Fetch

My boss is always asking me to do these personal favors for him. Go downstairs and get fresh coffee, pick up his dry cleaning, pick up his prescriptions. He has me getting cards for his wife, and sometimes gifts, too. I joke with him and tell him it’s not in the job description. He laughs and says he’ll add it on. I am grateful to have a job in this market, but I also wanted to edit books, not pick cards for his wife. I feel demeaned. Isn’t this behavior wrong? How do you say no to your boss and not jeopardize your job?

Help.

Touchy Feely Boss

I swear my boss rubs against me whenever he can. Somehow his arm reaches across me and brushes my breasts. Or he squeezes by at the copier and brushes my behind. Am I crazy? I can’t tell. What should I do about this?

Anon – Penn.

Executive Vomit

We were driving down the FDR on Manhattan’s east side in the back of a town car, headed home from a big Wall Street trader’s dinner. Our boss, let’s call him “Gizmo,” loved wine.  He made sure that it flowed freely for several hours. Just how freely? Imagine what a drunk can do with a corporate American Express card that literally has no spending limit. Once again, Gizmo was wasted.

 After 10 minutes in the car, Gizmo started making the wretching, convulsing sound that is the hallmark of vomiting. My colleague and I looked at Gizmo. We looked at each other. We looked back at Gizmo. Gizmo’s cheeks quickly expanded like a squirrel as his mouth filled with his own vomit. In a flash, his cheeks relaxed.

Rather than asking the driver to stop the car, or even lowering the window, Gizmo, in his infinite wisdom, decided to swallow his own vomit. This was par for the course for him. We were not the least offended, having been de-sensitized by his chronic farting and burping during business meetings.

You’re not Dana!

Marge was the head of our department. She was about 50 and known for
being odd. Fortunately, my direct boss generally kept me away from her
as much as possible. One day, her assistant, Dana was nowhere to be
found, my boss was out and I needed to get an urgent signature on a
document.

I knocked on the doorframe and poked my head into her office. “Marge?
Could you sign this for me please?”
She was staring at her computer, hunched over and slowly turned her
head towards the sound of my voice.
“It won’t work,” she said, jerking her head at her computer.
“Um, what’s the problem?” I asked.
“It doesn’t work,” she said, again motioning toward the computer and
slurring her words ever-so-slightly.
“Let me take a look,” I said, leaning over her computer and pressing a
few keys. Her email was frozen.
“Probably best to just restart the computer,” I said.
She turned her head to look at me, squinted and said slowly, “You’re
not Dana.”
“No, I’m X,” I said. “I just needed your signature on this.” Hoping,
beyond hope, that she would sign it and let me get out of there.
“Where’s Dana?” She asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe she’s out today?”
“Oh.”
She signed the paper, turned to her computer and went back to staring
at the blank screen.
She was laid off six months later.

Anonymous….

Paper Clip Freak Out

I worked at a small literary agency. My boss had a rough reputation in his business, but he was actually kind to me. He taught me things whenever he could, and trusted me with important duties, and information. A literary agent’s methods for increasing a bid from a publisher can push the ethical limits. 

His partner/assistant agent was a different story. 

I sat at the front desk fielding all the calls and taking care of the nuts and bolts. 

This literary agent was my age. We were in our late 20’s, early 30’s. 

A fax came in with many pages. I put it together, in order, stapled it, and left it in his Inbox.

I went back to my desk, in the front of the office. Then I heard,

“You stapled it?!”

louder, “Staples?!”

I said, “Are you talking to me?”

He came storming out of his office. 

It was a Soho loft. Sound echoed and boomed and landed like punches. 

“I told you,” he yelled,  ”You MUST use PAPER CLIPS!”

I thought his head would pop off.

“You never told me that,” I said calmly.

“I told you,” he was still red-faced and screaming and panting, “If you staple it, and I need a page, I have to take the staple off, and it cuts my fingers and then there are these holes left!!”

I stared at him.

“Use the fucking PAPER CLIPS!”

My dyspeptic, out of control, kafkaesque boss, came to the office in the morning, and almost immediately after, would pick up a newspaper and head to the bathroom.

I had to know this because it was a hallway bathroom, one which a key was needed to enter. 

He would stop at my desk, ask for the key, newspaper in hand, and go. He made this trip to the potty again and again. Everyday he would blame his lunch – even though it started almost immediately after arriving in the morning. The last week I was there I finally told he didn’t have to explain it to me. 

When the fax would run out of stationary, he would yell, “Stationary!” the signal for me to come and fill it with the stationary that was in a pile right next to him when he yelled it. 

Thank you, Alex. Because of you I will never work for anyone but myself again. 

Sent from Anonymous C