I worked at an advertising agency 32 years ago. We had a creative director who was incredibly unreasonable, demanding and rude. He would often ask me to do personal errands for him that were not part of my job. He definitely looked down on me.
I was the receptionist and I got half an hour for lunch. In order to take lunch I had to have somebody watch the phone for me. When he would see me leave for lunch he would demand that I order and pick up his lunch on my lunch hour and bring it to him. This would leave me 10 minutes for my own lunch.
He ordered the same thing every time. Grilled cheese with mayonnaise, extra crispy. I started ordering his sandwich wrong. Every time. When he mentioned it was wrong I would say, sorry the restaurant is really busy. They must’ve made a mistake.
He would have me make him coffee and bring it to him. Meanwhile, I had to watch a 10 line switchboard that rang constantly. His coffee was supposed to be black with no sugar. I would often bring it to him in a dirty cup with 3 teaspoons of sugar in it.
He also asked me to do personal mail outs for him as we had a mail machine that had stamps in it. Things like Christmas and birthday cards and also invitations to parties. One time he gave me several things to send out, and they fell behind our mail machine without me realizing. About a month later, he came to me and said, no one received the cards you sent them. I told him I didn’t know because I had mailed them. There was no way of tracking them. Later, I was cleaning behind the mail machine and found them all. I put them in my purse and went for a long walk after work and threw them deep inside a garbage can.
Eventually, he stopped, asking me to do personal things for him! I’m sure he thought I was an idiot, but he could not complain because I wasn’t supposed to be doing those things in the first place!
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I believe this tactic is referred to as “weaponized incompetence”. As long as you don’t get yourself fired, it is a very effective method for decreasing your workload.
Why didn’t you sign him up for 13 cd’s for a penny?
I had a crap boss who asked me to do all sorts of personal stuff that wasn’t in my position description, so I used his personal email to sign him up for all sorts of garbage email lists and advertising.
For years… Long after I left.
Has he found God? there are groups that come knock at the door.
What about an inquiry into an extended car warrantee? Solar?
Was his name Don Draper?
This reminds me of a friend of my father! His first wife was a hard worker, probably working herself to death! He gave instructions to his second wife to “weed “the garden! She pulled out the plants and kept the weeds! He told my father she was so “dumb “ he was not going to ask her again! She confided in my mother that she did it on purpose,she wasn’t “killing “ herself!
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are mean and unpleasant to those who handle their food and drink. Yes. Let’s be horrible to this person then have them do a task that gives them power to silently get their revenge on me in horrible ways.
I usually don’t like passive aggressive revenge, but that guy deserved it.