There are bosses from hell and days from hell, but nothing tops that “worst job ever” experience.
Jeebus, really, you want a list?
Over the years I’ve done all sorts. I spent some time in my twenties working in a warehouse cutting up cellophane. They promoted me fairly quickly to credit controller and I enjoyed that for a couple of years, I have a fairly easy going personality and was pretty good at it. I got itchy feet so took a similar job with a company called Bailey’s Carpets. Now, that was a bad move. Piss poor management that passed the buck down the line, while the manager concerned went swanning off on extended lunch breaks wasn’t a good omen from the start. I was only a month into the job and it all went horribly wrong. Taking pre-booked holiday led to my job not being done properly while I was away and the manager responsible not paying attention. When I came back, he blamed me, despite me being unable to do anything about it from Budapest. I wasn’t having that so I walked – with nothing to go to. Y’know, being in your twenties with little in the way of responsibilities gives you the freedom to do that. But, looking back, Bailey’s bad though it was, wasn’t the worst job.
I spent a few years on temporary contracts, before taking on a permanent job despatch riding for a local car factor. It was okay, but tedious and I tired of it fairly quickly. I did the best thing I could then, got myself the best boss possible; me. I spent five years as a driving instructor until the great depression of 1990. That’s when I joined the railway.
I have to say, while I might be critical of Network Rail and Railtrack before, I was reasonably content during those years and my time as signalling manager for Westbury was probably the happiest three years of my working life. If I could have any part of my life to live again, it would be those three years.
Redundancy sent me back into self-employment and varying fortunes led me into a series of temporary jobs. A brief stint with Pertemps where they sent me to Home Delivery was pretty awful. That lasted all of two days. Excessive hours combined with a defective tyre on the van and incompetent route planning – not to mention impossible computer generated targets, were more than my driving licence was worth. Pertemps didn’t take kindly to my pointing out the problems and I was never offered any more work for them. Why am I not surprised?
Up until recently, that was probably my worst experience. However, since then I have spent two weeks at the Post office doing Christmas sorting and that was okay. Hard work but good company and a decent working environment, even if I did ache all over for days afterwards.
No, the worst, job, the absolute pits has to be Sainsbury’s. In all of the thirty years and the range of workplaces – including some I’ve not included here – I have never before been bullied at work. The combination of that, the computerised targets that make no allowance for the real world and varying rates of fitness among individual workers, combined with the patronising drivel that we endured on a daily basis designed to apparently make us feel valued, despite being treated like drones, has to go down as the absolute worst working experience of my life and, believe me, they have some competition there.
So, here you go, step forward Sainsbury’s you win the worst employer of my life award. I do hope you are happy with it.
No, the worst, job, the absolute pits has to be Sainsbury’s. In all of the thirty years and the range of workplaces – including some I’ve not included here – I have never before been bullied at work.
Little hitlers. I’ve met them too, target driven.
Yep, bullying seems to be ingrained in the culture at Sainsburys – Head office as well as the stores. I had 20 years there, about half reasonably happy. One stint where I was promoted and then stabbed in the back by the senior management – moved to a different dept soon after that working with some great people.
Then some more years go by, had a spell of ill health, back to work and theyve changed the dept manager to this foul harridan who has zero clue on what she is supposed to be doing (to this day the rumours persist she slept with / had dirt on the senior management) but was well liked. She felt threatened as I could have run that dept with my eyes closed – so did everything to bully / intimidate / undermine me. On top of that the senior management decide to do a reo-organisation, which led to a number of teams being disbanded – and as a result my workload increased by about 500%, becuase yes, they wanted the same level of detail done, and as usual it flowed downhill. Despite asking for assistance on numerous occasions, I was refused.
Long story short the combination of stress and bullying did for me – I left on long term sick and never went back. 3 courses of counselling, a cognitive behavioural therapy course and anti-depressants for a number of years. Only the last year or so that Ive started getting back on track – with confidence shattered and subject to the occasional panic attack still.
Overall, foul place run by foul people. Havent spent a penny there since. Advise anyone I talk to if it pops up in conversation never to shop there.
Thanks for the info and best wishes for the future. I stopped shopping regularly at Sainsburys some years ago because the experience was particularly depressing and the local store badly run, I go there occasionally still if I want to pick up a few things as it’s within walking distance but in view of what you say I shall probably stop now. One of my nephews works for the Co op and likes the atmosphere and work, unfortunately I’ve never found it much of a place for choice and I don’t like the local shop, I will stick to Waitrose and Lidl I think.
The Sainsburys comments are interesting; I won’t willingly shop there because I find the stores claustrophobic and oppressive. Maybe it’s the people who cause it rather than the layout and decor?
In which case, what are Asda & Poundland like?
Asda, remember are owned by Wal-Mart who have a dreadful reputation ……
American companies – any American companies – are simply dreadful to work in. Chock-full of ghastly, power-crazed, self-important, shallow, money-obsessed little dictators, from the President of the company right down to the lowest level of management. You can work your fingers to the bone and they won’t notice (except to wonder why you’re not grateful to them for allowing you to do it), but the moment you do anything wrong – no matter how minor or how understandable – they act as if the sky is about to fall in.
Avoid at all costs.