GTKY: Co-workers and employers (past and present)

vampirina

It's been a while since we've had a GTKY thread and I thought this would be fun!

Tell us about your least favorite co-worker, boss, employer, team member, person-you-have-to-see-and-deal-with-regularly, etc... past or present!

Or if you're feeling positive, tell us about your favorite co-worker, employer, team member, etc...

vampirina

 Least favorite co-worker. We'll call her "Jane." 

Jane was a straight up bully. I used to work as a dog grooming assistant, which basically meant I was there to help out all groomers with their work (calming crazy dogs, bathing them if absolutely necessary, keeping the place clean, etc) and generally help out around the shop. The one thing I couldn't help with, though, was answering phones since I can't hear so well. She would constantly bully me because I had a hearing loss and thought it was great fun to dump all of her work on me and go outside to take an obscene amount of smoke breaks. She often followed up with her insults as "i'm just kidding" and she was just downright mean. The first boss I had at that job was pretty awful, too. She'd often make me stay much later on some days, and then dismiss me early on others, making it impossible to stick to any sort of sane schedule. I only went back to that job (it was a summer gig in college) because both of them were fired. 

Thscary

This is going to be a book so feel free to skip over me
Strangest co worker ever:

I have this one co worker currently. I say currently even though she hasn't come to work since January. 

We both started in November 2014 and ended up sharing a desk. It started out as her just being someone who talked ALL. THE. TIME. We are both pharmacists, so the nature of our work requires as little distraction as possible. But she would never stop talking. One night in January she asked if I had plans after work. I told her I was meeting my mom at a local bar/restaurant for food and drinks and she invited herself along. Weird, but I'm too nice to say anything.

In March 2015 things went from weird to way weirder. She hadn't been in work for a few days and texted me one night saying that her and her husband were being watched. She then sent a cryptic text message saying "I know who you work for and I know about the clinical trial" umm WTAF? I said I didn't know what she was talking about and she sent me more bizarre stuff that didn't make sense. I reported it to ethics because I thought she may not be competent to check prescriptions. Nothing happened. She came back to work and acted totally normal. I distanced myself from her after that and got a seat change. Then in January of this year, after missing a few days of work, she started sending me bizarre text messages again. First she texted me at 6am one morning saying "help, I accidentally injected parabens in my knee and I am allergic. I don't know what to do". I ignored the fact that none of that made sense and told her to go to a doctor. The next day I started getting calls from a blocked number. I didn't answer them. Then another text from her  saying "emergency. Don't call. Need help." I chose not to entertain whatever craziness was going on and sent the local police to her house for a wellness check. She hasn't been back to work since. I am not sure what is wrong with her but I hope she is getting help that she obviously needs

geminigirl16

@thscary WTF? Was she skimming meds on the sly? What a bizarre story. I have coworkers I really dislike but none are quite like that 

yellowrose314

I've been pretty fortunate as far as coworkers go... except one. And 2 bosses

1st boss: I worked the graveyard shift 10 pm to 7 am) at a bakery one summer. At first it was a lot of fun, it was a bakery with a woodfired oven and I learnt a lot about baking in that kind of oven, and handmaking bread. But the woman who owned it, and was head baker that I did the shifts with, was a total NUTJOB. And verbally abusive to the point where she made me cry multiple times. I am not a crier. She would make fun of my weight, that "obviously there's something wrong with you if you're not married yet" at 21, and even made multiple jokes about my late father dying. When my mom heard that one she went down and tore the lady a new one, which I didn't know she did until 2 weeks later when I didn't get my pay cheque. One of her other employees filed multiple grievances about her to the BBB and eventually she shut down.

2nd boss: I worked at a pizza place for 2 years, loved the manager I worked with, we got along great, worked the day shift together, and became great friends. The company ended up demoting her, she quit, and they promoted one of the delivery drivers who had been there for like 7 years, and he was a fucking asshole, and also one of my best friends brothers. He was the perfect definition of a boss, not a leader. He would regularly call me on my days off ordering me to come in for busy times like around dinner, and when I said I wasn't able to, he would threaten to fire me. However he would always go home at 230 in the afternoon, leaving me to do most of the prep on my own, plus orders, when he was being paid salary to stay there for 9 hours a day. Thankfully I only had to last 3 months of that crap before I got into my nursing degree program and peaced out.

Coworker: Before I became a nurse, I worked at a pizza place. Loved it, until this little shit started working there. He was one of those teenage skater kids, horrible attitude, didn't give a shit, which whatever, it's a pizza place, but it was to the point where it affected everyone's job. He wanted money but didn't want to work for it, and would frequently hide behind the dumpsters when he was supposed to be doing deliveries, chain smoking joints and drinking.

Thscary

@geminigirl16 we work in an office and do satellite work for a mail order facility so we don't have any meds here, but if we did I'd be wondering the same thing haha. I swear this girl is like the John Nash of pharmacy, ask her anything pharmacy related and she's a brilliant genious. The rest of the time she's crazy AF

Themaritimemama

I have a current co worker who drives me bonkers. She's loud, interjects into conversations when they're not even directed toward her, and she ALWAYS has to one-up you. I can't stand her. Also, her laugh is a ridiculous cackle that a witch would be envious of. 

My fav co worker is also current, and she's become somewhat of a bestie outside of work. She's my half-way bitch. Hahaha

Cricket Bug

Ohhh, I like this!

I had a job years ago working for a reptile importing company who wholesaled to a bunch of large chain retail pet stores. The owner also had a venomous snake collection on site - think vipers and cobras. Scary shit, but under lock and key to all but the owner himself, and a specially trained handler whose job it was to feed and clean them. This handler was dating one of the other maintenance workers in the warehouse. One day, they left really abruptly, and called in sick for the rest of their shifts that week. They were generally sketchy people (him especially - maybe have to be to work with animals that can kill you?) so we didn't think much of it. Until one afternoon the shop dog starts going nuts in the back room and I ran back to rescue whatever poor escape was about to become a pup snack and came face to face with a loose viper. Not a big one, but big enough to cause me or the dog who was roughly my size a world of hurt. I lost my crap, grabbed the dog and bolted. I didn't know if he had been tagged or not, so just freaked out until the owner got there to get the snake. Looking back at the maintenance logs for the snakes showed the reason for my co-workers absence all week. F*ckers knew and didn't tell anyone.

ETA: That's one story in a long list about those two. He is the only person I have ever truly been afraid of.

Thscary

@cricketbug I can't even imagine what I would do in that situation. That is terrifyin

vampirina

@Thscary - you dont live in Ohio do you? My old sorority sister is a pharmacist of sorts and that sounds exactly like her! Brilliant but bizzare. 

mrsvoorhees-2

I had a coworker that had some mental instability. Most of the time she was okay and I enjoyed our conversations, but sometimes, very randomly, I would say something like, "what time is your lunch today?" And she would burst into tears and run to the bathroom and when she came out, she would yell at me for being so mean to her. Only me. We worked with 5 or 6 other people but I was the only one that made her cry, pretty much every other day and I never knew what would set her off. I felt bad because mental illness is tough, but gah, give m me a break! She made me feel like such an asshole lol

vampirina

A newish coworker of mine is really awesome ... but she stinks! I cant tell if its just bo or really bad perfume or a combination but my god! And it's a stench that tends to linger so you can tell when she's been in the breakroom, conference room etc even an hour after she was there. 

Shes super nice though! 

SLou24

@Thscary umm I think you win!! She's clearly not well, I hope she's getting the help she needs! And I am also glad she's not currently filling prescriptions, doesn't quite seem safe! 

@Themaritimemama
Yes! Halfway bitches unite! Haha 

SLou24

My worst was a boss. It was my first year at a job, and she basically used me to get someone fired whom she had been trying to fire for some time. She heard through the grapevine something I had observed of this guy (he was no saint but this was not a fireable offense or anything I wanted to report officially). She called me into her office one day, had written up a "report" of what I had said, and forced me to sign it, saying it was my job or his. I was young and scared, and I still feel bad about it to this day. To be fair, that "report" was the last straw in a long list of things for him so it wasn't all my fault, but she absolutely used me as a pawn in her little game. 

In case you're wondering, a bunch of us banded together to make a case (I wasn't the only one she was manipulating!!) and she ended up losing her job. The guy she had fired is now/still super successful and she's been bouncing around to lower jobs ever since. 

Karma. 

lilaros

I had a coworker who was so bad I only called her Dipshit... Because she was. This is going to be an essay but I really, really hated this girl!

1. She was a pathological liar. She claimed to be dating Elon Musk (Tesla CEO), while he was married. This girl didn't take showers frequently, so our office all agreed that there was no way this was true. She also said she was good friends with Richard Branson (Virgin CEO) and travelled to his private island often but never happened to take a picture on her trips out there.
2. She was the loudest most obnoxious eater I have ever encountered. She would moan with pleasure from eating bananas. She slurped everything she ate. She chewed everything with her mouth wide open. I would wear headphones when she ate because it would make me sick, but headphones were never enough to drown out the noise. 
3. She was the most unprofessional person in business ever. I work is a super ultra conservative industry where flats are only considered appropriate on casual Friday. The girl would wear cut off jean shorts and tank tops. The bosses never said anything about it and I don't know why. Her behavior was also unprofessional. She lost our company a huge commission because at a meeting where she was told not to talk, she insisted on hugging everyone in the room. They fired us the same day because of her "lack of business sense." She used to say she was the most prolific young broker in our area but she was fired from nearly every single account she was on once they realized how bad she was. 

My bosses would not fire her despite offense after offense. I finally couldn't take it anymore and quit because I couldn't stand to be around her for even one minute more. Shortly after I quit, they did end up firing her because she attempted to extort another coworker!

jbscmama

@Laraeq OMG that's nuts! I am just picturing her slurping bananas on Richard Branson's private plane and dying laughing.  

nativetexan512

Oh I love this...

Weirdest coworker - was notorious for wrapping up items from her house and giving them to people for baby shower gifts, white elephant, birthdays etc. I personally got used candle sticks with wax on them, and the most notable was wrapped up, obviously read romance novels (we work in an extremely conservative office and most coworkers are men). It would have been funny if done in a joking/ironic way, but it wasn't a joke that I could tell. Most of her work day was spent scouring the various kitchens for free food (we work in a huge complex). Lots of times she would bring it back to our building to share, even if the other group clearly wasn't done with their snacks/dessert/whatever. Also tried repeatedly to set up any and all female coworkers with her son - whether they were single and interested or not. One time her son came to the office and was SO embarrassed to hear his mom had basically offered him to all of us, repeatedly.

Thankful never any terrible ones, but so many weird ones!!

nativetexan512

Laraeq  "Hugging everyone in the room" - bahahahahahaha nothing says competent, capable and professional like an unwanted hug.

edited - words