Worst work attitude you've ever witnessed

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 03:08PM

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

God help you? That sounds amazing! I'd basically get three months paid holidays! :eek:

Ah but you see....there was nobody on anything like that...they would just keep renewing 'probation' i.e. 1 weeks notice..

Jawgap · 18-07-2014 03:10PM

artful_codger wrote: »

Horse**** and bitter Public Sector revisionism. The public sector were taking on so many people during the boom that there weren't enough people to fill the available roles. That's how FF bought votes.

Yes people were being taken on and numbers were being expanded - the problem was actually getting warm bodies to fill those roles.

In my own little bit of the PS for example we were looking for a fairly definite set of skills & quals, and while not rare, the potential pool of candidates was also being drawn from by various multi-nationals.

The running joke was that we had become the industry's training unit - we got the graduates who got a couple of years professional experience and then cleared off.

The disturbing thing is it has started again.......only this time I can't really complain because I'm part of the 'churn' - the chap earmarked to take over my job is barely two years out of Uni....

Maximus Alexander · 18-07-2014 03:11PM

partyguinness wrote: »

Ah but you see....there was nobody on anything like that...they would just keep renewing 'probation' i.e. 1 weeks notice..

Oh... That doesn't sound quite as fun.

GalwayGuy2 · 18-07-2014 03:13PM

jester77 wrote: »

I worked with a lad in a former company who took the piss big time. We would be in different countries on projects, the company would put us up in our own apartment and pay us daily expenses. We also had the possibility of a flight home every weekend. If you took the flight home on the weekend then you would not get paid expenses for the weekend, obviously.

This lad would book flights every weekend for Saturday home and Sunday back, so he would only miss out on one days of expenses. But he never flew home, instead he was getting fake taxi receipts to/from the airport written up and submitting them as expenses. These were worth 2-3 days expenses compared to the one day he was missing.

That's kind of brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 03:18PM

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

That's kind of brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.

A couple over here have just been sent to jail for that.

She worked with the NHS in the expenses dept (or whatever the technical term is) and the hubby was a taxi driver....you can see where this is going.

They fiddled the NHS for the best part of £250k in fake receipts over the years.

The One Doctor · 18-07-2014 03:29PM

RoboRat wrote: »

I was told regularly in my last job that I had a terrible work attitude because:
(a) I wasn't flexible with my time. I worked on average an extra 2 - 3 hours a day for no extra pay for 6 years until I got the hump. It wasn't the pay, it was the complete lack of gratitude that got me annoyed and the fact that it became 'expected'.

(b) I was considered uncooperative. This was because I was a realist and rather than nodding my head and saying yes, I would be honest. Every single time I was uncooperative I was proven to be right.

(c) I was grumpy and difficult. Only because I never got any gratitude and was constantly being slagged or threatened with sacking by my boss whenever he was in a bad mood. Funnily enough, my co-workers to this day have stayed in touch.

(d) Bad at timekeeping. I came in late ONE morning due to car problems and was called into the office and given a verbal warning. Never took into account that I was usually the first there and one of the last to leave and rarely took a lunch break.

My ex-boss just loved trying to break me and he almost did but I still laugh at the fact that when I left, they thought I would be easy to replace. They have had to take on two people and still outsource some of what I used to do.

Microsoft?

Going Strong · 18-07-2014 03:33PM

partyguinness wrote: »

A couple over here have just been sent to jail for that.

She worked with the NHS in the expenses dept (or whatever the technical term is) and the hubby was a taxi driver....you can see where this is going.

They fiddled the NHS for the best part of £250k in fake receipts over the years.

My first job after leaving school was in a garage. One of used car salesmen was fiddling the books for years while the colleague he was having an affair with worked in the accounts department so she covered up his book fiddling. They got found out but not until after they'd legged it to a new life in Australia with a six figure sum.

dwayneshintzy · 18-07-2014 03:42PM

Not nearly as bad as some mentioned here, but there was a really arrogant young lad worked in a call center I was in. Really seemed convinced he was too good for the job (even though he was 21 and didn't have a degree), and showed he was too good for it by literally not putting any effort in whatsoever. Flat out telling customers he couldn't help them, blind transferring to other departments, dropping a large proportion of his calls (i.e. simply hanging up), showing up hungover, etc....eventually got sacked for muttering that a customer was a "****ing retard" on a call. Customer hadn't caught it, but it was a recorded call that management had pulled. And they did catch it.

Milly33 · 18-07-2014 03:45PM

Oh the joys of work.. Never thought id see the day when someone a grown up woman/man was close to tears about a folder and telling the boss they had better things to be doing... cough cough they do nothing and all know and no one will say anything and one of us needs the job

Jawgap · 18-07-2014 03:49PM

Another working in the UK story......

My last boss there was scrupulously fair and always tried to dish out the assignments so everyone got a fair mix of sh1tty and cushy projects. Anyway this one girl used to complain, and complain and complain if she didn't get work that was 100% convenient to her. But fair play to him, he held his ground - even when she complained to HR. They investigated and found there was no case to answer, but still she complained.

It got so bad we ended up asking him just to give into her just so we wouldn't have to listen to her whining. Even though I got more work to do, I still felt sorry for him.

Same girl, when we got a contract to do some offshore work (which was definitely in the sh1tty category) agitated like mad to get on the team doing the job because it was really well paid. Eventually she did and when we were all packed off to our off-shore petroleum industry survival training she whinged so much that the instructors kicked her off the course and refused to certify her. She then tried to make a case that she should share in the team bonus because it wasn't her fault she got kicked off!

She didn't get it.

McChubbin · 18-07-2014 03:51PM

I used to work for a very well known Dublin food and clothing department store when I finished my Leaving. I was barely 18, painfully naive, socially awkward from spending the last 5 years in a purely girls-only enviroment and undiagnosed with AS at the time so I was painfully, acutely unprepared for REAL work.
It was a part-time job in the Lingerie Section and the pay was reasonable (IMO at least) at about €200 a week. It was fairly simple work- work the cashier's desk, rotate stock, help ladies in the changing rooms and whatnot. Anyhoo, about 3 months into the job, the store was undergoing a massive refurbishment in which the small ground floor coffee shop moved up to the second floor to a wider, snazzier premises and people were getting transfered to work as baristas as they needed staff. Fair enough.

Being wholey uneducated about the different techniques of steaming milk for a cappuchino or a latte, I politely declined the option to move the coffee shop as I was comfortable enough working on the lingerie section for the time being.
It was my first "real job" and I didn't want to get in over my head. Besides, I'd signed up to be a sales assistant, not a barista.
Annnyways, the coffee shop was finished and I was working away happily enough when my usual nice, kindly manager got called away on family matters and was replaced by this pure evil bitch who immediately zoned in on me as target for completely unprovoked verbal abuse.

She'd quite literally scream at me to clean up after the messy customers in the changing rooms IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS, stand over me when I was ringing up purchases and nitpick over every tiny action. It was pure HELL.
Keep in mind that I was only a young pup at this time and very quiet, shy and unwilling to stir the pot, so to speak.
Instead of standing up to this ballbuster like I should've done, I kept my head down and worked away as best as I could but the job was stressful under her management and I would soon come to dread going into work.
Still, I needed the money so I endured the onslaught of unwarrented abuse for a few more weeks.

Then, something happened that I still can't explain to this day.
I got called into HR one day and told that *somebody* had made a complaint about my behavior on the changing room floor, that I had apparently made a "derogatory remark" about a customer's bra size and I was to be be transferred to the coffee shop which had more staff to "keep an eye on me" which was bull**** as I knew I was innocent. Sure, I joked and engaged in banter with the other girls on the shop floor when it wasn't busy but I never let it get in the way of the work to be done.

But HR didn't care about my protests. I was moving and that was that.
At least I didn't have to deal with Super Bitch Manager anymore, I though. Oh, how wrong I was. She too moved to the goddamned coffee shop and once my two days of very basic training on how to work a coffee machine, I was thrown into the deep end and expected to keep up with the rest of the more experienced baristas. In addition to brewing coffee for the masses, I was also forced to work on the hot food counter despite having no HAACP training whatsoever and work on a dishwasher with water so hot that I regularly scalded the hands off myself desperately trying to rush through the paces in a bid to appease Super Bitch.

It was 3 months of torture. I tried and I tried to plead my case to HR but they wouldn't listen and told me to suck it up or be fired in no uncertain terms. At this point, I was having anxiety attacks and regularly using my scant toilet/lunch breaks to cry in the staff toilets but I still put up with it because at the time, I figured I was lucky enough to have a job. I was also paying off a small but sizable credit union loan at the time so I didn't have much choice.

Eventually, it all got too much for me one day and I openly burst into tears after once again scalding my hands on the bloody industrial dishwasher jets. I flat out told Super Bitch Manager that I was going home for the day and walked out.
I took sick leave for a week to gather myself and then I once again went to HR about the damned woman. As always, they were no bloody help. I officially quit the job but in reality, I was forced out of it by the antics of this wagon who made my working life a living hell in those few short but traumatic months.

These days, I'm still bitter about the experience but moreso for the fact that I'm kicking myself for not reporting them to some sort of Employee Tribunal on the grounds of unfair dismissal. If I had only stood up for myself and nipped it in the bud in the beginning, perhaps it would've gone differently. Even so, I still occassionally pop into this store but I never bother to see if Super Bitch Manager still works there.

Regardless, I'm confident that karma will bite her in her flabby arse sooner or later, shy of me actually running into her and physically punching her in her smug piggy face. I'm not a violent person but that woman was a homicide waiting to happen.

Sorry that got so long. I've kept it in for a while and I was going to post in Cries of Retail but it seemed appropriate enough here.
I could easily name and shame the store. It's fairly famous but I won't 'cause I don't like a paddlin'.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 03:56PM

Birneybau wrote: »

It says 'small' on my screen....:P

shane9689 · 18-07-2014 03:58PM

i think i know where you worked.....i wont name it but was it in chonnacht by any chance?

Ishmael · 18-07-2014 03:59PM

Where i used to work, everyone on my team was on contract with an external agency and pretty much everyone was submitting false expenses. They used to collect mobile phone receipts, bus tickets, train tickets, taxi receipts, computer hardware receipts from their friends and family and were submitting them as legitimate expenses. One of them even submitted a receipt for a new washing machine. WTF? Another one had a friend who was a taxi driver and he used to get him to write him up false receipts if he needed an extra few quid for something.

It was such common practice in there that they thought i was the weird one because i only submitted actual genuine receipts. Some were actually under the illusion that what they were doing was perfectly legal and justified.

In the same job, i ended up working with a guy i had worked with in a previous job. The guy had (and probably still does have) a bit of a problem with having to do work. He used to quite regularly take un-announced half-days. We had a calendar where we would enter our holiday time so that the manager could see who was off on whatever days but we were supposed to ok it with the manager before taking the time off. This guy used to come in in the morning and would stick himself down for a half-day that day without notifying anyone and not come back from lunch. I think by the end of the year, he had taken something like 50 days off total. We were contractors so it was no real big skin off the nose of the company we worked for as they would not be charged for the time he didn't work but it was a pain in the balls for the rest of us.

On top of that, he was very arrogant and short tempered with customers. He would regularly fob off calls hoping that the customers would ring back and get someone else and if they did get someone else and asked to speak to him again, he would play ignorant and pretend he had never spoke to the person before. It was pretty much almost impossible to be fired from the place however they did make a special exception for him. Not one person in the office was sorry to see him go though.

eisenberg1 · 18-07-2014 04:05PM

I posted this before.

A few years back, I was involved in the interviewing of potential employee. We did all the usual bullsh1t, CV, questions, etc.
I then asked her if she had any questions for us. She had two.

1. How long do you have to be here before you get paid sick leave
2. How long do you get for lunch, and is it ok to be a bit late back sometimes.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 04:07PM

In my last office, I was senior...only the two boses were above me with maybe 16-17 other staff...admin, reception, cashier, junior fee earners...in a lot of respects I was punching below my weight (it was only temp).

Now we had two 17 yr old whose job was basically admin support, stationary, relief at reception, going to shop, post, basically office goofers. The fellow was a very nice guy and workf closely with me and never any attitude and pleasant.

Now the 17 girl....one day (during lunch) I came into the 'secretary's room' to get something and I noticed that we were running low on folders and I said:

'Running low on folder can you ask (the guy) to get some more when he is back from lunch'

Girl turns around and says: ' They are downstairs in the stationary cabinet
Me: 'So what are you saying to me?"
Girl: 'You can get them yourself'
Me: (laughing) No that's your job

I laughed it off and forgot about it. A few days later I was in a meeting with the two boses and I mentioned about lack of assistance from admin staff e.g. the example above, not taking or passing telephone messages on.

On partner's jaw hit the floor when I told her what had been said to me....well she called her down and just verbally rapped her..

'How effing dare you speak to (my role)...
'You here to support (my role)
'Do you release how lucky you are to have a job
Girl: (meekly) I was on lunch..
'Some people (as in me) here do not take lunch and that is what pays you wages'

Alll this a full shouting pitch....the girl was put cleaning the phones for the day and she was super nice afterwards...:D

Gunmonkey · 18-07-2014 04:08PM

Best was the head chef in the kitchen I worked wandering in 5 hours late for a Sunday shift....and was still half pissed. And then doing it again the next weekend.

McChubbin · 18-07-2014 04:08PM

shane9689 wrote: »

i think i know where you worked.....i wont name it but was it in chonnacht by any chance?

This might sound a bit dopey of me but geography is not one of my strong points. If you mean Connacht as in Dublin City Centre, you're right.
Evil bastards, the lot of them. Yet they make mighty fine chicken pies...

Birneybau · 18-07-2014 04:17PM

partyguinness wrote: »

It says 'small' on my screen....:P

It's one of those days...

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 04:17PM

A friend of mine went for a teaching job a few years back and by all accounts the interview went really well until he was asked if he had any questions (this has been retold by the interviewers not my buddy who is mental. Buddy does not know we know).

Basically he started quizzing them about their qualifications and experience and told them that they were not fit/good enough to interview him. He didnt get the job.

Cienciano · 18-07-2014 04:25PM

artful_codger wrote: »

Horse**** and bitter Public Sector revisionism. The public sector were taking on so many people during the boom that there weren't enough people to fill the available roles. That's how FF bought votes.

I worked with the ESB, manager used to go around asking if anyone had friends who wanted jobs. Couldn't get staff at all because the wages were too low. It's true that now so called "safe jobs" were extremely easy to get during the boom because they were considered low wages.

Anyway, on worst attitude, saw some bad stuff in Semi state and private. Worst in private was idiots who's dad was on the board of directors and cost the company thousands because of stupid decisions.
In semi state, one guy I knew did pretty much nothing in 10 years. Students come in to work and do more in a week than he's done in 3 months. Doesn't have the slightest idea of how to do the most basic element of his job, but he knew exactly how to get every day off that was available.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 04:39PM

Can't believe teachers have not been slagged off yet. Here goes:

1. Primary teacher in our local school never and I mean never showed up on a Monday. Always pissed in the pub Sunday night. After 30 odd years she was retires.
2. Our maths teacher turing up pissed several times and breaking into tears and had to be driven home. Disciplined? Like ****.
3. Of course the useless PE teachers who swaned around in tracksuits and just 'managed' the sports teams.
4. Our teacher who was also the manager of an inter county team. How many days do you think he showed up?
5. National teacher who used the landline as his own personal landline.
6. A national teacher who also taught my father (since dead) turned out had absolutely no qualifications whatsoever (not even a LC which explained a lot) but she was well in with the Church.

Many more to come..

bobrawn20 · 18-07-2014 04:39PM

partyguinness wrote: »

In my last office, I was senior...only the two boses were above me with maybe 16-17 other staff...admin, reception, cashier, junior fee earners...in a lot of respects I was punching below my weight (it was only temp).

Now we had two 17 yr old whose job was basically admin support, stationary, relief at reception, going to shop, post, basically office goofers. The fellow was a very nice guy and workf closely with me and never any attitude and pleasant.

Now the 17 girl....one day (during lunch) I came into the 'secretary's room' to get something and I noticed that we were running low on folders and I said:

'Running low on folder can you ask (the guy) to get some more when he is back from lunch'

Girl turns around and says: ' They are downstairs in the stationary cabinet
Me: 'So what are you saying to me?"
Girl: 'You can get them yourself'
Me: (laughing) No that's your job

I laughed it off and forgot about it. A few days later I was in a meeting with the two boses and I mentioned about lack of assistance from admin staff e.g. the example above, not taking or passing telephone messages on.

On partner's jaw hit the floor when I told her what had been said to me....well she called her down and just verbally rapped her..

'How effing dare you speak to (my role)...
'You here to support (my role)
'Do you release how lucky you are to have a job
Girl: (meekly) I was on lunch..
'Some people (as in me) here do not take lunch and that is what pays you wages'

Alll this a full shouting pitch....the girl was put cleaning the phones for the day and she was super nice afterwards...:D

So she got shouted at for not assisting you when she was on her lunch. Yeah you and the bosses really come off good there.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 04:43PM

bobrawn20 wrote: »

So she got shouted at for not assisting you when she was on her lunch. Yeah you and the bosses really come off good there.

Her downfall was not that she did not assist during lunch but the back chat. She could have just kept her mouth shut and passed the message on. Hell she wasnt even being asked in the first place! It didnt matter a **** it was her lunch break.

She needed to be reminded of her role...it worked.:D

Jawgap · 18-07-2014 04:43PM

partyguinness wrote: »

Can't believe teachers have not been slagged off yet. Here goes:

1. Primary teacher in our local school never and I mean never showed up on a Monday. Always pissed in the pub Sunday night. After 30 odd years she was retires.
.........

One Sunday evening I was say there with the kids half watching the news. The sport comes on and I hear the eldest say "Yessssssss.........Miss won't be in tomorrow. Kerry won!"

Seriously, when 8 year olds have you sussed you know it's a problem.

FTA69 · 18-07-2014 04:48PM

partyguinness wrote: »

'How effing dare you speak to (my role)...
'You here to support (my role)
'Do you release how lucky you are to have a job
Girl: (meekly) I was on lunch..
'Some people (as in me) here do not take lunch and that is what pays you wages'

Alll this a full shouting pitch....the girl was put cleaning the phones for the day and she was super nice afterwards...:D

She's dead right. Employees have a right to a lunch break without getting harassed. She was probably earning f*ck all as it is without having to spend her meal break running around because you wouldn't deign to open a filing cabinet and grab a folder.

Workers are coming under increasing pressure to break their balls for the profit of others all while hours increase and their share of the national cake shrinks year after year. Thank God for trade unions.

partyguinness · 18-07-2014 04:49PM

Jawgap wrote: »

One Sunday evening I was say there with the kids half watching the news. The sport comes on and I hear the eldest say "Yessssssss.........Miss won't be in tomorrow. Kerry won!"

Seriously, when 8 year olds have you sussed you know it's a problem.

That's what pisses me off...the parents (including mine) will bitch and complain about the crap non attending teachers but do the parents say a word? Nah..I have had a go at my mother about this...go and make a complaint and stop banging on to me about it. I have a 2 year old and god help it if there are any teachers like that in whatever school my kid goes to...:mad:

gozunda · 18-07-2014 04:49PM

McChubbin wrote: »

I used to work for a very well known Dublin food and clothing department store when I finished my Leaving. I was barely 18, painfully naive, socially awkward from spending the last 5 years in a purely girls-only enviroment and undiagnosed with AS at the time so I was painfully, acutely unprepared for REAL work.
It was a part-time job in the Lingerie Section and the pay was reasonable (IMO at least) at about €200 a week. It was fairly simple work- work the cashier's desk, rotate stock, help ladies in the changing rooms and whatnot. Anyhoo, about 3 months into the job, the store was undergoing a massive refurbishment in which the small ground floor coffee shop moved up to the second floor to a wider, snazzier premises and people were getting transfered to work as baristas as they needed staff. Fair enough.

Being wholey uneducated about the different techniques of steaming milk for a cappuchino or a latte, I politely declined the option to move the coffee shop as I was comfortable enough working on the lingerie section for the time being.
It was my first "real job" and I didn't want to get in over my head. Besides, I'd signed up to be a sales assistant, not a barista.
Annnyways, the coffee shop was finished and I was working away happily enough when my usual nice, kindly manager got called away on family matters and was replaced by this pure evil bitch who immediately zoned in on me as target for completely unprovoked verbal abuse.

She'd quite literally scream at me to clean up after the messy customers in the changing rooms IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS, stand over me when I was ringing up purchases and nitpick over every tiny action. It was pure HELL.
Keep in mind that I was only a young pup at this time and very quiet, shy and unwilling to stir the pot, so to speak.
Instead of standing up to this ballbuster like I should've done, I kept my head down and worked away as best as I could but the job was stressful under her management and I would soon come to dread going into work.
Still, I needed the money so I endured the onslaught of unwarrented abuse for a few more weeks.

Then, something happened that I still can't explain to this day.
I got called into HR one day and told that *somebody* had made a complaint about my behavior on the changing room floor, that I had apparently made a "derogatory remark" about a customer's bra size and I was to be be transferred to the coffee shop which had more staff to "keep an eye on me" which was bull**** as I knew I was innocent. Sure, I joked and engaged in banter with the other girls on the shop floor when it wasn't busy but I never let it get in the way of the work to be done.

But HR didn't care about my protests. I was moving and that was that.
At least I didn't have to deal with Super Bitch Manager anymore, I though. Oh, how wrong I was. She too moved to the goddamned coffee shop and once my two days of very basic training on how to work a coffee machine, I was thrown into the deep end and expected to keep up with the rest of the more experienced baristas. In addition to brewing coffee for the masses, I was also forced to work on the hot food counter despite having no HAACP training whatsoever and work on a dishwasher with water so hot that I regularly scalded the hands off myself desperately trying to rush through the paces in a bid to appease Super Bitch.

It was 3 months of torture. I tried and I tried to plead my case to HR but they wouldn't listen and told me to suck it up or be fired in no uncertain terms. At this point, I was having anxiety attacks and regularly using my scant toilet/lunch breaks to cry in the staff toilets but I still put up with it because at the time, I figured I was lucky enough to have a job. I was also paying off a small but sizable credit union loan at the time so I didn't have much choice.

Eventually, it all got too much for me one day and I openly burst into tears after once again scalding my hands on the bloody industrial dishwasher jets. I flat out told Super Bitch Manager that I was going home for the day and walked out.
I took sick leave for a week to gather myself and then I once again went to HR about the damned woman. As always, they were no bloody help. I officially quit the job but in reality, I was forced out of it by the antics of this wagon who made my working life a living hell in those few short but traumatic months.

These days, I'm still bitter about the experience but moreso for the fact that I'm kicking myself for not reporting them to some sort of Employee Tribunal on the grounds of unfair dismissal. If I had only stood up for myself and nipped it in the bud in the beginning, perhaps it would've gone differently. Even so, I still occassionally pop into this store but I never bother to see if Super Bitch Manager still works there.

Regardless, I'm confident that karma will bite her in her flabby arse sooner or later, shy of me actually running into her and physically punching her in her smug piggy face. I'm not a violent person but that woman was a homicide waiting to happen.

Sorry that got so long. I've kept it in for a while and I was going to post in Cries of Retail but it seemed appropriate enough here.
I could easily name and shame the store. It's fairly famous but I won't 'cause I don't like a paddlin'.

Years ago and in a very different industry I had the joy to meet an absolute bitch of a manager who delighted in systematically attempting to destroy any of the younger employees lives. I reckon she was a full blown sociopath but because that suited the owner - she got away with it. The way I look at she will die screaming and the queue to dance on her grave will be a mile long ....;)

bobrawn20 · 18-07-2014 04:50PM

partyguinness wrote: »

Her downfall was not that she did not assist during lunch but the back chat. She could have just kept her mouth shut and passed the message on. Hell she wasnt even being asked in the first place! It didnt matter a **** it was her lunch break.

She needed to be reminded of her role...it worked.:D

So she got shouted at..yknow I'd bet anything the same people wouldn't dare do it to an older person. 17 year old girl though? Fair game.
Wouldn't give a shít how much I needed a job, if a boss shouted at me I'd walk out immediately and they'd be lucky to not get a slap.

The other fella · 18-07-2014 04:51PM

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

Still, I bet they could have painted 5 houses in the time it would take 2 Irish lads to paint 1.

Thats a myth.

Worst work attitude you've ever witnessed

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