pixiebean22 wrote: » The office I work in now has 8 staff and is owned by a married couple and they couldn't care less about compensating their staff.
pixiebean22 wrote: » The woman is a crazy person. She is also the principal fee earner and there is nobody above her so if there's a problem there's nowhere to go.
Aciiiiiiiiiiid wrote: » I think putting in extra hours gets noticed more in smaller companies, especially when the owners/directors are lurking around. Doing free overtime in big corporate multinationals is for the birds though.
gg2 wrote: » I work for a small business. We earn slightly above minimum wage, we have recieved a pay cut and several other cutbacks throughout the last year. Its a family business and they couldn't give a toss. Staff open in the morning, close in the evening- management may show their faces 3/4 hours a day 4/5 days a week. Staff cash up take care of all orders, invoicing- the usual day to day running. They deal with all issues unless management is requested... but they're generally not around....the place is effectively been run for them. And we are treated like ****
pixiebean22 wrote: » Same as. The couple I work for, the man comes in around 10/11 everyday, and the woman comes in 2-3 days a week, sometimes less, and arrives in at lunchtime. And god help you if you ring her in the morning to ask her a question about actual work, she generally goes off shopping and you get the face chewed off you for disturbing her.
pixiebean22 wrote: » Everything I do for her is put in a memo and I'm still told "you picked that up wrong" or her favourite line in the world "we had a miscommunication". It's sad because there are only 8 of us in the office and anytime any of us are communicating with her it is either by memo or e-mail so we have written proof but we all still get told that whatever we did is wrong. The woman is a crazy person. She is also the principal fee earner and there is nobody above her so if there's a problem there's nowhere to go.
Remmy wrote: » Slightly off topic but I read a shed load of rags to riches entrepreneur books. The majority of these guys started off busting their arse for someone else and putting in crazy long hours for a few years to then have a high up management position before going off and doing something off their own back. Just how realistic is this? I am just out of college and I have very little "real world experience". There are a load of boardsies with more life experience than me so I'd be interested in hearing their take on it. Threads like this shows me how little I know about the working world.
amacca wrote: » hmmm..now that is a difficult one didn't mean to seem condescending btw if it came across that way....thought it might help as I thought I was in a similar situation once although it now seems as if you're working for a borderline delusional sociopath a woman who gives written instructions and then denies she gave them or claims you misinterpret them hammy I've never felt I ever really needed any job I've worked in and so I've been braver than most with fcuktard bosses so you should bear that in mind when you read what comes next I would be firstly tempted to save/archive/collect any records of instructions which were then denied etc This means you need to try and get her to email any new instruction which countermands anything she goes back on so you then have a record of her issuing an instruction and then countermanding it.....in short get as much on paper as possible...keep records (unobtrusively) if nothing else it will give you something to do that is related to dealing with your problem and make you feel like you're not powerless and probably keep you a bit happier around the office I would also make it a point of asking very politely etc (again via email) for clarification on any instructions which you think could later become "miscommunications" after you build up a good portfolio of these see if the situation hasn't improved ...my bets is that it will because she will have been subtly forced to write down instructions going against her originals. if this doesn't work.......then armed with a good (written) record of her continuous miscommunication (make sure you have a good long history clearly showing her to be in the wrong on countless occasions mind)......I would start fighting back and take no sh1t .....firstly my emails would be gently prodding with nice little phrases like "are you sure now I would hate for this to become another miscommunication" etc if that didnt work then I'd wait for her to try it again in front of the others and I'd point out politely to her how she had continually failed to take responsibility for her own incompetence etc ....hit her straight into the face with the truth so to speak as opposed to actually hitting her into the face with your chair (something most would be sorely tempted to do I'd bet) if it came to threat of dismissal I would then provide her with a printout of her mess ups and tell her about labour courts/bullying in the workplace legislation and unfair dismissals claims....but tbh if it comes to that you probably wont want to work there anyway option 2 is to sit back and wait for someone else in the office to crack and let her have it as they eventually will if she is as much of a fcukwit as she seems to be....and they can cut a bow wave for you....believe me they eventually will if she is as you describe....the only problem with this is will it happen in a satisfactory timeframe for you
Czarcasm wrote: » Speaking from personal experience I can say this is very much achievable! There seems to be an awful lot of "My boss doesn't recognise my greatness" going on in this thread, but a lot of it stems from having the wrong attitude. You're getting paid for a job, but within that job and outside it you have to make your own opportunities. I've worked in various jobs since I was 16 and used them to pay my own way through college, then I could've rested on my laurels and cruised along when I got a high paying job, but I didn't- I made time to go to other courses and did another degree course and got my employer to pay for other courses I attended. I kept upskilling myself in other areas unrelated to my then current employment simply for the hell of it tbh, out of my own pocket. Now I am self employed and quite frankly earning about a quarter of what I was once earning, but I get to spend more time with my family and I'm much less stressed. I'm happier. Even my wife has commented that I'm not the same unconscionable bastard I was back then! I'm still as driven, but now my motivations are different. I'm still very much about personal development and very much still a capitalist at heart, but recently I felt like something was "missing", and so I have recently involved in doing charity work and it's quite fulfilling, as I feel that I am "giving something back" (cliche I know!), but I feel like I was once in their position, and I would have loved if someone like me now had been there at the time. If I can help someone fulfill their potential I see in them, that seems to give me far more satisfaction than landing a big client in my work.
pixiebean22 wrote: » She puts very little into writing for the exact reason that there would then be evidence. Plus, she's so rarely in the office that it's near impossible to get anything in writing. She even denies what she has said in dictation, like an actual recording of her voice saying "do A", she'll then say "well you should have known I meant B, like we discussed on the phone". I had a conversation with her less than 2 weeks ago about this exact matter and she made out I was blowing things out of proportion. One of the other staff members gave her a 25 page document detailing all of this kind of rubbish with plenty of examples and it made no difference.
pixiebean22 wrote: » I know you're trying to be helpful and I appreciate the time you are taking to reply but it's all been done before. I've worked there less than 2 years and there has been 13 legal secretaries through the office in that time. In an office with 8 staff members, 3 of which are permanent fixtures, that is unreal.
pixiebean22 wrote: » She's had loads of bullying cases against her. Unfortunately she has all the right connections with judges, barristers etc. We have all recently joined a union but I don't see that making a massive difference.
amacca wrote: » oh, I thought ye only communicated via memo/email....so she's smarter than you're average bear.......the fact that she rarely writes things down while being a strength of hers can also potentially be exploited as a weakness........never over the phone but in person you can try the same trick back.....when she does give you an instruction pretend you've never heard it, when she doesn't give you one do something and say she told you to do it.......when others step in show them where you have asked her to email you/write down instructions as she continually issues instructions which she then denies......in short you could try to become a difficult customer for her to handle so she is forced to play fair and is motivated to give you clear instructions with no possibility for you to misinterpret -- I would basically try and play her at her own game if at all possible.....frustrate the hole off her it is also possible to record conversations/phone conversations without being detected although I'm not sure about the legalities here + it seems a bit over the top even to me - never ever say anything on the phone that she might record though And I know that sometimes the kind of glib answers provided here along the lines of "ah sure thats no problem I just did x and it was sorted" given with no understanding of a situation can be infuriating so I hope I'm not coming across that way......just thinking it might be of some use......I've worked for some gigantic arses in my time as well as some fantastic people and I'm now a boss of bosses of sorts myself hoping i'm reasonable to deal with maybe this one isn't solvable and the best thing you can do is put up with it while looking for a better situation and preserving a good reference? I know i couldn't work for someone like that indefinitely thats actually better news than it seems...theres a history there...and a documented one...no smoke without a fire, that could be used very effectively against her along with any evidence you have if you ever felt you wanted to or it was worthwhile taking her on....
Johro wrote: » Plenty do. On subject, I work for myself, so sometimes I got to work harder, sometimes I give myself a break. Sometimes there isn't the work so I have to work extra hard for a while when I do get work to make it up. There now.
peterk675 wrote: » Kinda off topic, but i think OP will get the gist..
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. “This came from every male patient that I nursed”, said Bonnie Ware. “They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
pixiebean22 wrote: » It's illegal to record someone without their knowledge AFAIK.
pixiebean22 wrote: » When I spoke to her 2 weeks ago it was because she asked me to do something, I spent 3 hours doing that thing, she then said she asked me to do something different and chewed the face off me. During our earlier phone conversation I actually had her on speaker so one of the girls I sit beside heard the whole conversation and was able to back up what i was saying, still not enough. She's just mad.
cfc1888 wrote: » What the f is your point?
