Have you ever had a boss that you really, really disliked? Someone who made all your workdays into a sort of nightmarish odyssey that you weren't certain would ever end? I thought that I had had some pretty awful superiors, in times and jobs gone by, but I found out that I was mistaken. All my bad bosses from the past could be rolled up into one, and they wouldn't even begin to approach the unpleasantness of my current boss. I won't tell you her name; I won't even give the name of the place where I work - it's best to be somewhat circumspect about these sorts of things, don't you think? But I do need to tell you all a little about the lady who currently signs my paycheck. It's time.
I've always considered myself to be a fairly competent individual. No matter what the job was, I have, in the past, managed to learn quickly and discharge my work duties with intelligence and, yes, competence. Even though some jobs had a bit of a steep learning curve, I always was able to get into a groove with any new employer fairly easily. Until now.
At first, I thought it was a language thing. My boss speaks English to me, but I thought maybe things were getting lost in translation, because I certainly couldn't be as stupid and slow as she seemed to think (these thoughts of hers are communicated mostly via angry sighs, sullen facial expressions, and once, a stamp of her foot on the floor, accompanied by a loud, "Non!" Seriously.) Once I stopped to look around me, though, I saw that it wasn't just me getting the "you're a moron" treatment. She does it to her French employees, too.
Let me give an example of the behavior of this woman who is currently in charge of my immediate destiny. I call it "The Ice Cream Incident" in my head, and it was maybe the most unpleasant experience I've ever had at a job. If it had happened in the U.S., I would have left that day and never gone back - here, though, there are actual employment contracts for these short-time summer jobs, and I can't go anywhere, unless I get fired. In retrospect, I'm glad I stayed - things are getting slightly better - but for now, listen to this nonsense:
I work at a campground, in the reception building. There's a bar, a small grocery store with food and sundry items, and a terrace outside where folks can sit at tables and enjoy a beverage and the sunshine. We also have (as many places do, in the summertime) a big deep-freeze on wheels, filled with different types of ice cream treats. We call it "the fridge", and it stays inside the reception buidling all night, and in the morning, those of us who open up the place (that's me!) unplug it, wheel it outdoors, and plug it back in through a window, as the outlet is indoors. About a week after I started, when my co-worker and I wheeled the fridge outdoors, we saw that someone had, the day before, bored a small hole through the window frame above the area where the fridge sits outside and threaded the business end of an extension cord though it.
"That's new, " I remarked to my co-worker. (She speaks some English, too, and we converse in mostly English, with some French mixed in for good measure.)
"Oh, yes," she replied. "Go ahead and plug it in there," and so I did. She then headed indoors, to finish up, and I remained outside, straightening chairs and tables, putting up the table umbrellas, etc. When I went back in, I glanced at the wall socket and saw a plug already jacked in. Great, right? Wrong.
I finished my shift, went home, and returned the next day. My boss appeared from nowhere and made a beeline for me.
"Erin?" She met my eyes. My stomach immediately knotted up - so far, she hadn't talked to me at work, except to point out when I had done something wrong, or when I hadn't done something that apparently I was supposed to do. Completely unnerving.
"Yes?" I said, and tried out a small smile. It wasn't returned.
"Erin, when you bring the fridge outside every morning, what is the first thing you check, the first thing you must do?" She seemed oddly intense, even for her. She had been complaining the day before about the umbrella near the ice cream fridge, saying it wasn't shading it properly, so I tried that first.
"Um, make sure that the umbrella is shading the fridge?" I tried.
"No. Before that," she said.
I hoped my second try would be correct. "Well, you have to plug it in, of course," I began, and she pounced.
"Yes." Her voice was hard and steely. "Yesterday, someone (read here: YOU) forgot to plug in the fridge, and we did not notice until two o'clock. Many ice creams were melted and ruined. Please do not forget this again. You must check every morning." Her eyes were burning holes in my face. I started to stammer an explanation, an apology - actually, I don't know what I was going to say, as I felt like my bowels might explode at any moment, just from her furious stance and glare - but she cut me off. "Just remember next time." And she abruptly wheeled around and marched back to her office.
I blindly went through my morning opening routine (making double and triple sure that the fridge was frigging plugged in, you can imagine), and the day started. It was busy, people coming in all morning to buy bread, drink coffee, and ask various questions. I stayed out of my boss' way as much as possible, but was sure I could feel her contempuous gaze on me from time to time. Around eleven, things slowed down, and I settled into some cleaning duties. I had barely begun to sweep up the crumbs made by about 60 croissants and 100 baguettes, when the boss' voice came from the storage room in the back of the building.
"Erin, please come here." My stomach sank. It wasn't over.
I hied myself to the storage room to find Mrs. Boss, and her husband, Mr. Boss (they run the place together) standing there. He had a very sad, disappointed look on his face, she still looked like the wrath of God. Oh, Jesus, I thought. What now? I soon found out.
"Erin," Mrs. Boss began, still in her I'm so-angry-I-can-barely-keep-myself-from-strangling-you voice, "because you didn't plug in the fridge yesterday, we lost most of our ice creams. She yanked open the storage freezer we have back there and fished out some sort of frozen fruit bar. "Look at this!" She was dangerously close to shrieking now. She squeezed the wrapper and it was evident it was still mushy from melting the day before. "We put these into this freezer to try to save them, but most are still like this. Look at it - look at what you did!" She threw it back into the freezer. Mr. Boss looked chagrined, as well.
"It is a very bad mistake, Erin," he said, sadly and with great gravity. "A very bad mistake."
Part 2 ... next post
No comments:
Post a Comment