Strict boss? What do you remember?

aileth

Haven't had it really bad to be honest. Most previous jobs it's been basic strictness which I'd expect in any workplace, i.e. no phones. My current job is fantastic. As long as the work is completed and to a high standard, I'm effectively left to my own devices and they expect you to be grown-up enough to self-police yourself.

The only one that sticks out was when I was expected to get into work 30 minutes before my shift started, unpaid, and once when I only made it in 15 minutes early I was referred for lateness. There was no real reason for being in 30 minutes early as it wasn't as if I had to prep to start. I had to effectively hang around for 30 minutes until the legal secs got in and the phones were turned on.

I'd try and make myself busy, thinking of things to get done, i.e. putting bottled water and cakes out on the conference tables early for 9.15 a.m. conferences, so I'd only have to nip in and take clingfilm off, and I got shouted at as the water would be 'too close to room temp' and it was 'thoroughly unacceptable.'

This is the same boss who hauled me up when I was taking a coffee to a Solicitor, who just wanted a cup of instant even though we had a posh coffee machine, and went red in the face explaining how serving a cup of instant was disgusting and I should be ashamed I had done it.

I stayed late once helping transfer a new Solicitor's files onto our system, and she berated and swore at me, despite having completed my other tasks for the day, for being a goody-two shoes and a kiss-!!! and it wasn't in my job description.

I didn't last long.

mustang121

Pennywise wrote: »

Where do you draw the line with texts and mobile phone calls? I doubt even the most strict manager would quibble about the very occasional case and emergencies, but when does it stop being acceptable? Is it one text or day, 5 or 10? Won't it cause resentment if someone doesn't do any, yet sat with someone who texts 3/4 times a day? There's the potential to waste a lot of management time just to police it and warn when some people are getting close to taking the mickey. Far easier just to have a blanket ban.

I would say you need to the draw line when deadlines are missed and work becomes sloppy.


As for resentment then people need to learn to mind their own bloody business. Who bloody cares what somebodies neighbour is doing? I couldn't give a wet fart if I saw body texting non-stop, I don't know their job role, I'd just assume that they must be efficient, caught up and taking a few seconds break.


If I shared work with a college and I was completing tasks at a faster rate because the other person was taking the piff on the mobile then I would feel it was unfair and that a line had been crossed.

mustang121

My only bad example is managers / supervisors who have bad organisation skills.




I had a temporary job whilst at University. I used to do ad-hoc admin jobs for TV Licencing. One weekend myself and a couple of others were called in to man the phones. To this day I have no idea why or what we supposed to be doing. (we didn't even have a PC, only a phone). We just re-directing public to the correct line.


Some manager caught us playing hang man and was understandably puzzled why they were paying three temps to apparently sit around. (we ever asked for extra work out of boredom, but was ignored). We got something like £120 for the weekend of essentially reading magazines whilst performing a mundane task.


Actually now I recall I did all types of mundane admin tasks for TV Licensing that could have been handled by a permanent employee. Now I know why the TV Licence Fee is so high, although at the time I didn't care as it was quick money.