DEPARTMENTS

I worked for a business whose services included children's birthday parties. I was to do the setup and then entertain the kids: "If the children are happy, they'll make their parents come back."

On my first day of work, I was shown my job as quickly as the owner possibly could. We're talking maybe ten minutes total of explanation.

Then the owner was rushed to the hospital, where she stayed for over a week.

Suddenly I had to do a birthday party for 20+ little kids. Both food vendors messed up, and the kid's birthday cake had to be fetched while I started the party.

I spent most of the party making sure kids weren't swinging their golf clubs in the air or climbing on things they shouldn't be. I also spent quite a bit of time keeping them on our premises since the birthday girl's mother was busy talking to other parents and ignoring the children.

When the owner got back, she informed me that the mother of the birthday girl had "felt ignored." I wasn't hired to entertain the parents; I was hired to interact with the children. But despite the manager saying I was the hardest working employee ever, the owner decided I wasn't a good match for the job.

Before she could fire me, I quit. LINK

A friend of mine who I'll call "David" was bullied by another teacher in his department for many years. Although David was highly qualified and had a great rapport with his students, this other staff member continually made negative comments about him behind his back and ridiculed anything he did.

At first David tried to shrug this off, even when students began telling him that she was calling him an idiot in her class. She also began using David's title ("Head Teacher") at open days and when introducing herself.

After some years, David finally complained to the head of the department, but he was completely dismissive. So David began to keep a diary to show that he was the target of this teacher's negative campaign.

He saw a counsellor, who was shocked at what the diary revealed and encouraged David to take the issue to the school CEO. The CEO listened carefully and began an investigation (things were looking up at last!), but as the issue grew larger than he could reasonably handle, he ended up telling David to simply "take it like a man."

David had a type of mini breakdown, to the point where he says he can not recall a five hour period from that day, although he can remember the uncontrollable sobbing with the counsellor for an hour and a half.

He still works there, as does his tormentor. LINK

I worked for a rather large computer seller. After I had been there for a while, they initiated a new training program. Apparently, this is a very well studied method. It was called "Go for no."

Here's the premise of the policy:

A customer is almost 75% more likely to purchase something after saying no more than 5 times.

The new policy was to MAKE SURE the customer says no to EVERY thing you try to sell them AT LEAST 5 times. Needless to say, this resulted in many, many annoyed customers. LINK

One morning we arrived at our office to discover something strange. First, donuts had been left on top of various female staff members' computer monitors. Second, some of the women who left their shoes in the office overnight (as they wore sneakers to and from work) said their shoes had been moved around. Third, some of their computers had apparently been used to browse pornographic web sites.

This was pretty strange, but what was even more bizarre was management's serious investigation into it. I was sat down by a pregnant French woman and asked whether I had come into the office at night, put donuts on computers, moved womens' shoes around, and used computers to look at "'ot schoolgirl beaches" and "ennel facking 'ores". I should have started looking for another job right then. LINK

I used to work in a corporate pizza chain. Not as a manager, but as a cook. The guy who gets dirty, burned, and underappreciated. I emphasize the "corporate" part because, despite making incredibly good pizza, it was turning into a corporate cult. I stayed there for four years, working long hours for low pay because I loved pizza so much. The managers would make big displays out of how submissive they were to higher-level managers. I even called some of them the "big bad bootlickers." One manager got so angry at me he called me the A-word right in front of other employees.

An emphasis on corporateness is often a harbinger of bad things to come. My last winter there, it was announced that we cooks were to have another task dumped on us to relieve the workloads of other departments: we had to handwash the metal heat sinks that we put into the inch-thick pizzas to make them cook faster. This was a VERY time-consuming practice that caused us to have to stay late. Both of my managers gave me the same reason for me having to do this: "If you don't do it, we won't get our bonuses."

I didn't last much longer than that. I moved on to become a real chef elsewhere. The A-word guy eventually quit in frustration at his job. The restaurant went out of business a few years later, and a knockoff chain has taken its place.

LINK