Bosses From Hell

Have you had a boss like this?

I had a male-chauvinist a$$hole of a boss. His wife was a co-worker in the same hospital department where I worked, and there was another man who could do no wrong in my bosses eyes. Foe years, my boss had verbally and mentally abused me in front of my co-workers. When I fought back with a formal complaint to his superiors, I was given a slap on the wrist, and he was given a pat on the back. Several months later, he was given a severance package for his early retirement. if they had listened to, I could have saved the healthcare system the money they gave and his wife for early retirement.

I have since quit adn moved on to better things.

I was department manager at a local marketing company. When my immediate supervisor transfered to a different department the owner of the company "imported" a replacement instead of promoting from within.
The woman they hired immediately made it her mission in life to make me miserable.
Two weeks after she started she told my assistant manager and myself that she wasn't happy with the way my department was being run.
I had been trained by the previous management so I asked her what she wanted done differently so I could implement the changes.
This psycho looked me in the eye and said (and yes this is a quote)
"I shouldn't have to tell you what I want. You're supposed to be my management team, I expect you to anticipate what I want and just do it."
Shortly after that I happily discovered I was pregnant. In order to obtain some time off for some medical tests I had to tell her.(She refused to let someone use "personal" or "Dr appointment" as a reason she demanded details or else request denied). Her only concern with my pregnancy was if I had morning sickness I might be late getting in to work and thus inconvenience her.
Unfortunately largely due to stress I lost my baby butI wasn't allowed any time off to grieve. I even had to come in the day I miscarried. Obviously I was a bit depressed but I still did my work. My employees noticed I was a "bit down & quiet" but just thought I was coming down with a cold.
A few days after I lost my baby this woman called me into her office and said
"I understand you've undergone a personal loss but this is business and there's nothing personal about it, I want you to plaster a smile on your f@$#ing face when you do your job or I'll fire you and find someone else who will."
Once I caught her in a good mood and she approved a day off so I could attend a school funtion with my oldest child. At the last moment she decided I had to come in to take an appointment that someone else made. I refused to come in (I told the receptionist to reschedule).
Psycho was so livid that she cut my paycheque that week ( Her favourite mode of punishment was to take away my bonus for any real or imagined infraction)
There was also the daily crap - calling me an idiot for not doing things "her way" (which she never told me what it was),giving me extra stuff do do just as I was on my way out the door,yelling at me for leaving the office to go get lunch (apparantly working for 12 hours without a break was a new part of my job description)
One of her favourite games was to call me into her private office and ream into me for something, ten minutes later she'd call me back to tell me a joke, then she'd call me in again to tell me the big boss was happy with productivity, then she'd call me in again to rant about something, then she'd call me in to yell some more about the first thing she reamed me out about.
And so on and so forth. She'd continue this game for hours.
I was afraid to complain because I needed my job. The owner of the company finally came to me and wanted to know why so many long term employees were quitting and why morale was so low. So I told him what the issues were. The next day I was fired due to "personality conflicts."

We were working with an "acting manager" as the Corporation vigorously tried to recruit a "seasoned professional". In the true spirit of the Corporation - Quality Service Quality People......the bureaucrats decided to spend a lot of money to recruit outside of the province. A man was flown in to meet with everyone and essentially we, the staff, were allowed to ask him questions and he asked us questions. In the opinion of all of the staff - 6 people......this guy was not only dull but we had a very hard time believing that someone who seemed so socially inept would ever be able to represent us as a fundraiser (we're a not for profit corporation owned by a municipality) but we seriously doubted he'd ever be able to embody the essence of teamwork. Well, the guy was hired. Moved at great expense across the country - put up in a hotel - expenses paid, etc. etc. For the first 4 weeks that he was with us, he made no effort to meet the staff, the volunteers, or indeed even look through the files or the at any part of the site. He was all that we had anticipated - a slug. Then one day, after a meeting with his boss (we guess) he blossomed......at least he began to eat lunch with us and join us for coffee - it turns out that those were just about the only two things he was good at OH and talking about the place where he used to work and how much he'd done there. Occasionally he'd moan about being away from his family (they moved later)and how much his children hated him. But, he was a good story teller and loved to laugh....so we were lulled. When he made a couple of tactical errors (serious ones) and the big bosses started to question his ability.........well, then the fun really began. He fired on staff member without any documented cause (she settled out of court) then he turned his attention on another member of staff - in a staff meeting choose to use character assasination as a weapon and proceeded to horrify the rest of us. Guess he thought we'd all smarten up and remember to make him look good. When he realized that a what little staff was left didn't want to have anything to do with him - he exploded and started gunning everyone down. Well, he made the mistake of trying not to pay me for my work until I'd photocopied everything that I'd done for five months and annotated it, put it in a binder and left if for him to read at his leisure. I'm the wrong person to mess with cuz I knew where he'd buried a lot of bodies. Like lying to the Purchasing department about the cost of a software package; neglecting to tell the IT department about a potential kick back for purchasing said software; not signing contracts in a timely fashion and expecting service providers to sign when it was convenient for him.......just a real dirt bag. He even accused all of the staff of not being on-board and one hundred percent behind him when he was the person who didn't show up for meetings; wore logo'd shirts from other organizations to Corporate functions; bad mouthed his boss on a regular basis and frequently shared confidential information with his wimpy sidekick (she was terrified to loose her job for the usual money and mortgage reasons)......All in all the guy lived up to our expectations. I left. My job was funded by grants. The grants that he was supposed to secure ran out. My job was key to the organization. He has lost his credibility with a lot of Patrons and Volunteers. I don't think I'll miss the stress - I might miss the money. I'll miss the people that made the place great before he arrived. I'll miss the volunteers. There was once a time when I wanted to believe that he'd be a good person for the future of the organization. He's really a slug, a bully and a man who needs a therapist more than he needs to loose 150 pounds!

MICRO MANAGER! This describes the methods of madness of my current Director in this marketing group. She places herself on a proverbial pedestal, and condescention is the daily prescription. Open discussions to her associates invlove topics like: Opera and Theater. The corporate policy is jeans and casual Fridays, but she says only country bumpkins wear these! One day, she came in to the office dressed in overalls and fake "baked bean" teeth to illustrate her disdain for wearing jeans. She has hired fashion etiquette consultants to speak to all of us about not wearing thongs, and what kinds of belts to use etc-all with company money and on company time! No one has an opinion but her. She has 10 managers who have no authority and are not allowed to introduce logic into a topic of discussion, and they are all threatened with being fired. Our sales and marketing goals are always raised above what the corporation suggests, as she tries to force a wedge between us and the rest of the company. One moning, she was asleep in her car....in the back seat witha sleeping bag, right in front of the front door. Everyone saw her! She said she is "that dedicated", as she flew in on a red eye and came in to do some work! Do you think that she feels empathy for you if you call in sick even once?! Hardly! She has isolated our department from the rest of the huge corporation that we are, in hopes of "showing up" the rest of the company. She encourages parties, cookouts and "fun",but, these are disguises for her own malevolence, which is the daily issue. Her "star" manager is an inexperienced, uneducated, very disliked, controlling grandmother type, who is in charge of a self appointed "social commitee" and can do no wrong in the director's eyes. She is continuously creating "social" events here, that are very similar to the ones I participated in at age 10.The turnover rate here can be measured directly by the disdain for the Director and her "star" manager. The director is well known for asking associates to come talk to her at 4:45 on a Fridays, so she can berate your performance and issue ultimatums about the direction of your employment; this always makes for an enjoyable weekend!! Any personal ideas are disregarded now and implemented later as her own.

I am running out of space, and there is far too much to list...AARRGGHH!!

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My boss is a classic example of the Peter Principle - someone promoted up through the ranks until they reach their "level of incompetence". And, she became everything that is repugnant and scary about an incompetent boss in the workplace - she was insecure, defensive and cruel. She knew she was underqualified, but instead of asking her us for guidance and help (which we would have gladly given), she masked her insecurity with extremely paranoid and mean-spirited behavior. Suddenly, every single aspect of our work had to be approved by her - as though none of us was competent enough to continue doing the jobs we had been doing before she arrived on the scene. This tactic brought our productivity to a standstill, as it took days for her to sift through our work and mark it up with her stupid red pen. She couldn't wait for one of us to make a mistake and if even so much as a comma was out of place she'd circle it. But she still found time to lecture us on various daily minutiae, such as how to write effective emails and how we shouldn't chew gum in public. This is in a marketing group where most of the folks had 10+ years experience in the industry! Having this woman as a boss was degrading and demoralizing to each and every one of us. In the first year of her dictatorship, 10 of the 11 staff in the department quit. Now, there's an accomplishment she can put on her resume!

My boss is on a complete Power trip. You see we are the workers so we don't have any opinions or make any suggestions because only her ideas are worth airing. She self praises so much it's unbelievable - whether its about her car, home, personal clothing - no one can stand her but all staff put on an act, we pretend and make small talk in the name of 'professionalism'. Honestly its so unbearable at times - the next time she bleeps me - when I'm trying to complete 2 out of 6 tasks she's already given - I feel like walking out...maybe one day soon I will.

"My boss is nicknamed "The Anti-Christ" in our group, she's the only one who isn't aware of this term of endearment. She is the epitome of the word micromanagement. When I make travel arrangements for her, she needs to know what the walking distance is from one terminal to another, one time she was staying at a hotel and a conference was taking place across the street -she NEEDED to know what type of street it was -a boulevard, a street or an avenue. The hotel clerk told me it was a street, but she sounded like she was talking to an extremely retarded child....that child is my boss."

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"My boss is extremely paran

oid and opened my personal mail one day, proceeding to put sticky notes all over the contents with directives, etc. She can't stand to see mail addressed to anyone besides herself."

"My boss is the ultimate micro-manager. He literally gave me step-by-step instructions on the proper way to fold a business letter. I have 10 years of experience in the communications business. Hellooooooooo..."

"I worked in the art department of a now defunct party ware manufacturer in Kalamazoo Mi.

My experience was one of utter disbelief in the way the department operated. Our motto was "beatings will continue until morale improves" It was common practice to be "pulled aside" once a week for mundane violations. Such as, "you came back a minute late from your break" or "don't ever EVER use the word assume." The management was notorious for choosing one individual a year to humiliate and demoralize to the point of resignation.

One fateful day it was my turn to encounter the wrath. I received a frantic phone call from my boss who was in N.Y. setting up our corporate booth at the national party show. This individual was panic stricken because she had not yet received a box of mocked up party ware requested earlier that week. I told this person no request was filed, given to me or even discussed She yelled and ranted for 20 minutes that a request was filed and they expected the products there the next day! Reluctantly, I agreed to box and FedEx the items that day.

A few days later while emptying my "in box" I was shocked to the core by finding the work request. There under 15 other papers was the request for 30 items to be mocked up for "party show". Typically when a work order was made it was to be discussed with the designer and a due date assigned. No meeting or discussion ever occurred prior to this "emergency". I cross checked the cc folder with the department secretary for all work requests. I found that an alledged copy had been made (forged), DATED AFTER MY BOSS' RETURN!! Who knows when this request was put in my box.

This individual went out of their way to orchestrate a lame attempted paper trail only to justify the rant and rave episode that they so melodramatically played.

"My boss fires anybody who eats during lunch! Need I say more?"

"Everyone was stressed, nurses quit, my hair turned white, and still we plodded on. She was a horror, and the day my best friends' father lay dying on the second floor of our hospital, she insisted that my friend scrub for a case in the OR that took quite a bit of time and attention. My friend did it, she would not cave in, but it took a terrible toll on her. Her father had died by the time she was finished her case. Now beat that for a boss from hell will ya??"

"After enduring several weeks of bitterness from this failed father, he fired me to "clear the negative energy" from the office."

"I had an absolutely crazy woman who called me by her daughter's name and once said, "This is how we do things here, Rachel (my name is Lynn) and you'll listen to your mother and like it." !?!?!

"When my boss grabbed me inappropriately for the umpteenth time, I bent over grabbed him by the knees and tossed him over the back of the sofa! I surprised myself , my boss, and the numerous people in the room. Thankfully, he never touched me again, and interestingly enough, his wife, who had also been present, was much easier to get along with afterwards."

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"I realized soon after I started the job that others in the company regarded my boss as an incompetent who was in way over his head. I also learned that it didn't matter how hard I tried to explain things, he simply wasn't going to get it."

"This took place in a small town in Sweden: I used to work at a hospital, as an engineer, and was going to attend a technical seminar. The total costs for the seminar was about 70 us dollars but the boss said no. Without any explanation. The seminar would not interfere with my other work and it was on a machine that I serviced regularly, so it was not an unnecessary course.

Later that month the boss sent seven (7) engineers, I was not included, to a week long seminar that cost about 2000 us dollars per person! And it was not a seminar that was useful for their line of work. He said "Sometime in the future we might have use for it."

At another time an already paid seminar that was taking place in Florida got "over due" because he wouldn't let me leave the workplace. We "only" had a year to set it up but I was needed elsewhere because no one could cover for me...

Needless to say I quit the job and is now self-employed :)."

"...my own superior considered advertising crass, commercial, and a necessary evil. When I suggested making our advertising more creative, he stared at me, blinking and asked, "Why would we want our advertising to be creative?" Uhhhh...maybe so people will read it! He did everything he could to prevent me from doing anything interesting or creative. He re-wrote all my ads over and over and over again until they were almost unintelligible. I knew I would have to quit the day he re-wrote the first line of an ad to be THIRTY-ONE WORDS long."

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My boss is a bit fat pr!ck. When he arrived at the company as IT head, he said lots of wonderful things (eg "The people who need the quickest and best PC's will be the people who receive them, not just management as is traditional", "Everybody will be treated equally and fairly", and "Those who put in extra effort will be rewarded").
He spent his first couple of months learning everything he could about how the company is run, and then began encouraging people to leave by giving them lousy jobs. As people took the hint and left the company, or were pushed out by him, he brought in his own boyfriends to run the department for him. One tactic for getting his friends in is as follows: An existing section head would be offered and actively encouraged to take a newly created role as "National" section head. A new employee would then be put in place in the existing role, and after a couple of weeks the newly created position would be made redundant. The poor unfortunate former section head would now be offered a choice; go back to the section as a normal member of staff, or leave the company.
Fat Man's little friends micro-manage for him, specialising in coming up to people every day and saying "What are you doing, what are you working on, why are you doing it that way, how long will it take to do, when will you be finished, and why haven't you finished it yet?", even though we already document virtually every minute of our working day.
Previously in the company (in Australia) there had been a positive "Can Do" attitude and high morale. Many people had been happy to put in extra hours, often without recompense. This all has changed with Fat Man in place. Every decision, even down to how a few lines of code is going to be written, has to be run past and approved by Fat Man or one of his disciples.
One existing employee has turned out to be a complete slut. Fat Man soon spotted this fellow and promoted him up through the ranks beyond his years, on the condition that he is loyal to Fat Man and nobody else. This fellow has ever since been happily conspiring against fellow-staff members who had previously been his friends.
A number of other people have been promoted to new positions within the department, each and every one of them ill-equipped to be supervising others. What had been a fairly simple management structure is now a mess thanks to Fat Man, who coincidentally is in the process of completing his MBA, something he spends many office hours working on.
A few main points showing how Fat Man has changed the IT department:
1) Previously there was leeway as to which hours of the day people in non-support roles could work; all that mattered was that one chalked up the requisite total hours, and was in the office during the "core" hours. Fat Man has put in place a rule to the effect that everybody has to work specified set daily hours, except management, section heads, supervisors, assistant supervisors, team-leaders, assistant team-leaders, and all those staff who are good friends with any of the above.
2) Previously we could stay back and put in extra effort. Now, nobody is allowed to work extra time whether they are being paid for it or not, unless they first go to Fat Man and explain what they want to work on and ask his permission to do so. People who had taken pride in doing a good job and turning out quality material now do not give a crap. Quality throughout has suffered, but as this does not affect production the only people affected are the clients, some of whom have taken their business elsewhere. This does not bother Fat Man as one of the few abilities he very definitely possesses is that of being able to come up with excuses.
3) The term "Need to Know" has become very commonplace. The new supervisors jealously guard all knowledge and love saying things like "You don't need to know that", "That is for us in management to know and you not to", and "Management are discussing that at the moment, you will find out what our decision is when changes start happening". When I started at the company there had been open communication and a good feeling of "being involved". Nowadays all staff other than management are labelled "resources", and likewise treated as pieces of equipment. Supervisors now frequently use lines in front of "lower" staff that demonstrate to them that they are objects. For example, "I want a resource for a project next week, do you have one available?", "Make sure you brief the resource on what is required", and "That resource is not one I want, do you have another available?". Each person's position in the management hierarchy is defined by how quickly they find out about company decisions, with the result that it can take weeks for decisions to permeate down through the ranks. Those at the bottom layer only learn of decisions made weeks before when they are suddenly and inexplicably moved from one section, project, role and location to another.
4) The measure of actively threatening staff has been introduced by Fat Man's supporters. A common line used by one little supervisor in particular is "You might as well start looking for a job elsewhere". Seeing how down the supply and high the demand for IT positions has been for the last two years, this threat carries a fair bit of weight. Complaining about this tactic is useless. Fat Man has well and truly let it be known that IT management personnel have his support in everything they do (as long as it is not against his wishes) and that he is their patron. Complaining about one person in authority now effectively means you are taking on the whole of the IT department, and that means goodbye for you.
5) Before Fat Man started there had been a strong element of trust present in the company. People were trusted. Nowadays that has all changed. Nobody is trusted, except management. The first sign of this was when security cameras were introduced into the workplace. The excuse used at the time was that there had been some petty pilfering (which nobody knew anything about). A couple of weeks later some more cameras were introduced, and then even more after that. Every centimetre of workspace is now covered by two or more cameras, 24 hours a day. There is a large television screen and VCR's set up in a secure area accessible only to managers, section heads, supervisors, assistant supervisors, team-leaders, assistant team-leaders and selected personnel. All activity within the workplace is recorded. A lot of people did not like this new measure, but unless you were doing something wrong there was no need for concern. The thing that irked me slightly was that we were now all treated as potential criminals.
Overall it has become a strain working in the company unless you are good mates with someone in power. Some people have left voluntarily (or involuntarily), but most have done all they can to stay on as it is better to work for a nasty prick than not to be working at all.
As a footnote, about 4 months after Fat Man started at the company a batch of new powerful, fast PC's arrived, each complete with multi-media items such as CD players, DVD players, cameras, etc. And who received these wonderful new toys? Fat Man and his main offsiders only of course!

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I work for a family owned company. It has grown to 120 employees. It's family owned - and let me tell you - it's also family operated. When I applied for the position of Marketing Assistant - I was told I would be in training to take over the National Marketing Manager's position in about 6 months time. The current manager was the owner's daughter. She ran the position like a dictator - and with absolutly no training whatsoever in anything - except a high school diploma - she was in no position to tell Senior management how to run their jobs....but she would tell people with MBA's in business and with 30 years of experience in the workforce they were wrong and she was right. Keep in mind she is only 27 years old.

Well the day came for her leaving the company (she was off on a round the world trip) - I was thinking - this is it - Management here I come! The day arrived and I was told that I would still be assistant as the daughter's boyfriend wanted to be Marketing Manager as he was pouting because he didn't have any "proper titles". Again - here is a 27 year old college dropout with an ego thinking he's running the show.

He introduces me to people as "Meet Jane - Jane works for me". Well last I heard - he's not the one handing me my paycheque every week. He also loves to add different job titles to his name. He's not only the National Marketing Manager, but the International Sales Manager and State Branch Manager and today I saw a letter he wrote and he signed his name off with "Export Manager".

The daughter didn't end up going overseas after she finished up in Marketing after all. She decided to make herself "Office Manager" and push the girls around in accounts. The son calls himself "Systems Manager". He is a high school dropout and is about 26. He spends his time on the internet looking for "great deals" on office equiptment. All three of these people have huge salaries, expense accounts and company vehicles. None of them will be accountable to anything they do and I've never once watched them take the blame for something they did wrong. The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that there isn't a single person in the entire company who likes them.

"Smelly" (that isn't her real first name) was one of my closest girlfriends for eight years. And also somewhat of a mentor. A little older than me, and someone who I met through work, and ended up sharing a similarly progressively successful career in Canadian technology over almost a decade. We worked at three of the same companies, although I never reported directly to her until recently.

Over the last few years we both completed our executive MBA's (her first) and shared numerous friendly evenings sharing wine and great conversation as friends often do, about our work and personal lives.

In 2001 Smelly got a very senior position with a billion dollar Canadian technology firm and within a few weeks, she recruited me as one of her direct reports into a relatively senior management position.

Then I got to know Smelly as a boss. As it turned out she did a lot of wine drinking almost every night of the week. She also had a temper and a way of pissing a lot of people off at the company. Admittedly, I had seen this from a distance in other companies. Within 6 months she had terminated most of her original staff and replaced them with her own selection. Which can often happen. However, she also influenced more terminations of staff in the region than had occured cumulatively in the previous three years.

I saw that Smelly did not have the skills to actually mentor. That she preferred to terminate and replace.

Meanwhile in HR in head office, turnover was rampant, and there was clearly no tracking of these events.

After working for the company for 6 months, I invested in my first home. Smelly toured the open house with me and, as friends often are, was delighted about my new investment.

Then, about 6 weeks later, afer closing on a $196,000 mortgage, Smelly terminated me. And she was an extreme bitch in the process.

Over wine on her patio, she veheminently (spelling?) lost it. The logic and reasoning behind her decision was frankly inapparent to me. She did keep saying that "shit rolled down hill".

I negotiated a very decent severence; knowing that she knew that our balcony conversation would make great headlines, if only with HR, "Mentor fires Mentee after 8 months, and 6 weeks after purchase of first home, encouraged by Mentor".

I have not seen her since. And I am actually happy to have what I think was a rather volatile and alcoholicly challenged and emotionally negative influence on my career and personal life.

A few months later, it amazes me that I hear from friends that Smelly is quite upset that I do not want to be friends with her anymore.

I'm not sure if my story relates how unfortunate, and almost laughable my situation is - and I can laugh now - but truly, I felt I was a devoted friend, and a very capable manager, with a former staff that I still maintain a strong and positive professional relationship with; and it was very disappointing to have someone I trusted and had confided in to burn me in such a ruthless way.

The beauty of life is that when we do encounter bosses from hell, there is always other work out there. Always. And often its much better, much more rewarding and we wonder why we stayed so long in hell.

My mother's boss (a lawyer in Vancouver, Canada) told her that for the third year in a row she would not be receiving a raise even though she is now secretary for two lawyers in the firm, which effectively doubled her work, because the firm hadn't earned enough to give her more money. One month later he purchased a third home (a French cottage) and a new Mercedes.

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My boss is a complete idiot. A trained monkey can do my job, yet he insists on explaining things to me over and over again--how to fold letters, how to use the copy machine, basic things I knew since day one. He calls me sweetheart in front of our patients, and rubs my shoulders--so disgusting (he's 20 years older than me). He makes comments to me about his wife's incompetence and how fat she is (she's not, by the way). She comes in without pay to help out and all he does is belittle her. I took Tylenol one day for a sinus headache and he said we would have to discuss my "drug problem" because it's not good business practice and insisted I start taking vitamins instead. He stands directly over my shoulder while I work, talks to me while I am making business calls, asking things like "who is it?", and comes up with pointless little "projects" that need done ten minutes prior to quitting time because he feels I need to devote more time to my job. He never listens to one word I say--I will explain in detail what has been done, why something is where it is and what is going on and he will ask me about it five minutes later--what is this, did you get this done, and so on. And as one added irritation, he reconsidered his original decision to pay me for lunch after 3 months and will be cutting my paycheck!

"My boss tells me that I am a beginner when I have more qualifications than her. She also gives me no breaks, bonus's and forces to me to work overtime!"

"At the TV station where I work about two days after the 9-11 horror occurred a big wig came in to make one of his pompous "it'll all be OK" speeches for airing. It was to be played several times over the next few days...but his assistant, our direct supervisor, a scarecrow harpy who is only happy when screaming at people who cannot answer back, demanded the first broadcast be live. This is ten times harder to manage, but we did it. We scrambled heaven and earth to get it together and went live with his speech. When it was over everyone was mightily relieved and kind of congratulating each other....the fiend flew into the control booth like the witch did to scare Dorothy. She began to froth...."WHY was there not a glass of water for him! Why did a bottle have to be brought in at the last moment? It should have been there waiting for him! What is wrong with you people! I will not stand for this incompetence one more minute! and so on...he was not in the studio for more than ten minutes, and never even touched the water that was brought to him...we all felt like we had been slapped. For all we knew we were on the verge of out and out war, and she was acting like it was the end of the world that HER deity might be thirsty. Later that day at a different location I attended a Moment of Silence ceremony and was so upset about this evil woman's behavior that I couldn't even concentrate on the moving event. About 3 weeks later I transferred to a different department...mostly because of that last straw."

"The designer working on the project had requested New Year's Eve off, but had been denied because so much work needed to be done. She conveniently called in sick on New Year's Eve sticking me with the work. I had to work late on New Years Eve. The pitch on January 2 went great and we were awarded the account. January 5, the firm laid off 30% of it's workforce, including me. Incidentally the designer who called in sick on New Year's Eve kept her job. To rub salt in the wound, they stood over me while I cleaned out my desk, as though they were worried I'd steal something. Apparently I was trustworthy enough to be alone in the office on New Year's Eve working late, but not trustworthy enough to clear out my own desk."

"I just don't get it. When the head office honcho's decide to visit a retail location, they give several weeks notice. Then the staff break their backs, work well into the night in order to make the store perfect for the arrival. All for a 15 minute walk-through. Shouldn't they see the store the way it really is the rest of the year? Wouldn't that be more advantageous to their planning? The kicker is that then head office thinks it can add additional duties because we made the store look so easy to run!"