The Saddest Example of Unprofessional Behaviour I've Yet Seen

40 of us (including management, support, and grunts) occupied the back half of a building; the front was unoccupied at the time. Naturally, the rear bathroom facilities and cruder than the front facilities. In the men’s bathroom, there were two stalls and one urinal. For a few months, “Crapper-John”, who was a serial non-flusher, would defecate into the toilet and walk away, failing to dispose of the contents. Annoying, but there are always jerks in every office.

One day we’re issued an email, about an “all-hands” meeting. Every message I ever received included the term “All-hands” was a code-word for bad news; rumors flew about layoffs. About 40 of us show up expecting the worst–instead the only topic was the principle manager sternly warning us that if ever caught the person “not flushing the toilet”, they would be fired. It was visceral, emotionally angry rant. We, on the other hand, were trying to keep a straight face like the soldiers in the Pontius Pilate scene in The Life of Brian.

But no lay-offs. Woo-Hoo!

Then the copycatting started. Another meeting… :rolleyes:…

I, along with others, started secretly using the the front facilities to avoid suspicion.

That manager eventually retired, but “Crapper-John” continued his reign of terror long after I left.

[quote=“Jackknifed_Juggernaut, post:19, topic:578494”]

Willy (shouting across the room): “Hey Kathy!”
Kathy (shouting back with a smile): “Yes Willy!?”
Willy (still shouting): “Pimps up! Hoes down!”
Everybody else: :eek:
Kathy: :confused: “What was that ???”
Willy: “You heard me! Pimps up, hoes down!, but I’m just playin’”
Kathy: :mad: (but no words)
Willy (still smiling): “Yeah, you know what I’m saying!”

[QUOTE]

What does “Pimps up! Hoes down!” even mean? :confused:

Indeed. That story is awful; not much hope for a healthy culture if that is one of the leaders of it…

I really don’t know where it originated, but he was basically calling her a prostitute. The term refers to men or “pimps” keeping their women or “hoes” in check. Kind of like how a pimp might treat one of his prostitutes. I believe that there was a documentary with the same name. “Hoe” is often used as a shortened version of “whore”, in case you didn’t know that.

My sister reminded me this week of how it would sit next to you, all aquiver with excitement, waiting for you to make the slightest move, which would send it into paroxysms of ecstatic barking. We would sit there and not move for hours.

I had blanked this memory out.

This is clearly bad training; the dog was, if not alpha, then at least beta, lording it over everyone in the house but its owner. Proper training would have had it subservient to all humans.

We can always rely on you to understand the big issues, ralph.

Hah - I have a dog named Binkley, and that’s how I keep seeing it.

the other day my boss (not for much longer due to things like this) said completely out of the blue
Boss “You come to work Stoned EVERY DAY!”
Me "what the Hell are you talking about?
Boss “You come to work Stoned, Why else would you sleep on the couch!?”
Me “…”
evidently a 15 minute nap on the couch when you have nothing to do for the next hour or 3 is something only stoners do.

It’s even better if you imagine Alec Baldwin saying it.

I worked on Executive Perks at one job - very enlightening experience. I was left with the impression that their mantra is “If one is to win - others must lose. The more others lose - the more I win.” (Insert your own political reactions…) But my image was always of giant babies wailing away, if they put half as much energy and focus as they did in chasing perks into oh, I don’t know, actually running the company, we would have been unbeatable!

Eg. Oh, I get a company car? How about oil changes? I can’t be expected to pay for oil changes? And washing it, after all it’s not MY car. I shouldn’t have to pay for washing it! Hmmm, then there’s gas. Oh, yeah, I’m gonna need XM/Sirius. Aw hell, can I just get a driver?

I am still trying to figure out what happened on this one…

Was this supposed to be a joke?

Was the guy so intoxicated that he didn’t know what he was saying?

Did he finally seem to understand at some point during the party, (but after the damage was already done) that he had just said something that would lead to his firing?

How much did Kathy charge for a 2-hour “Greek Blessing” show?

I had an instructor in college (not a professor, but a visiting postdoc or something), who, after claiming she’d seen me that weekend doing something or other I hadn’t been doing in a place I hadn’t gone near, challenged my protestations that she must have been mistaken with an almost theatrically suspicious “Are you stoned?”

“No.” I replied. “Are you?”

I was once a Library Page (the peon who reshelves the books and other items). This public library had a policy: at the Library’s Christmas party, the Pages were NOT invited, period. I worked there while I was in grad school in my mid 40s.
The whole concept of it just blew me away. Without the Pages putting the stuff back on the shelves (in the correct order etc), nobody could check anything out. But the post-menopausal cadre who ran this Library did not want to “mix” with the mostly teen and young 20-somethings who were the Pages (at something like $8/hr). So much for staff working together to provide excellent patron services. :rolleyes:

And then there was the Assistant Nurse Manager who told me that someday she and I would meet in the parking lot before (or after) work and she’d teach me a thing or 2. That one I should have gone to HR about, but didn’t. She left the hospital to work as a traveling nurse in Maine, where she died. I have always hoped it was in a parking lot…

I worked Security for a small University in the twin cities. My new supervisor, a retired cop crony of my retired cop boss, had already proven, in the space of one week, to have zero integrity or honor.

I was basically alone, busting my ass closing the campus by myself because the two other people on my shift were worthless. Three of us, but I routinely did 80% of closing by myself. Despite having these two worthless motherfuckers on the shift, in the middle of close one night I got a call to come into the office to take a statement.

I get into the office to find this young woman who had been beat up and robbed. I’m told to take her statement. Not one of the other two who aren’t doing anything. Me.

This young woman has been beaten, though not badly, has been robbed, and is on our office crying and trying to give ME a report. While our retired cop “supervisor” and an off duty cop sit in the NEXT FUCKING ROOM loudly joking. After all she’s been through, she is thoroughly insulted, shocked and angry that they TWO COPS were blowing her off and turning her over to me, while they sit around shooting the shit and ignoring her.

I was livid that they would do this. I later angrily confronted my piece of shit supervisor about it. His excuse was that it was MY JOB, NOT HIS, and what he was doing at the time was “community relations” and was much more important that taking a victim statement. That he would chose to do this every time, and that I was being insubordinate in mouthing off to him about it.

Oh yeah, within a few weeks, he became assistant director, and a few weeks later I was fired under contrived circumstances for challenging management on this issue and others.

There are very few people in the world about which I hold this low of an opinion, and whom I actively wish bad things to happen to.

Karma is coming motherfucker.

See, I feel like people say crazy shit like that around me all the time and I would never, ever suspect anything other than “they are crazy drunk and have lost their marbles”.

It’s so they can tell their “buddies” - what my boyfriend calls 40 year old fat, balding middle managers, often former frat boys - their perks are while they’re at happy hour or on the golf course.

I just remembered a recent episode of unprofessionalism. I’m back at physical therapy for my knee (groan) and the athletic trainer I rehabbed with was hanging around reception, waiting for a physical therapist to be ready to evaluate me. He starts commenting on one of the reception girls’s hair, how the color is better and the part to one side is really good and makes her look best. The tension is growing and she’s getting super uncomfortable so I exclaim, “Joe is an expert on all things hair and makeup” and grin. Thankfully she smiles and laughs and the moment is over.

He’s a genius when it comes to physical therapy for athletes but a moron when he talks to girls half his age.

I used to contract music for corporate events in the NYC area, and it was usually the investment banking firms that were most insistent that support staff must not get to eat, never mind drink. And yes, that often included post-event.

What a shock!!!

Hmm. I wonder if he was calling her a *pimp *along with himself. At my job, we always call each other ‘pimp’. It’s just a slang term. Like ‘playa’ or ‘gangsta’. Or how you might say ‘chief’.

If he was just saying it in a way of saying, “hey, Kathy, we rule and all these other squares drool”, then it’s kind of too bad he got fired for it. I think it is really unlikely that he knowingly called her a hoe out of the blue for no reason with a grin on his face.

I hate people who are on the clock who talk to other staff in front of customers, especially when they do it instead of serving customers. That always feels like I’m interfering with their socializing by trying to give their company my money (and there are few companies out there that want their customers to feel like they’re intruding).

You may be right but it’s still not appropriate at a company holiday party. The phrase was used regularly in the office for months afterwards, by males and females. Just not in front of managers.