My Boss from Hell (Semi-Fictional Friday Post)

I recall my first day working at the chemical plant. It should have served as an enlightenment of things to come, but I was always a slow learner. On that first day of work I showed up to meet my boss, and he didn't even acknowledge me! It was like I was a vendor trying to push my substandard goods off on him. He just totally brushed me off!

Now to be partially fair, when I interviewed for the job, I had a beard. But the chemical plant policy was no beards so I had to shave it off before my first day of work. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he didn't recognize me because of that. But later I came to find out that I gave him too much credit.

Now, the chemical plant that I worked was a union environment. I had worked in union environments all of my life, including the tougher, papermill ones. These unions in the southern chemical plants were not nearly as aggressive as the ones I was used to. They were certainly no match for my boss.

On my first day of work, one of the more mild-mannered employees, I'll just call him LB, approached my boss and told him that his son was sick and he needed to pick him up from school. But my boss was having nothing to do with it. He told him to get back to work immediately and not to bother him with such frivolous things again. When LB began to approach him a second time, my boss just held up his hand and told him to file a grievance if he had any issues with it. LB just simply hung his head and went back to his job.

I felt sorry for LB so I went to bat for him even though it was my first day of work. I went to my new boss and said "Couldn't we just cut him a little bit of a break this time? I mean LB seems like such a nice guy"

To that my boss replied, "Who are you again?"

When I told him, I was his newest employee that he had hired earlier, my boss just stared blankly at me and said, "Oh yeah? Well I must've been drunk that day. Now I will tell you the same thing I told LB. Get back to work and stop bothering me with these frivolous things."

Well, I could tell that my boss was nothing like me, at that point. He didn't have my level head, and he was obviously going to play hardball. What had I got myself into? If he was like this on my first day at work, what would he be like a year from now?

I was to find out. I endured a full year of his tyranny. Constantly belittling my every activity. But not just me, everybody! I recall a young engineer who worked for me. He was working very hard on a project for weeks on the night shift. His wife called me one day and asked if her husband could have a day off to celebrate an important event. I told her of course he could, as he deserved a day off. Then I thanked her for bringing this to my attention.

My boss had overheard the call and before I knew it, he was on the phone speaking to this lady. You should've heard the language that he used when he spoke to her, he sounded like a sailor just home from leave. But he let her know in no uncertain terms, there was no way her husband was going to get that day off. He was there to work and he didn't want to hear any of her sniveling on the telephone.

We shared the same office so I could hear the entire conversation. I just sat back dumbstruck at what had unfolded in front of me. How could he speak to this lovely lady in this manner? Especially when he had such a dedicated employee, as this man.

Well, this went on for several years. Every day I went to work in misery, enduring the day. Just hoping I could outlast my boss. Finally, he was promoted to Plant manager and then eventually to the company CEO. That's where most assholes end up anyway.

I finished out my career in quiet serenity after that. But never forgetting that man who had made my life so miserable that first year of work.

---

Ok, I can't let this post end on that note. I've only got a handful of readers here and my ex boss is one of them. I can't afford to lose him as a reader, so I must now divulge the truth.

Here is a picture of this evil man

In truth, he was anything but evil. In fact, he was quite the opposite of all the things that I described in this post. Although there are grains of truth within those stories, and those stories did happen in a kind of sort of way, you really could reverse the roles.

The only real truth in the entire story was that he did, indeed not recognize me on my first day of work. But the beard story was true so you can certainly give him a pass on that one.

He never did go on to become the CEO that I thought he could've been one day, but the old adage is often true, nice guys finish maybe not last, but rarely first.