Worst company/position you've ever had.

[Gypsy]

What company and what position at that company did you hold that you are SO RELIEVED you have left?

 

[amc80]

There are two. One was a few years ago. Financial analyst for a healthcare organization. Worst boss ever. Her favorite thing to do was spend hours writing me a list of things that needed to be done, which she'd hand me on Friday afternoon for completion by Monday. Then, she would say I did stuff wrong. I'd pull out her list and show her that I did it exactly as requested. She eventually tried to fire me. That's when I learned that HR is there solely to protect the company. I found out I had been the 4th person in that position in the previous two years. Yet I'm the problem? Worked out well- found a new job and made more money.

Second worst job was my last job. It was a foreign owned company with the US headquarters here. There was (and is) huge preference given to the foreign workers who came over here. My reviews were ridiculous- "You didn't do X, Y, or Z." Yeah, because I didn't know those existed and/or you would give me zero information or access regarding those things. And if you worked less than 8 hours in a day you had to use vacation time. I didn't get a raise in the almost 4 years I was there (or a cost of living adjustment). My bonus my second year was 1/2 what it was my first, even though my review was good (despite the stupid comments). The company was horrible. Salaried employees were required to clock in and out. Even if you had worked 12 hours the previous day. We were allowed a lunch and two 15 minute breaks, yet I was told that "it didn't look good" that I was away from my desk during those times. WTF. The best part is I was the freaking TREASURER. Not like I was an admin or something (not that there's anything wrong with admins!). Treated like dirt. I'm so happy to say the company isn't doing well.

 

[SB621]

It wasn't the job or the company but my boss and another co-worker. My boss was just a horrible manager. I worked remote for her and what she wanted me to do was not what I was hired to do. She basically passed off all her grunt work-load to me. My co-worker was a drop out of college, who had sever emotional distress so we had to be careful around her. She would drink alot and slept with a lot of the much older married male co-workers. I felt guilty just by association. Regardless I quit after 6 months. I only waited that long because I had to find another job behind the scenes.

 

[packrat]

I worked for Culligan here in town for a year. It was my first "office" job. The job itself I loved, and my three coworkers were wonderful. However, the boss and his wife were not the nicest. He was grouchy and she was just plain mean and their kids were..ugh. I christened them Oscar and Satan and their kids Scooter and Princess. I spent about 9 months only sleeping on Friday and Saturday b/c I didn't have to work the next day. Amazing how your body can adapt to literally, no sleep.

My very first job ever was in a packing house laundry. I loved that job and worked there for quite a few years through highschool and after. But then I ended up w/a manager (the aunt of one of my closest friends, who liked me a lot until she started working there) who would scream and throw things and slam doors and lie-in front of the packing house workers. It was horrible. She screamed at me one day that I was "a mentally retarded escapee from the MHI".

I worked for my Dr. for 8 years and finally left this past school year to work as a special education para educator at the preschool here in town...8 years of part time work w/a bunch of back stabby *cue the psycho reet reet reet music* gossipy women ohhh my heavens I've never experienced anything like it. I worked in a packing house w/30 women and a few men for a year, year and a half or whatever, and didn't have the problems I did w/12 women who were um..."society" I guess I'd call them. This job, even tho I was part time, I took a sleeping pill the nights before I had to work b/c it was turning into a stressing place, like Culligan.

 

[yennyfire]

I worked for GE for almost 3 years as a project manager. I worked 80 hours a week, 7 days a week and had no time for a life, which was what the company expected. My boss was a real b*tch who had no heart and happily threw me under the bus whenever she could.

I left after I met my now hubby and wanted a real life with actual personal time. I promised myself that I'd never allow work to completely overtake my life again!

 

[monarch64]

I worked for a family-operated insurance agency for about 2 years when I was going through my divorce. I did not want to take the job in the first place because I knew I was not only overqualified but that I would hate working for them. I finally took it after much of what was basically begging on their part, and wouldn't you know I was right and hated it. The work itself was frequently interesting and challenging, but the patriarch of the family was a racist, sexist, classist, ignorant piece of crap. Having to deal with him every day as well as listen to the bickering between him, his wife, and his son was the worst job situation I've ever endured. I shudder just thinking about it.

 

[iheartscience]

I worked at the university I went to as a research assistant. The department chair was also the principal investigator and she was a horrible human being. The study was about organ donation and we interviewed people about their experience being asked to donate a loved one's organs. She expected us to call these grieving people multiple times a day until they answered, and if any of them said no to the interview she acted like it was our fault. Because of course they should want to talk to a stranger about one of the most painful times in their lives, right?!! I didn't call them that often-I would just find other things to do or lie and say I did.

I was never so happy to quit a job in my life. That was my first taste of working crazy, backstabbing academics who thought a PhD was the only thing that mattered in life. Now I work in an office where the PhDs have to answer to me, which I like much better.

 

[Gypsy]

I worked at one of the largest consulting companies in the US for 6 months as a contract manager.
In my first interview I told them I didn't think I was a good fit after they described the job for me in detail (the posting had be vague).

So they made all sorts of promises to me during my interview process about how the role was 'changing' and how people with negotiation and pre-award experience were going to be 'vital' in the role in the next year.

Come to find out it was all BS to get me hired to overcome the fact that I specifically DIDN'T want a post-award babysitting position because they were desperate for Contract Managers because MOST QUIT on them. The entire job was babysitting upper managers who were over-used to getting their own way and would scream obscenities at you when you told them they couldn't do what they wanted to because the contract they had signed (that you had no part in negotiating) said so.

I found out why most Contract Managers quit on them too. Unlike their regular staff that start off as peon's right out of school and are abused from the day they start and get used to it, and never understand that they do not have to be, Contract Managers can't be trained that way. They are almost always lateral hires from different companies who have solid job experience under their belts. So they KNOW better than to put up with the abuse.

Within 1 month I had to file a HR claim against one of the "VPs" not for what she did for me but because her constant screaming at everyone, including full out cuss fests for the little new MBA gradutates was making for a 'hostile work environment'. I finally filed the report when she used screamed the F word at 3 people, because she had not explained what she wanted clearly, and them screamed at them LOUDER for crying, made them wait till IN A CORNER till 10pm, like toddlers, then DEMANDED that they show up at 6 am the next morning, WAY before regular work hours just to punish them. And then when I showed up the next morning at 9-- to find they had come in at 6am only to be forced to sit and stare at the same wall for 3 more hours.

Their solution to the problem? Transfer me to a different project, instead of addressing the GROSS HR violations with the b*tch VP.

And 90 percent of the VPs their were just as bad. It was amazing.

RIDICULOUS. I vowed NEVER to work for a consulting company again.

 

[Dee*Jay]

I just finished my last day there yesterday.

 

[distracts]

When I worked at the mall and the assistant manager yelled at me for selling too much... excuse me, I thought my job was to sell lots of stuff? She also yelled at me for checking the computer (you HAD to to see if you had been emailed anything from the district manager, corporate, or another store, and to check sales stats and all sorts of other things, so it was literally part of the job description), for talking to customers, for checking on customers in the fitting rooms to see if they needed a different size, for watching customers (which you have to do to see what they like so you can recommend them stuff they will like MORE), for making sure the improperly-trained employees were doing things to the book so we didn't all get chewed out by the district manager on her visit, etc etc. Basically if I did anything but stand around and twiddle my thumbs I got yelled at. (When I left and was no longer being yelled at all the time, I realized that she was so mad because I was selling more than her weekly, even though she worked full time and I just worked 15 hours a week, so I was probably making her look bad. Me leaving due to her yelling at me all the time cost her her job, as I was the third high-selling employee she'd driven away in a month.) There were lots of other problems there, like the manager having never managed a store before or even worked retail (which would result in things like the asst manager telling us to do things one way, and then the manager coming in and telling us to do it all another way, and then the whole thing repeating over and over again with each of them being puzzled why their work was constantly undone and all the employees running around doing and undoing things and then doing and undoing them again, all day, every day), the assistant manager being high all the time (and doing drugs in front of customers), a girl who hated me because I knew someone who had worked at her last job (she used to have a full-time salaried position there so I speculate he may have known why she was fired and she was worried I would find out... which I wasn't even curious about until she was such a b---- to me all the time, which started only after learning I knew this guy), and tons of new employees who didn't know what the heck they were doing. It was really unfortunate because I'd previously worked there during college, under different management, and there was extremely low employee turnover for a retail store, everyone was very invested in reaching our sales goals (we frequently were in the top three in our area), and everyone was nice and fun and lovely to work with and we all became friends and still talk. So it was really, really bad especially when compared to what the first time was.

Then there are campaign jobs. I won't even start on them. Fortunately the good outweighs the bad, even if the bad is sometimes so bad that I cry every day. I am relieved to leave about half of the campaigns I've worked on... but can never wait to start a new one. You don't know until you're in the thick of it whether your candidate is going to be amazing or a nightmare, but you always hope for amazing.

 

[JewelFreak]

Tiffany. Corporate personnel policy: humiliate, berate, threaten, scorn, distrust. All stores seemed to be the same.

Managers were vicious to subordinates -- office people frequently in tears after harangues by their manager about how stupid, unskilled & venal they were. No praise, ever. Rules on the sales floor & favoritism encouraged rivalry, jealousy, hostility among salespeople, which the director never tried to ease. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Salespeople were given demerits for any number of infractions; 6 got them on probation, 10 fired. I received 2 for being 10 minutes late after a blizzard when parkway traffic slowed to about 30 mph & my usually 45-minute commute took over an hour. Another 2 when I caught the flu at Christmastime, stayed home 3 days w/fever & coughing. Christmas commissions make up 1/2 of yearly income so I missed out on a lot. Returned to work still coughing, weak & feverish -- a manager told me to go home early, & they hit me with 2 black marks for doing so!

Another example: linoleum floors leading to the stock room were mopped at midday -- busiest time -- and very slippery & dangerous. Salespeople holding armsful of glass & china objects often slid & nearly fell. Requests for a rubber mat or even floor-washing at a better time were met with scorn & mocking by the director because we were not careful enough. Eventually someone slipped & fell, injured her ankle & was hurt by shards from the glass bowl she'd been carrying, which exploded on impact. Uh oh, prospect of a suit -- the next day a mat appeared.

It would take all day to describe the hellacious atmosphere of working there. I sat in my car in the parking lot many times & cried, dreading another day. When I finally hit all I could take, tore my performance review into confetti on the director's desk, & walked out, she followed me down the hallway, screeching at me. 10 years later I still feel SO LUCKY those miserable people are in the past!

--- Laurie

 

[iheartscience]

Tiffany. Corporate personnel policy: humiliate, berate, threaten, scorn, distrust. All stores seemed to be the same.

Managers were vicious to subordinates -- office people frequently in tears after harangues by their manager about how stupid, unskilled & venal they were. No praise, ever. Rules on the sales floor & favoritism encouraged rivalry, jealousy, hostility among salespeople, which the director never tried to ease. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Salespeople were given demerits for any number of infractions; 6 got them on probation, 10 fired. I received 2 for being 10 minutes late after a blizzard when parkway traffic slowed to about 30 mph & my usually 45-minute commute took over an hour. Another 2 when I caught the flu at Christmastime, stayed home 3 days w/fever & coughing. Christmas commissions make up 1/2 of yearly income so I missed out on a lot. Returned to work still coughing, weak & feverish -- a manager told me to go home early, & they hit me with 2 black marks for doing so!

Another example: linoleum floors leading to the stock room were mopped at midday -- busiest time -- and very slippery & dangerous. Salespeople holding armsful of glass & china objects often slid & nearly fell. Requests for a rubber mat or even floor-washing at a better time were met with scorn & mocking by the director because we were not careful enough. Eventually someone slipped & fell, injured her ankle & was hurt by shards from the glass bowl she'd been carrying, which exploded on impact. Uh oh, prospect of a suit -- the next day a mat appeared.

It would take all day to describe the hellacious atmosphere of working there. I sat in my car in the parking lot many times & cried, dreading another day. When I finally hit all I could take, tore my performance review into confetti on the director's desk, & walked out, she followed me down the hallway, screeching at me. 10 years later I still feel SO LUCKY those miserable people are in the past!

--- Laurie

AWESOME. That must have felt so good!

I've heard Tiffany is a terrible place to work from former employees IRL, too.

 

[fabulousfindk]

UGH I have one! I worked as a project manager in a printing company - there were only about ten project managers and the rest of the building was a huge factory where they printed transactional statements for big companies. I have never met such racist, bigoted people in my life. The first day there, the guy who was supposed to be training me said he was hoping the company Christmas party would be held at the same plantation it was the year before - "You can sit downstairs where they kept the slaves! The chains are still there and everything!" Like it was SO COOL. And countless other ridiculous comments, homophobic and racial slurs, some much more mean that I'm too embarrassed to even type. I stayed there six months. On my last day I marched to the HR office (their one and only HR officer was a lesbian, interestingly, and I could tell completely empathized with my outrage) where I gleefully spilled out every comment I'd heard and told who said what.

Sometimes I wish I'd hung on til Christmas, so I could bring my (GASP) black boyfriend to the plantation and see those old crusty hoots fall over from shock! And just FYI, I'd be completely insulted by those comments regardless of SO's race.

 

[missy]

Oh my, I cannot believe the horrible work environments some of you have had to endure! I thought my dh was in a terrible work environment a few years ago but it was nothing compared to some of the work environments I am reading about here!

A few years ago during the recession my dh switched careers and began what he thought was going to be a positive change. Well, he loved his colleagues and the intellectual energy of the work environment. It was all quite excellent except for one big problem. The sociopathic CEO that was in charge. I won't go into details but suffice it to say my dh left as soon as he could (a little less than 2 years I believe). And no one who had any other options stayed there for very long either. Which was a real pity because they lost people who were amazing, intelligent, talented, gifted etc and what attracted my dh to this company in the first place was the message behind it. It was all about teaching ethics in business. Which is ironic when you think about the behavior of the CEO.

It could have been an awesome place to work and during much of the time my dh was there it was. But that darn CEO kept getting in the way and was truly his own worst enemy for the success of the company which is still managing to survive but still cannot hold onto good people for very long. My dh still keeps in touch with the many friends he made there. Some of the nicest and smartest bunch of people we have ever met. So I guess some good does come from bad experiences. Not to mention it allowed us to survive during the most difficult part of the recession. So for that we will always be thankful.

 

[jazzoboe]

I worked for GE for almost 3 years as a project manager. I worked 80 hours a week, 7 days a week and had no time for a life, which was what the company expected. My boss was a real b*tch who had no heart and happily threw me under the bus whenever she could.

I left after I met my now hubby and wanted a real life with actual personal time. I promised myself that I'd never allow work to completely overtake my life again!

My DH works for GE and has been there a little over 2 years now, so I can totally believe what you're saying. Luckily, he rarely works 80 hours works, but 60 is pretty normal, as is 7 days a week, but some of the weekend work is because he is doing his Master's through their EEDP program, so it takes a lot of extra hours outside of the work day. I think he goes back and forth with being happy enough there and wanting out. This week was not such a good one. But honestly, as young people who graduated from college in a terrible job market, we are both just so thankful that he got a stable job with decent pay right out of school. Too many people we know (*ahem* including myself to some extent) are either unemployed, extremely underemployed, or just hanging out in grad school indefinitely. It makes it hard to complain. However, as soon as he gets that degree in a little over a year, we will be seriously considering all of our options. A steady job is good, but their concept of work/life balance sucks almost as much as their benefits!

 

[sonnyjane]

I worked for Culligan here in town for a year. It was my first "office" job. The job itself I loved, and my three coworkers were wonderful. However, the boss and his wife were not the nicest. He was grouchy and she was just plain mean and their kids were..ugh. I christened them Oscar and Satan and their kids Scooter and Princess. I spent about 9 months only sleeping on Friday and Saturday b/c I didn't have to work the next day. Amazing how your body can adapt to literally, no sleep.

It really is quite amazing how our bodies deal with stress. My first job out of college was at a travel and tourism PR firm. I had some great and glamorous clients, but I also was given the task of representing Nicaragua, a third-world country, the second poorest in the hemisphere with an average ANNUAL income of $800 at the time (I see now that it's up to $1,080). They paid us peanuts but expected New York Times, Travel & Leisure, etc. to do cover stories on them. Just when we would make headway, there would be a story about the Nicaraguan president supporting Castro and Chavez, or about how the "country is beautiful once you make it past the guards armed with AK-47's at the airport". Ay yi yi I had the WORST TMJ while I worked there, and we could never make the client happy or convince journalists that they were a viable destination. I ended up quitting, and the day I put in my notice, the TMJ stopped

That was not the only reason I left. I was a 21/22 year old at the time that I was there and was big into the bar scene and dating pretty casually. My boss, a born-again-Baptist, got wind of that and for Christmas... gifted me a Bible. I came in one morning and it was sitting on my desk with a note saying "I think you could use some guidance." Ugh...I'm an Atheist, so this was profoundly offensive to me.

 

[CharmyPoo]

I guess I am lucky. I held 3 career jobs - 2 in my undergrad and I had the same job since my graduation. I loved all 3 of these jobs and the people I worked with. I work very long hours but my company treats me very well as do all my clients.

I should add that these 3 companies are large companies and usually rated high as top employers to work for. I guess perhaps it does make a difference

 

[ame]

The worst job I had lasted not quite a week, and actually ended up working out to get me into the job that became a profitable partnership that lasted quite a while after I walked out as I ended up being available for the interview when they called as I was driving myself home!

I had just moved back to the midwest from the east coast after getting my masters, and dumping my douchey ex. I took a job at a small agency that I knew the Creative Director at, he used to be a professor when I was still in undergrad. If I had taken any time to do any research on this place, I'd have found out why the only female employee was the owner's wife and the CDs wife and daughter. Because the owner is BEYOND sexist and disgusting. I was hired to be an art director, but on my first day, my job was to make a chart of maps, not on the computer, but on paper with little tiny dots. On my second, I got to redo the map, bec my dots were not all the same shade of blue and the red ones didn't please his eyes. On my third, I put out a serious fire as they had missed a deadline, since they wouldn't let me do the actual work I was hired for, and kept the CD there til almost midnight doing what I was hired to do. And I got screamed at for answering the phone, and for touching a computer, as I was not instructed I was allowed to do that yet. On my fourth day, I was in a meeting with a prospective client and the staff, going over this map, and the creative and when the client didn't like the proposed creative that they had done prior to my arrival, which was not in compliance with brand guidelines anyway, I made a few ideas off the top of my head that the client really liked. The owner screamed at me that I was not to speak until spoken to, and to get out. The prospective client immediately ended the meeting and walked out, slipping me a business card on their way out and thanking me for the suggestions. The owner saw it, and hurled a stapler at me, barely missing my head/face. I grabbed my purse and coat, told his wife to mail me my check and that if I didn't have it by Wed the following week my attorney will collect it for me, and I walked out. The CD came running after me, begging me to not quit. I looked at him and said "you allowed one of your students to come work for this lunatic, and you just witnessed him throw a metal object at my head. If you think I am coming back you're insane. If I don't sue him or press charges, be happy".

The irony is that this same idiot owner came to the agency I ended up at, as a partner by this time, asking us to merge/buy him out so he could retire. I told my partners that if they do it, they will be buying me out before that happens. My one partner blew it with him anyway, and the guy went elsewhere, but it was close.

 

[iheartscience]

HOLY SHIZ Ame.

 

[ame]

That dude was nucking futs. His wife would just say "he doesn't mean anything by it!". Uh yea, he does!

I was glad when my one former partner blew that whole deal just because of who he is (a lazy turd), but I know the other partner wanted it badly. I had my paperwork for the buyout already set up by my lawyer in the event they went through with it because I knew how badly they wanted it and I was outnumbered, they just wanted the influx of accounts and money. The only positive about that guy--and why it ultimately fell apart--was that he actually understood that when you were at work, you came to work, dressed for work and actually did some work. My one partner would come in wearing flip flops and dirty shorts, late, do some goofing off, and then go to lunch and never come back. That would never have worked out.

 

[iheartscience]

Unbelievable that his wife would excuse that kind of behavior. Hopefully he didn't throw things at her too.

 

[ame]

Unbelievable that his wife would excuse that kind of behavior. Hopefully he didn't throw things at her too.

The way he acted, sadly, I'm sure that marriage was very unpleasant. He would scream at people from his office, instead of calling them or emailing them, and she would jump all the time, like he scared the crap out of her doing it. I actually can't believe he didn't drop dead from a stroke or heart attack, he was so hyped up and screamy all the time.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I was a waitress for a nice steakhouse chain. Management was horrible. They did not care about their employees or have any loyalty to us.

 

[ame]

I was a waitress for a nice steakhouse chain. Management was horrible. They did not care about their employees or have any loyalty to us.

Sadly, that's been my experience with most restaurant serving jobs. I sometimes feel like EVERYONE should be a server though, like as a first job. Teaches you some interpersonal skills and hopefully how to tip well later because most servers work their legs off.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I worked about 12 hours per week at a large chain book store when I was in University. It paid minimum wage, which at the time where I live was $8.75 per hour. It was ok, but just working as a cog in the machine. But there was no appreciation of employees. The pay was so bad and you never got a raise. No one was happy. I worked the cash register, which was a job they had trouble filling because most people found it challenging to manage the money. But I rarely if ever made mistakes, and even if my count did not balance it was only ever off by a few pennies. I was never late. I dealt with the hundreds of jerky customers each day and smiled most of the time.

After 12 months, I had my performance evaluation. The tradition on that job was to give employees a lousy 10 cent per hour raise on the first anniversary of their employment. Everyone received that raise. I was looking forward to that as some small reward for my loyalty.

My manager told me that I was not going to receive the usual 10 cents per hour raise because sometimes they got the sense I did not want to be there on the job.

I was really offended. On principle it was such a slap in the face. I told my manager that if they did not think I was worth an extra 10 cents per hour after 12 months of service, then they should fire me, because any employee who is good enough to keep on the roster deserves to be thrown a bone of appreciation after 12 months of service. And 10 cents per hour is a mighty small bone. They said they did not want to fire me, I was a valued employee. So I gave my two weeks notice.

I was quite the hero when that story got out. Most of the people working there wanted to quit. But I was fortunate to have other work as a TA lined up at my University. I really feel for the people who don't have those options and are stuck in crappy jobs where their efforts are not even worth an extra 10 cents per hour.

I

 

[ChristineRose]

Ha, ha, this is nothing! I had a job once where the boss started mixing booze and pills, got arrested for messing with his step-daughters, involuntarily committed for trying to kill his ex-wife, and then it all hit the papers. That company also had it's stock go from about $2 a share to $70 a share in that same period, and then plummet to a few cents. (The booze and pills also contributed to a few misleading statements he made to investors.) And we had two bomb threats, which may have been called in by the investors or the family, but were probably called in by the boss himself.

Really, all in all that wasn't such a bad job. But that's my best bad job story.