Have You Ever Worked for an Abusive Boss?

Having a job is not something to be down about. Losing your job often means a slow descent into a life of perpetual masturbation, off-brand Quavers sandwiches and terminal Putlocker addictions. And nobody wants that. But, of course, employment can have its negatives; pig-ignorant, power-drunk superiors making you work endless hours for no reward being perhaps the main gripe most people have with the nine to five.

As Apple plan to unveil their cheaper iPhone model next week, investigators claim that workers’ rights are being undermined in the Chinese factories where it’s being manufactured (which honestly came as a shock to us all). With that in mind, I wanted to see how the people of London feel that they're treated at work, so I walked around and asked a few of them a question: Have you ever worked for an abusive boss?

Allie: Yes.

VICE: How was he bad?
He had bad organisational skills, excessive use of the F word and he was just an absolute prick. He’d go into these big flowery projections of what we should be doing as a team, but he didn’t work as part of a team. It was all about what we could do for him. So that made him a shitty boss.

Did it drive you to quit?
Yes, it did. I told him where to go.

Emma: Yes, I have. He wouldn’t turn up for work because he had a bad back for about four years, but if you were off puking your guts up then you would get in trouble for it. He started bullying me and I went to the union – that’s when he started shitting himself.

Good job.
Yeah, he started backing off and we got made redundant anyway. They gave me money to not work with him, which was good!

Ashton: Yes, I have. But she got fired, so it was alright in the end.

What made her a bad boss?
She was trying to get me fired for reasons unbeknownst to me. She tried to get me moved to different branches. She also spread rumours around the restaurant that I had bipolar to try and turn people against me, which was obviously a bit unruly.

Rhys: Yes, I have – in the job that I’ve just come out of, actually. She was awful.

In what way?
One minute she’d be praising you, then the next minute she’d make a mistake herself and she’d be on the phone trying to find someone to blame. She’d ring me up effing and blinding. Put it this way: after I’d worked there for two weeks, she called me a "fucking arsehole". I’d never been in a job like that and she gave me no training. She was just awful.

Did that push you to leave the job?
I stuck it out for a year, in Bristol, but I left it and now I’m in London looking for work. She was a major reason for me leaving.

:(

Neils: Yes, I have.

What made them so shitty?
I was vomiting in the stock room with a sickness bug and I wasn’t sent home.

Was that a common occurrence?
No, it was just that one occasion, but I really wasn’t in a state to be working.

Previously - How Can We Make Sex Education Better?