My worst job.
Okay, so this blog started when I was working in Duluth, so people who only read my blog have no idea about the crappy jobs I had before that one.
After college, I moved to Seattle because there was (theoretically) a better job market and I just wanted to live there. For the first 2 months there, I was unemployed, and for part of that time, I was hospitalized with gallstones. But then I got a job.
I was hired as an executive assistant/webmaster/slave wench at a movie camera rental house in Seattle. It paid $8 an hour, with no paid vacation, no health insurance for the first 3 months, and no sick leave. The guy who had the job before me was acting like a prisoner about to be paroled as he trained me. I knew it was going to be a crappy job, but I needed money.
My boss was a psychotic cinematographer named Marty. The company was losing money because Seattle was no longer the cool place to film stuff, and everyone was shooting in Vancouver instead. My co-workers were all immigrants. And the ones that seemed American were most likely Canadian. He hired mostly immigrants because he'd get them to work for him under a work visa, so they'd be deported if they quit. Only me and the receptionist were American. And he went through 6 receptionists in the 8 months I worked there.
My least favorite habit that Marty had was his habit of never telling me that he had work for me to do until the day it was due. I designed magazine ads for him, and he would give me a list of the products to be listed in the ad on the day it needed to be in to the magazine, then he would sit behind me and watch me work on it. He nitpicked and whined about every detail until it was finally done to his satisfaction, and by then it would be 9:00 at night, and I'd have to walk half a mile to the bus stop at night through one of the worst parts of town.
One Monday he came in with his laptop and said, "I couldn't get into my email from home with this. It's broken." So I checked it out and told him, "When you're in the office, you have to use password A, but when you're at home, you have to use password B. You used the wrong password." He insisted that something was broken. When I said, "The server says you used the wrong password. One of you is lying," he threw a tantrum and stormed out of the room.
I worked on it all day to see if I could find anything wrong. I couldn't. So he called the "experts". $200 an hour geeks for hire. The first guy spent 2 days working on it and said he couldn't find a problem. The second one spent a day working on it, and finally presented him with the verdict (and a massive bill). The verdict: Marty used the wrong password. Just like I told him 3 days and about $4000 before. No wonder his business was going under.
One morning I sat at my desk and thought, "If I stay here one minute longer, I'll either kill myself, or I'll kill him." So I said goodbye to all the people there that I liked, and I walked out. The web site hasn't been updated since I left. I think he never did replace me.
Several years later I was working in health insurance (also in Seattle). I had never seen a claim for anyone I knew until the last day I worked there. It was a claim for Marty. I can't tell you what his real diagnosis was, but when I left that job, the computer showed that Marty was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, micropenis, and anal syphillis.
Alana
I also bought a whole bunch of unhealthy things like toffee cakes and caramel and chocolate shortbread. (In case mom is reading, I bought chicken and broccoli and mushy peas and stuff too.)