"Micro-Managing Bosses and Shitty Jobs"

There are a lot of things that irritate me, as you probably picked up on, but few things piss me off more then Micro-Managing bosses. And they only seem to get hired at jobs that are miserable by sheer design. The worst examples of these types of walking sphincters are the ones that can only be found at that most American of institutions: The Shitty Job. While working at the 7-11 in Castaic, California in mid 1999, I was indoctrinated into the world of the miserable minimum wage hell that is being a convenience store night clerk. On several occasions I would be taking a five-minute sit down after one of the major rushes that would happen there (which often lasted over an hour at a time), and the assistant manager, a middle-aged blonde lady named Stephanie would walk in and ask me why I was sitting down instead of doing something.

My response was simple, “Why don’t you go in the back office and pretend to be doing the job that you are undoubtedly getting paid much more than I am to do and shut the hell up.” Her response was one of stunned silence, and she would go back and complain to the Franchisee that owned the place about me. Now, in most jobs I would have been fired for that, but the owners of the store were pretty cool about it, since they knew that that pain in the ass was always on my case for no reason. I personally think that she wanted what I believe can only be described in the immortal words of the true poet laureate of our generation, 50 Cent in calling it “The Magic Stick”. But I’ve been wrong before, so let’s not fly off the handle on that until we compile some more research.

The second and most memorable of my experiences with the Bill Lumberg-esque style of management came a year and a half into my time at the Cost Plus in Santa Cruz, California. Her name was Rene, and we came up with at least twelve insulting nicknames for her and amongst the myriad names that we called her, here are my favorites: Scary Mary, Witchy-poo, Bean Counter, and the Infamous Birdlady. The Birdlady was a name that I came up with due to the irritating pitch of her voice that was somewhere between Fran Drescher and a frickin’ dog whistle. She also had a tendency to dart her head around a lot when she talked, so that made the nickname even funnier.

Whenever my friend Raw and I were pulling pallets out of the warehouse to be staged by the rest of the crew, she would always tell us what to do, while we were already in the process of doing it. Here’s a sample of what she would say, “Raaaawwww, Toooodddd! Pullthepapasanpillows! Pullthepapasanpillows!” And while fighting to urge to drop a pallet of wine on her to see if her feet would curl up like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz”, we would have to tell her to get the hell out of the warehouse and let us do our jobs. That specific trait is the defining characteristic of the Micro-Managing Boss: The seeming inability to use their eyes to find out what’s going on right in front of them.

And also, an important thing to note is that a “Shitty Job” is a subjective definition that describes a job wherein you only work there for the money, and you only stay there because of the money. Think of it as if you were applying to colleges, and your list was: Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Stinky’s Hair and Skin Cosmetology Academy of Southern New Jersey. I’m willing to bet that if you could get into the first three, you would, but if you had no choice, Stinky’s H&S (Go, Fightin’ Cuticles!!!) would have to do for the time being, since that’s what a Shitty Job is like. But typically the biggest problem with a Shitty Job is that they pay you just enough that you can’t afford to quit, being that you teeter on the edge of abject poverty and homelessness between paychecks.

And as I wrap up this little segment, I have one final question: Why is it that the less you’re paid, the harder you have to work?