Bob replied “No it won’t. That’s the old system.” He again told Bob that he
was going to set the fire alarm off. Bob said “Shut the damn thing off
and get on with it.” So off went the power switch accompanied with the
sounds of the fire alarm. The system is set to call the fire
department automatically. So off went Bob to call the fire department
and have them ignore the trip to the plant. Meanwhile, all of the employees
evacuated the plant and we lost about a hour of production time
sorting out the mess he started.

The only problem was the boss, who was a nightmare. She never smiled,
looked perpetually pissed off, and I don’t think she knew the meaning
of a gentle voice. She constantly changed her mind, wanting us to
rearrange the store every week so customers never knew where things
were. She also loved to call meetings on the spot and drag our poor
manager to California to help her see new product lines (despite the
fact this woman was a single mother with two young children), plan
meetings and call us that morning so we could come in early. She even
dragged in her huge cockatiel into work that hated any other human
being besides herself.

The last straw for me came when I got the opportunity to go away on
vacation with my fiance to Oregon during Valentine’s Day. I was going
to take a train down to meet him there, and we would spend a weekend
together. I notified my boss three weeks beforehand, and she gave me
the time off.

I got a call ON THE TRAIN asking me to come in for a staff meeting. I
stammered out that I was half-way to Vancouver and there was no way I
could turn the train around and ride all the way back to Bainbridge
Island (roughly 3 hours away). She would not accept a conference call
(which would have worked out better for all of us, seeing how only one
person was working the day I was leaving on vacation). I informed her
that if she wasn’t going to let me have a conference call, instant
message or webcam I didn’t know what I could do.

She ordered me to take a train back the minute I got into Portland
(which meant that I would get back to Seattle late at night, when the
meeting was quite obviously over).

Needless to say, I quit on the spot.

Beside berating anyone who is on a reduced work schedule, he recently
said, “Yes, we all should have a good work/life balance… 12 hours at
work and 12 hours at home.”

He seriously meant it.

One day after closing, he put on a pornographic movie in the break
room with the male employee ‘just for laughs’ as he said. He told my
friend and I that we should hang out but we were disgusted and left.

The following day we were closed and I was walking to my car. My boss
ran up to me and asked me if I wanted to go have drinks with him and a
friend at Red Robin across the street. I declined. He kept asking, and
then told me that he had fantasized about my friend and I while
having some ‘alone time’ if you know what I mean. I was totally
creeped out.

I was 19 at the time and young and scared of losing my first job, but
the next day I immediatley went to my HR department. They did an
investigation and 3 days later he packed up his breifcase and left
without a word.

First of all, she treated all of her employees like we were her
children. It even got to the point that, when I handed things in, she
would look at me, smile and say, “Good girl!” Seriously? I say that to
my CAT!!! She was so picky about everything. She didn’t care that I
had studied linguistics and could easily correct her grammar
mistakes. She kept claiming she was OCD and she couldn’t handle
things not being her way. First of all, OCD means “obsessive
compulsive disorder.” This woman was neither obsessive nor
compulsive. She was just anal retentive. That’s fine, but then call
it what it is!

If she was out of the office for a day, she would call each of us 5
minutes before the end of our shifts to make sure that we were still
there….even though her boss and her boss’s boss were in the office
with us and would have absolutely said something had we left early.

She was the queen of wasted time. She would e-mail me to print out a
document so I could run it through the scanner and create a PDF. One
time, I simply saved the document as a PDF and sent it to her. She
then had a talk with me about how things had to be done a certain
way. Yet, we were the group working to make certain government
agencies more efficient. Our big joke about her was to ask each other
to print out a document and then immediately go shred it. She never
caught on to that one. She would continue to waste time by writing us
constant e-mails about how she was too busy to answer some of our
questions about the project we were working on. She complained about
having to stay at work until 10pm to finish a project even though she
had a TEAM OF FIVE working with her (she kept turning us away when we
asked if she needed help. We all sat and did nothing the entire day).
She would e-mail documents and spreadsheets to all of us and ask us to
print them out for her, scan them, and send her the electronic copy.
Wouldn’t it have just been easier for her to save the document to her
own computer? Apparently not.

I think the funniest moment of all time was when she wrote and entire
e-mail to me detailing some issues she was having with her computer.
She asked me if I could let our IT manager know what she needed and
to copy her on the e-mail I sent to said manager. All I did was
forward her original e-mail to the IT manager with a note that said,
“See _____’s e-mail below.” I made sure to copy her on it.

Thank GOD that her way of doing things didn’t make anything more
efficient and the contract was disolved. I got transfered to a
different contract with the company and have never been happier.

I knew she was a nit-picker, but she was responsible for everything
that went out over her signature, and that was what I was getting
paid for. Her mom was in a nursing home, and I overlooked a lot of
stuff because I figured she was under a lot of stress. She was always
right, no matter what the topic. She even corrected me once when I
said I grew up on a farm!

However – she was the world’s biggest slob (they called her The
Pilot, because she piled it here, and she piled it there.) and when
she ran out of space in her own office, she started stacking things
in other offices, and complaining if her things got moved. Her own
office was such a mess that she had to use my computer, and then
complained that I took too long to get my work done. She also
considered herself an expert on all things artistic, and would
rearrange posters and pictures in other offices. Not much, just an
half an inch in this direction and a quarter inch the other, just
enough that the staple marks showed and you knew she’d been messing
with your stuff. She also took down a professionally done display for
a major sales event and completely redid it to suit her self.

When her own boss was due for a visit, she rented a storage unit,
gathered up everything in sight, and slammed it in there.
Unfortunately, she also took other people’s things, and none of them
ever saw the light of day again!

Boss-lady never came in until 11:00 or so, and one morning I got a
phone call that needed to be forwarded to her immediately. When I
called her house, she ripped into me for five minutes straight
without drawing a breath (OK, so I exagerate) and then asked me what
was so all-fired important that I needed to disturb her at home. “I
just called to tell you that so-and-so (another employee) died last
night.” And then I hung up. I figured it would have killed her to
apologize, and all she’d do was ask me why I hadn’t said so in the
first place. She came in right away, but never apologized to me or
mentioned it in any way.

I’d been there a year and a half when she went away for a week. She
came back with a list of things I had been doing wrong or should have
been doing. Never mentioned any of them before this, but put me “on
notice” for not doing my job properly. I should have quit then, but
it’s like a marriage – you remember the good things and hope the
situation will improve.

When I typed up a report, she’d move a comma and change a word. With
the computer it only takes a few seconds to change things, but when I
got back she’d ignore me and act as if she was deeply involved in
something for about five minutes while I twiddled my thumbs, and then
do some more editing and we’d do the same dance again. She’d fart
around for half an hour and then fuss with me because I took too long
to get my work done.

I finally gave notice, but the girl who was to replace me hadn’t had
a lick of training, so I volunteered to stay a week longer. “That way
I can train Mary and you can go visit your mother”, who was in another
state. Discovered Mary had been hired a week after boss-lady had come
back from vacation, but she didn’t want to pay unemployment, so she
was trying to get me to quit. I had to fight for six months to get my
last pay check because I had “volunteered”.

Oh, Mary stayed six weeks!