Tantrum
My boss was yelling at me on the phone, and I told him that even my five-year-old son doesn’t throw tantrums that badly. So, I said he should either pull himself together and speak normally or I’d hang up. Of course, he yelled even louder after that, so I had to end the call.
Time off
I asked my supervisor for a week off, but he said I could only take two days at once because no one could cover my shift. I told him the company could hire three good workers with his salary, which would make way more sense than what he was doing.
The client
Our family vacation had been booked for six months when my boss told me a client needed a last-minute change only I could handle. I said sorry, but I wouldn’t be here for a week starting tomorrow. He expected me to cancel the whole trip, but I made it clear that wasn’t happening. Angry, he asked if I thought the company valued the employee or the client more. I said if the boss wasn’t an idiot, it would be the employee. I went on vacation, and when I came back, I no longer had a job—but I didn’t regret it.
The babysitter
We were decorating a hotel for Christmas, and everyone rolled their eyes when our boss showed up. He was always in the way, holding everyone up, asking silly questions, giving ridiculous advice about the work, and needed coffee every ten minutes. He got on my nerves so much that I told him in front of everyone that if he wasn’t going to help, at least don’t slow us down and just go home. He turned red but said nothing and left. He made me work through the busy Christmas season, but he fired me in January.
The paperwork
“Jesus, get it together, Orsika!” my supervisor said, rolling his eyes—in front of the entire management team—when I dropped some papers I was bringing him. I told him that if he did his job better and actually knew how to organize, I wouldn’t have to rush and drop papers. His mouth literally dropped open, and I walked off, sat at my desk, and wrote my resignation letter before they could fire me.
Uninvited advocate
My boss scolded an intern harshly right in front of me over something minor, and she ended up crying at her desk. At the coffee machine, I told him he shouldn’t have spoken to her like that and that the least he could do was apologize. He went over, apologized for his tone, then passed by my desk and told me I didn’t need to come in the next day.
The lecher
The deputy director was an old lecher who always gathered pretty girls on his team and hit on everyone. If someone firmly rejected him, he found an excuse to fire them. He tried with me, but I was sharp. When he invited me to dinner, I said we should discuss it over the phone. On the call, I asked what I should wear to the work dinner. He laughed and said something sexy, especially if I wanted to “work on him a bit” afterward. The next day, I pulled him aside in the office, played the recording, and told him there would be no dinner—but if he dared to fire me, that recording wouldn’t just go to management, but to his wife too. I’m still working there.
The leader
I spent the whole day in the car handling company business. When I finally got to the office in the afternoon, my boss smirked and said the company pays me a nice sum even though I just drive around all day. I replied that maybe so, but they pay him even more and he does nothing.
Tone
The boss yelled at me in front of the whole office over what he thought was a mistake I made. I told him the last time someone spoke to me like that was my parents—and I don’t let them do it anymore, so definitely not him. I packed up and left.
I doubt that
We got a new boss everyone hated. The old guy constantly made sexist remarks and clearly favored male colleagues. He looked down on women and didn’t take them seriously. When we complained, he said he was raised differently and only had a year left until retirement, so we should just deal with it. One day in the cafeteria, he bragged that his fourth wife was twenty years younger and that he felt younger too. Before I knew it, I muttered, “I doubt that, he probably just looks like an old lecher next to her.” Dead silence followed, then he shrugged and said he felt rejuvenated. To my surprise, he didn’t fire me.
