Work stories

[deathbringer]

My old job was frustrating due to a short, shouty northern manager with huge baps who liked low cut tops (which i suppose was a bit of compensation). But as bad as she was, losing her temper over ridiculous things like restarting a computer instead of logging off and on, the wankers in the office were worse.

When i started there we had a "double unit" in a big building with places for companies to move into. There was two companies in there who'se labs were in the same room, with air conditioning. The boss then decides that it took us too long to walk into the other room (literally next door, not even a corridor between then) to get stuff out of the freezers in it, so moved our lab into this other room. Which had no air conditioning.
Now, air conditioning barely exists in Britain and normally we just grow a "fucking pair" and deal with it, but when you're overworked, being shouted at constantly for trivial things and wearing a long-sleeved lab coat and gloves (and you'd be surprised how well your hands lose heat and how hot you get when they can't) it got bloody hot in summer. But by that time the two companies had split and the boss insisted that we'd be moving to a whole other building "soon". I suppose 2 YEARS LATER was "soon".

The companies had split because the other company (who owned us) had also bought an American company and were getting too big to manage. They sold us to our boss and three of the share holders who were more interested in our area of work, and that was that.
Then it turned out the American company they had bought sight unseen was in huge financial trouble, and it's bosses had disappeared. The fax machine was constantly spouting $100-200,000 bills for about a day. Needless to say the company i worked for being sold had actually turned out pretty well. The other company was reduced to four people from about 20, and sold off virtually everything. They had just bought some new machine which was, i beleive, one of very few in Europe, so they were able to get a bit of money back because they were the one of the only companies to offer whatever service this machine did. The people who worked the machine not unreasonably demanded some recognition of them basically holding the whole enterprise up and some became effective partners.
Still after i left and my company moved they shut down completley. They might have moved to a different and much smaller building but i suspect they just went bust entirely (the rent my company was paying probably propped them up too).

Still the boss of our company was hardly spotless. A French company had gone bust and he decided to buy them without telling us. Cue several trucks of extremely heavy equipment showing up one morning and him asking where it could "fit in", the answer being nowhere as the place was full. This resulted in the shelves in the store room being all pushed together (i did the warehousing, JOY) and several -80 freezers being put in there (which made the room into an oven, JOY). Oh also the freezers still had loads of expensive stuff that didn't belong to us in them and one of them stopped working overnight (JOY). So the stuff needed to be transferred to a working one (which were all full, JOY). Oh but the boss didn't actually have the keys to open them with (... yeah.)

And lets not mention the numerous 'blunder through life' middle class twats who worked there. One of which decided the solution to a leaking pipe was to vaguely throw a bit of tissue into the huge puddle and leave the room. Another of which decided that the place to leave empty glass bottles was on the floor next to a filing cabinet. After a note was stuck there saying "do not leave bottles here" he still did it. The note was moved to about the height of the lids of the bottles, so he'd see it when he bent down, he still did it. After the note was surrounded by bright orange tape, with a big bright orange arrow pointing to it, with "LOOK" written in bright orange tape... he stopped. Eventually. Oh and he used to just park his car right up against the door preventing people who were in the proper spaces from getting out, the prick. (It was a big crew-cab Mitsubishi Warrior despite the fact he was single and only needed to bring a laptop to work, the prick).

Oh and then there was the healthy and safety woman who didn't know what cum meant and thought Luxembourg was in France. I felt safe all right.

[geo]

I have a story that's kind of like rinse lather repeat for me.

STORY 1:
- 2 years ago, a mining commission wanted my company to design them software.
- We designed them software in 2 months.
- The president of the commission retired.
- His replacement didn't want software... stiffed on payment.
- 2 years go by (3 months ago), the commission wants the software!
- It turns out, 1 year earlier, they hired a local company to make the software
- It took 1 year to give them nothing
- It took us 5 additional weeks to update the 2 year old software we made them.
- Then there's a big discussion on if they want to A. hold classes to teach the miners OR B. have an instructional video made to teach the miners OR C. scrap the whole thing together
- Being that I've lived this same thing for 10 years, I think the answer will be C.
- My manager talking with someone on the committee found out this A B or C is a stall tactic while they wait for a second company to make the same software so they can compare both softwares to see which one they like best
- it happens too much!

STORY 2 (happens 95% of the time):
- company needs something done, the deadline is a month.
- We do the work on the first day, but work blind, because they've given us nothing
- 29 days go by...
- 1 more day goes by...
- We finally get the information to do the project and its due that day.

STORY 3:
- a client we've had 10 years and we work for them on a daily basis...
- hires a "director" to tell us what to do! sounds like a job someone's out of school, unemployed nephew got
- "director" is totally incompitant, but we do exactly what the director wants, just to proove how much of a fool he is
- "director" is fired in 2 weeks... and a new director is hired!!!
- director #2 is fired in 2 weeks...
- director #3 is fired in 1 week...
- owner's NEW-son-in-law is director #4... and lasts a year now.
- director #4 is really director #1

STORY 4:
- a client hires a famous actress as a spokeswoman
- everyone gets to see her in a bikini an entire day
- except me...
- i was too busy with food poisoning from lunch before her photo shoot
- funny thing is I switched lunches with her, because she wanted my salad and I took her chicken
- I now understand, "taking one for the team"

STORY 5:
- I got a dream job last year, designing patterns for purses (6 weeks on, 6 weeks off, I still kept my real job)
- The previous guy said "you're all crazy, I quit"
- My friend got me the job, she was #3 in the company
- 9 months later, she said that I'm the only sane person working for the company
- 1 minute later her boss came in and fired me
- we laughed!!!

[RestlessRodent]

I went to a friend's business (of the new family) and they said that they needed their computer system fixed.

Long story short, the company that they use to manage all their sales and time punching, etc. wanted $10,000 for new hardware because the current hardware "didn't work" (it still did and it was all fine) and it was too old to be supported (think year 2000 hardware running CCI/TRIAD PRISM SCO UNIX with a few ttys attached to a phone cord). It stopped working when the power failed.

Turns out, the central box that everything connects to had to be power cycled. Cleaned out the PCs too, dust wise, black shit was all over inside.

Saved $9,900.

[Super Jamie]

geo said:

I got a dream job last year, designing patterns for purses

...wat?

[GreyGhost]

I think he's referring to this job.

[geo]

Yep, that's the job. It paid ridiculous amounts of money for little work. The only catch is that it was 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. I also had to put up with a lot of interesting and talentless people.

They all had 4 year degrees for fashion design. I have no degree for fashion design, but I still do it. They're all talentless procrastinators. Like the job involved 95% not design and 5% design, and they'd usually end up making the entire line in 3 days before market.

The process:
design patterns > design purses > go to market > stores buy 10,000-100,000 > china makes them > purses are shipped here > purses are distributed > purses are sold in stores

There is 1 store that ALWAYS returns thousands of purses damaged, because when they don't sell, they damage the purses and ship them back saying "they're damaged when we got them."

So now what the company does at great expense is takes a picture of EVERY SINGLE PURSE before it goes into the crate from China.

[DuckReconMajor]

Haha

[AveryMaurice]

geo said:

STORY 2 (happens 95% of the time):
- company needs something done, the deadline is a month.
- We do the work on the first day, but work blind, because they've given us nothing
- 29 days go by...
- 1 more day goes by...
- We finally get the information to do the project and its due that day.

I can actually relate to this kind of work. I was hired to make a website for a local steakhouse. The owners son was my friend, so he dictated a lot of stuff of what he wanted.

He refused to pay me until I showed him some examples, which is understandable, since he is my friend and I had no portfolio at the time. He says I have as long as I want to finish these examples, specifically two MONTHS (which is plenty of time).

Two WEEKS go by, I told him early I had other projects so not to expect it soon. He then gets pissed, and said I was on his time. I told him that clients who are actually paying me will come first.

He then proceeds to tell his parents/restaurant owner that I'm "full of shit" and "lazy". I pretty much said "fuck it" at that point, and moved on to focus on another client.

[geo]

My manager does all the talking, but he goes on vacation in October and I'm left in charge, so I get to do the talking. There was one client we had for 2 years, and this was the first time I had to talk to him. He's a night club owner in Milwaukee.

He was bragging to me about how all the female singers need to audition for him in underwear. I thought he was being a moron bragging when I don't care, period. I'm business raised by the Brady Bunch.

So I thought he was making it up. One of the female singers told me its true, that's what he does. Whatever, that's on HIS time.

Then the guy was bragging again. I'd try to steer things back to business, and he kept going back to his score.

I snapped, yelled at him and said I'm done, you can find someone else to listen to your stories and I hope he gets slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Then that night on stage he announced his systems were down, because we're incompitant A-holes. He said that on stage durring his introduction of the first band. Then he makes the mistake of saying my company's name. 1. that's slandor. 2. his systems weren't down! 3. He said our name!!! Don't ever say anyone's name.

Why? Because we ended up getting more clients! Potential clients heard we were incompitant A-Holes, so they came to our site... for a laugh I'm sure. Then they got impressed and hired us. Each one hired us to make software. Each contract was worth more than what we were doing for the club!

I have a lot of A-hole client stories. Enough to fill a book.