Horrible Bosses

I thought this film was hilarious and I just got to thinking…. I wonder if bosses like this actually exist.  I mean I have plenty of complaints about mine but in the grand scheme of things they aren’t that bad.  My boss situation is as follows:

There are only five of us in the office- two others (with the same job as me), our boss, and the owner.  The boss and the owner are in a relationship, which makes the office environment… interesting.  We all sit in one small room for 8 hours a day and although they don’t act ‘coupley’ at work you just know that they go home and bitch about us.  Sometimes, with no warning, they like to pull us into a meeting to list all the things that we do wrong.  The complaints they have are more personality based than job based- such as you’re too quiet and don’t ask enough questions, or you’re a very private person.  Well I’m sorry but I don’t feel like pouring my life story out to my bosses!! 

As I said we all sit in one small room and they have complained about me being rather quiet. Even though I sit 8ft away from my boss she would rather email me with simple questions/ tasks for me to do, than ask me across the room.  How does she expect me not to be quiet if she communicates with me via email??

Our contracts say the company promotes flexible working hours and working from home. To help with this the contract states that the company provides laptops to all employees.  I have been there for 5 months and have had to use my own personal laptop at meetings and for business abroad.  Another of my colleagues asked if she could start half an hour early in order to leave half an hour early on a Tuesday and Thursday and she was met with a no.  Is that promoting flexible working hours?   My boss of the other hand uses and abuses the flexible working hours.  She was stuck for childcare for over two months and so arrived at work half an hour late and left two hours early + took all the school holidays off for over two months.

I have many more complaints but I don't want to come across as a complainer :P 

Do any of you have any stories of horrible/ just plain irritating bosses?

Alex x

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com
Alexx

Twizy

I was driving home yesterday and was stuck in the usual ultra-slow moving traffic when I saw a strange sight coming towards me.  It looked like a 'granny-mobile' (those funny vehicles that old people like to drive around  far too fast) with a roof over the top of it.  This thing had a number plate though, and it was on the road in the flow of traffic. It got closer to me and I saw it had no sides/ doors.  Taking into account that it was raining pretty hard, and does quite often round here, this didn't seem like a very sensible vehicle to be driving around.  As I drew alongside I saw there was a bloke in his 60s, wrapped up to the nines to protect himself from the weather, driving this thing.  When I got a good look at the back of this vehicle I learnt that it was a Renault Twizzy:

http://www.themhshow.com

Apparently you can actually get two people in these things and you shouldn't get wet so long as you don't stop.  So lots of driving through red lights then.  I'd also like to see someone try and fit the weekly shopping in there, it'd be falling out of the sides.  Has anyone else seen these genuinely being driven around??

Alex x

Parking Dilemma #2

Yesterday I got back to the car park and all of the cars once again had notes on them.  The message these notes carried on them was this-

'No parking this week as we are cleaning the drains and your car may get damaged' 

After the clamping warning last week why are they now being so polite as to let us know ours cars may be damaged by drain cleaning.  To me this doesn't add up.  I have two theories- that the employees of the bed shop just think it's hilarious to wind us all up or that someone else that parks in the car park is winding us all up.  Yesterday the car park was pretty full but this morning, after the mysterious notes of yesterday, there was only a couple of cars in there. No doubt by tomorrow we'll all be back and I shall be on tenterhooks waiting for the next note.....

Alex x

Parking Dilemma

I work in a building that was built fairly recently and has 121 offices inside.  However when the offices were built no-one obviously thought about how people were going to get to work as they made no provision for car parking.  The closest affordable car-park is about half a mile away.  However, there is a bed shop with a rather large free car park that’s only a couple of minutes’ walk away.  There are about 15 of us commuters that have realised this and we all park our cars in there for the working day.  There’s one very small sign that says parking is for customers only and any non-customers will be clamped but we all ignore it.  There are so many spaces in the car park that it’s not like actual customers will be short of one. 

A couple of months ago a note was left of my windscreen saying that the car park would be closed for the next two days for resurfacing. I thought that it was rather strange and wondered if the staff had just got bored and thought they’d kindly let the commuters know about the resurfacing.  So reluctantly the next day I left my car in the further away car park and walked in to work.  When I walked back to the car that day there nothing seemed to have happened in the bed shop car park with regards to the resurfacing and there were still cars parked in there.  So the next day I went back to parking at the bed shop. 

Two days ago I got back to the car and found this note on my windscreen- 

‘Any cars parking that are not registered to park need to do so straight away by calling us on 014****3996.  Do not call into the shop.  If you are not registered your car will be clamped without further warning’.  

So yesterday I parked up in the further away car park and on my way back to the car after work there were still quite a few of the commuter cars in the bed shop car park and none of them had been clamped. 

I didn’t park in there again today but I’m already wondering whether the bed shop’s threats are just empty because let’s be honest how on earth are they going to clamp 20 cars?? Already this year I’ve saved £140 on parking money so if I did get clamped I’d still have made a saving because surely they wouldn’t charge me £140 to remove the clamp?? What would you do? Would you risk it to park closer for free, or would you pay to park further away?

Alex x 

Tropical World

Yesterday, at 7am, all of the 5 fire alarms in our house started going off and there was nothing we could do to shut them up.  As it was a Sunday our letting agents were closed, they have no emergency number, and the landlords mobile was turned off.  This resulted in us either going crazy or going out.  After having had a late night the night before I wasn't so happy about having to get up so early but we ended up having a lovely day out.

We went to Tropical World in Leeds which has the largest collection of tropical plants in the UK (outside of Kew Gardens) and houses butterflies, birds, fish, crocodiles and nocturnal monkeys and bats.  It's a ridiculously cheap day out at £3.50 an adult so it's definitely worth the trip if you're in the vicinity.

I have an irrational fear of most animals, and especially butterflies, which I know sounds ridiculous because there are utterly harmless but I think it's their erratic flying I don't like.   Anyhow, I had to overcome this fear because I wanted to get some good pictures with my new high zoom camera lens!  

Which is your favourite?

Alex x

Song of the Week # 3

This is the new song by DJ Fresh and Dizzee Rascal which is due to be released in June.  I've got a feeling it's going to be a big summer tune!

Alex x