Job Swill

I have the dubious distinction of having held a variety of really shitty jobs. REALLY. SHITTY. JOBS. And while I do not want to make the argument that any of them are worse than what I have seen on this site, it is safe to say a couple of them are unique in this regard: the bullshit didn't end when I left. Be advised there is no happy ending to this story--- yet anyway--- but time is working on my side. Read on and you'll understand...

Job #1: I was an advertising sales assistant at an in-room hotel publication. Unbeknownst to me at the time I was hired, I was walking into a "situation"--- and by using the word 'situation' I am talking about a study in female office dynamics that makes "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" look like water ballet. You see, I was to work under two women and one was the immediate supervisor of the other. The uber-boss, we'll call her "Blanche", was brought in to supervise my under-boss, who I will henceforth call "Jane".

Jane had applied for the uber-boss position and was passed over in favor of an outside candidate (Blanche). This probably came to pass because Jane is a fucking psycho (as I soon learned): enabling her to supervise anyone would be on par with letting Michael Jackson run a day care facility. Bad idea. In any case, I had already become a pawn between two women who despised each other. Great.

In the interest of brevity I will forgo talking about Blanche's psychotic behavior, as Jane behavior was much more venal...

It started with small stuff: Jane would bitch at me for messing up her file system (I never know there was a 'system', looked piles of shit to me) or she would claim I did not send/give her some vital piece of paper work (and I'd re-send the emails addressed to her proving I did). That's roughly when she told me I had to email her each time I put something in her inbox (because it was not an 'in' box it was a compost heap).

I work at at Neiman Marcus in a major city, and I have a co-worker who has to be the most utterly clueless homosexual ever. I won't even go into his sense of fashion, or the fact that his nose hairs are always sprouting out of his nose. The only reason he's still working at Neiman's is because he's sleeping with one of the managers, who is totally hot. I can't imagine what he sees in "Ted."

Ted either lives under a rock or is maybe isn't gay after all. We work in the shoe department, and who walks onto the floor, but Cher. I have to say, the surgery is pretty flawless because she doesn't look 60. Anyway, no she didn't walk in with a feathered headdress on and a wearing only a g-string, but Cher is Cher right?

I worked for a "cocunut" family who owned a veterinary clinic.

The father was a veterinarian as well as his middle son. then we had the mother who did all the paperwork. The youngest worked as an assistant in the back with the doctors and finally the older brother, he was the so called the "boss". He had no skills but his mother thought the world of him.

While he would be sitting down I would walk by him and drop a few chips or pieces of little papers on his head. He would walk around serving clients and all of a sudden he would tilt his head the papers or chips would fall, he used to get very upset at me and would tell me to stop it. (I didn't).

Anyhoos after a few months of this he finally said enough and sent me packing in his letter he said that I did not show professionalism at work. Funny, I now work in a Deputy Minister's office.

(Posted by Michelle)

i worked at a high powered hollywood agency, this is back in 2002 , before MOST people were blogging, maybe even you miu.

well, i used my blog as a journal for my big move to LA to work for said agency and blogged every party, every rumor, idea, random story and musing on my life.

my friends read it and loved, but no one at the agency knew.

i started blogging about how much i hated my boss (now a high powered agent) and after he and i got into a disagreement, i left and wrote a rant about how much i hated him.

i got on a really powerful agent's desk and was fired going down in a blaze of glory. the blog address was revealed and sent around the agency. i'm pretty sure i was blackballed for about 6 months cause i could not get a job.

i rebounded...learned alot, but that was hilarious and i'm a legend at that agency. people liked me cause my work spoke for itself, i was a hard worker, but i'm reknowned for my mouth, loud, sarcastic, obnoxious, unique.

(Posted by Anonymous)

I was recently fired from my job at a major bank. The fact is, the whole incident was totally my fault. I had a crush on "Mark'' (think Ryan Phillippe's slightly older brother) for the last year, and jumped at every opportunity to work with him. We were both assigned to a branch promotion, and had to come up with some type of event for our wealthier clients (who cares about the poor ones, right).

We had tried to work on the projects during office hours, but working in a busy branch like ours, it was extremely hard to find the time. So Mark suggested that we work one night after banking hours. I was up for it. I mean anything to let me spend some more time with Mark - why the hell not.

So we end up staying one evening, and work steadily for the first hour or so. Mark finds a bottle of wine that was in our storage room from a previous bank function, and we decide to open it. We don't get overtime, so consider this our bonus. Well, we end up getting a bit tipsy, and one thing leads to another, and we end up having sex in the ATM room.

Two days later, Mark and I are called into our managers office, and he informs us that we are both fired. Security had reviewed the video tape (we honestly didn't even think of that), because there had been a discrepancy in the ATM balancing from that day. Well needless to say, I have never been so embarrassed in my life.

And guess what, Mark never spoke to me again after that day. I was such an idiot.

(Posted by Anonymous)

I love my job because we have in and out boxes (which I have to empty every hour)! My boss gets creative with her out box by putting her stapler in it when she needs staples, or by putting an empty post-it wrapper in it because she needs more post-its! But my favorite of all time has to be when she put her cup in her out box because she wanted more water. I LOVE MY JOB!!

Well I was just laid off on Monday. Our company announced back in September that our division had been sold. Due to numerous inaccuracies with the company's financial statements and auditing issues the deal dragged on for 5 months until Friday when the sale was finally complete.

Flash Forward three days to Monday morning. I was on a conference call...in other words doing my job at 9 am...when my boss calls me and the other three women I work with into her office and announces that we have all been laid off. Seven people in our department of 14 got the axe. I have never been more floored in my life!!

The thing that pissed me off the most though was when we all had our exit interviews 1) it was via conference call...they couldn't even send someone down to our office in Texas to do it in person and 2) the first thing out of the HR reps' mouth is "First I want to apologize..." Gimme a FREAKING BREAK!!! Apologize are you kidding me?!

It's like I gave this company 5 years and with no notice whatsoever you tell me to pack my shit and get out!

(Posted by Anonymous)

I was fired from Champps restaurant for sexually harassing a woman. A 300lb woman. This is really exciting because I am married and a mother of two. Obviously my boss did not like me. She claimed this by telling the other woman that her parents where difficult and this created a hostile work environment and that constituted sexual harrassment. This job does not go on my resume.

(Posted by Anonymous)

Editors Note: Huh?

I have a coworker that I simply cannot stand. We'll call him Doug. It's hard to know where to start when it comes to describing Doug, but I'll try.

For starters, there is Doug's hygiene. Before I started with the company, they were operating out of a much smaller workspace, and from what I hear, the guy who sat next to Doug actually had to go a supervisor and talk to him about how bad Doug smelled, between the B.O. and the farting. Now we're in a bigger office, but even so, the two people who sit closest to him keep fans on their desks to redirect the smell. I could not make this up.

He has long hair that is washed approximately once a week, from the looks of it. It's always pulled back in a greasy ponytail. His chair and his keyboard are literally coated in dandruff. I looked at his keyboard one day and couldn't believe it. He doesn't shave often enough, so he's always got major stubble, and his fingernails are black underneath from dirt. He's also probably a good 100 pounds overweight, which is his own choice and not really my problem in and of itself, but his clothing does not fit. He's got an enormous gut, and his button down shirts gape in the front and expose it. He also chooses to wear his pants under the gut, rather than over it, which results in dangerously low-riding pants and glimpses of his ass crack way more often than I care to think about. I just find it hard to believe, and a little sad, that someone has so little concern for hygiene and appearances.

How I hate pretentious people! Working as a temp, I imagine that its par for course to have to work with people that think they're better than you- luckily for me, most of my experiences haven't been that bad. Until this week.

First of all, let me describe the office I'm working in. It's a financial office (don't ask me what exactly they do I couldn't tell you) and as such, there's a secure key-card entry door. EVERYBODY has a key card- even I get a key card, but why is it that the whole company is lazy??? Besides being a receptionist, I'm also a glorified doorman thanks to a little button I have under my desk that unlocks the door. I have do my reception-ing duties as well as keep a sharp eye for people walking up to the door (who work here and all have cards) so I can press the button to save them the 3 steps it takes to swipe the card. God forbid I'm looking down or something or I'll get one of 3 things: 1) The Irritated expression (Oh-my-God-I-have-to-reach-into-my-pocket-find-my-card-and-walk-over-and-swipe-it); 2)The Bemused expression (I'm-confused-why-isn't-the-door-open?) or my personal favourite; 3)The tap on the glass door (Hello-look-up-please-and-see-me-standing-here). Either that or I'll get a combination of the three (#1 and #3 together are sooo obnoxious).

I just think in general office workers are lazy. They sit for most of the day and when they actually walk around the thought of adding a few extra steps to swipe their card is apparently abhorrent. Of course I'm an office worker now too- but look at me! I'm writing this blog AT WORK!!! Laziness is a disease and it's spreading. When I first started doing this work, I was so eager to find things to do. Coming from a retail environment (as a merchandiser) I was used to a frenetic pace of work. Working in an office is completely different. Here, everyone is so used to having things done for them. Coffee that magically appears (me), a dishwasher lest they soil their hands (I load it), and a magical fridge that never runs out of tasty drinks (I restock it ) etc. Now, I've almost become one of them. I surf the internet all day, read the newspaper a little bit, check my mail and basically do nothing. I pretend to want more work in order to 'seem' eager, but in reality I'm happy getting paid to do nil. I tell you, it's a disease.