Share your terrible job stories

[Razeontherock]

That is something we deal with every day. How do you know that anything anyone ever tells you is true or a lie? The best you can do is follow Jesus and tell the truth. Do you automatically go into every situation with the belief the person is lying to you or do you give benefit of doubt and trust them until they prove otherwise? I personally take the latter route.

This is also why one should get everything in writing including the offer from a job interview. You can bet the potential employer has everything in writing from you. After all, you did fill out a job application and that's what that is used for.

Heh, one time an employer actually paid me a different hourly rate than I was promised at the interview, when I was hired. I took the paystub to that same individual, pointing out the mistake and expecting it to be corrected.

I was told, with a straight face, there was no mistake. Could not be reasoned with.

You have no idea how difficult it was not to impose grave bodily harm upon said individual.

Getting their job offer in writing would have been far preferable.

 

[Razeontherock]

I'm praying there is another A/C company in that is hiring and will fully appreciate your talents and experience!

You know there is! Come summer heat, HVAC companies won't be able to keep up with demand.

 

[Razeontherock]

I moved from Colorado to ohio for the only good reason that anyone ever would...because God told me too, and confirmed it for me!
I was scared not to, Sister! I remember Jonah...
A Brother in Christ (here on the board) that I'm telephone friends with calked me up, Ed I don't know what this means, but God told me to tell you to give your business to your sons and move to Ohio where your birth family is...just like that.
But there was more. ..he continued with what God told him...words of knowledge about my life...that I am positive that I never shared these things with this Brother. ..
That was God's way of confirming to me, that this message was real and from Him.
(Private stuff!)
It was God alright. So here I am.

I can prove it about my pay. But I prayed to get this job, I asked for prayer support here in the forum! I got the job. I don't want to make waves. It's not that much, and He might actually come up with a service van for me? It has been busy it has been hot. I dont want to quit prematurely either. At least for now. We have been busy.
I'm keeping good records though. I take pics of my time card too, just in case...
I do plan to say something if it happens again next week.

It will. He shorts all his help. So far he's been able to get away with it.

Howzzat for morals? It aligns perfectly with the way he treats his customers.

 

[Razeontherock]

Spoken like a contractor there. Absolutely true too. There's a lot of little stuff to know about any trade and the professional brings that with him. How to manuals and videos Don't really tell you what pitfalls and difficulties that can arise during a job. The experience that the university of hard knocks gives to a man in the trade usually means we been there done that. I am prepared for that eventuality. I'll still have the job done today.
Professional s are a little more, but if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur! Lol.

A significant percentage of the (trades) work, is correcting less-experienced fly by night guys work. They get in over their head and then stop answering the phone, lol

Whenever I advertise (self-employed for 26 years) the first people to call in are always customers of the biggest, most reputable Nation-wide chain; who have royally messed everything up so much I have to charge more for correcting their mistakes than if they hadn't done anything at all. (I won't reveal which company(s) as I don't slander my competition, but I did just say that the biggest companies are generally the flyby night types when it comes to quality)

 

[Razeontherock]

You have been very fortunate and choosing HVAC you are working in a rapidly growing industry that just happens to be in demand. That makes it a lot easier. A lot of the failures have to do with motive and drive. Most people are not driven well enough to think as an entrepreneur needs to think. Self-employed people don't work 9-5 and go home. Truly they work 24/7/365 if they really desire to be successful.

Yes, we do. Not the best way to keep a marriage intact! (Divorce came final in '98)

 

[lisa-in-FL]

I e had a few. I'm not afraid of hard work, and I'm a hard worker who produces results.
Give me an out of touch boss who has u realistic expectations and I wont stay long. Dad always taught me to get a new job before quitting your current job, and that's worked well for me and my family.

When I go in For an interview, i am interviewing them as much as they are me. I wont work with self centered ego centric people. I'm a team player who is results driven.

That's excellent advice from your Dad! I've heard that too. Don't like your job? Start looking for another but don't quit because it won't make it easy to find another one when you start walking out on employers.

 

[lisa-in-FL]

One of the things I have strived for in my career was to keep myself employable by taking on challenges that others may not be willing to attempt. For example, at one time we acquired a new product line of equipment and as a field service technician I took it upon myself to learn as much as I could about that product line. My primary reason was because I knew that I would eventually have to service it and I wanted to be able to serve our customers as best I could. This gave the impression that I had a desire to work on that equipment, which in reality was not true. I really didn't want to service the equipment but it went with the territory. As a result I was called on as one of our primary technicians for that equipment and I'm still called on today.

This is great and shows the value of going above and beyond at work!

 

[Edward]

It will. He shorts all his help. So far he's been able to get away with it.

Howzzat for morals? It aligns perfectly with the way he treats his customers.

I'm undecided on that because he does seem to take good care of his customers. A fair amount of them are mad for whatever reason, whether contrived or real gripe.

I saw him eat a furnace installation for a customers contrived grievance which was obviously not a legitimate one, he did more for her...than I would have.

She was being anal and overly nit-picky. ..(apparently nobody knew how to talk to her) and she uh, created enough of an atmosphere of doubt, that it encouraged her...to stack a couple outright lies on top if it.
I got dispatched to the house. I know what I'm looking at. I knew she was lying. I did smooth her over and politely. It wasa done deal and she relented on her (supposed) grievance, and calmed down. It was ok and nothing dangerous or hack job about it. It was over. Been there done that. Office staff were overjoyed that I was able to handle it

Then the boss man couldn't leave sleeping dogs lie and later ate the job to please her. A mistake in my mind

But, I gotta admit. That was some pretty impressive customer service on his part.
Her gripe was that ...something about her existing ductwork could have been better but company men never touched it. It was existing and unrelated to the install. Not in the deal. But she got a free furnace. I think it was a stupid concession to make. Installing a furnace for you doesn't include new ductwork or warranty of existing ductwork that was untouched. But one must respect that level of customer service, wow.

 

[WIP]

Heh, one time an employer actually paid me a different hourly rate than I was promised at the interview, when I was hired. I took the paystub to that same individual, pointing out the mistake and expecting it to be corrected.

I was told, with a straight face, there was no mistake. Could not be reasoned with.

You have no idea how difficult it was not to impose grave bodily harm upon said individual.

Getting their job offer in writing would have been far preferable.

When someone contracts with someone to mow their lawn for a certain price and they don't honor the agreement and pay less than what was agreed to. What should they do?

Agree to mow their lawn again? File a law suit to reclaim the missing funds? If the contract was verbal, it'll be one's word against the other's. However, if the contract was in writing and signed by both parties, one may have a strong case in front of a judge.

Sometimes we become the victim because we allow ourselves to be the victim. When the employer fails to honor an agreement, was it in writing so there is no mistaking what was agreed to? Was it clearly defined what the emloyees duties were and did said employee truly fulfill the part of the contract completely without question? Did the employee continue to work for this employer or did he/she tell the company to take a hike? Did the employee feel he/she had a case worthy of a judge's hearing and if so, did he/she pursue justice?

When my employer failed to respect me, as I felt I had earned, I had a choice to make. I could tell them to stick it and walk out to find work elsewhere or I could stick it out. I chose the latter because I believed in my heart that it would come around back to me eventually. I knew this because of past experience. I allowed my company to have their way that time but I truly believed it wouldn't be for long. If I didn't believe the way I did and still chose to stay with the company knowing they jilted me, I would be allowing myself to be a victim.

That's the problem. Too often we believe we are stuck in situations and don't have the drive to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and move on. There's a phrase that I heard and I like to use it from time to time. "I was looking for work when I found this job."

 

[WIP]

Today, I work in our Aftermarket Services group and write up proposals for modifications and upgrades to machinery that has been in service at customer facilities. I don't beg our customers to purchase the proposals but I do want to make the sale. I have to balance our needs (costs and margin targets) with customer needs (cost and deliverables). It is not uncommon for my customers to question the price tag or delivery lead time or installation downtime and more often than not they will be very persistent particularly with the lead time and installation time. Most of the projects I work with have some level of time sensitivity.

Maybe they are trying to bring a new product to market ahead of their competition and lead time is then very critical. Maybe they can't afford to have the machinery shut down as long as we need to install the modifications because each day of down time could be costing them $thousands in lost revenue.

The best I can do is make the offer and let them decide if it is acceptable. When they come back with requests (sometime even demands) for shorter lead times or installation times, that is when I have to scramble and work with all our departments from engineering to machine shop to pre-assembly, shipping, and technical services to find ways to meet or exceed their expectations or at the very least get closer to doing so. It's not easy because our group competes with new equipment sales for all department resources so there can be a lot of juggling of schedules and so forth. If I can succeed in those areas I can usually get the sale.

One thing that I pride myself and our company on is our devotion to Biblical business practices. We have at times had to give as a result.

One time I sold a project to run a new bottle size on a machine at a particular price. I botched the proposal terribly. It was a request that the customer needed answered very quickly due to time sensitivity and in my haste I neglected to look at an entire machine section. The result was that when our technicians went on site to install the project they discovered that section of the machine would not adjust narrow enough. Since my proposal stated what was needed to make it work, it was a contract and I honored that contract so we modified the machine section at our expense to get it done. In the end, we lost money on the project but we maintained our integrity.

There was another time that while working on a project I discovered that we owed a credit to our customer that was 3-years old. When they issued their purchase order for the project I was quoting, I reminded them of the credit they have coming and indicated that we would apply it to the project. I could have easily ignored it and left it up to the customer's responsibility to request it but in the end we kept our integrity in tact and gained confidence from our customer. They were really grateful for our honesty.

I have done other things too such as quoting projects as warranty when I discovered that what they were asking for was in fact a failure of the machine to perform at specified levels even though the machine was many years past its warranty.

I will not sacrifice my own integrity for the sake of gain even if it sometimes costs me in the end. I deal with my employers the same way by giving benefit of doubt until I am proven wrong and even then, my own integrity will take precedence so I will never burn a bridge behind me if I feel forced to make a decision to leave a relationship. Never know when I may have to rekindle said relationship in the future.

 

[stovebolts]

Wow, after reading many of the stories here, I feel very blessed with my employer and fellow employees.
I am an ETL developer for a very, very large company and my biggest gripe is not getting clear requirements, and then working, or reworking my code late into the night or weekend.
Because I supply the data, I have to be ahead of the application team.

 

[lisa-in-FL]

Wow, after reading many of the stories here, I feel very blessed with my employer and fellow employees.
I am an ETL developer for a very, very large company and my biggest gripe is not getting clear requirements, and then working, or reworking my code late into the night or weekend.
Because I supply the data, I have to be ahead of the application team.

Agreed! And, btw, having to work overtime because of someone else's lack of communication is a very justifiable gripe!

This is what I was hoping to get out of this thread. That all my complaints about this job are nothing new. Problems at work and with bad employers are "common to man" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
I'm dealing with a rebellious spirit because I didn't want this job. I was unemployed for 9 months and was hoping for something better. I was up for 2 other really great jobs. Passed over for those and now I'm in a role that I can do and have done before, but I don't wanna . .
I'm reminding myself every morning that they are paying me, I agreed to take the job and I have to be a grown up and just get through it.
One day at a time!

 

[stovebolts]

Agreed! And, btw, having to work overtime because of someone else's lack of communication is a very justifiable gripe!

This is what I was hoping to get out of this thread. That all my complaints about this job are nothing new. Problems at work and with bad employers are "common to man" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
I'm dealing with a rebellious spirit because I didn't want this job. I was unemployed for 9 months and was hoping for something better. I was up for 2 other really great jobs. Passed over for those and now I'm in a role that I can do and have done before, but I don't wanna . .
I'm reminding myself every morning that they are paying me, I agreed to take the job and I have to be a grown up and just get through it.
One day at a time!

I understand where your at. Thankfully, the last time I was in your shoes was over 20 years ago. You have to pay the Bill's. Somewhere in Thessalonians, Paul writes that if one doesnt work, one doesnt eat. God always provides, so when God presents food on the table by way of a job we dont like, I learned not to grumble cause I've been eating ramen noodles aka manna for breakfast lunch and dinner!
3 years ago the company I work with went through a restructuring and I thought I was going to loose my job. I ended up with 3 promotions. It's not what I expected.

So, when I'm writing code based on loose requirements and it ends up I've given them the wrong data, I look back on how God has put me in my position and instead of voicing my frustration, I swallow my pride, but a smile on my face, crack a joke and I get the job done.

I dont do it for recognition, I do it because it needs to get done. Guess what, I got a $100 visa!

 

[JohnDB]

Friday was unique...

I got fired and rehired by the same guy at the same company in one day. So off to the same jobsite on Monday. But Tuesday is going to be a new jobsite.

 

[Razeontherock]

I'm undecided on that because he does seem to take good care of his customers. A fair amount of them are mad for whatever reason, whether contrived or real gripe.

I saw him eat a furnace installation for a customers contrived grievance which was obviously not a legitimate one, he did more for her...than I would have.

She was being anal and overly nit-picky. ..(apparently nobody knew how to talk to her) and she uh, created enough of an atmosphere of doubt, that it encouraged her...to stack a couple outright lies on top if it.
I got dispatched to the house. I know what I'm looking at. I knew she was lying. I did smooth her over and politely. It wasa done deal and she relented on her (supposed) grievance, and calmed down. It was ok and nothing dangerous or hack job about it. It was over. Been there done that. Office staff were overjoyed that I was able to handle it

Then the boss man couldn't leave sleeping dogs lie and later ate the job to please her. A mistake in my mind

But, I gotta admit. That was some pretty impressive customer service on his part.
Her gripe was that ...something about her existing ductwork could have been better but company men never touched it. It was existing and unrelated to the install. Not in the deal. But she got a free furnace. I think it was a stupid concession to make. Installing a furnace for you doesn't include new ductwork or warranty of existing ductwork that was untouched. But one must respect that level of customer service, wow.

That's a one-off, by someone who doesn't know what he's doing. You not only knew the better way to handle it, you demonstrated that fact!

I understand needing to stick it out for a bit, and maybe this owner will even come around, acknowledge your worth, and be worthwhile. I don't think he's going to learn so much as to manage things so well that he can afford to pay you the way he should. I hope I'm wrong.

I hope you find an employer worthy of your unique skill set ...

 

[Razeontherock]

Friday was unique...

I got fired and rehired by the same guy at the same company in one day. So off to the same jobsite on Monday. But Tuesday is going to be a new jobsite.

That's hysterical! WIP just wrote about not burning bridges ...

 

[Edward]

When someone contracts with someone to mow their lawn for a certain price and they don't honor the agreement and pay less than what was agreed to. What should they do?

Agree to mow their lawn again? File a law suit to reclaim the missing funds? If the contract was verbal, it'll be one's word against the other's. However, if the contract was in writing and signed by both parties, one may have a strong case in front of a judge.

Sometimes we become the victim because we allow ourselves to be the victim. When the employer fails to honor an agreement, was it in writing so there is no mistaking what was agreed to? Was it clearly defined what the emloyees duties were and did said employee truly fulfill the part of the contract completely without question? Did the employee continue to work for this employer or did he/she tell the company to take a hike? Did the employee feel he/she had a case worthy of a judge's hearing and if so, did he/she pursue justice?

When my employer failed to respect me, as I felt I had earned, I had a choice to make. I could tell them to stick it and walk out to find work elsewhere or I could stick it out. I chose the latter because I believed in my heart that it would come around back to me eventually. I knew this because of past experience. I allowed my company to have their way that time but I truly believed it wouldn't be for long. If I didn't believe the way I did and still chose to stay with the company knowing they jilted me, I would be allowing myself to be a victim.

That's the problem. Too often we believe we are stuck in situations and don't have the drive to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and move on. There's a phrase that I heard and I like to use it from time to time. "I was looking for work when I found this job."

My boss at my new job is doing that to me. I was utterly honest with him during the interview. What I can do, can't do, can do but don't want to (installing) but am willing to help out with during crunch time or when something comes up and their in a pinch about, and what I can do but will refuse to do. I layed all my cards on the table like I should do.

How would it benefit me to lie to him? It would only embarass me later when they sent me out to work on what I said I can do. Plus it would prove that I am a liar.
No, I don't have to lie to get a job. Nobody knows everything. So why would I misrepresent myself?

(Besides, Jesus was standing right beside me while I interviewed. I had actually invited Him)

He said it sounds good, but the reality is that He don't know me nor does anyone intown. He said he's been raked across the coals by liars which he prematurely paid too well, so he is willing to hire me but only for what amounts to helper wages (less money than I was earning in the trade in 1992 , 26 years ago) until I was able to "prove" my competency and trustworthiness to him...

It was a legitimate concern from his side of the desk and so I comprehended it. He could be blowing sunshine up my skirt to manipulate me into signing on for a ridiculous pay rate...but to be big about it, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Proving competency is easy. I can do it. I did not lie.
Proving trustworthyness should be easy. The truth comes out whether good or bad.

It's been 5 weeks now. I've been in prove it mode. I work early, late, long hard hours doing what I told him I do not want to do...
I've been patient. I've bit my tongue and not complained and hung in there. For all I know, he's been being hard on me as part of my proving to him.

He interferes with my ability to prove myself. I have been unable to prove anything other than I'm reliable no problems with showing up everyday.

He's slowly proving to me that he lied to me a lot in the interview. He's proven he doesn't care about his crew. He's pushing me out the door.
I told one of the office staff this morning while picking up my check ..does anyone here know and realize that I am about a quarter inch away from quitting?
He bout fell off his chair. WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED?

I am not being given a fair shake. Everybody in the office has told me they like me, I'm the best helper this company ever had...except the boss.
I'll prolly be unemployed Monday.
I can not let the boss take advantage of me and lie to me...I was looking for a job when I found this one...

I'm not sure what kind of reception I'll have on Monday. It's going to be interesting.. .I had to give them a warning, a clue to how I feel. They're either too dumb to pick up on the subtle polite hints that I have been dropping, or its manipulation of me and they dont care....we'll see.

 

[Razeontherock]

Stick to your guns! Meanwhile, buy the Sunday paper to see what the job market is right now.

 

[Edward]

Stick to your guns! Meanwhile, buy the Sunday paper to see what the job market is right now.

I hear you and I am. I'm going to work tomorrow with the full expectation of being unemployed. Then he can't pull the rug out from under me.

If he tries to fire me, I am going to apologize at once for misleading him. That it isn't possible for him to fire me as I did already quit him.

I just came in to be big about it and hope that he had a big misunderstanding with me and. ..hope he isn't really like that...the benefit of the doubt. He can keep me. If he says the right things. But I highly doubt he will.

 

[JohnDB]

Actually we don't use the Sunday paper anymore. (Used to decades ago)
Craigslist/Skilled Trades is where we look.

If a "Tin Knocker" can't find service work in the summer time...he needs to open his eyes.

And there's a ton of work the farther Southeast he goes.
The pay isn't the greatest but demand is outstripping supply of qualified help. So wages have been slipping up.
Over time is common because a job that requires 50 guys might get 20 if they use temp agencies. Peurto Rico refugees have helped with the lower skills for the grunt work but knowledgeable guys are premium. I am not allowed to walk to the trailer to get Supplies or wire. That is helper work. I never can get near a broom. And I usually have a team of grunt labor attached to me. I am to keep them busy.
We still have a severe labor shortage. My temp agency boss calls the company I am placed with to see if she can have me back to send me elsewhere. (She needs me in more than one place).

If Edward has his ticket (license to purchase the refrigerants) he can command great pay just hanging out his own shingle here on the side of a van. Having his own set of guages and ladders ensure that he will never see home again.