My Boss Screamed at Me Tonight

I'm not to be yelled at by a fat guy who plays college fight songs during down time, calls employees "Skippy," or writes sports columns about food. "Not gonna do it." Life's too short for that bullshit.

 

I had a boss a few years back who would always tell us to dress professionally and act in a proper manner while we were representing the paper.

Then, he would go into his office and scream "motherfucker!!!" about 1,000 times and call the quarterback the c-word in a voice loud enough for bordering states to hear everytime the Cowboys did something bad, which at the time, was every Sunday.

He was a great boss, I just always thought that was funny.

 

You shouldn't have to be an old-timer to know how to treat people. Nor should you have to be around someone with many years of experience.

 

I haven't had too many yelling bosses in my time. I live in a repressed part of the country where public display of any spontaneous emotion is viewed with extreme suspicion, unless it's at church or a sporting event.

People here, when they get mad, tend to seethe inside rather than throw a fit. Particularly the men, since the old-fashioned cowboy ethic is that raising one's voice in anger is not manly, but rather a contemptibly hysterical response to crisis. A real man is supposed to remain low-spoken despite being enraged (although a little expressive property destruction isn't frowned upon).

To me, a huge factor is how the yelling boss acts after the tirade is over. The next day, does the boss apologize for letting his emotions get out of hand? Or does he pretend that the freak-out never happened- and walk up to everyone the next day with a shit-eating grin- knowing that no one will mention his freak-out, lest they trigger another one. Huge, huge difference here. If someone blows their top but makes a simple apology later, that goes a long way. The bosses who act all chummy and smarmy after blow-ups but who never own up to their behavior are creepy...that's way too much like a clinically abusive personality.

 

I'll never forget the time I quit my first job and the blow-up that ensued.

It was a weekly, but a prosperous one in an affluent suburb. When hired, I was promised that I would have an 80/20 percent focus on sports. Of course being a weekly, I was responsible for 100 percent of the sports content.

When I got there, the percentage was about the opposite. I was the de facto school, business and general assignment reporter, which would have been fine had they hired me under that premise. In addition, the husband-wife team that owned the paper acted like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and we were peons. I'll never forget them ordering several of us to go shovel snow because they were too cheap to hire someone to plow. They also dragged their feet on benefits, etc. I had to negotiate the right to do freelance assignments (I was freelancing NBA coverage for several small dailies, none competitors of the paper I was working for, at the time). It was absolutely miserable.

After a few weeks I knew I would quit, but it was hard considering it was my first full-time job. But more BS ensued and I gave my notice a little over a month after I had been hired, right in the middle of basketball season. Needless to say, it didn't go over well.

A few days before my two weeks was up, I was called into the publisher's office, the publisher was the wife in the husband-wife team. She asked me about an alleged voicemail I supposedly got and didn't respond to. I told her I didn't recall it, though it was possible they left one and I missed it or accidentally deleted it, when I was doing other things.

She called me a bald-faced liar. I said, "What?"

"You heard me. You're a bald-faced liar. You quit on us, why should I trust your word over his?"

I was taken aback, but I got out a decent answer.

"Because I'm an employee, my workload hasn't suffered since my resignation, and you know the responsibilities I have."

I could have said anything, it didn't matter, she was bound and determined to go for maximum humiliation.

"We should never have hired you, you're a failure."

"Excuse me?"

"You're a failure. You'll never amount to anything in this business. You'll be a bellboy at the hotel I stay in."

Well clearly, that was enough. Publisher or no publisher, there's no way I was letting that go. It was my turn.

"Who's the bald-faced liar? You said my primary responsibility would be sports, its been anything but. You promised benefits on day one and haven't delivered. You bully and humiliate your employees on a daily basis. You're feared by everyone in this building, but they're suckers, I won't put up with it and I won't put up with your insults and insinuations. There's only one liar here and I'm looking at her."

Of course I didn't say that all at once. We were trading barbs, but you get the idea. Finally, she said maybe I should just leave right then and there. I said that was perfectly fine with me.

At that point, the husband came in and put a stop to it. He was the nicer, but clearly not the Alpha Male of the this arrangement. He took me in his office, apologized for all of the empty promises they had made. At that point, he confided to me I was the fourth SE they had in a little over a year and that they had repeated mistakes with me they made with others. He all but begged me to stick around for my final few days, and he surprised me when he said it would prove his wife wrong. I agreed so long as I didn't have to see her.

I never spoke with her again. In fact, I never put the job on any of my subsequent resumes. I struck it from my record. A few months later, I got another job at a daily and haven't looked back.

I only saw the husband-wife team one more time. It was when I was given a state association award for sportswriting. I was so tempted to go up to her and tell her, "How's the bell boy doing now, bitch!" But I chickened out and just ignored them.

They've since sold out. I think they're in the business elsewhere.

 

RIP, NightOwl.

 

That's awesome, Bubbler.

I was torn apart earlier in my career. The managing editor told me I couldn't write and my best shot at advancing in this business was through the paper's news department. I left that paper the next month to take on a job at a better-respected newspaper for more money and more responsibility. And I've never been happier in this business.

Walking through the door for the last time was such an amazing feeling.

 

As if nuking will help him now.

 

I always thought dumbfuck was one word . . . .

Interesting thread. Sorry I missed it when it was in full glory.

 

He burned brief, but bright. And hyphenated.

 

sounds kind of like my sex life

 

First Fenian, then NightOwl....