Berkshire Hunt
Several years ago, I had a rough year.

My mum was diagnosed with cancer, my girlfriend had a miscarriage and a subsiquent operation where things had gone bad.

I was also buying a house for the first time, and there were several complications. I'd also opted to do the conveyencing myself to save a few quid and had bought the house from 'a man in the pub', so didn't even have an Estate Agent to hold my hand (not that it would be worth much in any case).

To say that this year was putting me under a lot of stress would be a fair thing to say.

In fact, it put me under so much stress that I got ill - not seriously ill, like contracting Chrones disease or anything, but I would catch any cold or flu going due to being generally under the weather.

In that year, I had 12 days off sick. I know that sounds quite excessive - it did to my boss too. I explained to him everything going on in my life at that time, and to be fair to him (despite him being quite useless at nearly everything and almost completely socially inept), he understood, and just said that he hoped things would get better for me, and so long as it wasn't a problem caused by work or the firm, then he was ok with it, and he thanked me for coming to explain to him what had caused everything.

So, all good so far.

Then, 3 years later, he was shuffled sideways to make room for the new IT directors mate.

A man, who's name is rhyming slang for cnut.

...by name and by nature!

Upon joining the firm, he took each of the 'project leaders' into a room, one-by-one to explain his 'vision' and to introduce himself.

Then he called me.

I wasn't a project leader as I wasn't one of the COBOL programmers (I was C#) and therefore not a 'real programmer' (his words - despite the fact that some of the programs I had written - and come up with - bought in hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, and had single-handedly written the entire credit control system for the whole of the multi-billion pound organisation - which is still in use today), and as such would never be considered for such a position.

Anyway, he sat me down and started to quiz me about certain days off. "Why did you take the 14th March off sick in 2001?"

"I have no idea," I reply - how the hell can you remember what you were doing on a specific day over three years prior, unless there was something quite dramatic going on?

...he continues in this way, for each of the 12 days I had taken off ill in that year.

I explained that I had been over this with his predecesor at the time - some three years ago. That didn't seem to matter.

I pointed out that the two years prior to that I had taken no days off ill, and indeed, was so busy that year that I didn't even have time to take any holiday. I also pointed out that the year after that, I had taken no days off ill, or the year after that.

I only ever take sick days when I am genuinely sick - I don't think I have ever taken a 'sicky' in my entire working life.

Sad, I know!

Fast forward to 5pm and one of the servers had gone down and wouldn't reboot - I was the only one left in the office that might have a clue about bringing it back up - despite it not really being my job.

He comes across to me and asks me to have a look at it - it's quite important as our clients cannot access their accounts.

I simply replied, "no, I have to go and mow the vicars lawn."

(which of course was a blatent lie, and one I knew he's see right through).

...and so I left. I mean what else did he expect was going to happen after that?

The very next day was the day we were to learn about our annual bonus payments.

He walked around with a shit-eating grin on his chops handing out envelopes to everyone, in which there would be a letter outlining how much each individuals bonus payment would be.

In mine, however, it had a letter explaining that because I had taken 12 days off ill over three years ago, I would be getting sweet bugger all.

I wrote my notice there and then, after 7 years of making a fortune for the place.

Of course, I was required to work a very long notice period - I refused. A meeting request was issued for a time about 6 weeks in the future to discuss my leaving day.

I left the same day I wrote my notice.

Strangely, a few months later, he was escorted from the building by security staff, and then so was HIS boss and friend.

Funny that.
(dchurch bah, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 12:55, 1 reply)

Cnuts.
Nutsc.

Heh... nutsAcK.

Heh.

GZ!
(Scritty Bakerman., Sun 21 Jun 2009, 9:10, closed)