as thick as a house brick.
This first came to my attention when she was trying to back up some data onto disc but for some reason it wouldnt copy.
Trying to be helpful I leaned over and popped the disc out, only to find that the write protection label was on. I pointed this out to her and instead of saying "oh silly me" she replied "Oh, I always wondered what that was".
No matter how many times I told her she could run more than one application on a PC and Alt-Tab between them, she would always say, close down word so she could open excel.
The pigheadedness came to my attention when she outlined how I was to run a project for her (micro management doesnt even come close to describing how bad she was). If I dared to suggest an alternate way to do something she would get a face like a bucket and go off to write notes about me.
Remember the perfromance related pay? well every year in my appraisal I got a "Satisfactory" which essentially meant "shit" - despite me doing practically all the work ALL THE TIME (this also meant I didnt get a pay rise for four years).
She would get an arse on everytime I was five minutes late, despite the fact I always worked my lunch and went home late.
Things came to a head one day when she was standing behind me telling me what unix code to enter to move some directories around. This was her way of 'teaching' (read patronising) me.
I already knew what to do, but having her stand behind me meant I made a mistake an deleted something.
Her response was to blame me, then try to put me up for a disiplinary hearing. Which she managed to push through by then also providing evidence that I'd been over five minutes late everyday for about three years + complaining that I'd taken too much sick leave after having surgery.
I had to even show my scar to the council doctor to prove I'd had the surgery, but then was still given a black mark for taking too much time off (a lousy four weeks off).

Anyway... cant remember what the point was so erm....

yeah wot a bitch

Oh look a puppy

*wanders off in a daze"
(EvilMeister, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 14:25, Reply)

Slimy Brian
Working in an R&D department in Romford, my boss was a really creepy chap, about 50.

Once while I was in his office, a secretary came in and had to chop the old company name off the calendars (don't ask). She stood on the chair and he quipped "Shame she's not wearing a short skirt, eh?".

Anyhow, one Christmas my department's off to the pub at lunch time. I get back early, as the MD usually comes around and says we can push off early. Which he did. So off I went...

Back in January, two chaps get a written warning from my boss for taking a long lunch - they should have clocked back in. Even though they could have left at 1pm. They were not happy.

Next Christmas he's down there in the pub with them, buying drinks. I bugger off as usual, but they stay, thinking "he's with us, we can't get done this year".

How wrong. His excuse for another written warning for them?
"I don't have to clock in. You do.".
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 14:07, Reply)

Bindun?
My boss is evil. Very little he won’t do to get a few extra pennies in his pocket, his assistant is as camp as Christmas and is seemingly happy to get involved with the boss and his evil schemes.

Thankfully, because he is so busy being evil, he hasn’t yet sacked me for being grossly incompetent. Everybody knows I’m out of my depth, but I’m a bit of a comedian so most people don’t mind.

I work in Sector 7G
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:48, 5 replies)

OI!


Back to work you lot, im not paying you to write on that interweb!




And where's my coffee?
(Is this a good idea? ... Yes this is definitely a good idea, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:42, Reply)

I could go into detail..
But I think it might be crass

My ex boss was a genius but that also made him crap at human interaction. That included any interaction with me. When he made me redundant it took him four months to send me my P45 and almost as long to arrange payment of money he owed.. I should get the final instalment in December

I made mistakes and I'll hold my hands up, but they were small and rectifiable. I was learning a completely new skill. Even reading this back it sounds like a maudlin and self satisfying moan. I want to cringe and take a big spade and bury the whole experience deep underground never to be seen again.

Sorry about this, its depressing.. but he was just that bad.
(miss.spanky.pants .. is looking for a handsome prince..., Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:35, Reply)

My boss is a lazy alcoholic prick who hates paperwork
I am self employed.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:27, Reply)

I like playing with bosses
It's not that I have a problem in particular with authority...just that I like challenging it by making bosses feel strange and odd by playing with their minds.

For example; my current boss; she's quite tall & bony so I rub her spine from time to time as she's talking to me. She gets a bit freaked out by it, and that's kinda the point. I just squeeze her cheeks and make kiddie-playing noises at her and she loves it. Then we carry on working. Well amusing.

Or playing my super-bosses head like a bongo in meetings - always fun.
It's like whenever I do stuff like this (and only to bosses I know well, mind)...they're so shocked they just accept it. I say outraged; it's always in good spirit so no harm done.

Bellowing "CUNT!" at my ex-boss in his office was a favourite practise of mine, followed loudly with "...so give me a pay-rise then?". I seem to remember walking into my ex-bosses office just to guff in it...then walk out again; no explanation offered. He got me back by banning me from shitting in the office.

Bosses. They're just lonely people that want attention too you know! Play with one today!
( slippery doctore, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:11, 1 reply)

I'm the boss ...
... and today I get to give out pay rises! They might even buy me a pint in the pub after work ;-)

No shit ...
(Biff..., Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:06, 1 reply)

Headhunted, bit long but it's painful
I used to work for a pretty cool company. I was hired young and the job looked like a dream: lots of business travel, good tools and kit, even trust and respect from senior management that meant we could largely get on with the job without much interference. My colleagues were fantastic people; the workplace was so diverse it made a mobile phone commercial look like a Klan meeting and there was a really amazing team spirit there. I knew I was happy. Obviously placing such trust in a new hire was a risk for the company, so I was paired up with a more senior contractor for the first couple of years. He acted as a mentor to me, showing me the ropes and helping me sort out any trouble I caused. Unfortunately, that's where the trouble started.

Being 21 and in such a position I am ashamed to say that I got a bit arrogant. After a year or so I began to resent my mentor's constant interference and advice. I thought I knew it all and I didn't want his help. I also suspected him of taking some of the credit for work I'd done with a particuarly difficult client. I'd got to know the industry pretty well by then and I knew the competition were always on the lookout. I wasn't about to approach them directly, but if anything came my way I knew in my selfish heart that I'd happily jump ship. My ego was so great that I actually believed the company would collapse if I left! I cringe now.

Months passed and no word from the competition. I grew more resentful of my present company (I was a massive, egocentric shit at the time.) One day my mentor and I got the job to go and represent the company at a major conference. While there, a chance meeting with the owner of our biggest competitor changed everything.

He flattered me. Courted me, almost. He made it crystal clear that I was exactly the sort of chap he was looking for; I agonised about my overbearing mentor. He reassured me that I was "clearly ready" to be cut loose; I began to see that his operation wasn't as bad as I'd been led to believe. Eventually I agreed to work for his group for a massive raise and a position of power right from the start.

I didn't tell my employers straight away. Rather disgustingly I agreed to do some industrial espionage for my new boss. I did more work, hoping to please him, but I wasn't happy. His flattery and charm was changing, too, warping into something darker. I began to realise I was getting out of my depth, quickly. I knew I could turn to my former mentor for help, but in my hubris I thought I could extract myself. How wrong I was.

By the time I was ordered to murder the younglings there was no way out. The emperor really is a bastard of a boss.
( Scrumper, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 13:01, 7 replies)