Posted on 11/17/2004 3:36:05 PM PST by -=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-
Since I vent for a living, I'm stepping down from my soapbox today to let Sun readers bitch for a change. The topic: Rotten bosses.
Last week I wrote about a new study that explored worker stress and its link to health problems. In the process, I invited people to send in tales of toiling under tyrants.
The floodgates opened. If there was an award for suffering through the worst boss ever, it would have to go to the pipeline worker who broke his ankle on his first day on the job and then was expected to keep working.
"I asked my foreman to take me to the hospital," he writes. Instead, the foreman drove him down an isolated road, stopped the truck and told him to take down some fencing.
When the poor worker again requested a ride to hospital, his boss ordered him out of the truck. "I was there in huge pain from 9:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. It was plus-28 outside and I had no water. I thought I was going to die," he writes.
Another e-mail came from a guy who spent years producing, programming, presenting and directing live video shows.
He had to change his wedding date twice because he was transferred to another city. Once, he worked for days with renal colic and ended up in hospital. He bailed out of his hospital bed so he wouldn't miss a show. No bonus, though.
"The policy for road expenses was that a $15/day per diem was provided if you stayed in a hotel," he writes. "If your day was 20 hours and you returned home at the end of it, no per diem."
He finally quit this year. "What a shame I wasted too many years under a penny-pinching poltroon," he writes.
Overwork forced a mixer-driver for a concrete company to take sick leave.
"We worked 10- to 16-hour days, six days a week," he writes. "We had no control of hours and all-nighters were sometimes announced at noon of the day they were scheduled." He was stricken with heart problems and fatigue and can no longer work full time.
"I now work two or three days, then I rest. I get flu-like symptoms and sleep lots on my days off," he writes.
A decade of being worked to the bone at an oil and gas supply company forced one woman onto disability for four years.
"I ignored repeated warnings from my doctors, my family and my body but I ignored them for the sake of the company and the carrots," she writes.
"Caffeine was my drug and I was prescribed antidepressants. Tylenol was candy."
Relationships suffered or became non-existent, she recalls. "One Christmas I was so exhausted I fell asleep in my mashed potatoes and slept all three days away."
She has only just begun working again - part time. "Now I would give back all those bonuses in return for my health, my happiness and more time with my mother who passed on last year," she writes.
Be polite to the next person you chat with at a call centre. I gather they could use a break.
"Bullying, intimidation, psychological abuse are woven into the company culture," writes one former call centre worker. "They fly their own flag in front of the building and when you enter their doors, you need to know that you are temporarily entering a state within a state."
Employers are deluding themselves if they think stressed-out, overworked staff can be productive, says Calgary-based Gerry Madigan, who conducts personal leadership training seminars.
To succeed in the corporate jungle, companies need the competitive edge of effective leadership, accountability and people skills, he says. "You can't keep good people if you're not treating them well, not training them well and not keeping them safe," says Madigan.
"Managers are afraid to empower people," he adds.
I expressed skepticism last week that anyone would publish a story about Canada's worst companies.
Well, This Magazine is preparing such a piece.
Canada doesn't have a lock on very bad bosses, I'm afraid.
I worked for a tyrant that kept reminding me I had taken *one* sick day in three years and then overlooked me for a raise for two straight years.
How many days after that did they get your resignation?
Great. Great.
Understood.
This from the workers' paradise of Canada where the health care is free. I'm shocked....and stunned.
I was out sick for two months because of a paper cut and when I finally showed up my stupid boss wanted a doctor's note.
this got NOTHING to do with Canada you idiot.
i know what you mean. I was late for work once because of the bus. When I came in my boss told me never to do that again and since I was in the assembly line he accused me of not being a team player.
Why didn't you leave?
I love my job........
I can tolerate my (Current) boss.
I could rant on for hours..... but, I am over it. :-)
I, too, saw the post and immediately thought "boy, those leftist emigrants have no idea what they're getting themselves into, do they?" But then, I guess that makes me an idiot too, now doesn't it?
When it comes to jobs...I make it a habit to outlast the bastards.
Because I had seniority and I really *needed* the job.
I *still* do, but .45MAN and I have since relocated to FL. It's strange, but when you're unemployed, even a *bad* job looks pretty good.
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