Disgruntled Worker's Dream (Part 2)

Our new boss was female, over forty, single, and miserable. She gave us each a packet of her expectations of us. Expectations? I think Drunkie Boss just expected us to show up. She then read the list out loud. It was a very long list. Not a good sign.

She had been working at the company for years and seemed to worship the job. Bad combo! We all know the type. Single Forty-Something felt like if she wasn’t going to have a life then you shouldn’t either and the absence of us having a life was outlined in that packet. Packets at work equals nightmare situation. Talk about a buzz kill.

But I decided to put my best foot forward and try to get along with Single Forty-Something. It worked in the beginning. I’ve never not been able to get along

with someone in the beginning. The beginning is the best part. Love the beginning. But then the middle started happening and that seems to be where I usually tend to fuck up.

During the middle I tend to be honest instead of just saying what they want to hear. How long can you say the things that people want to hear? I felt like she was micro-managing me. She’d correct words I said in front of the customers. She had this problem with saying the word “just,” so if I said it, she made a point to correct me. We had expense accounts and were supposed to use them at our discretion, but she controlled every purchase. She yelled at me all the time for wearing short skirts and for flirting with clients. Degrading me in front of the clients. No money. No shirt skirts. How the hell did she expect me to sell the crap products I was pushing?

If things went on like this, I knew I’d never do well. I only do well when the boss leaves me alone. So I decided to talk to her. I specifically told her what she did that made me uncomfortable. Big mistake! Apparently control freaks don’t like honesty. At all. From that day on, things only got worse, and I knew I was leaving the middle and getting towards the end. Another job was going down in the dust fast!

It’s not fun jumping from job to job. I tried to appease and rationalize why Single Forty-Something felt the need to be so controlling. I didn’t want to enter the end phase of this job. But the middle was sucking, and it was impossible to go back to the beginning.

The company was a boy’s club. Big time. I’ve yet to work at a company that’s a girl’s club. The president of sales was a short, red-nosed, drunk, Irish guy who thought he was a comedian. So if he thought he was a comedian, then you better laugh at almost everything he said. Only you had to know what was supposedly funny and what was serious. He was worse than the IRA.

At sales meetings he’d tell these canned stories of when he was in sales and how he saved the day. Everyone was forced to act interested and laugh. Pathetic. IRA’s ego was huge. When you interviewed for the position, he made

you wait at least an hour for him. Was this guy kidding?

TO BE CONTINUED...