They thought people would be happy to work without pay for the chance to be with Elizabeth Taylor, and they were right. They never said people had to volunteer, in fact they expected they’d have too many people wanting to participate.
I worked for a company doing software asset management. But they didn’t actually want to do software asset management…they didn’t have the processes and procedures in place to pay for their software - and they sure as hell didn’t want to develop them because that would cost money. They would hire a team, then after about eighteen months, pin all the blame on them for any audits they had had and lay them all off.
I was brought in about six months before the previous team was to be let go - unaware off all this. But in six months, I figured it out. It wasn’t difficult - their records showed a pattern of a new team coming in, proposing how to get compliant, and then being let go with their proposals shelved…
As the previous team was on the verge of being let go my boss “confided” in me that they just hadn’t done a good job, were to blame for everything and were going to be let go. I looked at her and said “you know, your software asset management people know where all the bodies are buried, they can call and report you - you aren’t compliant and they know exactly where.”
“Oh, they’d never do that, they are professionals and they signed an confidentiality agreement.”
“A confidentiality agreement isn’t valid if you are reporting illegal behavior, which pirating software is.”
They laid them off.
Six months and one $250,000,000 Microsoft settlement later… yes, there are that many zeros in that number.
That was six years ago - I have a feeling they still haven’t learned (I quit). In fact, I know they didn’t because the MS settlement was going to last three years - and I called someone after three years who would tell me…“we are so screwed.”
Oh, good grief.
:rolleyes:
This isn’t really about revenge, but more about sexism in the workplace.
I worked at a place that rented heavy machinery, and it housed a repair shop in the back. The mechanics there put up naked girl pictures on the wall of their back office. We front office girls would have to go back there to get bills signed for approvals and stuff.
Well, call us prudes, but we girls didn’t like having to stand there staring at beaver shots while mechanics signed stuff. We said so. We were laughed at and called jealous, as if we would jump at the chance of having a naked picture of us hanging on the wall, if only we were pretty enough.
Very well. Playgirl Magazine was still a thing then, so we picked up a couple, cut out pictures of naked men, and tacked them up over our office desks in full view of any who came through the front office.
Point made. All the pictures came down, in the office and the repair shop.
One of the proudest moments in my working life.
I wasn’t involved but --------------
At the shipping place where I work a package costs roughly a buck to send if properly tracked and placed; $5 if not properly tracked. And $25 if it ends up on the wrong pole. Unhappy Coworker Bob knew his last day was going to be Friday so Thursday he basically stuffed every envelope he got his hands on in the wrong place. Multiply this by about 1000 and he got his pounds of flesh worth on the way out the door. And by the time anyone up the food chain could catch on ---------- too late. He was already on his new job with a different company. Just a little monkey wrench but still a wrench.
My experience wasn’t as explicit, but it was comparable. It happened about 30 years ago.
Before I went back to college, I worked in the office of a trucking company, and some of the men who worked in another department had prominently displayed bikini calendars over their desks. One of my co-workers (we’re still friends to this day) had a pack of Chippendales playing cards, and the women in our department put the cards in the slots atop the CRT units.
Within a few days, we were told to put the cards away, and we agreed to do that IF the bikini calendars came down. In the end, both happened.
At a company I once worked for a network admin found out he was being fired for cause a few hours before they officially notified him and revoked his access. He changed the admin passwords on several hundred Cisco switches and deleted all of the online backups.
Criminal and civil litigation ensued.
Guy was a dick.
I remember reading about that on Slashdot. It might have been a different one, but the story is the same. Complete with criminal prosecution.
I think you’re probably referring to the Terry Childs incident. The incident I posted was several years before that in Texas.
It probably happens much more often than it should, just not on these scales.
Company I worked for had many locations. Our location had over a dozen machines, one of which, unique in the company, ran normal and De-lux mode. Now I was just about the only minion who could run De-lux mode, and it required changing parts over for the mode to work. You could run normal with the De-Lux parts, but there was too great of a chance of damage to the product, so we changed out the De-Lux parts for the smaller, normal parts.
When I was shown the door, I cleaned out my desk and went home.
Thirty years later, I still have a shrine on my shelf.
I worked in a nursing home where adherence to Catholic doctrine and appeasement of the residents’ guardians played second fiddle to good care and patients’ rights.
The one incident I remember most vividly is when one of the residents complained that the water coming out of his shower was cold. I notified the maintenance guy. The maintenance guy politely told me that his schedule that week included landscaping here, fixing a fountain there, and other window dressing, per the head administrator’s orders, and that he might get to the resident’s shower problem early next week.
Fortunately, Illinois has this 800 number that you can call anonymously to report evidence of abuse/neglect in nursing homes and care facilities. A phone call later and a state inspector was there with her thermometer, and the maintenance guy suddenly found time to fix the shower.
I actually called the state a solid dozen times when I worked for that place. Like the time they confiscated a resident’s rap CD because another resident’s mother didn’t want that “filth” in the building. Or the time the administrator confiscated a resident’s Halloween costume because it was a princess costume (resident was a male).
Do you mean that the other way around?
This is more a tale of revenge on a bad boss than on an organization, but I thought it was funny enough to share on the SDMB over 10 years ago; here it is again:
I am confused. Explain?
The “shrine” is made from the De-lux parts that were taken off the machine? I think?
Got it in one.
I have now realized that almost everyone I worked FOR is dead, and almost everyone I worked WITH has retired…
Yes, that was the one I was thinking of. Nobody comes out looking good in that story.
Some years back I worked for a small shoe repair shop. The owner decided to “solve” her financial problems by not paying the employees. After a couple weeks of complaints she issued checks… which all bounced.
I took her to court. Because the bitch pissed off the judge I was awarded seven times the initial amount I was owed. Even better… I collected on the award.
At least until she skipped town permanently (she was on a payment plan - she had many angry creditors). But I got about three times what I was originally owed in the end.
One of the multiple times I worked in Euskadi (region next to my own native Navarre, we’re all family) and there was the usual confusion among some Outsiders about why having a Navarrese in the team was hailed as great news, one of the locals said “because, you know which are the most dangerous four words you can tell a Navarrese?” The Outsiders didn’t; I said “‘you can’t do that!’, specially in the sense of ‘I will not allow it’”. The locals considered that great news because having someone in the team who will do pretty much anything they set their minds to is great news (they also know better than to insist after one of us has said “nope, won’t do that” to a request).
There’s three possible responses to the four words.
- “Watch this.” And then you go and do it.
- “Wanna bet? C’mon, put your money where your mouth is.” And after they’ve bet something they believe they’ll never have to pay, you go and do it.
- “Oh. OK. I can’t.” And then you wait for them to come back asking you to do it, and make them beg for it on their knees. Then on their bellies. Then with tears streaming down their face. And then ok, you do it.
I’ve got multiple instances of all three in corporate settings.
In the 1970’s I worked for a huge telecommunications company.
We were a pretty satisfied bunch - I couldn’t remember any serious disputes.
Then the CEO sent all of us (over 100,000 employees) a ‘personal’ letter explaining why our pay rise would be severely limited this year.
There were mutterings, but we thought we were all in the same boat.
Until a newspaper published details of the CEO’s forthcoming pay rise - in % terms a mere 24 times what we were being offered (and of course far more in actual money.) :eek:
Later that day, there were strikes at every building. For many of us, it was the first (and only) time on strike. 