Psycho Bosses 001

Throughout my life, I've met many psychos. The worst ones are, by far, the ones I've had the distinct misfortune of having to work under.

As I can claim to have encountered a psycho boss in every single place I have ever worked, I can only conclude that there must be something in the water, or some meds you are required to take, that turn one from being normal to being a dangerous psychopath in a suit.

Or maybe it's the dye in the damned suit, I do not know.

Take, for instance, the following encounter, in a job which lasted one day.

1991: I was invited to go out for an interview for a firm called Lazoron, supposedly in the Whitegate Industrial Estate. The job description stipulated that I would be coding on a computer. You know, designing applications and suchlike.

When I found out the address, I was told it was miles away, at the fellow's residence in Marchwiel. Now this alone gave me great pause. However, I went for the interview anyway.

Some damned interview.

When I got there, the place was ... well, the yard was a building site, with a big damned Portakabin in the middle. The man himself had, get this, a hook hand ... and an eyepatch.

NOT good.

I asked him if the computer was in the Portakabin. He said that my job wasn't to do any damned coding. He gave me the Yellow Pages, a cordless phone, and he locked me in the Portakabin's toilet with instructions to phone all the businesses and try to sell them Lazoron's software ("What software?" I asked. "just fucking do it!" he replied.)

I called the agency, and told them of the situation. They told me to just carry on. I really ought to have just gone straight to dialling 999.

To make matters worse, when I'd finished (I couldn't leave. Locked in, remember?) I was berated by the boss, whose incoherent rant was ... immeasurably forgettable. He accused me of something. I think it was "thieving company secrets." I replied "With all due respect-" and he said "Listen to you! Nobody fucking talks like that any more!"

As it was, when the next day he fired me because the bus was one minute late, I felt deeply relieved. The buses to and from Marchwiel were, then as now, completely unreliable. As it was, no sooner did I get back to the agency, than I got an interview from the boss there asking why I ought to carry on in their books. So once again, I told the company about the being locked in a toilet and "not going anywhere near a computer until you've proved yourself," followed by pointing out how the cagency guy on the end of the line had told me to carry on when the best legal advice should have been to call the cops and/or effect an immediate escape. Realising that he'd not only been swindled by the company, but also that the agency had been legally liable for any harm that might have come to me, the fucker backed down like that.

Actually, make that two psycho bosses. I've just given you the second one for free. At one time he tried to cram 4 Gb onto a 3.5" floppy, and brought me in to consult on this failure - even though at the time, I'd finished with that agency.

(He'd also filled up his entire hard drive, too - but you will have to wait till you find out what he'd filled his drive with. There will be more psycho boss fun in a later post).

Oh. I needn't have worried much about being locked in. I am not averse to breaking a window to escape, and then going straight to the cops.

And even if they weren't interested ... my brother was on the end of the line, and if I'd have called the folks, he'd have come straight down. Probably brought along a few of his friends.

And then the boss would have had real cause to worry.

By the way, in case you're worrying. I'm here now, and alive to tell the tale ... so don't have nightmares. :)

For lady_gaslight

I bought Batman Begins on DVD, at long last. This is only the second time I have watched it. Some things are meant to be savoured rarely, like sips of fine, fine wine - not drowned by constant exposure to bucketloads.

I can hardly wait for the DVD of The Dark Knight.

Psycho Bosses 002

Did you hear of the line manager who had porn on his computer at work?

And the day that some enterprising young man, peeking through said line manager's terminal whilst the director was "off sick" (like golf at St Andrew's is an incurable illness all of a sudden), spotted the deep seated directory on his hard drive, with loads and loads of pics of naked women and a few naked men doing interesting things with the naked women?

So there I was, wondering what to do about this objectionable state of affairs.

Cue a few days later, when the line manager's superior had to pay a visit to the premises. Noting the absence of the line manager, the superior turned on the terminal.

And discovered that somebody had tied the porno to Windows Startup.

So the superior got several eyesful of XXX fun and jollities, first thing in the morning.

She was not pleased.

I didn't get too far with that firm. Something tells me it wouldn't have worked out.

Writer's Block: Your Threads

[Error: unknown template qotd]
Duty blacks.

My rings. My churinga.

The satchel in which I keep tools.

That is all.

Well, I have to wear something.

Don't I?