Things not to say to the boss

saracelica

saracelica

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saracelica
I work retail everyone knows that right?

Doing the restocking this morning our boss is a young woman graduated college and interned last year, I'm guessing she is 23-24

One of my co workers asked her "you old enough to drink?" She was speechless and then the kid said "its like your not grown"

Seriously dude... I know it's early 0530 but think before you talk!

So anyone else have dumb employees or coworker stories?
 
saracelica said:
I work retail everyone knows that right?

Doing the restocking this morning our boss is a young woman graduated college and interned last year, I'm guessing she is 23-24

One of my co workers asked her "you old enough to drink?" She was speechless and then the kid said "its like your not grown"

Seriously dude... I know it's early 0530 but think before you talk!

So anyone else have dumb employees or coworker stories?
Click to expand...

One of my best friends was a manager, night shift, at Wal-Mart. My god the stories are crazy and the people she supervised even crazier. She did it for about 15 years.
 
Interviewee: "Yes, I have a conviction for theft from my previous employer. But I was just helping a coworker put the merchandise in his car."

Resume' states no felony convictions. Shows up for an interview wearing a home detention monitor.

Interviewee: "I have very good punctuality. I was only late once or twice per month at my previous job."

Employee: "I admit that I credited my personal credit card account. I got the idea from an employee at a different location. I guess I should known after he got fired for doing it."
 
"Your resume looks good. You appear to be a very qualified locksmith. Where did you get your education?"

"Yale."

"Impressive! Say, what's your name, anyway?"

"Yim Yonson."
 
I had a young Quartermaster check in to the ship a year ago (shortly before (I transferred). He was all of 18, maybe 19 years old. Day one at morning quarters, when most kids would be aksing what working hours are/ship's schedule/upcoming deployment...etc....No, this guy is asking my Senior Chief and Leading Petty Officer where the good bars are.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I had a young Quartermaster check in to the ship a year ago (shortly before (I transferred). He was all of 18, maybe 19 years old. Day one at morning quarters, when most kids would be aksing what working hours are/ship's schedule/upcoming deployment...etc....No, this guy is asking my Senior Chief and Leading Petty Officer where the good bars are.
Click to expand...

It's not like he was asking them where the gay bars are....
 
Fearless Tower said:
I had a young Quartermaster check in to the ship a year ago (shortly before (I transferred). He was all of 18, maybe 19 years old. Day one at morning quarters, when most kids would be aksing what working hours are/ship's schedule/upcoming deployment...etc....No, this guy is asking my Senior Chief and Leading Petty Officer where the good bars are.
Click to expand...

Definitely got his priorities in order. He should excel in the military. :D
 
My boss about 3 companies ago was a kind of car aficionado. He had a black and gold older RX-7 and would drive it on nice days to work. One day it was parked in the lot and we were in a staff meeting and looking out the window to the parking lot, and he was admiring his car; 'yeah, I just replaced the shocks and springs on the front end, and an alignment, and redid the top.' Someone else looked out and said; 'Hey! there a Ferrari convertible, I wonder who owns that!?' I said; 'uh - that's mine'. My boss was staring daggers, I was transferred a few days later.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I had a young Quartermaster check in to the ship a year ago (shortly before (I transferred). He was all of 18, maybe 19 years old. Day one at morning quarters, when most kids would be aksing what working hours are/ship's schedule/upcoming deployment...etc....No, this guy is asking my Senior Chief and Leading Petty Officer where the good bars are.
Click to expand...

Probably would have been more effective if he offered to buy the Senior Chief and Leading Petty Officer a round or two at the good bars.
 
One of my coworkers in the early 90's was a very outspoken guy, who would speak his mind on anything. But he also had a great sense of humor, which helped to balance out his outspokenness.

He couldn't stand our division manager (about two or three levels up from us) because he considered him a typical do-nothing manager who routinely made dumb decisions.

They got into a heated argument one day in the hallway outside my team's cubes, and my coworker told Mr. manager right to his face, "You were a waste of sperm" and walked off.

We all just about died laughing because it's something we all wanted to tell this guy, but didn't have the balls to do it.
 
My favorite was our maintenance mechanic who frequently posed the question "Which one of you brain donors came up with this idea?"

When he eventually went to far he was unceremoniously separated from his paycheck.

AND THEN, about a month later I get a call from my brother who is the plant manger of a facility about 30 miles away. He says, "I just interviewed Tom, he looks good on paper. Thoughts?"

I said, "Did he get through the whole interview without calling you a brain donor?"

Karma, baby, Karma
 
Well this is not something someone said to a boss but relevant to the question. We had a job applicant fill out our application form and for the question that asked "Are you available for work during evenings or weekends" He wrote F**K NO! and for the question asking why he left his last job he said "Job Sucked".

I don't think he really wanted a job, more likely he was filling a requirement for unemployment by looking for work.

Jean
 
Maverick said:
I don't think he really wanted a job, more likely he was filling a requirement for unemployment by looking for work.

Jean
Click to expand...

I used to deal with this years ago. People would come in not dressed professionally and hand in an incomplete and/or illegible application. They wouldn't even ask about job openings or anything else about career opportunities, but they sure were persistent about having me sign a form that they dropped off an application. I eventually tired of the shenanigans and refused to sign their form if that's all they were interested in. I got a call from the unemployment office yelling at me for not signing the form. I told her I would be happy to sign the form when they come back dressed professionally with a complete and legible application. She just said, "oh, okay". They stopped coming in when they realized my establishment was no longer an easy mark for their application quota.
 
I can't think of any real gems, but a buddy of mine had a story of a former boss of his saying something to an employee. The employee, a college student working a summer job on a construction crew, kept telling the boss how there was a "better way". The boss finally said, "Hey, kid. I'm paying you from the neck down."
 
It's amazing how many people we hire who immediately complain about the pay, the rules, etc. It's like the idiot Taco Bell exec fired for smacking around his Uber driver. Some people have no idea how good they have it until they don't have it.

If you don't want the job, don't take it, or look for a better one. But as long as you're getting a paycheck I expect you to do a good job and keep your mouth shut. We don't treat people like sweatshop workers here. No one is reprimanded for being 10 minutes late. Breaks and lunches are on the honor system, and frequently abused but no one is berated for it. Sneak out 5 minutes early occasionally - no problem. And you start with 2 1/2 weeks paid time off that you can use as you wish and w/o needing to give advance notice. If you want to leave right now - just shoot the boss an email and head for the door. And as long as your work gets done you can have all the free interent you can suck down. And kids come out of college bitching because they heard some other company across the state pays a little more.
 
In high school I worked at Target, transferred a new store when I started college, and was in the store room putting stuff on shelves when the store manager came back.

Her: You need to it this way
Me: I know, I did this for a few years at my previous store.
Her: So you're an expert at it?
Me: Ummm... no.
Her: Why not?
Me: Because, if you think I'm an expert at it you'll expect me to do more work.

She didn't care for that answer.


There was also a co-worker at my first full-time job after college who was interviewing for a full-time position at the end of her internship. Towards the end of the interview she said there was an awkward moment where the interviewers started to stand up so she did as well, but then they sat back down. Feeling awkward, she looked to the lady and asked her 'so, when are you due?'... the woman wasn't pregnant.

She didn't get the job.
 
I had a guy that worked for me pop positive on a drug test a few years ago, we called him into the office and he immediately goes bonkers protesting his innocence. The test was wrong, it was a false positive, somebody screwed up at the lab, they got the wrong sample, etc etc, he kept saying he doesn't smoke marijuana anymore, gave it up long ago, last time he even saw a joint was 2 years ago, demanded a retest - you get the idea.

We let him go on for a while until he ran out of steam and came up for breath, and I told him "You didn't test positive for marijuana. You tested positive for cocaine."

He got real quiet and looked down at his shoes, and said "I didn't think you checked for that."
 
I had an employer ask me if I believed in werewolves during an interview he was stone cold serious..... I said no but I got the job anyways. He was obviously a big believer.
 
Same former employer as my previous story - it was in a pretty rough part of town and our hourly labor included a lot of people with somewhat "porous" paperwork and immigration status, not to mention conviction histories.

One day the city marshal showed up in his car to serve papers on a guy for a divorce, and I met him at the front office and told him "Sure, he's in the back shop today, we'll take my truck and go see him." The marshal says "No, we can't go in your truck, I'm on duty and we have to take my marked cruiser." I told him we could take my truck, or he could find the guy some other place and some other time to serve his papers, but under no circumstances would we take his marked cruiser back to the shop. He of course wanted to know why, and I told him "With the guys that I have working for me back there, if a marked cruiser comes rolling up to the shop I'll lose half my crew over the back fence before you can even step out of the car. We take my truck or we don't go."

He laughed, and we took my truck.
 
saracelica said:
I work retail everyone knows that right?

Doing the restocking this morning our boss is a young woman graduated college and interned last year, I'm guessing she is 23-24

One of my co workers asked her "you old enough to drink?" She was speechless and then the kid said "its like your not grown"

Seriously dude... I know it's early 0530 but think before you talk!

So anyone else have dumb employees or coworker stories?
Click to expand...

:rofl::rofl: Oh man, where to begin with seamen.:rofl:
 
Me: "We need to close the bar tab and leave."
Him: "Why?"
Me: "The sun is up and we have to be at work in an hour."

Yeah....

I can pretty much tell my current boss anything. Hard for him to come down on you when you had a party at another co-workers house and the night ended up with him drunk and naked in the snow.
 
Oh I got tons of stupid employee stories.

Working at First Interstate Bank main data center in downtown LA on a Friday afternoon. We were there to desalinate a mainframe cooling system. One of my co-workers for some bizarre reason gets it in his head the best way to prep for this job is to push the big red EPO button on the wall next to the door. The entire banking system went down instantly, all the ATM, teller links, etc for the entire southern state, and parts of AZ, NM, etc.

He was escorted off the property, and I turned in his badge and tool kit.
 
geneseib said:
Had an applicant tell me he quit his previous job because management was incompetent. Needless to say I passed on him.
Click to expand...

You may have made a bad mistake. I worked for a time, when young, for a distributor of heavy equipment. I quit as the nephew of the owner ran this branch and he was totally incompetent and a real arrogant a.h. I left and a year later he bankrupted the branch. The person who took over tried to save it but to no avail. It was a shame as their overall reputation, ( 23 branches) was excellent. Nepotism in business is usually bad news.
 
saracelica said:
I work retail everyone knows that right?

Doing the restocking this morning our boss is a young woman graduated college and interned last year, I'm guessing she is 23-24

One of my co workers asked her "you old enough to drink?" She was speechless and then the kid said "its like your not grown"

Seriously dude... I know it's early 0530 but think before you talk!

So anyone else have dumb employees or coworker stories?
Click to expand...

I unintentionally insulted a very young-looking Wal-Mart supervisor that way. I needed something that was locked up in a "cage" for some reason rather than being on the pegboard or in the cabinets (I think it was some sort of electronic or camera-related thing) and was waiting for one of the few people who had the key.

When the supervisor showed up she kept trying to get my attention, but I ignored her. She looked so young that I thought she was some customer's kid. It turns out she was some sort of floor supervisor (or whatever Wal-Mart calls employees who are a notch above the rest and are allowed to have the key to the "cage").

I apologized and said I was "distracted," but I'm pretty sure she saw through that.

As for ways to get fired, I haven't found one yet. I was always such a good producer that there was little I could say that would get me fired. I've told a few bosses where to stick their jobs and wound up getting raises out of the deal.

It's not that I was needlessly rude or hostile. I wasn't. But I spoke my mind. If some idea, rule, policy, or procedure was stupid, I called it stupid. That's not welcome in a lot of places. But I also accompanied my opinion with a way to do whatever the thing was better and more efficiently; and in terms of my own productivity at whatever it was that I was doing, I was always at or near the top.

At my last job before I went out on my own, I was producing at 50 percent over my contractual quota. No one else even came close. I also had the highest cold-call sales rate in the company -- and I wasn't a salesman. But I was also one of the very few non-management employees who was allowed to work from home, rarely showing up at the office unless I had to restock or drop off paperwork. I wish I could say that was because of their complete trust in me, but the truth was that they simply preferred not having me around.

They liked my productivity. My presence, not so much.

Rich
 
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more something I did than said, but in college I worked for a small mom and pop shop, the family owned 4 or 5 local shops. each X-Mas they threw us a pretty nice holiday dinner party (at Rods-1890 Steakhouse for all u North Jersey peeps). The place had a main dining area plus balcony seating that overlooked the main area, which at some point in the night turned into the dance floor. well this chick I was friends with and I were watching the owner embarrass himself on the dancefloor by doing his one querky move over and over and over. by the way, I'm no one to make fun of anyone on the dancefloor. anyways, later in the night my girl friend was on the dancefloor and I was standing up on the balcony doing "the move" the owner was doing earlier in the night. she's laughing, I'm laughing, until I turn to the table next to me and see the owner staring me down, not thinking it was nearly as funny as I thought it was.
 
In the mid 70's my dad owned a Dodge dealership with a really crappy HVAC system. One day he is up to his elbows in the HVAC closet trying to get it working and asked his used car manager to get him a flat head screwdriver. Dean responded, "That's not my job boss." My dad in is most loving tone explained, "Dean, you don't have a f***ing job!" He packed his desk and left! :D
 
RJM62 said:
I unintentionally insulted a very young-looking Wal-Mart supervisor that way. I needed something that was locked up in a "cage" for some reason rather than being on the pegboard or in the cabinets (I think it was some sort of electronic or camera-related thing) and was waiting for one of the few people who had the key.

When the supervisor showed up she kept trying to get my attention, but I ignored her. She looked so young that I thought she was some customer's kid. It turns out she was some sort of floor supervisor (or whatever Wal-Mart calls employees who are a notch above the rest and are allowed to have the key to the "cage").

I apologized and said I was "distracted," but I'm pretty sure she saw through that.

As for ways to get fired, I haven't found one yet. I was always such a good producer that there was little I could say that would get me fired. I've told a few bosses where to stick their jobs and wound up getting raises out of the deal.

It's not that I was needlessly rude or hostile. I wasn't. But I spoke my mind. If some idea, rule, policy, or procedure was stupid, I called it stupid. That's not welcome in a lot of places. But I also accompanied my opinion with a way to do whatever the thing was better and more efficiently; and in terms of my own productivity at whatever it was that I was doing, I was always at or near the top.

At my last job before I went out on my own, I was producing at 50 percent over my contractual quota. No one else even came close. I also had the highest cold-call sales rate in the company -- and I wasn't a salesman. But I was also one of the very few non-management employees who was allowed to work from home, rarely showing up at the office unless I had to restock or drop off paperwork. I wish I could say that was because of their complete trust in me, but the truth was that they simply preferred not having me around.

They liked my productivity. My presence, not so much.

Rich
Click to expand...

Ross Perot reached his quota usually in January of the year. One must remember what he sold and the years he sold it. Hard work for sure but timing is vitally important.
 
We hired a new engineer, nice guy, good transportation background. Every day he asked a million questions about files, plans and staffing. He was driving us all nuts, since he was directed to all the plans and specs in our fireproof vault for every job since the Bridges were built.

I finally had enough so when he kept asking about who picks up our mail and where do we find contractor contact info I about blew a gasket. I asked him to follow me and I showed him the way to the bathroom....he was puzzled but followed me in. I pointed at the mirror and said for the last time...need plans, spec, mail sent or picked up and phone numbers??? see your staff...your f'in looking at him. I patted him on the back and said check with me later if you have any other questions.

He said I was nuts....but he always asked for me to run his projects. LMAO....he was a fun person to work with once he understood there was NO staff. We still keep in contact since I retired and yes, he busts my balls about that all the time.

I'm so glad I retired!!
 
I worked in a local radio station which hired large groups of inexperienced salespeople, knowing many would wash out during training, but the rare gem would do well when. This was in the 1990s, when cell phone plans were usually still limited.

We'll call the coworker "Jeff." (I honestly don't remember his name 20 years later.)

Jeff went through the weeks of training, but when the time came to start calling prospective advertisers, he instead spent most of his day sitting in his cubicle talking with friends. After only a few days of this, I noticed he was gone.

I asked the sales manager what happened to Jeff, and was not surprised at the reason he was gone. But the manager added, "I told Jeff we had to let him go for spending too much company time on personal calls on his cell phone. He got angry and yelled, 'but I paid for those minutes!'"
 
docmirror said:
Oh I got tons of stupid employee stories.



Working at First Interstate Bank main data center in downtown LA on a Friday afternoon. We were there to desalinate a mainframe cooling system. One of my co-workers for some bizarre reason gets it in his head the best way to prep for this job is to push the big red EPO button on the wall next to the door. The entire banking system went down instantly, all the ATM, teller links, etc for the entire southern state, and parts of AZ, NM, etc.



He was escorted off the property, and I turned in his badge and tool kit.
Click to expand...


Oh lord. I have multiple EPO button stories. All those things are is magnets for idiots.

-----

Best line I've ever had to deliver on the job...

Big boss: "Why should I trust you on this instead of [insert someone above me here]..."

"Because he needs this job and I don't. I don't need to be here so I have no reason to lie to you to make you happy. It won't work, but he's completely invested in it because he thinks you want it."

He did a double take and realized I wasn't kidding.

-----

At one place I worked at, they always held a multi-department panel interview with all applicants for every job they hired. We all hated them, especially the engineering candidates, because the brainiac questions asked were things like, "If you could be any living creature, what would you be?"

One day I got to sit in on one where I knew the candidate and his credentials and there was absolutely no way he wouldn't be hired. He had also been tipped off by someone about this particular corporate stupidity.

The question came. He responded, "An Ebola virus". This was decades ago when nobody has ever heard of the thing. I tried to hide my smile that started to crack when he said it and not laugh because I knew the idiot who asked was going to go there...

"Can you elaborate on that? Why?"

Oh boy! (Now I'm just barely containing my laughter...)

He proceeded to describe how he would invade the company, break cellular walls in the internal systems, and make it bleed from
the eyeballs.

The panel sat there shocked. Not a clue what to say or ask next.

I piped up with a contained chuckle: "He's going to break all of our security systems and tell us how to fix them in this job role..."

The whole table breathed a sigh of relief and nobody seemed to have any more stupid questions for him.

Hired. Hahahaha.
 
These are great.... Keep them coming!
 
This one was ME...

I'm giving a training course for some accounting staff. They had a new accounting manager and all morning he seemed to be sharp as a tack.

At lunch I tell the IT Director who was traveling with me that the guy might not work out because he seems to smart for this crowd. IT Director agreed.

After lunch, I'm talking about Fixed Assets and the guy says "What's a Fixed Asset?" I'm a little confused and the IT Director says "We capitalize everything over $5000" I think, seems like a reasonable clarification.

Then he asks again, "But, what is a Fixed Asset?"

I said, "Are you f*ing kidding me?" (Should have seen the eyes from his staff)

He sheepishly said, "No."
 
rolivi said:
This one was ME...

I'm giving a training course for some accounting staff. They had a new accounting manager and all morning he seemed to be sharp as a tack.

At lunch I tell the IT Director who was traveling with me that the guy might not work out because he seems to smart for this crowd. IT Director agreed.

After lunch, I'm talking about Fixed Assets and the guy says "What's a Fixed Asset?" I'm a little confused and the IT Director says "We capitalize everything over $5000" I think, seems like a reasonable clarification.

Then he asks again, "But, what is a Fixed Asset?"

I said, "Are you f*ing kidding me?" (Should have seen the eyes from his staff)

He sheepishly said, "No."
Click to expand...

Maybe he skipped the day they discussed the balance sheet in college? :lol: Don't ask him about inventory or cash, either.
 
N747JB said:
In the mid 70's my dad owned a Dodge dealership with a really crappy HVAC system. One day he is up to his elbows in the HVAC closet trying to get it working and asked his used car manager to get him a flat head screwdriver. Dean responded, "That's not my job boss." My dad in is most loving tone explained, "Dean, you don't have a f***ing job!" He packed his desk and left! :D
Click to expand...

We run into this a lot.
 
My current boss recently told me, "You don't like me because you wanted my job but didn't get it." He didn't like it too much when I told him "First, I'm about to graduate with three degrees and your job is the last one on the list that I would want. Second, despite being less than half your age, I've already been offered your job on two occasions and I've turned it down. So I can guarantee that I don't want your job and that I could have it if I did want it." Kind of the inverse of your question, but still quite funny in my opinion.
 
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