Idiots at the Helm
There I was stuck in dead end job #2 during the Decade of Dispair. An opportunity had presented itself in the help wanted section of the local fish rag that seemed to be up my alley but I was wary. After all, I had jumped from the frying pan and into the fire so many times in a row there was little of me left except for a charbroiled piece of gristle. Life is a cruel teacher and I had learned the lessons well: You may be up to your nose in shit but the next job could be worse. Much worse.
So yeah, you might say I was wary.
The one encouraging sign was the fact that the ad actually contained the word “ethics.” That caught my eye. Was that the tiniest glimmer of hope I saw there on the distant horizon? No. It turns out that cheater liars don’t have any compunction about using the word “ethics” in a deceitful way. Duh!
I skillfully and cleverly googled the scanty factual info contained in the ad and quickly had the name of the business, the address, the owner’s name, and his Facebook page and that of his wife’s. I studied it carefully, asking myself: “Is this guy an asshole? A giant douchebag? Or someone I could actually work for?” I devoured everything I could find but there were no easy answers.
I found the company website and studied it. If hired, no doubt I’d be hitching my wagon to that horse. It was a hideous piece of garbage and looked like it had been designed by a small child. I checked the source and saw it was made in Microsoft Frontpage and was probably 10 years old. Ugh. It did have some personality, most likely pompous (this was a small business after all) and I tried to get a read on how that might translate into working for them. No dice.
I studied his Facebook profile picture. It was hard to read this particular book by the cover. Asshole or nice guy? It could have gone anyway. No help there. Now that I know him, though, I estimate the picture is at least 10 years old. There’s another picture of him that I’ve seen since. He loads it on the office computers as the login avatar. If I had seen that version I would have run for the hills. He was wise to keep it far from his Facebook.
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Boss wants it when?
This is me reporting a typical work week forecast in Hell.
What’s a boss? Someone who does a lot of shit you hate. Repeatedly. And does it a lot.
An example is getting pounced by the boss the exact nanosecond you walk into work. As the door swings shut behind you and you begin to walk across the room, the boss patiently counts to .1 then lets it fly.
“Oh. Um. Hey. I have some prices and stock changes for the website for you I need done.”
“For you.” What a quaint way of putting it.
“They need to be entered and saved into the website.”
No shit? I was going to try sticking them in my ear. I have no data to suggest that would work, but I figured what the hell. I’m just a blubbering idiot compared to glowing brilliance that is you.
“I need it done right away.”
What? You’re not giving me five years lead time on this grand project of yours? I’m literally shocked.
You can guess what came next. Yep. I took an additional 15 seconds to walk across the room and reach my desk. I paused to savor a feeling of accomplishment. Wow, I sure accomplished a lot in my first minute at work. Team building? Check. Project management? Check. Blood leaking out of ears? Check! That’s why I keep tampons in my desk.
The boss was watching and waiting expectantly. I put on a little show consisting of setting my coffee down, sitting in my chair, adjusting my chair, turning on my computer display and lots of exciting stuff like that. I could feel the boss’ beady little eyes drilling into me. Creepy. How many minutes left in this day until quitting time? I already feel like I’m roasting in Hell while demons with tongues of flame lick the flesh from my bones.
Finally I turned to face him.
“Sure thing,” I said, being careful to speak to him as if he was a small child. Bosses respond well to that. “Let me know what you want changed and I’ll be happy to take care of it. I’ll make it my top priority.” Bosses like words like “priority.”
This response excited him. He peed himself a little.
But first there was a day full of important boss stuff to get done. This included things like buying stuff on Woot.com, taking 42 phone calls from his wife, reading news stories, playing with his Ameritrade account, “cooking” multiple meals in his disgusting microwave, playing Plants vs. Zombies on his iPad while sitting on the toilet, and, of course, a nap on the office sofa, his Hobbit-like bare feet sticking up in the air.
Several eternities later, it was quitting time. I got up out of my chair. I gathered my things. I slug my backpack over my shoulder and headed for the door.
The boss looked up and said, “What? Are you leaving?”
“Afraid so, old chap. Quittin’ time and all that. Cheerio!”
“Wait,” he cried. “I was just about to send you those changes.”
There followed a long and pregnant and awkward pause. I swallowed my bile and spoke The Question, breaking the silence.
“You don’t want that done now, do you?”
“Yes, I need it now. It has to be done today. My wife has been riding me hard on this one.”
Ah, fear. That’s why it was so damn important you fucked around on it for an incredible eight and half hours. Top priority, indeed.
Like a boss.
It’s not that I minded that much getting a little OT. But seriously. Is there any possible way this grown person with firing power over me could act any dumber? I think not. He’s perfected the art.
I estimate you suck
This is yet another work-related post in a long series of work-related posts. Sorry, sometimes work just has to come out of me, usually in the form of vomit and/or poop.
The boss came to me a few weeks ago and said he wanted a company-only “wiki.” Yeah, just like that famous encyclopedic one. He explained it would be a good place for everyone on the team to document critical information. We’d all benefit by having searchable information at our fingertips.
Even I had to admit that sounded like a logical good idea, if everyone chipped it and actually used the tool effectively.
I should have smelled a rat.
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For the boss: I’m here to help
Pinhead bosses, perhaps intelligent in other aspects of their of their lives, become cripplingly stupid in the workplace. I theorize it is because the greed and power centers of their brain become so enlarged and aroused that they squeeze the thinking part right out.
Even the most mundane tasks, ones that you and I take for granted, can loom like a Death Star in that wide open galaxy of space they call a brain.
Boss: (whining) We’re not sell any of the THX-1138 widgets!
Employee: That’s because you never listed them for sale on the website.
It’s not their fault, really. They’re too busy doing important stuff like telling you what to do, like micromanaging how many rubber bands or pieces of tape you use. They’re only human and can only do so much!
That’s where I come in. I’ve decided to do the mature thing. I’m going to take the high road and forgive their foibles. I’m going to try to help.
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Don’t Call Me Stupid
The Shredder
A young engineer was leaving the office at 3.45 p.m. when he found the Managing director standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Listen,” said the Managing director , “this is a very sensitive and important document, and my secretary is not here. Can you make this thing work?”
“Certainly,” said the young engineer. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.
“Excellent, excellent!” said the Managing director as his paper disappeared inside the machine, “I just need one copy.”
Lesson:
Never, ever assume that your boss knows what he’s doing.
Singing the Praises of my Boss
He took me under his wing. Literally, one day, he wrapped that stinky, unwashed meat of an arm around my shoulders and imparted his wisdom.
“Tommy boy,” he said. “You stink. You’ve been pooping in your pants again, haven’t you?”
I nodded.
He walked me across the room and showed me a strange, wondrous thing. It was a door.
“Beyond here,” he said, “lies a thing known as a toilet. You pull down your pants, sit on it – make sure the lid is up and the seat is down, mind you – and go there instead of your pants.”
“Really?” I gasped. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! I never knew of such things. What would I do without you?”
“Also,” he added. “Don’t forget to wipe your ass. And I see you turning blue sometimes. Don’t forget to breath. Oh yeah, eat food and drink water, too. Or you might die.”
It was one of those life changing events for me. I was going to live thanks to the wisdom of my boss!
—
As I often like to say, I used to be somebody. I was in management. I was trusted to work autonomously and supervise employees on behalf of my company. And, not to brag or anything, but I also have a genius-level I.Q.
Then I moved to a small town where I had to lick ass in order to make ends meet. That’s where my boss steps in.
Is it wrong for me to feel offended when he treats me like a kindergarten dropout incapable of wiping my own ass?
One day, out of pure necessity I assure you, he took me aside and “trained” me on how to close the store. He had no choice since he wouldn’t be there.
I can still remember it. Close and lock the safes, turn out the lights, punch in the alarm code, and lock the door.
Whew. That’s a lot to remember!
Over time I even added my own flourishes to the procedure, like closing the blinds and making sure the thermostat was set for the night. (He must have not wanted to overload me.)
Here’s the rub. When he leaves early he always goes over and locks the safes. This highly offends me. It’s like he’s saying, “You can’t be trusted. I better do this for you.” It might sound petty, but if you were in my shoes, you’d know that he treats his employees like this all day long, even over things as trivial as a piece of tape.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never fucked it up, not even once. He’ll be there to impart his wisdom so your truly little brain might have a chance at understanding.
This week, he left early. He went over and closed the safes. But then he added something new. “I like to make sure the safes are closed before closing the shop.”
Really??? HOLY FUCK SHIT!!! Does the New York Times know about this? How about the Wall Street Journal? They might want to bump motherfucking Obama from their opinion pages.
I mean, who the fuck knew that a safe had to be closed and locked to be effective? I thought that even with the door open the shit inside was somehow magically protected!!!
Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this before??? How have I managed to survive so long on this planet without your invaluable knowledge and insight???
You must really love me to hire someone as woefully stupid as me. I’m so lucky. Thank you, boss. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Oops. I just went stinky in my pants again. Dammit, boss! Where are you?!?
Work sucks: A giant sucking sound
First there was the shot heard round the world. Then came the sucking sound heard round the world…
This Tuesday morning the work week started like most any other. And by that I mean, of course, hating myself and wishing I had the guts to … well, a little self-censorship can occasionally be a good thing. ‘Nuff said.
We were in the factory going about the business of selling our piece of shit widgets. It was gloomy.
Suddenly the phone rang and the boss took the call…
It was obvious that something was up. Soon the boss was panting like a bitch in heat, even more than he normally does. A big fish was on the line!
Eventually he hung up the phone and let out a holler. “I just made a $20,000 sale!”
I glanced over in disgust just long enough to see that his eyeballs were gone. In their place were spinning green orbs, pulsating, glowing and looking a hell of a lot like dollar signs.
The boss was gone, yo.
As always when customers were involved, there was some urgency regarding the order. In fact, they needed it like yesterday. Just like always. My failure to plan is your emergency. Typical.
Due to the figures involved, the boss couldn’t wait to lick their hand and give them every consideration. Remember – This is the all-knowing, all-seeing magical boss of intelligence who makes the Wizard of Oz look like idiotic mold found on top of pond scum.
Long story short, he devised a plan that was pure genius. Genius!!!
It went a little something like this:
Step One – Skip the step where we accept payment before shipping product. Remember, these customers were in a hurry.
Step Two – Spend all day working on the order, trying to keep up the appearances that you can actually follow through on what you said you’d do. Forsake all other tasks and customers who are suddenly irrelevant.
Step Three – Ship everything you can scrape together out the door.
Step Four – Payment magically comes, somehow, later.
The boss explained his ace up his sleeve here. If they didn’t come through with the payment as promised, he’d simply call UPS and recall the shipment. Oh, it sounds so damn easy in his fantasies.
The package was shipped. It contained about $14,000 worth of stupid, piece of shit goodies that we sell. Hey, it’s a living.
The next day the payment call didn’t come in as promised.
The boss waited another day then leapt into action. Suddenly the customer became hard to get a hold of and didn’t return calls. But still he held off on recalling the shipment.
On Thursday the window of opportunity on the shipment closed. The product was now in their grubby little fingers.
And then, today, the shit hit the fan. Oh my. I’m so surprised. Who could have foreseen this? Certainly not a blubbering idiot like me that depends on the boss to tell me how to wipe my own ass.
How did the boss spend his day? Crying about transaction fees on a $14,000 credit card charge. At two or three percent it worked out to be about $300. You see, the customer had to cancel the order but the credit card processing companies still keep their cut. Man, no pig in the history of the universe ever squealed so damn well! You’d think they wanted one of his kidneys or something. Actually, scratch that. He would have actually given one of those up to save the money from his own damn mistake.
That’s assuming, of course, that we eventually do get paid and don’t have to eat a $14k loss on this deal, which I feel is still possible. He was moaning a little while ago about how the customer had “lied” to him.
He spent all day long on the phone schmoozing banks, credit card companies, processing centers, and also the customer. He thinks he’s so damn smooth with his sickening little “aren’t I funny” giggle. Ugh. All he did was beg for other people to fix his mistake so it wouldn’t cost him personally. I thought it was really cute how when things didn’t go exactly his way he’d drop his fake nice person persona and turn on them in anger. Ha ha ha ha ha!
And he really squealed some more when getting schooled on how funds were on hold, refunds would have to come from his business checking, etc. That means he has to shift $14k of his own money around to cover this mistake for about a week. “I have the money,” he wined, “but I don’t want to do that!” If he was three years old holding his wubbie and stamping his foot it would have been sublime perfection.
This post is a hatchet job but I don’t care. I just wanted to share. I love working for intelligent people.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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