Satan’s Mistress

I worked for a much hated state agency for a woman who, in addition
to knowing nothing about her job, tortured her employees on a daily
basis in unethical and illegal ways. Some highlights?

She came in to the training center to detail her visit to a co-coworkers sick son. She apparently visited him while scantily clad in a nurse’s uniform. There were pictures.

She told an employee she was worthless, and asked her “Why are you even here?” in front of the entire split. Said employee quit shortly thereafter.

She refused to allow us to participate in the state designated Moment of Silence for 9/11, and turned her speech into an opportunity to remind us how ”lucky we are to have our jobs”.

She collectively told the employees in a meeting that “Someone will have to throw up on my shoes if they
want to take sick leave.”

She would stand by a chronically ill employee’s desk and loudly proclaim to all who were near about useless employees with health problems who should just “go on welfare and let the state pay for their diseases.” (That employee passed a few
months later as a result of those diseases).

I quit after being employed there for a year and a half.

The good news? My last act there was to email a letter to each and
every one of her superiors, right up to the head of the state agency,
and the governor. After a three month long investigation, including
numerous employee interviews and a conversation between myself and
the head of the department that oversees her and the head of the
state EEOC, started by my letter, she was fired on Wednesday.
Sometimes, bad bosses do get their comeuppance.

The Weekly Rant

When I was in college I worked at a diner that was owned by a very
accident-prone and frugal man.

1) One day, the exhaust fan had broken and the entire restaurant was
smokey. The manager on duty argued with the owner, who refused to
believe that the restaurant was full of smoke (and that he’d have to
fix the exhaust fan). They were standing near the serving counter and
the manager pointed at the rays of light to prove his point. That
night we all went home with red, itchy eyes, dry coughs, and
congested noses. A recently fired cook called the fire department the
next day to report the broken fan as well as multiple other code
violations, and the owner had to shut down the restaurant for the
rest of the afternoon.

2) The night before a catering event, I was in charge of slicing
potatoes into a 32-gallon tub full of water that was mounted onto a
rickety 3-wheeled contraption. Just as I was finishing filling it up,
my boss walked through the back room, placed a cooler chest on a high
shelf, and slammed the door shut. The chest fell onto the tub, which
pinned me against the prep table until half of the water and french
fries inside had spilled out and covered the drain. I was ordered to
put them back into the tub.

3) The above catering event was a Fourth of July party in someone’s
back yard. After the entirely eventful catering event had ended (in
the 100+ degree heat), he had us break down the equipment
immediately. He urged the fry cook to empty the oil back into the
container, which melted and spilled gallons of hot fry oil onto the
grass. And a nearby swarm of bees rushed to see what was up.

4) At another catering event, he started the grill and left the
lighter precariously close to the flames. About half an hour later,
my good friend Steve barely avoided a fireball to the face and had to
get a haircut.

Three Minutes Late

I worked for this one grocery store for 2 years. I started from the
bottom and made my way up to assistant manager without any problem.
I constantly had co-workers and customers compliment me on my work
ethics, leadership skills, and my customer service. One day, like
most days, I showed up 30 minutes early to see how the shift before
me was doing and if they needed any help. One of my workers was a no
call no show, so I called him, found out his car broke down, and
went and picked him up. When I clocked in, I was 3 minutes late. It
was the first time I had been late in the 2 years I had worked there,
but no one said a thing about it.

Three months later, I got extremely sick and spent a week in the hospital. I called in to work every day
to let my boss know the status. When I was able to actually get out
of bed, I went into work. My boss asked me into her office to tell me
that I hadn’t called in at all for the past week. I hadn’t
talked to her directly, because she was the store manager and I
talked to my manager in the deli. She made me write an essay about
not calling in, and suspended me for three days. I wrote that I
called every day, and I have proof I was in the hospital.

The day I got back, the store manager was on vacation so the assistant store
manager called me into her office and had a note from the store
manager saying to fire me for being three minutes late 3 months ago.
I called the union I was with, and they told me and I quote “tough.”
(click)..

In The Navy

So, after reading the submissions on my website, I have to tell a
story about my time in the service. I refer to it as the worst
professional day I ever had.

I was working on a submarine, which is fairly arduous duty. 100 hour
work weeks in port, and you spend on average 7 months a year at sea.
You are basically slave labor to the Navy.

We had just finished our time in the Persian Gulf, around 75 days at
sea. Our Captain had a meeting with everyone on the boat, and asked
if we wanted to pull into Crete for 3 days off, or if we wanted to go
to Italy and attend the Submarine Birthday Ball.

Now, for those of you not in the service, that’s 6+ hours of
mandatory fun at a dinner, and ball in your Dress Uniform. It’s where
the brass stand around and tell each other how great they are. Add to
that it being overseas, none of us having dates, and it’s a waste of
time to most of us.

So, what does the crew respond with? Crete. We need some time off.
The next day, the Captain tells us he has requested 3 days off in
Crete, and we all rejoiced. 75 days underwater, and all you want to
do is find a nice bar overlooking the water, drink some beers, and
smoke some fresh cigarettes while soaking in some sunlight.

A few days later we all get called to another meeting. The Commodore
(our Captain’s boss) assumed that we would choose the submarine ball,
and already wrote our orders to head to Italy. The Captain then
continues that we had to pull into Crete to pick up the Commodore, so
he could attend the ball with us.

Now the Commodore set this up strategically so he would get two days
in Crete, and a transit day in the war-zone that used to exist in the
Med. Basically, a vacation, tax-free money, hazardous duty pay that
month, and a ride to the submarine ball.

So, we all head back to our jobs, which for my team was cleaning the
filthiest spots on the boat, after standing 6 hours of watch and
being told our time off was cancelled. Now, we are all sailors, but
even my ears were ringing from the profanity my team was spouting.

Then, we all get called back to another meeting maybe 20 minutes
later. Apparently, our pay was messed up, and none of us were getting
paid this next paycheck. Being on a sub, that doesn’t really matter,
unless you have a wife and kids at home that depend on that money to
live. I had a wife and a 5 month old daughter with medical issues,
living off only my income at the time. Money was tight.

So, now they have asked us for our input, thrown that input away,
taken away 3 days off, told us we aren’t getting paid, and we all
have to worry about how our wives are going to survive. I have never
heard an entire watchteam disgusted to the point of silence before.
No one said a thing, and everyone just went to bed.

I can’t begin to describe how infuriated I was. I have never, and
will never be that mad again.

So, the day of reckoning comes. We pull into Crete for an hour, snag
the Commodore, and head to Italy. Being a bigwig, he thought it was
important to talk to the crew on our way to Italy. So, we meet with
him. He actually said that he was disappointed we hadn’t chosen to go
to the submarine ball during his little speech.

Then comes the Q&A session. One of the ballsy guys asks him about
Crete, to which he responds “It’s the same as it always is. The
weather wasn’t even that great, and the beer isn’t that cold.”

One item of note: None of my watchteam had ever been there, and we
were on the ass end of 75 days in the Persian Gulf. 3 days in Crete
is like seeing Disney World when you are 8 years old. For that
matter, it could have been central Siberia, and it would have been
better than what we were doing.

One of my guys piped up “I think I would have liked to judge how the
weather was, and if the beer was cold enough.” Just as I took a sip
of my coffee.

I spit out my coffee all over the table, and as we were wiping it up,
the Commodore walked out.

Meeting adjourned. Rest of the meetings were cancelled.