Seriously, start documenting everything. Write up when and what you talked to him about.
Ignore his every five minute phone calls, or, invite him to come out and help you.
And polish up that resume.
Here’s a couple of practice sentences, try saying them in front of the mirror:
“I’m sorry, I’m not taking time away from my family for a problem I’ve been telling you about for months. We can get the parts shipped FedEx, or I can go tomorrow during normal business hours.”
“I refuse to fix little bits of this chain twice a day five times a week. We are shutting down the line until all damaged parts of the chain are fixed.”
“Your refusal to budget for maintenance is hurting this business. Replace the chain or you will lose money. If you feel that the chain has not performed up to the standards you had hoped for, contact the manufacturer for a refund.”
“I will answer the phone when I am done with this task.”
“No.”
Try them - he can’t make your life any more hellish.
But he can fire you the very first time you trot out one of those sentences. Fire you for cause, the kind of firing that means you don’t get Unemployment.
I would start looking for a new job. Small companies like this are entirely at the whim of the owner, and the owner can make everyone’s life miserable in exchange for the money he pays. The owner doesn’t have to take shit from anyone, and doesn’t even have to open up for business if he doesn’t want to. The best you can do with this situation is to try and explain to him how this repair strategy is going to lose money for the business. Being down at a busy time is a lot worse than taking one rainy day to be closed for repairs.
I confess, I don’t get the constant mentions of how rich bosses are. What does that matter? Is it a “They’ve never lived in the real world so they don’t know what they’re talking about” thing? Because there’s plenty of stupid bosses who aren’t millionaires.
Sounds like you should work for Mike’s Express.
It is my opinion that this would make his life less hellish.
Besides, he can get fired for no reason at all - why not at least try to improve his working conditions?
That was going to be my comment - “Is Mike’s Express hiring?” I can only imagine how satisfying it would be to go work for the competition, and have that be a great job.
I had a Cheap Millionaire Boss once. He kept all the pencils in his office. You had to bring your old pencil in when you needed a new one. If your pencil was more than a couple inches long, you didn’t get a new one.
And no, I’m not kidding.
Stop answering the phone when you know it’s him. When you finally get a chance to speak to him, or he comes in, you say;
“Look, I can fix the chain or I can talk to you. Which one is going to get the chain fixed? Which is going to get the money flowing again?”
Unfortunately, I’ve had to do the same in the past. It takes some balls and some diplomacy to nicely point out that you’d be done sooner if you weren’t having to stop to give updates every couple of minutes.
[sarcasm]
Shame on you. Don’t you know that the comfort and luxury of a wealthy man who is gracious and generous enough to provide you a living is far more important than minor details like a fucking chain that you should be competent enough to fix in a timely manner?
[/sarcasm]
Before you do anything rash, do you think you could arrange to put a plane on that thing and try and take off?
I get paid well, make my schedule, have great benefits, and generally like the work aside from him. Fortunately, he takes vacations so often that I’m left to my own devices a good chunk of the time.
The people that run Mike’s are even worse. The Dahm family is known for their assholish nature, as evidenced by their extreme turnover rate for managers. They work their managers to death.
Plus, I am on salary and am never asked to work more than 50 hours in a week (under normal circumstances) and Mike’s requires their opening managers to be at the store at 5:00am for early morning maintenance, whereas I don’t have to arrive until 7-7:30, as long as I get the place open by 8:00am.
5:00am is too early for me…I’ve been in the Army and lived that life already, no thanks!
Also, I signed a non-compete contract with my company that restricts me from working for Mike’s for I believe 18 months after I leave this job, so I legally can’t really do that.
I’ve tried that before and it enrages him to no end when he knows I am ignoring him. He is one of those people that thinks his time is more valuable than anyone else’s.
I’m constantly amused by complaints about miserly rich people.
My well to do boss admonished me about throwing away the shop’s sweep up trash
by saying, “I made my first million picking up nuts and bolts.”
How do you think well to do people stay well to do but by being miserly even though it may involve others being miserable.
…
There is a vast difference between frugality and stupidity.
Yet amazingly enough the credit column seems to fill in faster when you have people to do the work.
Hehe-did anyone try bringing their own, and if so, what happened?
I don’t know what kind of skills you posses in your job, but I would find another one. Then you can tell your former employer of your dismay a minute or so before you tell him you have found employment elsewhere.
I would include a complimentary flinch with your final word.
Well, he shouldn’t have invested millions of his dollars into a business if he didn’t plan ahead enough to spend some more on keeping it running properly. Carwashes are full of machines that need constant maintenance and inevitably over time, replacement, and it’s expensive. He knows that. It’s also my job to conduct said maintenance and advise the boss on the state of things. Since I’m there almost eevry day and he hardly is, you’d think he’d listen!
I understand not wanting to spend money excessively for random crap the business doesn’t need. In fact I do a good job of that with my company AMEX as far as keeping the office supplied, buying random parts, tools, whatever I actually need for general upkeep.
In this instance, with the single most important piece of equipment in the entire facility on the line, he’s playing the cheap card against the advice of several people that know far more about the industry than he does. It’s just being stupid, and cheap.
It’s funny. I’m contemplating such a move not because my boss can be an idiot at times (I should give him some credit here…he can actually be quite generous. He’s given me his club-level seats to Reds games several times, which are $235 baseball tickets, he’s bought me lavish meals for our Christsmas appreciation every year, etc) but just because I’m getting tired of the business and working weekends.
I went from Army–college student–fine dining waiter–fine wine salesperson–country club bar manager–carwash manager, so the progression is a little strange.
But I am paid well, we just bought a new house, the job market isn’t great…so, I’m looking around for now.
It’s just this particular instance of inanity that’s driving me nuts. Now because the chain is in such a state, I literally never know exactly when I’ll be coming home from work, because if something goes wrong with it (and it has about 10 times in the past three months), I can’t leave until it’s dealt with.
It’s just so painfully obvious the damn thing is worn out and needs replaced! I think he may be more afraid of having to be shut down for an entire day to replace the thing, but that’s preferable to 10 three hour shutdowns at random over a period of a few months. Sometimes longer.
Do you have an estimate of how much money the business is losing while you close down for chain repairs? It seems to me that if you have to keep closing over and over again for a couple months, it’s going to cost your boss that money, plus the eventual $10,000 for the major repairs. So really in the long run, wouldn’t it save him money to replace it now? Does he not realize that? Maybe he needs some logic to smack him upside the head.