When I was in my teens I took on some temping work to keep me going
until I found a proper job.

The recruiting agency hired me as a receptionist for a factory that
made air fresheners. I was warned that they had been a ‘difficult
client’ and not many temps had managed to stay there long.

The boss was an overweight middle aged bitch with an upper class
English accent who was obviously used to having servants. On the
first day, I sat in her office taking notes about the list of tasks
she expected me to do. Within ten minutes of leaving I was called
back and chewed out because I’d left my pencil on her desk and ‘how
dare I clutter her office’.

On the second day, I brought her a cup of tea in her bone China cup
while she was on the phone. I was called back in again and screamed
at because I had placed the cup of coffee too far away from her hand
and the handle was pointing in the wrong direction, which was a
problem because she had to reach over her desk to pick it up and
(gasp!) turn the cup around.

On the third I was told off because I’d obviously ’squeezed’ the tea
bag instead of letting it brew.

I managed to keep my head down and not react to anything for 3 weeks
despite her foul and ridiculous rants. They offered me a full time
position which I declined. One day a new candidate was sitting in
reception waiting and asked me how it was to work there. I rolled my
eyes and said I wouldn’t be there for that long.

Unfortunately the candidate relayed this ad verbatim to the boss and
minutes later security arrived to escort me off the premises.

I hope that candidate got the job, it would have served her right to
have to work with that cow!

My mother used to work at the local deli, and she loved her job and
her boss, who at the time was one of the sweetest women we knew.
Toward the end of 2009, my mother was having some difficulties – she
was stressed out, bills were piling up, and she couldn’t sleep. Yet
she still went to work every single day, never complained.

There’s a woman who works there who is addicted to some drug or
another; I’ve witnessed her come in and just sit down behind the
counter and stare at the wall. She always wears long sleeves, even in
summer; and she constantly takes days off and has even taken off in
the middle of shifts, leaving my mother or other workers alone to
deal with rush hour customers.

My mother took a day off after a fight with my father over money
issues; she wasn’t in the best of moods and knew she wouldn’t be able
to give customers the best service possible. Her boss said she
understood and that she’d schedule her for another day.

Three hours later, her boss calls. Tells her that she’s sorry, but
she has to let her go. We come to find out that she had her husband
drive by to see if my mother was at home or not. My mother went to
the doctor, and was not at home.

So my mother filed for unemployment; her boss challenged it, claiming
my mother quit all the sudden with no two week notice.

The story this woman spun about my mother – that she complained
constantly, that she said she hated the customers, the people she
worked with, that she never wore the uniform, that she was constantly
reporting off – was abominable, and my mother never received her
unemployment because she was unable to respond to it when asked to
contest.

That was four months ago. My mother is now happily employed by
another store, in a job she truly loves, and still, the druggie
continues to work at the deli. And she still continues to ditch.

I was very unfortunate to work for a complete a-hole of a man. First
off, he had TERRIBLE breath and he insisted in speaking very close to
the members on the team. He worked for the same company for a long
time, but had NO CLUE of what was going on.

For example, this particular time, we had a conference call with the
CIO of a HUGE company. He asked the gentleman what his most critical
initiative was and he replied “Cloud Computing”. He then proceeded to
ask general “I want to sell you something” questions that made no sense.
Of course the CIO caught on to that, hung up the phone and I got
written up for losing an important account.

If you asked him a procedural question, he would talk for about a
whole hour about everything BUT what you asked about and at the end
of every sentence he would ask “Does that make sense?” One day
I finally had enough and said “No, it doesn’t.”  I had to leave the
company after that because he made my life a living hell.

Oh, mr. bad-breath-does-that-make-sense also had a drinking problem.
We had a team outing and he got completely sloshed and crashed our
rental boat onto a pier almost hurting one of the team members.

One day, as I was riding my bike to work in the city, a cab driver
had sideswiped me causing me to wipe out on my bike. The back wheel
had bent causing my bike to become no longer rideable. After I had
gotten up from the fall, I cleaned myself up and called into work. My
boss was busy so I told the receptionist what had happened and he
suggested I just go home and take the day off – like any normal human
being would suggest. I told him that I’d at least come in and speak to
my boss, who happened to be the owner as well. I also mentioned that
I’d have to walk myself to work and I could be a few minutes late
now.

As I walked in 4 minutes late with a busted bike and torn up knees,
my boss had given the worst look you could ever imagine receiving
from someone. Shortly after she asked if she could see me in her
office for a one-on-one meeting. She condescendingly asked me what
had happened on the way to work. After I explained it to her, she,
without compassion, said: “I know you were hit by a car and
everything, but it’s REALLLLYYY important to be on time to work.
Mmmk??”

I could not believe what she had just said. I sat there in silence,
dumbfounded at the words coming out of her ignorant mouth.

Needless to say, I quit 2 weeks later.

One of my first jobs was at a fast food restaurant. I checked the
weekly schedule and saw that I was marked off two days in a row,
which had never happened in the six months I’d been there. It was
summertime, so I went out of town over night with a friend. When I
got home, there were several voice messages from my boss asking where
the hell I was. I immediately drove over to the place to see what was
going on, but my boss was not there. All my co-workers said I was in
deep shit for missing my shift. I said, “But I wasn’t scheduled
to work!”

After listening to my co-workers relate how my boss had been ranting
and bitching about me in my absence, I was fuming because I had not
done anything wrong and had been a good and loyal employee.

So I walked over to the schedule (which was always done in pencil)
and erased the whole week’s schedule beside my name and wrote in
“off” on every day for the rest of the week. Well, moments later,
the boss walks in. He saw me and asked, “Where the hell were you?” and I
said that I checked the schedule two days ago and you had me marked
“off” both days. He said, “I never give people two days off in
a row. Obviously I made a mistake — but so did you. You should have
called to ask me about it.” He went on to say that my failure to
call and check in with him (about his mistake!) showed that I was
undependable and not a team player and he didn’t want someone like
me working there. He said, “Don’t bother coming back-–you’re
fired!” I just smiled nicely and said, “Well, that’s certainly
your call,” and left.

A little later that evening, I got a call from co-workers who told me
that after I left, he marched over to the schedule to remove my name
and when he saw that I had beaten him to the punch, he nearly popped
a blood vessel from the temper trantrum he threw! They said he
exploded and was screaming, “I don’t *ever* want to see that
bleepity-bleep around here again!”

But you know what they say: He who laughs last, laughs best!

When I began work for a bulk mail company, I read the employee
handbook to make sure I understood the rules and expectations,
procedures, etc. One of the “benefits” they afforded their part-time
employees (everyone was part-time except the supervisors and office
manager) was a paid vacation day for every six months you worked
without taking any days off. That’s six months of never being late or
sick. In retrospect, I realize that expecting any benefits at all as a
part-time employee was a bit optimistic, but at the time I just
figured I would do my best and if I didn’t make it six months without
missing a day, it would not be a big loss.

The six months went past, and my birthday rolled around, and I
realized that I actually did qualify for that cute little vacation
day, so I asked for an updated copy of the employee handbook just to
make sure it was still in there. (It was.)

The next payday, I saw that they hadn’t included the vacation pay, so
I went in and talked with the office manager, thinking it was just a
little oversight and could be easily rectified. The office manager
said “There is no paid time off for part-timers.” I reminded her of
the handbook, and she said “Oh, we changed that.” When I asked when
it had changed, she said, “The day before you went on vacation.”