In my first book, How To Destroy Your Employees, I document many effective methods for managers to be complete dicks.
Perhaps it’s time for me to start working on the updated Second Edition.
As indicated above, my new boss has this annoying habit of treating me like I’m an idiot. Oh, rich irony! He’s so dumb he doesn’t even know he’s the one who’s dumb.
I won’t bother to go into the minutia of a myriad of details. Suffice it to say he reminds you of things you already know, speaks authoritatively about everything (Cliff Clavin much?), interrupts when you speak, shuts you down when you are explaining that you do know some things yourself (and then explains them again), etc. Yada yada yada. All day long. Every single day. For the rest of your life. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s gotten to the point where I literally feel queasy just from the sound of his motherfucking voice.
The great irony here, of course, is that if I’m so stupid, if I have to have every single thing explained to me, if I can’t wipe my own ass without his personal supervision, if I have to be led to every single task every single time … then … what the fuck does that say about him?
Who’s the moronic fucking stupid idiot dim bulb, now? If that’s what you think I am then you must be that tenfold to be stupid enough to have hired me, eh? Mwuahahahaha!
I’d been on the job for a few months, but I wasn’t trustworthy enough to have the sacred key to the office. I went over five years at the last job without the key, too. For some reason, the more dishonest, immoral and unethical the boss, the less they trust others. Perhaps they are under the mistaken impression that everyone is just like them? Once again they are too dumb to see how they are wrong.
Anyway, the day came when necessity suddenly demanded that I be trusted with the key. In other words, he needed it and there was no other way. Typical asshole logic here. “I want, therefore I do.”
I was shown the oh-so-complicated procedure for locking up the office. I had to repeat it all in Crayon to convince him my limited pea-sized brain could grok. Lock the safes. Turn off the lights. Punch in the code. Lock the door.
Ooh, that is hard. I can see why only a boss could be trusted with such responsibility.
I did it for weeks when he was out of town. And then a bit more. And now it is not that uncommon that it happens on an almost weekly basis.
And, never once, in the entire recorded history of human civilization, have I ever done it wrong or made the slightest mistake.
Meanwhile, the boss came to work early one morning and left for WalMart to buy flowers for his wife. (Ha!!!!!!!!!) Of course he fucked the alarm, and the alarm company called the outdated number on file, and woke his wife up sleeping at home while he was at WalMart buying her shit. She had to get out of bed, drive down to the shop, and meet with the alarm company to handle the situation.
Moron.
So, on those times when he asks me to close the shop, he ALWAYS asks me, “Do you know how?” And then, he ALWAYS goes and locks the safes himself. I can’t be trusted with that level of responsibility. Only he knows how to push a door shut and turn a little lever. I’m too stupid.
My wife says I take this sort of thing the wrong way and I should let it bother me so much. My answer is generally a stream of profanity.
We’re in the business of selling widgets. That’s what we do. That’s how we make money. The boss and I had a conversation about inventory once. He hates inventory. But yet he likes selling things. He wants to have exactly enough to satisfy orders for the next few days or so. Too little and we have to tell people we’re out. Too much and he starts whining like a stuck pig about “financing” his inventory with AmeriTrade (ooh, fancy!) and economic concepts like “flooring.” (That’s the alleged costs of owning something long enough to retail it.)
To accomplish all this, he manages all the little dials to the max. He places ten inventory orders a day with a variety of suppliers, and we receive ten inventory shipments a day. I’m like, WTF? Why not order 10 times as much and do one-tenth of the motherfucking work? But what do I know? I’m a blubbering idiot covered in my own drool. Of course, he spends all day fixing the mistakes generated by his jury rigged system, but his way is best.
So I find 20 widgets sitting on the shelf. They’ve been there a long time. No one told me to follow up on this. I do it proactively and without The All Seeing Great Eye of Boss upon me.
Come to find out, guess what? They’re not listed for sale on ANY of our channels. Guess they’ll have “flooring” issues for quite some time, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
So I get a price from him and get them for sale. They move like hotcakes. We make a nice profit on them and I clear them out the door.
Remember, I’m the idiot. He’s the brilliant one. So brilliant that he worries about “flooring” and then buys shit to just sit. Anyone can make a mistake, but this is just one tiny spectrum of what he does.
Then, I’m so goddamn naive I could punch myself in the face, I take the scenario to him and mention what happened. I guess this is the part that makes my wife angry. Because here I truly am the idiot, the insane person that Einstein talked about doing the same thing and expecting different results.
I’m on a fishing trip looking for the wee tiniest of kudos. Actual appreciation from the boss for my proactivity, noticing a problem, taking the initiative to fix it, and the successful result.
Could he stop smacking his lips and wheezing and grunting long enough to say thank you? Was there any sign that his brain recognized the concepts I was explaining? That it knew what had happened? Did he even bother to phlegm up the word thanks?
Nope. His fleshy germ-ridden unwashed fingers paused on his keyboard, he looked at me briefly and said, “I sure made a good buy on that lot.”
That’s it. You’ve been dismissed by the King. Now go get your face back licking those horse stalls. You idiot!
Shouts from the Abyss 
You floor me. Really. This post was a corker and I was on the tiles wool gathering, carpeting myself with laughter. You sure know how to weave a tale.
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This was one of those times where I knew I wanted to communicate something but I didn’t put much thought into how. The hook is buried way down this post where only the most intrepid reader will dare to tread.
Basically I sat down this morning before leaving for work when I was short on time and spewed forth upon my keyboard a stream of what works for me as consciousness.
I hit publish and rushed out the door without time to spend on proofreading, editing, grammar and readability.
Thus it stands as-is; a monument to an average glimpse of the goings-on inside my head.
Thanks for reading! I get off when my pain can amuse.
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At last, I’m home. Maybe I’ll read through this now and see how bad I did. Or maybe not.
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