I have worked for some interesting people in my career. I have had some bosses that really made me wonder how they ever reached the level they did. I was sitting down the other day and was thinking about some of the worst bosses I’ve ever had. While it’s not easy to pick the absolute worst, two came to mind. I will write about each over the next few days. I'll change their names and some other info in order to protect their identities but will not alter any of the events.
I’ll start with a guy that we will call Biff Swaggers. Biff owned his owned company, let’s say it was a small payroll services company in Addison, TX called "PaySight On The Web". Well Biff was a pretty lousy boss and even worse person.
Biff hired me to do sales for him. He told me my base salary would be 35K plus commissions. When he gave me my employment contract the base was only 30K with a 5K (annual) expense account that was supposed to cover wear and tear on my car, mileage, and any other business related expenses. I asked him about it but sorry old Biff was not willing to budge. I was in between jobs and I didn’t want to walk away so I accepted his less than fair offer. I knew right from the start this was a man with VERY little character.
Two weeks went by and after receiving ZERO training I started to take matters into my own hands. I read everything I could about payroll systems and the industry and learned enough to get by. Biff wanted me start attending some networking groups he had been going to. I thought maybe it was because I could learn something but it became obvious that he just didn’t want to go any more because he was lazy.
I later learned from our Operations Manager that Biff hadn’t landed a single account since buying the business. I was shocked to hear this because Biff really talked up his success and experience when attempting to sell me on working for him. I was under the impression that he had some talent but the truth of the matter is he doesn't have what it takes to be successful. All of the so called "clients" he had were what was left over after he bought the business from someone else. To make things worse PaySight was losing clients prior to my hiring.
Biff was also known for his class. There were a handful of ladies that worked in our office and he would watch his mouth, to some degree, when they were around. He would still make sexual jokes in their presence but tried not to curse too much. However, when they were not around he would go on and on about different women he knew and how he was trying to get them to sleep with him. Two things are important to know here; 1) Biff is a married man and 2) Biff didn’t say I want to sleep with her but instead would say "I am trying to get that b***h to let me f**k her". There was one lady he knew from one of his networking groups that he talked about all the time. She was a tall blonde, maybe in her 40s, that was absolutely gorgeous. Biff knew everything about her, like she was a graduate of Texas Tech University. The vulgar things he would say about her never ceased to blow my mind. I never made a big deal out of any of this but it reinforced the fact that Biff was a loser with no character. Oh and if you’re wondering Biff is VERY ugly and has NO CHANCE of sleeping with any of these women.
If that isn’t enough to convince you that Biff Swaggers is a pathetic low life then this will. After I was there for about five or six months I really started noticing how Biff made jokes about internet porn. I didn’t think too much of it because I already knew he was a joke of a business owner and human being. However on two different occasions I actually caught him looking at some pretty hardcore stuff on his work computer. I couldn’t decide if he wanted to be seen and hoped that one of the ladies would see what he was doing. The reason I say this is because on both occasions he had his office door wide open with his monitor facing the entrance. Anyone walking down the hall would have seen what I saw. What I saw was an old pervert looking at sexual acts online with his right hand on his mouse and his left hand slowly moving around in his lap. I wish I could go back in time and un-see that!!!
On both occasions I let my presence be known and he quickly turned his monitor off. I had a legitimate reason for walking past his office both times. I had questions about prospective clients I was working on and he always said his door was open. I wish his door would have always been closed! The first time I caught him I just played dumb and acted like I saw nothing. However he knew I did because only a blind person would not have noticed what was on his oversized monitor. The second time I asked "what are you looking at there? Something about payroll?". I realize now that I should have said nothing again. Later that week I landed the largest client that PaySight had ever had and was promptly fired that Friday.
I was young and naive and didn’t realize that I could have sued him. Even if I would have I’m not sure I would have gone to the trouble. It was a blessing in disguise because I no longer had to work for a guy that is and always will be a loser in every aspect of his life.
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