The horror, the horror-- the job that made you cry

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I hope this is the right forum for this post. My apologies if it should be elsewhere.

I’d like to hear your work horror stories. No, not the worst/most menial/most disgusting job-- I want to hear about the job you were bad at. The one that made you feel like a failure because you sucked at it.

I know this is a painful topic, but I need some perspective. I’m currently finishing up the last two weeks of a job that I suck at. Some background…

  • I moved abroad and took this job to get my working papers.

  • It’s a start-up, but not related to the Internet at all.

  • Our company in Europe consists of two people, me and my legal boss (he was forced to hire me by the people running the company from the US-- he hates me.)

  • Aside from my “real” tasks, I’ve also had to do menial stuff, like picking up drycleaning and getting the cable in the apartment fixed. I’ve also been told by my legal boss that I’m worthless, incompetent, and if it was up to him I’d have been fired long ago.

  • I’m leaving this job because I was accepted to a Master’s program at a really good school here. (So how incompetent and worthless can I be??)

  • I wake up nauseated and go home feeling like I’m gonna cry. I’m rereading David Copperfield to remind myself that it could always be worse

Please, please, make my day and tell me your horror stories. How did you get out of your bad job? Did you go on to bigger and better things? How did you deal with the boss that hated you?

Ack. I’m at work, it’s only 9:30. Help me out, folks!

2

You must know and have to understand that this guy is a boorish asshole with delusions of grandeur. He is not your better , he is merely on a higher rung within that particular corporation.

Youu gotta figure that the day is fast approaching when you’ll have a far far better career and worklife and that guy will most likely still be there annoying other people and being a dick.

He’s not worth getting upset about.
Before you leave consider lodging a complaint about his behaviour. It might make life for your succesor easier.

Go do the job but stop commiting yourself emotionally to it.
You’re there to pay the bills not to seek the approval of the petty office nazi.

3

Oh and where in your contract does it state you are his personal slave? Noone is going tohave a problem with you telling this guy to pick up his own damn dry cleaning

4

Damhna, of course you are right. I have to clarify. This is my first “real” post-college job, and at the beginning my position was pretty fluid-- I was there to do whatever needed to be done. Thus, the drycleaning, among other tasks.

Other thing: This time last year there were four employees–me, my boss and two other people. Both of them were fired by mid-October last year.

I know he’s a tyrant and a jerk; I’m just having a hard time concentrating on my tasks because I dislike him and am (hey, I’ll admit it) afraid of him. So I make stupid mistakes, which compounds my fear, self-disgust, etc.

Thank you for your kind words.

5

There have been two-neither one was really bad because I was bad at it, but because of other circumstances in the job.

The summer after my freshman year in college, I worked in a grocery store deli. This place had such high turnover, that I was training people after 2 weeks-when I really didn’t know what I was doing yet(hell, I never figured out that cash register thing). At the same time, I hadn’t learned that what I do is not who I am, so I had stress nightmares all summer long. It sucked, and I lost about 30 lbs during the summer.
The job I have now is just a nightmare. Bad boss, bad situation. I am looking earnestly for another job, but right now there is nothing around my location in my field. Right now, I’m sitting here with my stomach rolling at the thought of going to work, and I don’t even have to go to the main office today. I did learn that my job is not my life when I was laid off of my last job over a year ago…but even knowing that doesn’t help in this situation. I’m tempted to walk in one day and quit, and that will happen, but I really have to find another job before that because I do have rent to pay.

6

My very first job was that of a Dishwasher at Bill Knapp’s Restaurant. (For those who aren’t familiar, Bill Knapp’s is a family style, sit down restaurant) Yes, I sucked at it, but in all fairness, they made the job impossible to do. If I’m a dishwasher, I expect to wash dishes, NOT prepare dishes of Au Gratin Potatoes, clean chicken, AND wash dishes. I ended up quitting (they were happy about that) and working a summer job as a camp counselor.

Fast forward about 7 years.

I am convinced by my college roommate to apply for a waiter job at a “Big Boy” restaurant (Another family style, sit down restaurant). The reason I apply is because my college roommate was able to put himself through school, pay his rent, and buy some toys (a keyboard and PC) while working at this job. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. Having to remember the prices of over 50 items as well as wait on as many as 10 tables that have been all simultaneously seated in your area all at the same time. No way. I ended up forgetting orders or screwing them up. I was never able to leave my shift on time because I had to stay over to do all my cleanup and prep work for the next shift. It was so bad that after working a late shift, I would have nightmares about it. Then when I’d get up in the morning, I’d have to work again. It was as if I never left work. Needless to say, I was fired when the semester ended. That job indeed sucked for me.

7

Oh, I almost forgot.

maryliza, I can empathize with you. Sometimes we take a job because we have to. Circumstances at the time made it so I couldn’t leave my waiter job, so I had to suffer through it.

I hope you can tough it out long enough to find a good job.

8

Boy, I’ve been there!

I got a job at a investment brokerage firm via a friend. I was the wire-operator, which meant I actually typed in and sent the trades to the various Exchanges. I worked in the same cubicle with (note: not for) our cashier , who handled the day-to-day money transactions: people bringing in stock certificates they’d sold, making payments on their accounts, depositing to their IRA, etc. I was very, very good at my job. My error rate was something like .04%. Brokers all liked me, I liked them.

Because the Exchanges would, of course, have slow periods, my boss would let me read at my desk. I would use this as a last resort; I’d reorganize our mutual fund brochures, clean up, do some tasks for the secretary who worked in the Bond area, assist the cashier if she needed some help filing (I did a lot of filing for her), whatever I could to keep myself busy. However, even all this work would eventually dry up, so I’d read.

So I’ve been there about 18 months at this point. I’ve gotten married. My husband and I are about to buy a house. You know how much time you spend on the phone when you buy a house: talking to the bank, your realtor, the insurance company, etc. Randy and I talked every day for about 5 minutes (or less) when he took his break at 10:00 a.m. It never interferred with my work, none of the brokers ever complained. Well, Ms. Cashier decided she was going to start keeping track of my phone calls. On her desk calendar. Every time I got on the phone, regardless of whether it was business or not, she’d mark it down. I sat right across from her so I’d see her do it. She started getting b****y to me, giving me the silent treatment, just a total loser attitude. Very high school. This went on for about 6 months or more.

I went to my boss and complained; he was completely spineless. “Just ignore her.” No amount of complaining would work. He was too afraid to say anything to her and finally, the mental games just got to be too much so I quit. All the brokers were sad to see me go and told me under their breath that Ms.Cashier would be better off leaving (she treated them like dirt too).

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one she had screwed with. Another lady there, who was supposedly a very good friend of Ms. Cashier, knew her broker (who was manager at the time) was being extremely dishonest (he was fired over this) and so she was thinking of quitting and finding a new job. She had told Ms. Cashier this and Ms. Cashier went and told her boss. Made things interesting and the lady never spoke to the cashier after that - she eventually did find a new job.

I had tried to mend fences with her. I asked her, “Did I do something to offend you? If so, I’m sorry.”, continued to help her with her work, was nice and polite to her. Feh. What a waste of air she is.

If the same situation happened now, I’d probably say, “What’s your problem, b****? Get over yourself.” I’ve long since learned to not allow my happiness to depend on what someone else thinks of me. But, I was 23 at the time, in my first job I really liked and still kind of too nice for my own good.

Good luck in grad school, maryliza. Remember, he can’t intimidate you unless you let him! Go, girl!

9

Well, I’m feeling a little better this afternoon. Helps to know that the weekend is here, plus the people who we share the office with are throwing me a going away party! It made my day when I heard that. (Well… unless they’re throwing a party because they’re happy I’m leaving…) The tyrant in in this afternoon, but that’s fine because he said “Don’t worry, I’m in a much better mood today!”.

The jerk.

Dragwyr, I hear you on the nightmares. It seems like no matter what you do, you’re job is hanging over you. I’ve also done the food-service thing. Hated it.

Lsura, It’s the money. I know. You want to leave, you’ve got to leave, you have to pay the rent. Dilemma. I, personally, will be adding a few thousand more dollars to my not-inconsiderable loan amount in order to go back to school, get a(nother) degree and find a better job.

I want it to be like in the movies, where ten years from now, I (who will be fabulously wealthy and famous) meet up with him (broke, pathetic, lonely) and … oh, I can’t decide. Either I kick him in the shins at this point, or make some truly graceful gesture.

Anyway, thanks for sharing the stories and keep them coming!

10

Maryliza- just think this when your boss is an ass.

He has a small one, and he’s pissed off about it. Yelling and being a bastard distracts him temporarily. His wife probably bosses him around, and work is the only place he has any power.

Might not be far from the truth, and it might make the day go easier.

11

This was a long time ago, but essentially I took a job outside of my area of expertise to pay the bills while I kept the printer busy churning out resumes. I was young and naïve, or my bullshit detectors would have told me to walk out of the interview. The position was to be Public Relations, and I was led to understand I’d be putting together customer service materials, taking the odd customer call, and meeting with perspective customers. Well… The company didn’t sell anything, at least nothing besides a ‘membership’ that allowed you to order from their catalog. And customers didn’t call or stop in, nor did I help anyone. When things were ‘slow’ [which of course was always] I was to drum up business with some cold calling. Not surprisingly, everyone at the company would make cold calls using the company script during the unending ‘slow’ periods. Blaargh! That sucked. I work in the sciences (where I belong) now, and anytime my job gets me frustrated, I think back to the hell that is telemarketing.

12

One of the awful jobs I’ve had in this godforsaken burg was working for an alleged software distributor called Micro-Pace. They were primarily an Amiga dealer (yes, in 1994) and were starting to get alarmed because Amigas just weren’t selling well in 1994. So they decided to branch out into CD-ROM games, which everyone else was doing as well (the format was just tsarting to gear up). I was hired to sell said CD-ROMs to an existing customer base (ie, no cold-calling).

First off, that was a lie. There was no existing customer base, and it was all cold-calling. But this place was terrible. There were days when I literally had nothing to sell any customers I might have, and yet I was supposed to call them anyway. We often had no stock. When we did, we had ridiculous quantities (like a certain very hot game that we probably could have sold - if we’d gotten in more than SIX. We’re supposed to be a distributor and we got SIX copies of it.) When we had the product and quantity, our prices were outrageous. I had people actually laugh at our prices.

After three months I had one cutomser and I don’t know why that person even bought anything from me. I had been through our list of stores all over the country and had one customer. I was still expected to have high phone time each day, even though I had no one to call. I eventually found a movie line in New Orleans that I would call and just press buttons over and over listening to the movie schedules. After a while I stopped doing even that, in the hopes that I’d get fired. There wasn’t a single day there that I actually made the amount I was paid.

People would ask why they should buy from us and I had no answer. I sure as hell wouldn’t have bought from us. We had nothing over the two major software distributors.

I absolutely hated the place. I dreaded going in there each day, and after I came home, I would just sit on the couch and stare because I was so upset. I know it doesn’t sound that bad, but it really got to me - I felt like any day they were going to realize I wasn’t doing anything and something terrible would happen.

I eventually walked out of the place one day. I just couldn’t take it any more and I left. They’re still in business, somehow. I always suspected they were some kind of money laundering front company that didn’t need to make any money.

I’ve held a lot of crappy jobs in this town, which is a university town that is quite aware of how many students need jobs and how much shit they’ll eat for one. If you don’t like it, no problem, there are five more students (or spouses of students, like me) waiting to fill your position. I’m happy to say that I’m finally in a decent one.

13

I had a job stocking ice cream in a freezer warehouse for a couple of months. During the summer crunch, we had 50-70 hour weeks, grueling labor in sub-zero conditions, all in a time-sensitive environment. By the end of two weeks, the strain on my body (mind you, I’d already been lifting weights for 3 years so was in great shape to begin with) had burned enough body fat off of me to make me look like the Crow.

The job was so stressful I couldn’t sleep except in half hour stretches. I’d sleep, doze for a half hour, then shake myself awake, go back to sleep, doze, shudder back to wakefulness. Bad.

The thing that got me the most was how we’d kick our asses for 14 hours, then the next day the management would yell at us for not working hard enough. I’m not joking. Probably the best day of my life was the day I quit that job. I did absolutely nothing for a month straight after that–it was the closest thing to a perfect vacation I’ve ever had.

14

My pitiful ass can’t even work retail jobs. My worst job was at Target. I took it because I was 19 and thinking, “Hey, I can pull this off”. So, Jessica(me), takes the job forgetting that she hates people, hates working WITH people, hates smiling when unneccessary. I hated that job from day one. Second day of the job I got swindled out of money by a “customer” while cashiering. I had to fill out a police report and such. I didn’t want to cashier any more because I had fucked up so badly on the second day. Third day on the job my bitch of a “team leader” sent me off to stock shelves and move stock off the shelves. Did she show me where I was supposed to move it or where the stuff that I was supposed to stock was at? No. She left with her friend to smoke for about an hour, came back and got mad at me for not knowing what I was doing. Fourth day of the job a customer called me a “fucking bitch” because I did not know what kind of backpack she was talking about or if we had it in the store. After the second week of working there, I still didn’t understand what the fuck I was doing. Nobody would explain it clearly when I asked them. I started to cry while “zoning” the aisles. I started to cry alot actually. I would come home exausted at freaking one in the morning, get up next day and go in the morning shift. I put my two weeks in after I got tired of hiding from customers and pretending that I cared.

15

Oh! That reminds me! To make matters worse, in France you have to give three months notice before quitting. So since June 25, I’ve been in weird post-resignation, pre-departure limbo. I negociated leaving the 7th, which works out just fine for my boss since (did I already mention this?) he freaking hates me. Not to mention the fact that SINCE my resignation, he’s been threatening to fire me on a weekly basis. PLEASE! DO IT! I’d get so much more money if that was the case.