Tuesday, July 29, 2008

signs your boss may be sociopathic, part 1

1. you may not speak unless asked a direct question. 
2. you may not use the bathroom without explaining where you are going and how long you will be gone. 
3. you may not change the free hours you work on days when she is not in the office, even if you will be working the same amount of hours, without her consent and three days' notice. 
4. you may not email photographs of your sister, whom your boss asked you to bring in as a model for magazine photographs, to your parents, as they are not your property and your boss has no intention of giving them to you, despite the fact that it would cost her nothing. 
5. you may certainly sign a contract stipulating that you will work less hours on friday, so long as you are prepared for your boss to expect you to work overtime on friday nights regardless. 
6. you will be expected to produce an entire written report on photography because you foolishly wasted half an hour asking the photographer questions about his trade while picking up prints for your boss.
7. you will be expected to document every thing you do as you do it and will be punished for failing to keep up with documentation. 
8. whatever you are doing, you are doing it wrong. 
9. you are probably doing it wrong because you are not working hard enough, did not thoroughly peruse the back catalog of publications which exemplify good writing, or are simply stupid. 
10. you are not allowed to make mistakes, which is unfortunate for you, since by definition, interns make quite a few mistakes. 
11. you are required to gush at length about what a wonderful mentor your boss is and how much you are enjoying your internship to her supervisors if you have any desire to receive credit for your time. 
12. your boss will read any evaluation of the internship that you write long before she writes her evaluation of you, so you must never, ever take issue with her treatment of you. 
13. you are looking forward to having your wisdom teeth removed because you will get the afternoon off. 
14. and your boss makes oral surgery sound like a day at the beach. 

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6 Comments:

Blogger Ezzie said...

OUCH. {wince} And I thought I'd had it bad...

11:33 AM  
Blogger sarabeth said...

I assume you've never heard of dooce's blog.

1:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So you have met XXXX, my beloved mentor? ;)

I promise, all of the bad ones make the good bosses even better.

2:03 PM  
Blogger Shira Salamone said...

Oy.

On the plus side, you won't be there forever. Best of luck.

6:11 PM  
Blogger Scraps said...

Wow. She makes my old boss sound normal, and he was the one who no one else in the office wanted to work for!

[shudders]

5:16 AM  
Blogger Bas~Melech said...

Oh no.

If you are having issues with #5, get a letter from your rabbi saying that you have to leave by x time on Friday for religious reasons and cannot work from that time until Saturday night. Then tell the boss that failure to allow you this constitutes religious discrimination.

12:45 AM  

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