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12. "Rotating on-call." We own your a$$ 24x7x365. And when you're "off the clock," you still have to behave as if you weren't.

I had a wannabe boss and the token super above him that became such control freaks. It was normal to be asked what I had for breakfast, what TV shows did I watch, where did I go on weekends, and endless variations. I told them nothing as a rule or would make up something outrageous.

Worked for a company for almost 20 years. Got put on a support team where I quickly became the senior man. The company screwed up, got sued and whacked with a multi-million-dollar judgment. So they had to lay off. Out of a 10-man team that was already 2 men short, they cut another two. Then they took away the on-call incentive and created a primary/secondary structure where you were on call primary one week, secondary the next. So you were on call a third of the time. And since most of the junior members didn't know squat, you got called even if you were not formally on call.

One night I had just managed to get my son to start on his homework and the phone rang. It was work, and they were asking me a stupid question that any first-year tech support could have answered. I blew up and told them to do their homework, call the right person, and leave me alone.

A week later, I was fired.

When I told the director that I was not "on the clock," his response -- and I am not making this up -- was "If we call you at 3 in the morning on Christmas, you are required to answer."

I moved, found another job, and am now making more than 3 times what I was making there. That place was a discount hell-hole. And I heard every one of the lines in this article there at one point or another.