3CG and Triple D
Once upon a time I was a Senior Account Manager for the business division of a telecom company.

The job was stressful and it since we were working through a contractor, the pay was literally 1/4 of the industry standard for business account managers.

as if the stress and shite pay wasn't enough, I also had some of the worst coworkers. EVER.

Allow me to set the scene. Everyone else in that department got to sit out in the cubicle farm. I was put on a special project and moved to a room in the back. The room was about the size of a prison cell, and had 7 stations in along the walls. The room was crowded and the asshole who sat at the desk at the wall perpendicular to my desk was a grade A royal ASSHOLE. He was at least 6'2" and weighed 275. He would lean back in his chair so it would smash me into my desk. He listened to shit AM talk radio everyday. without headphones. It was crazy right-wing "Christian" programming, Like Bill O'Reily and Glenn Beck. Everyday, 8+ hours a day, we were all subjected to Dr. Laura and Glen Beck going on and on about how blacks and gays are going to hell. There were two black girls and I'm a lesbian. We complained SEVERAL times to management, but nothing ever came of it. We dubbed him 3CG- Crazy Conservative Christian Guy.

As if listening to twats talking utter bullshit all day wasn't bad enough, one day his wife served him divorce papers AND a restraining order... at work. We all got a good kick out of it- until we saw how utterly CRAZY this made the guy. The AM radio was gone, only to be replaced with him spending every hour on the phone with lawyers, judges, police, and his sister. He would say crazy things to us out of the blue. He told us several times that he wants his soon to be ex wife to die in some horrible way, then show the pictures of her dead body to their 3 year old daughter.

Again, complaints lodged with HR and management, only to be told we should be more sensitive since he's going through a hard time. Oh, and since he didn't do any actual work I had to pick up his accounts.

The final straw with 3CG? Striped socks. One day a girl wore striped socks and we were all taking the piss on her, giggling and whatnot. Next thing we know he slams down the phone and bellows "OH GREAT. NOW I'M NOT GOING TO SEE MY DAUGHTER BECAUSE THE JUDGE HEARD YOU GUYS LAUGHING IN THE BACKGROUND!!!". someone says "whoa easy, don't go postal on us"... to which he replies, in the flattest, creepiest tone I've ever heard emerge from a human "oh, I won't go postal. you'll die God's way. I'll just be there to take pictures of your bodies."

It was at that point we refused to go into that room with him and threatened to take legal action if management didn't do anything. Their solution to this problem? Move him to the cubicle row 3 feet from the entrance to our room.

And lastly I have Demented Dyke Director. Triple-D. As the name says, she was my director. My supervisor's supervisor's Supervisor. As a strange twist of fate, or punishment for possibly being Hitler in a past life, it just so happened she started dating my best friend after I started working there. Imagine the surprise you have when you and your best friend finally deduct she's sleeping with your boss. And your Boss finding out her taboo relationship is with one of her underling's best friend.

Needless to say I didn't blab about it, and everything was ok until the inevitable happened- they broke up. My director went apeshit on my friend and threatened to kill herself all the time and spit on her. Then she started busting my ass at work... and told my friend she was going to fire me if they didn't get back together.

The icing on the cake was last January when my grandpa died. I was gone from work for a week, as I had to go out of state for the funeral. When I got back home and turned on my phone it started going off with texts from my friend pissed off because my director told her I told everyone about their relationship. I asked how I could have done that when I hadn't even been at work for week, but she never replied.

In fact, my friend (i use the term loosely) only recently started talking to me again, almost a year later.

Thankfully I found a job that paid 3 times more, with a FRACTION of the responsibility.

My only hope is one day 3CG snaps and mows down the entire place.



AK47 in one hand, Polaroid in the other.
(StupidAmericanTourist, Sun 27 Jan 2008, 9:48, Reply)

Bloody workmates
I was doing some work as a contractor on a building site a few years back. Mostly decent lads to work with. However...

I had this one task where I had to saw through quite a lengthy piece of heavy timber. This obviously wasn't going to be a task you could do alone, so I got a workmate to grip one end of the timber while I was doing the sawing.

Stupid bastard workmate didnt grip tight enough, timber flipped up, smashed me in the face and broke my nose. Ouch!



Fuck you Black and Decker.

( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sun 27 Jan 2008, 9:30, 2 replies)

Good colleages and piss poor managers.
I used to work in the healthcare industry and it was a job I enjoyed immensely. Even though I wasn't fixing broken people, I was there in the background helping the doctors who helped the people get better.

We had a decent manager, a smart guy, friendly, had parties, etc. Well all that changed when we found out that the hospital was going to "outsource" us. You will all be hired by the new company and will get salaries commensurate with the industry. If you ever hear a line line that.. don't sign anything - it's a crock of shite.

The next manager was, how shall I put this politely, a small man of Pakistani descent with some sort of huge chip on his shoulder. During the interview process (yes we got to interview our manager) I posed the question "tell us about your management experience" to which he replied "I manage staff at my current job" so thinking this wasn't nearly enough information I said "can you tell us a bit more? what size staff do you manage, for how long have you managed them and how is your work environment" after some half answers he let slip that the person (NOT people) he managed is a contractor. Not a real employee at all.. so I said "do you have any real management experience involving actual staff not contractors who can be fired as easily as telling them don't come in anymore" bit of a pause... "err well no not really"

So I saw my opportunity and said "Ah so you don't really have any management experience that would be similar to managing this department with the 4 of us here" and he agreed that yes that's probably true.

Well naive me thought once I and the rest of my colleagues gave a thumbs down to this twit we'd see other choices.. not so! they hired this fuckwit and he showed up the first day and immediately pissed off the senior guy (who was Indian) He also (although being 5 foot 5) decided to antagonize the 6 foot 7 250lb black man who was my partner in crime. He annoyed the Indian guy to the point that he just quit, he had a new job lined up and gave them 5 minutes notice. "Why are you putting your stuff in a box?" "because this is my last day of work, Here is my letter of resignation"
Now that was funny.

He kept on digging at the big black dude until he snapped (not violently but vocally) he kept getting into the guys face and (looking up) pointing at him. The guy just said calm and quietly "If you don't take that finger out of my face I'm going to rip your arm off you third world bag of paki monkey shit" you could have heard a pin drop.. This dude went on to bigger and better pastures leaving me and two other dudes that came from "headquarters" to help.

Now we were in the last weeks of pre-outsourcing and I took on an air of calmness. He started giving me crap about something I was doing and I said "I can't wait until FCG (the consulting outfit) takes over"
which made him pause and ask "why is that?" so I continued "Well I'm thinking they will interview each one of us when they come in and I'm going to tell them how you ran K out of here for what appeared to be an Indian/Pakistani feud - since he knew this institution inside-out and would have been of great value to the new company" you could see the smirk fading from his face at this point so I continued. "add to that the fact that you needled E to the point that he threatened you with bodily harm and he was the most gentle soul I'd met here until that point. Was it because he was black?" err err no err "well all I can hope for is that they listen to what I have to say and if they do, you will be fired so fast you won't even realize it until you are walking out the door"

Well at this point he lost it.. started raising his voice (octave not volume) "I know what you're doing, I know what you're doing" so I just walked away chuckling. Next thing we knew he was announcing he was taking a position at another location (which would avoid the outsource) and was gone from our lives. He tried to make nice before he left, wanting to shake hands etc but at the time I was holding some equipment and didn't put it down. I left him with my parting nugget "If you go into the new position and do NOTHING that you did here, you may be ok, because frankly you have been the worst manager I've ever had the misfortune to work for" and that was the last time I saw him.

After that twat left we got a new manager, a huge super supreme BS artist. He could represent the country in olympic bullshitting. He flew back and forth across the country on the weekends, promised the world and delivered nothing, suggested "Oh it's easy, we will do this using so and so..." and when pushed for details as to how it would really work came up with "this is easy stuff, I'll show you in a bit when I'm done with my meetings". Eventually they fired him for incompetence which surprised us as we thought that it was a requirement of the management for this outsource company.

Well I lasted 3 months with the outsource company before I had reached my limit. I left there 8 years ago and have never regretted it. I just feel bad for the people that allowed this tragedy to befall them.. what a swindle.

Ah well.

Pardon the length, but being in a hospital I had a bit added to it..
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Sun 27 Jan 2008, 1:07, Reply)

McDonalds
I used to work at fair old McDonalds. it has its fair share of bastards, it also takes some of everyone elses as a side order.

1: This guy was an arse, he locked people in the freezer, sprayed them with a hose and punched a manager once, he was eventually sacked for getting his cock out on the drive through.

2: She was a manager, and she also happened to be an utter slag, she slept with about half of the staff, and if you hadn't slept with her, then she wold treat you like shit constanly, an example would be when she edited a staff members payroll details so they wouldn't get paid for a few months.

3: This girl/beast/thing was pretty much just the mind-slave of number 2, kind of like the little chavs you see following around the older chavs, you know, the ones who don't really understand why they have to borrow 20p off me, they just do.

So over all, a rather wholesome experience.
(annhialus hasn't had an accident since, Sun 27 Jan 2008, 0:09, 4 replies)

Cnut in my building
He is such a cnut that on Friday, Rach* in the office had a bit of a crash on the way to work, she showed up quite obviously in shock, and he didn't think to send her home.

In fact, to save the hastle of him jumping up and down like a monkey impaled on a watermellon, we phoned up his boss to tell her that we were sending Rach home.

If you work in Dublin up a set of very narrow stairs, you know who you are. And I think you are a cnut, and so does about half of the office!

*Name changed to protect the non-cnut person in this story.
(lympicita_ie, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 23:26, Reply)

bastards?
set of cunts more like, all of them
they're lucky to have me work with em
without killing any of the twunts
stop em breeding i say

length? been there too fucking long
(evilneb nothing to see here, move along.., Sat 26 Jan 2008, 21:34, Reply)

At work
At work i can quite easily handle the annoying twunts who after 2 years still have no idea how to do their jobs...not everyones perfect

I can handle 2 of the guys "pretending" to be gay every second of every day....some people like to seem comfortable with their sexuality i suppose.

i'm even fine with my boss cocking up and trying to pin it on me on a fairly regualr basis

But what i will NOT HAVE...is some twat of a colleague taking MY last fucking bicuit from my sacred biscuit tin in the two minute gap im in the bog.

OH NO! IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN THERE WILL BE BODIES!

!
(apo-dap, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 21:23, 2 replies)

Do pupils count?
As a teacher of secondary school, I think pupils would technically count as bastard colleagues. They come in all shapes and sizes, rude, ugly, spotty adolescents who are too cowardly to take on anyone real, but gang up in packs of 30 to give the poor bugger who's only trying to do their job a lot of unnecessary shit.
The girls are the worst, with their inch thick foundation, tiny skirts barely covering huge arses and massive corned beef legs, regaling the rest of the neathandertals with stories of their sexual exploits and drinking, and having mouths like long shoremen.
Then we have the boys, ugly spotty adolescent freaks, short yet unpleasant, with their ludicrous hair-don'ts. Their posturing and swaggering looks even more ridiculous with their horrible stunted frames, covered in queasy-looking pustules and blackheads almost a half-inch across. Jesus, use some of your cigarette money to buy some pore-strips!
The only thing that amuses me is when their close-to-breaking voices quaver when they're trying to give you some smart answer. What depresses me the most is the fact that neither sex will manage to do anything worthwhile after leaving school except continue to be a drain on this country's already over-strained resources. Oh, and also that thanks to an education system full of pc pussies, we have no effective sanctions against bad behaviour.
Cheers.
As a post-script, I would like to say there are some pupils who are nice and do brighten your day but they are so out-numbered by the chavs and neds that it makes little difference.
/end rant
(resurrection_mary cannibal_ferox, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 21:16, 2 replies)

Not a smelly colleague, but a stinker all the same...
I worked with the female version of David Brent, albeit more attractive and less mentally stable.

The management babble flowed from her in a steady stream, and she would eagerly embrace each and every new concept handed down from our superiors.

Her height of shallowness* came after she'd spent a day singing the praises of the company's new boss - an ex-British Airways bigwig who was going to be 'so different' to previous overlords.

The next week, she's sitting in the writers room of our department, crying her heart out because this 'so different' bigwig had slept through her presentation on how good she was and she was going to have to do it again.

This gullibility extended further - almost every urban myth anyone mentioned was true, according to her. Point out they were false, and she'd take this as a personal affront and reel off a list of people who had confirmed to her that it was true, so therefore it must be true.

I could go on, but it's a sad tale. She had a Gareth-type acolyte, too, but she was less attractive than the version in 'The Office' and there just isn't room on this thread to detail her failings.

* I know, terribly mixed metaphor.
(uncle whippity, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 19:46, 1 reply)

Teaching
Heard on the grapevine of course, a head who allegedly...

*Refused to discipline children if they decided they had 'low-self esteem', even if they were clearly being manipulative.
*Slammed a door so hard she broke the glass whilst shouting at a class
*Threatened to drag children who talked during assembly 'down the corridor by your 'air!' Not hair. 'Air.
*Lost a colleague's reports, accused her of being unprofessional and reduced the (heavily pregnant, extremely talented teacher) to tears. Further investigation found the reports in the head's office. Where they'd been all along.
*Frequent belittling of staff, to the point that they leave.
*Turning on staff and accusing them of all-sorts when she wants somebody new in.

Hmm...I'm sure there's more...
(Medibot, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 19:40, Reply)

Call centre for an energy provider
My boss: Get back in the system!!
Me: Sorry, I thought I was...
Boss: Whatever! Just do it!
Me: Fine, I was trying to be respectful but fuc-*call comes through*

Me:Can I have the new prices please?
Boss:*Rubs thoroughly on crotch* Here you go.

Boss:This *boring energy process* will be the death of me!
Me: Thought that would be syphilis?
Boss: You bitch!

Oh and if you are wondering why energy suppliers are slow to pick up its cos most of the phone monkeys are playing tetris. :)
(Medibot, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 19:31, 1 reply)

The bad flirter
I worked a part-time job at a movie theatre for about a year during high school. One of my co-workers graduated a year before me, but was the kind of creepy guy who still hung around the school after graduation (see: Matthew McConahgey in "Dazed and Confused," but awkward).

He had an obvious crush on me, and made no bones about flirting poorly. For instance, he once called me up to the front of the theatre and asked me to, "stand here. With me." Awkward moments abound.

Needless to say, I don't miss him or the job.
(I bape rabies Let's go get Chick-fi-A!, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 18:15, Reply)

Meeting scheduled
A re-post from an old QOTW but seems to fit the bill for this one as well

Last place I worked at, one of the blokes there was arrested and later sentenced for having child porn on his home computer. The fact that in between his arrest and the court appearance he was in work every day sitting about 3 desks away from me turned my stomach (especially as I had photos of my kids on my desk at the time).

Not many people in the office knew about it, his boss obviously knew but didn't want to tell anyone as it may jeopardise business with clients. I knew about it as I was the one working in IT at the time who CID interviewed to ask me to check the servers and his folders for any indecent images or passwords to get on to websites.

I was threatened by this guy's boss that if I breathed a word of it to anyone, I would be sacked.

Court case arrives and the peado is sent down for 6 months, he thought that he would get a suspended sentence and be back in work the next day.

Does the truth then come out? No. Said boss issues an email saying that the guy was off due to personal circumstances and may return to work in the future. Threat of sack to me still stands if I say anything.

I realise that saying anything, doesn't extend to having a newspaper open on my desk with the full story (the guy was also a scout leader so it made front page) open to everyone.

Over the next few days everyone found out about it (not all because of me) then I got a phone call from HR saying that someone had reported me for sticking the news report up against the window of my office and leaving copies in the meeting room.

That was all bullshit and lies. HR were actually understanding and believed my side of the story. I knew where it had come from so decided to bide my time.

Working in IT meant I knew most peoples passwords. Knowing that this manager wasn't the cleverest and would never click on,I set his password to never expire.

6 months after leaving there, I can still access his emails through webmail. I've deleted a load, moved a load to different folders and put spelling mistakes in all his contacts email and phone details. Mildly annoying but not great.

My greatest feat yet - setting up a meeting in his calendar to "See how I look wearing ladies clothes and underwear", scheduled for the meeting room, invited to everyone in the orgainsation in the UK (approx 500 people).

Apparantly the shit hit the fan, I remain undiscovered and he has no idea. His password is still the same so let me know for any other ideas I can use to make his life a misery.

Cheers
(brocky, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 17:48, 9 replies)

No matter the job there's always one
Invariably they're managers, although some of my colleagues deserve a good slap at the best of times. Below is a summary of the idiocy I deal with (I do actually enjoy my job but fcuk me it attracts some proper mongs)

Tea Break: Why for example, slurp your tea and go "ahhhhh" after every mouthful? If it's too hot, blow on it for gods sake, or wait until it's cool, rather than acting like some sort of peasant at a trough?

The Foodie: If you're eating, it's good form to close your mouth when you eat so you dont sound like a particularly dodgy porn film.

Chewing Gum: For christs sakes, close your mouth if you need to use this stuff. Otherwise I just feel like slicing your tongue off.

Grossly uninformed opinions: I dont need to hear them to do my job, so just shut that flapping hole in your face before I do it for you (Classic example: "I don't think pro-lifers who kill doctors are idiots, I just think they're misguided")

Napolean Complex: being short and agressive doesn't make you a better person than me, indeed, were it to come down to physical confrontation (which you so clearly wish to provoke) then you'd be missing some fingers and possibly an eye you short-arsed little twit.

The Persistent Caller: If I dont answer my phone it's because I'm busy. Calling at 2 minute intervals for twenty minutes will not change this situation, nor make me more likely to take your call. Furthermore if you're going to call, leave a message, or I'll simply assume you just want a chat. Additionally, if I deign to answer, and explain that I'm busy and will get back to you, continuing to burble on will just have me reaching for the off button.

The Midas Touch: I'm bursting my pan in on a daily basis, and do not need to be told that I can save £10 per day by picking a shitter hotel than the one I'm currently in, nor do I need to be continually hassled for opting to pick a GPS option for my car (after all , EVERYONE has an in-built map of every foreign city in the world so needing SatNav is of course just a frivolous waste of cash)

The Martyr: I may be working away from home and therefore you may assume I have no life, however I still need time off, so don't assume that due to your piss poor planning and abysmal resource allocation that I'll work the weekend to cover your arse. The product is shit at worst and dysfunctional at best, and no amount of graft on my part will change a hugely entrenched corporate policy of employing fuckwits to develop it for you. Additionally, making me work 24/7 forces me to allocate time during the week for drink and drugs. Customers do not appreciate this.

Mr Party Line: Don't call me then ask to speak a colleague (invariably for a rambling chat or an idiots version of what we're doing) while I collect the whopping roaming charges - call them directly please, or I'll just hang up once we're done.

The Snob: I may be hungover, but as it stands I can do the job with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back, while you struggle to grasp basic concepts such as personal hygiene, common sense and logical analysis.

It wasn't like this in my day: Correct, because when you were on the tools, a bit and brace was the height of technological prowess. Acting like a complete cnut towards the engineers and gaffers who make that cash which keeps you in Mercedes SLR's and trophy girlfriends is the reason why you have slashed tires every weekend.

TPS Sheets: I've already given you the invoice for this months work - don't ask for the same bloody document and figures in a different format every few weeks or I'll just start expensing pornography, drink and drugs to spite you.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 17:33, 4 replies)

I'll shove two together
As I have 6 essay wotsits to complete by Monday and my father in law is back from hospital after having open heart surgery and I have to keep checking he's not fallen over/exploded like the scene in Alien.

I started a new job yesterday, which is good money but very boring. It consists of ferrying folders back and forth, and sorting paperwork as the people who work in the department are so lazy. I was given a tour around the filing rooms, all neat and tidy (well, as tiday as they can be), and sat down at my deck to do some work. I took a pile of folders to file room A and when I got back, everything on my desk was in disarray. Out of order, in completely new piles. Someone had gone over when I was out and messed everything up. When I had sorted them out again and taken some more files, I got to file room B and found files all over the floor, out of order and bits of paper all over the floor. It wasn't like that on my 'tour' an hour ago. I think someone is fucking with me. Also, I had some lovely bitchy comments as my clothes are cheap crap from New Look (I worked from home for the past 3 months, meaning my usual office attire was a dressing gown and socks).

But, as I may have mentioned before, I used to work in a call centre. My manager was the a middle aged cow, as was her accomplice, the training woman. The manager would come out and berate me on my breaks for smoking (you couldn't even see me from the building! I didn't wear a uniform or anything), yell at me across the centre and bitch about me to anyone who would listen. She kept me late several times and didn't pay me, meaning I would have to walk home in my high heels ('Girls wear heels at this company. What would clients think if they came in and saw you without?!') If I was sorting a post bag, I should be taking calls, and vice versa. She scheduled me to work when I should have been at college and when I disputed this, she told me I needed to get my priorities straight as 'the company is more important'. When I complained to the training woman, I was dragged into a meeting where I was severely berated by both, having my personality/looks/work ethic torn to shreds, until I ended up in tears. I quit after that.

It turns out she did this to every female who tried to work in her call centre. Blokes were given free reign, turning up in ripped band t-shirts and transfering all their calls to the women as they play Solitaire on their computers. She'll never get fired though, her son is the owner.
(missc, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 17:22, 4 replies)

my old chemistry teacher
was very excentric, had no friends, wend bell ringing, had a monks hair cut, and was a man, far from being a bastard colleague he was an awesome teacher and all his pupils loved him. i guess the gender difference has quite an effect for weird loner monky bell ringers
( wjh31, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 16:48, Reply)

Pooflake's 'Burnsy' reminds me...
of Kelly, another 'manager' in name only at the callcentre I am praying I don't have to go back to.
She is pure chavscum, can barely talk the Queen's E, wears sports' wear with qvc earrings on dress down days, and HAS NO FRIENDS. When she got married she sent an email around the call centre to ask people to come on her hen weekend.
Completely incompetent, she has been on as many courses the company can throw her on and thinks if it can't be fixed with a buzzword it ain't worth fixing. Blames everyone else for her mistakes and STOLE ONE OF MY IDEAS on improving productivity after I had confided it to her.

Bitch
(housetits is channelling Natalie Cassidy - then, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 16:34, Reply)

1. Durnoid and Swamp Beast
I used to work with someone who couldn't do decimals, and had no idea how to fill in a paying-in slip. It's quite worrying when you have to explain to someone ten years your senior how to add up and that .5 of a pound is 50p, not 5p. She kept insisting that our takings were 45p short, because she punched the 5p into the calculator as .5, and couldn't understand my explanation that 5p is .05 and that .5 and .50 are the same thing. Eventually she just took my word for it.
In the same workplace was a bloke who was quite nice but a real tubbyguts, and often had a wet patch on the front of his trousers. It made sitting opposite him in the back room, making casual conversation, a little awkward. As was the time he didn't have a wet patch but did have a boner.
EDIT: Actually, I feel bad referring to him as Swamp Beast now. He was a nice bloke.

2. Turbomoron
My mum used to work with someone who was (and presumably still is) computer-illiterate. She was taken on when the company still wrote book copy/blurbs (some of the book descriptions on Amazon etc. were written by my own mum). Now it's a a big company that does all sorts of computery stuff, and this woman couldn't adapt. Among her acts of durnoidery were:
-- being told to open a document in Word and asking, "How do I do that?"
-- not understanding that if you open a document in Word and open it in Excel it's still the same document.
-- being unable to grasp the concept of 'double-click'. If you gave her written instructions, you had to write 'clickclick' instead.
-- panicking because there was "a Chinese character" on her screen. It was her cursor on top of a letter.

3. The power-mads
I used to work for that same company as a temp (hoorj for nepotism!) and there's an admin woman there who is a complete control freak. She does things like post laminated signs in the toilets on 'loo etiquette'. You know the sort of thing - instructions that make you want to shit all over the floor in defiance for having the temerity to tell you, a grown adult, to do things that you'd do anyway because you're not a belming gunge.
She was crap at writing the instructions too. She put up a sign explaining how to refill the coffee makers once they were empty, and the steps were in a seemingly random order. Rather than ask someone else for help I actually tried following the instructions as they were given and ended up making a mess. After I'd cleaned it up I found that I had to transpose some of the steps to make it work.

My mum's former manager (and who was my manager when I worked there) is a control freak too. She's normally nice, but if you cross her she devolves into a snarling doombeast. Remember Peter Puppy in Earthworm Jim, who was normally friendly but transformed into a hell-hound if he got upset? She was like that (though I don't think anyone ever thought to try disarming her by tickling her). She told off a guy for using macros instead of doing something by hand and thus saving himself about half an hour of work, in case the computer didn't do it right. And she hated it if anyone talked to someone from another department, as though all our data were strict and confidential international secrets. Obviously it wasn't stuff we could spill to Joe Public, but it was just book publishing details and fine to share internally if it made work easier.

4. The irrational technophobe
My dad has a colleague who is an old Luddite and is still convinced that all this IT stuff is just a passing fad. When the school (my dad's a teacher) brought in these electronic whiteboards (they can output the display of a computer, and you can write on them too, unlike a projector screen) all the teachers were invited to try them out by writing their names on one. You can't use dry-wipe markers; you have to use a special digi-pen. All the staff tried it out and were impressed, apart from this old fart who held the pen ham-fistedly and of course couldn't write properly with it. He proclaimed, "Well, I don't think much of this rubbish," and wouldn't be swayed by his colleagues' protestations that you have to hold the thing like a normal pen. All the staff have computers and he refuses to even try to learn to use his, and he still can't understand the difference between a laptop and a desktop.

By the way, one of my housemates is a bell-ringer, and she's lovely, so it's not that weird.
( Bob Todd whee, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 13:15, 1 reply)

Ian - the freak of nature
bastard colleagues - where to begin?
I've had all the usual mcjobs and a few others beside - potwash and commis chef when I was at school, moving on to bartender, forklift driver, bouncer, and then after leaving university slowly but surely moving into office jobs, and from there into IT where I find myself nowadays.

not so much a bastard as bloody unpleasant was the dirty get we ended up working with one summer in the nineties in a dairy in north manchester, employed as manual labour on the nightshift in a boiling hot factory - no one was leaving in the mornings smelling like roses, but this smelly f***er went *two months* without washing either himself or his clothes (the first shift of the week, you'd spend half an hour surreptitiously checking the stains on his clothes to see if they were the same as the week before - they invariably were.) The first ten minutes of every shift were usually a brisk argument with the foreman over who had to work with him, as the smell would make you retch.

The most outstanding bastard, however, has got to be a bloke - let's call him Ian. Ian worked for a large cable tv company in the late nineties and was, even the most charitable soul would have to admit after a few hours in his company, a complete bastard. I've never known anyone to be so universally disliked, even by people who can usually find something good to say about everybody. he was about four foot ten and looked like a cross between a weeble and harold bishop from neighbours, and claimed to be blind in one eye - which gave him the excuse for his speciality. now as anyone who's worked in a big call center knows, staff turnover is pretty high, so there was always a fresh supply of victims for him who weren't acquainted with his MO and so didnt know to stay well away from him. his trick was to sidle up behind any of the lady employees who caught his good eye (if you were blonde you'd definitely get the Ian treatment, but brunettes were by no means safe), 'accidentally' bump into them, have a quick grope of their funbags and then hurriedly apologise, claiming the poor girl concerned had been on his blind side and he hadnt seen them. His other favourite was standing in front of them while they were sat at their desk and a captive audience, playing pocket pool and not even trying to be subtle about it. he had no personality and was as dull as dishwater, but it still didn't dissuade him from trying to be your friend, when you just wanted him to stay as far away from you as possible.

all of which meant that Ian that was fairly universally disliked by *everyone* in that office. he was quite fond of getting up for a wander when he was supposed to be working and subjecting the women on the ground and second floors to his dubious charms as well. there would be a few people at the end of each shift all heading home the same way, and getting on the same bus to head back into manchester centre. About two or three times a year, you'd be lucky enough to be sat on the bus as it pulled out of the station and suddenly become aware of a frenzied tapping on the window - it would be Ian, getting to the station just *that* bit late and running alongside, trying to get the driver to stop, while everyone on the bus who knows him is sat there, pretending they havent seen him and laughing like hell when he gets left behind. On one memorable occasion the bus turns up about five minutes late (what are you going to do? it happens.) Everyone just accepts it and gets on - except for Ian. He wants to know where the driver's been and an explanation of why he's late. And, after about a minute of listening to this, the driver tells Ian to f*** off and get off the bus. and leaves him there, to everyone's great amusement.

the irritating c*** decides he's going to sit with us one sunday - and we soon notice that every time he gets up for one of his little wanders, he's leaving his pc unlocked. oh dear. the main work program we used had an option to recolour the text on the screen, so we're taking it in turns when he's gone to recolour the text black on a black background. He spent all day on the phone to IT and he still didnt twig it was us until the very end of the day, despite us making pointed suggestions to him that maybe he should either stop wandering off and do some f***ing work or lock his pc.

he'd get dragged down to HR fairly frequently and warned about his behaviour with the ladies in the office, but they'd back down every time because he'd play the disability card and threaten to go to the union - till it got to the point where HR just couldnt put up with the complaints any more and told him it might be in everyone's best interest for him to resign. the dirty, dirty bastard.

A few years later I was working as a financial advisor for a *very* large bank, and what do I see in a party of new starters being shown round the office but that same weeble like malformed profile - I honestly thought I was hallucinating at first, until I found out that with this bank it's almost impossible, at the very entry level, to *not* get a job with them unless you're a convicted axe murderer. And as he'd 'resigned' from the previous company, there was nothing on his record per se about his habits. it didnt take long for him to get up to his old tricks however (to the point where even the security staff knew about him) and as he was still in his trial period, they just told him not to bother coming back in one week. I pity the poor sods who've ended up with him as a co-worker though, wherever he is, the boggle eyed dirty twat.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 12:37, 3 replies)

Transatlantic Onions
A number of years ago before I went 'cards in' I was an IT contractor. I landed a decent cushy role based in a well known firm's head office in Manchester city centre. There, we'd attend various faults with users' computer equipment and on occasions we'd be given jobs for various directors who were known as 'onions' (fuck knows why). Their fault calls took precedent over the every day lowly minions and we'd get told by the helpdesk manager "Be careful how you talk to him, he's an onion!" I politely informed the manager that I treat everybody the same, irrespective of their status and if that's unacceptable then we're going to have a problem. But that's another story...

Anyway, I got a call to do a job for a particular onion. Upon entering his office I immediately noticed it to be festooned with American paraphernalia. He had the star spangled banner on a pole behind his chair, like you see on US TV shows in sheriff's offices and classrooms. On the wall was a huge ten gallon hat and on the other side of the office was a marble plinth on which stood a stuffed Bald Eagle.

I had to stifle laughter as soon as he spoke. "Oh howdy young man! Come on in!" Now this wasn't an American accent as such but a really shite mid Atlantic accent trying very hard to be American. You know the type, used by crap celebrities when they've spent a weekend in New York and want to sound all international. He was blatantly putting it on as some of the phrases were inconsistent and out of context. "Y'all gonna fix my darn compooter?"

Sensing an opportunity for a subtle piss take, I replied "sure thing!" Thankfully, it was only a blown fuse in the plug which I replaced from my toolkit. I made sure it switched on and he didn't have any more problems and then I left his office, past the wall mounted six shooter in it's holster complete with belt and bullets and the picture of JFK.

When I got back to the office, I quietly asked a member of staff what this man was all about with his overt love of Americana.

"Yeah, we all thought that too. He spoke with a local accent and had a normal office. Then a couple of years ago, he went on holiday for a week and came back all Yankee" I asked what part of America he went to to come back so influenced. "Well that's just it you see. He went to Canada!"

Not a bastard as such but a pretentious fellow.
(Taunting Lunatics Belming at you since, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 10:58, Reply)

We have a guy in our corridor
Looks like the doctor out of "The Cannonball Run", claims to be distantly related to porn king David Sullivan. And has the foulest toilet habits known to Man. After having a crap, he always comes cannoning out of the traps and straight out of the door, meaning you have to lurk there until someone opens the door from the outside and you can escape without touching the handle.

Worst of all, he eats on the toilet. Chocolate bars and sandwiches, and then leaves the wrappers on the pan just behind the seat hinge.
(rogerzilla, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 8:57, 1 reply)

Embarrassing staff members
We all know them. Some of us are unfortunately intimately acquainted with them. Here is my tale of woe.

So there I was on at the tale-end of a night shift, absolutely knackered out of my brains. Completely shagged. So, I decided to have a little nap. I set my alarm, and put things in place that would wake me up should some work come in, which given the time of day, was highly unlikely. And then, I drifted into a blissful, happy sleep. I may have dreamt about kittens.

And then, I wake up. It's nearly the end of the shift. Sweet! So, what is the first natural thing to do when you wake up? You stand up and have a stretch, of course! Which I duly did. And then... I feel an odd tightness in my trouser department. More than a tightness in fact, it's rather uncomfortable down there. Coupled with this realisation as I am stood up stretching for the whole office to see, is that I was sporting a raging boner. In front of the whole office. My manager is looking on. The female colleague I had until just now had my eye on. And they're not staring at my face. Yes, I had been "blessed" by the fairy of morning wood. And that is how this member of staff was embarrassed by his member.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Sat 26 Jan 2008, 8:30, Reply)

Fat, bald c**t...
So once upon a time, I applied for a shelf-monkey position at ye olde local Supermarket, and lo and behold, I was hired.

At first times were good, the pay was nice and the work easy. Then suddenly, I was cast into the cold, -20 degree Celius version of Hell. I was made to work by myself in the godawful frozen food department, despite this not being the job I was hired to do.

Much complaining was done, many filings for transfer to my original shelf monkey departments were made. But my fat, bald c**t of a manager would put it off, telling me "I'm doing the paperwork at the minute" or "I'm making the arrangements".

This dragged on for about 6 months, and I got more and more annoyed, until I decide to just do as little work as possible. There were days I'd come in for 4 hours and do about 30 minutes of real, actual work.

That dragged on for a while, until I got too annoyed with it, and made more requests to my new, skinny, pencilnecked, corporate cock sucking twat of a manager. But like the last one, he kept messing me about to.

And then redemption came - I got a new job elsewhere and quit the day I heard the news. Walking out of a job you truly hate after telling my boss to stick the job up his arse, into 3 weeks of free time in the middle of summer was one of the best experiences of my life.

Best part? That being 4 years ago, and me having moved on a decent bit in my life, getting to go back into that supermarket and see the same knobheaded bosses in the same shitty jobs, and being as obnoxious as possible. Awesome.

Length? Long enough for your Mum.
(wraithUK, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 2:32, 1 reply)

Sorry,



i thought it said border collies.
( krang, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 2:07, 6 replies)

Fish and gits
I've been working in the same placed for a number of years now, running into all manner of headcases. My all time favourite was Steve. Steve was from Leeds and proclaimed this loudly about once every half an hour, he had the amazing habit of his mouth literally moving too fast for his brain to form the words, which left him looking like some kind of stuttering lunatic. Another fellah we worked with, John, was a really lovely bloke, married, nice house, top car, two kids. He'd do anything for anybody, which makes the next part really quite heartbreaking. You see John smelled. John smelled really bad. Like an unclean vagina. Like rotten fish in a dustbin. Like sweat and cheese and sour milk. Words really can't describe it but that's as close as I can get.
One blistering summers day. John was making himself useful and causing the rest of us to gag and open every window in the office wider. Why didn't we tell him he had a problem? I often lie awake at night running this through my head. Surely John himself must have realised his odour. He was just so bloody nice and friendly none of us had the heart to hurt his feelings to tell him he smelled of a dead tramps unwashed arse. None of us except Steve of course. A few minutes of being in John's company led to the wonderful outburst...
"Jesus fuckin' chrise, wha's that smell? I'm goin'a fuckin' vomih here!"
John looks innocent and carries on filing paperwork. Some investigation by Steve led him to the source.
"Iz you ya fishy bastard! you dirty fishy bastard, when was the last time you washed yer cock? jesus chrise"
At this I had to leave because I was laughing and didn't want to upset John further. It's such a shame, but what could I have done? It took a neanderthal brute with all the charm of a chav's afterbirth to save the day and I'm thankful. John's gone now but his legacy remains. Now we have a company cleanliness policy, where anyone with a body odour problem or smelly unpleasantness is asked politely by the area manager to go clean up or take the day off.

The weird thing is, sometimes, I actually find myself missing John's smell. Brrrrr.
(Suddenly, zebras Safe and sound for eternity, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 1:43, 1 reply)

Jupiter, oh Jupiter
I had an employee whom has thankfully left the company recently, and has a grand career in Advertising to look forward to.

The first little white ones related to a housemate's broken foot which turned out to just be a bad hangover, swiftly followed by a car breakdown that required repair in exactly the time-window he might be required to do his job in.
Obviously, since we were polite enough to humor him, he thought he'd up the ante, and in order to resign without giving notice he claimed his grandmother had fallen ill, requiring him to leave town and return to his parents' house - although we all know he's still in town. All of a sudden he gets in a tiz because he realizes I'll be able to drive past his house sometime and see his car, so instructs his 'friends' to tell me he's just stopped by for some clothes, and that he can't find any of the equipment he'd nicked (hadn't looked) and by now,
it's snowballed (the cold, not the salty kind) to the extent that apparently his ultimate counter-move in the event of us ceasing to humor him will be to fake a death certificate for his own grandmother to prove that he's not been in town.

Personally I hope he somehow blags his way into getting stabbed, might grow him up a little.
(chikkstrel, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 1:34, Reply)

Mean Girls - the equestrian remake
Like a lot of little girls, I wanted a pony. (Still do actually - does anybody want to buy me a pony? Pleeease?) But my parents were poor so instead I settled for working at my local stable in return for lessons. Sounds crap, but actually I love being around horses and enjoyed the work as much as the riding. The place at which this happened was a rather Thelwell-esque stables on the London/Hertfordshire border. Anyone who has ever set foot in the place will recognise it from the following description and I will be most amused if any b3tans have ever been there...

Basically, it was a good sort of place, the horses were well looked after, but there was just one problem: the woman who ran it. She wasn't actually a nasty piece of work at all, but she had serious, SERIOUS anger management problems. Case in point: when I turned up on my first day as a "helper", she told me to grab a fork and start shovelling shit. I asked her where she kept the forks and she spun round, brandishing hers in a slightly menacing manner, and barked, "Well, you'll just have to find out then, won't you!!!" Jeez, it would have taken so much less effort to have told me where the bloody fork was in the first place... The woman could scream and shout for England, and would do so if you displayed any weakness or incompetence whatsoever, which when a stable is being run largely by 11-14-year-olds with very little experience happens quite a lot. And the horses would sense how nervous you were and play you up something wicked, because that's what horses do if you're nervous, and then she'd yell at you some more. So, she was difficult to deal with, and if you got the slightest thing wrong it would be like you'd just unleashed armageddon. What I'm trying to say is, I'm 25 now and to this date she is still the most terrifying person I've ever met - and I've lived above a sex shop in Kings Cross since then.

So anyway, I'd been there a couple of years and had just about earned her respect. I should say now that I was a very, VERY geeky, unpopular, awkward, skinny, frizzy-haired thirteen-year-old. So when I was informed that I was in charge of two new recruits, who I observed were wearing pristine white jodhpurs and designer sweatshirts; sporting that slouchy, hands-on-hips, scowling look beloved of evil bitchy popular girls the world over; and who appeared to be a good year older than me, my heart sank. Actually no, it didn't - it jumped up into my throat and tried to commit suicide. I was IN CHARGE of these girls?

Yes I was in charge of them, and guess what, they took an instant dislike to me. I tried to break the ice by making a jokey comment about white jodhpurs not being the best thing to wear for mucking out stables. BIG MISTAKE - never criticise a bitchy girl's dress sense, even in a jovial manner! Unfortunately I didn't know this at that age - I was trying to appeal to their human side without realising that girls like that don't have one. Their senses of humour are removed at birth. They have seek-and-destroy radar for geeks. They have software implanted in their brains that enables them, despite their limited intellectual capacities, to come up with the perfect bitchy comment at the perfect moment. And their farts smell of Chanel No 5.

They refused to do any work and just stood watching me shovel shit in front of them, slouching with their hands on their hips, making "Ewww" faces at each other. After a while they disappeared. Good riddance, I thought. But no - a few minutes later, I went into the tack room and caught them in there putting on make up. I'm not kidding. I stared incredulously at them, and they did that bitch-girl scoffing noise at me, turned away as if I was lower than the horse shit I was picking up and continued applying lip gloss.

It was turning out to be just about the worst day ever, but I made the fatal error of thinking that it couldn't get worse. Later that day we were out in the field when one of the other girls asked me to come back to the yard to help her with a difficult pony who I was good with. I bade my charming recruits farewell and reminded them to shut the gate on their way out.

Oh yes, I reminded them to shut the gate.

So I really shouldn't have been that surprised, in retrospect, when half an hour later everybody had had to drop everything to round up the seven overexcited ponies who were on the loose. I had never, ever seen my boss angrier. I honestly expected her to come at me with a hunting crop. And as she turned purple from yelling at me, the two evil harpies were standing behind her, sniggering. I tried to tell her that it had been them and not me, but it just made her even madder - these poor new girls who didn't know what they were doing were my responsibility! It was entirely my fault that these perfect angels had left the gate open. Of course it was, how silly of me.

I expect that they are probably alcoholic housewives by now.

Length? Have you ever seen the size of a horse's cock?
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 26 Jan 2008, 0:05, 5 replies)

Same car parts warehouse I’m afraid…and I’m so blooming glad I don’t work there anymore…
Now there are a few discernable traits that your average b3tard can use to define whether someone is a ‘bit of a bastard’ or not. These include:

Selfishness
Arrogance
One-upmanship
Sexsim / racism
Bragging / gloating gittishness
Being patronising
Trying to get others into trouble
Sucking up to management
Self righteousness
Annoying voice
Being just damn Fugly

If your example fits any one of the personality disorders mentioned above, then there’s every chance that they are a bastard colleague. Post away!

It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that my example...‘Ian’ has them all…in spades…and more…wrapped up in a bumper Christmas gift hamper of hate.

Short, stumpy and pot-bellied, with receding ginger hair and the dodgy ‘tache that is the quintessential hallmark of the lingering uberwanker, Ian was somehow convinced that he was the single greatest individual that the company (and possibly the world), had ever seen.

Preposterously outspoken (despite always being wrong) and thicker than the thighs of a Russian Female Olympic shot-putter, this twat-nappy would stop you in your tracks and snap your tolerance and boredom glands off by launching into monologues reminiscent of a pre-pubescent spackwhistler crossed with an ‘old school’ Nazi grandad in it’s worst possible manifestation.

Every conversation with him, you see, was like stepping into a time machine to the middle ages…and let me tell you…that’s not a nice place to be.

Extreme sexism, homophobia, racism and hardcore, shouty bullying were the order of the day if you wanted to get the job done, according to Ian.

He was constantly bragging about the hideous septuagenarian hags he had donated the glory of his teeny man-meat to, whilst his long-suffering wife stayed at home and ‘had his dinner on the table every night by 7 or she’d get a slap’.

His mannerisms alone during these conversations made me want to feverishly reach for the first sharp object I could find and jam it into his eye socket. He actually did the ‘hip thrusting’ movements as he demonstrated his shagging technique.

His language, unlike his ego, was grossly stunted, He had the grotesque habit of not being able to think of what to say next, mid-speech. So whilst not wanting to stop talking for fear of interruption, he resolved this problem by peppering the gaps in his lectures with a constant stream of swearwords. A typical gob-spurt from Ian would be as follows:

“Ah fuckin’ tell ya wot…..fuckin’…..fuckin’……Ahm not bein’ funny but…fuckin’…them bastards think they can do….fuckin’….130 lines a fuckin’ hour….fuckin’…I used to do that before I’d got outta me fuckin’ bed, with me fuckin’ eyes closed! I am the best fuckin’ picker they’ve ever… fuckin’…known here because….erm…fuckin’…the boss said so!”

I once mouthed the words ‘I hate you’ whilst he was talking at me…He was so wrapped up in his preaching that he didn’t notice. With every word he spews from his filth-hole, you get the feeling that the chip on his shoulder could feed the third world for a whole millennium on its fried potato goodness.

His entire existence revolved around being recognised by the warehouse manager as the one person that could put the most car parts into a trolley (or bucket) the fastest.

That.is.it. His life…summed up.

The trouble with that ambition was…there were about 5 or 6 similar thinking people on the site. Every man-jack of them was a wanker of some sort. One of them was a cunt of such magnitude that I even wrote a song about him simply entitled ‘Hatred’. (His story is for another time and I’ll play you the song should Big Girls’ Blouse ever throw a bash and invite me to her house again).

Anyhoo…back to Ian…

Speaking with his gutter Nuneaton accent, Ian prided himself on being a ‘hard-case’. Apparently, he could ‘have’ anybody, and in his own opinion was ‘as hard as nails’ (also in tune with the ‘pathological liars’ QOTW, he insisted he was a karate expert).

Unfortunately, the practice of his aggression seemed to only ever be pointed at women or youngsters. Funny that.

So it was with no small amount of glee that I heard this little nugget of information...

It transpires that Ian had been ‘enforcing his personality’ on a temp in the packaging department for the entirety of the poor bastard’s contract. However, on the temp’s final day, he promptly clocked out his card, went back into the building, approached Ian and proceeded to stick the nut on the cunt, rendering him unconscious.

Yay.

Ian also wanted to earn more than every other person at his level in the warehouse. His dedication to stepping over anybody in his path to get overtime got to the stage that the company decided to promote him to supervisor, simply because it got ridiculous that he was paid more than most of the people in there. They thought they could get more for their money that way.

This action, however, gave him responsibility….and Ian shat his pants big stylie. He is currently struggling like a limbless pig in a vat of gloopy wallpaper paste.

I love a happy ending.

The one ‘catchphrase’ of Ian still rings in my ears when I see examples of supreme idiocy and purest, common twatness wrapped in an inadequate sea of insecurity and lack of coherence …

“Ahm not bein’ funny….. Ahm not bein’ funny…..”

You’re fucking right Ian…you are most definitely NOT being funny.






*Edit removed and put in the 'replies section*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 25 Jan 2008, 22:54, 6 replies)