Big Mother is watching you
In the impoverished world of late 1990s General FE colleges, under an office manager who was like a cross between a totalitarian dictator and your mum:

- Daily work progress supervisions.

- Preferential treatment for staff either married, with children, and especially those married with children.

- No non-work conversations allowed to last more than 5 minutes.

- Personal telephone calls limited to about 2 minutes IF YOU MUST.

- Only two staff (in an office of 12) permitted to be on leave at any time. This led to holidays piling up and denials of not approving them earlier in the year.

- ABSOLUTELY no swearing in the office. Even euphemisms were banned. I was reduced to Gordon Bennetting.

- Questioning where someone was if an unexplained absence (an unscheduled meeting, say) went beyond 15 minutes. "Where have you been? You went out nearly ten minutes ago!"

On that final point, I almost hoped I'd one day get an upset stomach and be stuck in the gents for half an hour. "Do you REALLY, want me to tell you where I've been, Mrs Manager? EXACTLY what I've been doing? Well, I'll tell you then ..."
( The Vomiting Hitchhiker Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 12:46, 7 replies)

Is this unusual?
I've been a civil servant for 11 years and it doesn't sound any different from my workplace at all.

Hmm....
( t0ria has forgotten how this all works, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 13:20, closed)

It is unusual
Compared to environments where managers trust the staff that they have appointed to do their jobs, without checking up on them hourly. We basically had to tell her every single thing we were doing and why, even the routine stuff. "Going to see the exams manager about these new GNVQs and their funding for 20 minutes ... off to change the backup tapes in the servers, should take 15 minutes" etc
( The Vomiting Hitchhiker Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 13:33, closed)

They even had to DO WORK!!

(Vlad the Inhaler forgot his password, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:42, closed)

"Where have you been?"
"Having a quick wa ... er ... pleasuring myself in the toilet, ma'am. It's OK - I washed my hands."
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 13:56, closed)

Had I had the nerve
This would have been perfect
( The Vomiting Hitchhiker Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 14:06, closed)

Used to work in a call centre
The *only* acceptable answer to this question is "I was having a massive shit"

They won't ask you again.
( rofl harris, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 14:19, closed)

As a former FE lecturer and union rep
This sounds depressingly familiar. A lot of people in the sector suddenly thought they had a right to lord it over people just because their job title now contained the word "manager". These power trips created an awful lot of totally unnecessary and avoidable casework.
(lolwhites, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 14:17, closed)