<story><title>Public protest against Amazon</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>ethbro</author><text>Stories like this are important.&lt;p&gt;Because sometimes the situation is bad for your boss too, the company is in financial straits, miscommunication, {insert other extenuating circumstances}.&lt;p&gt;... but sometimes your boss really is just an asshole, liar, alcoholic, and&amp;#x2F;or a sociopath.&lt;p&gt;Never assume the later off the bat, but never completely discount the possibility either. Because it&amp;#x27;ll probably happen at least once in an average career.</text></item><item><author>setquk</author><text>I worked for a similarly horrible person many years ago.&lt;p&gt;I was doing on call support for a bunch of Linux machines. Literally it was him and me left because the moment I started the other two engineers bailed. One went to work packing salad because it was a better job (big warning!) and the other one had a breakdown.&lt;p&gt;So didn&amp;#x27;t get paid properly, argued mileage down to the mile, the clients and him constantly gave me verbal abuse over and over and I ended up working until 10pm some nights with my 9 month pregant wife at home on her own and virtually immobile due to a back problem.&lt;p&gt;So I get home one night after a tirade of abuse for the day and sent him an email saying &amp;quot;Fuck you I quit&amp;quot;. Get a call about an hour later and he&amp;#x27;s drunk shouting abuse down the phone. This suddenly turns into undying love and care for me after the abuse wasn&amp;#x27;t working and he realised I couldn&amp;#x27;t be brow beat into coming back again. Then there&amp;#x27;s a thud which I assume was him falling off his chair. Never spoke to him again but the company folded about a year later.&lt;p&gt;So I sit down and I&amp;#x27;m about £2000 down then on salary and expenses that were missing. I had £250 in the bank, £400 rent due a week later, wife about to have a baby and an empty fridge. So fuck it. I sold all the stock I still had of the company on ebay (back when you had to take photos and get them developed and scanned and futz with cheques which was hard work), broke even and scraped a first pay cheque at a job just before my credit card melted into a puddle.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It took 10 years&lt;/i&gt; to get out of the hole and back to normality. NEVER put up with this for a second. If anyone treats you like this RUIN THEM before they ruin you, your life, your relationships and everyone else they go near. I don&amp;#x27;t usually advocate this attitude but the damage and destruction that type of person leaves is immense.</text></item><item><author>ownagefool</author><text>I had a manager that took over from a previous person when I was working remote.  There were a few issues, but the one that stands out is they flew me down to London for a week, set me up in a hotel, and had me take taxis back and fourth to the office and expense food etc.&lt;p&gt;After returning home, he rejected my expenses because of variance of costs of the taxis, despite me pointing out that I was using the stipulated vendor and the difference in cost was between me leaving the office at rush hour and me leaving the office around 9-10pm.&lt;p&gt;Not only did he reject the taxi expenses, but the hotel, the flights, the food, etc.  The guy was obviously a class act in his 50s, rejecting the expenses of a fairly underpaid 25 year old employee living in Scotland.&lt;p&gt;Super illegal but ultimatly I quit, because life is too short to work for horrible people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>geofft</author><text>A good boss does not mistreat employees simply because the company asks them to, just like a good engineer does not implement backdoors simply because the company asks them to. If there&amp;#x27;s no way to do your job ethically, quit. Don&amp;#x27;t harm others so you can keep collecting a paycheck.&lt;p&gt;So the difference doesn&amp;#x27;t really matter. You have a bad boss; take care of yourself first and don&amp;#x27;t let them push you around.</text></comment>
<story><title>Public protest against Amazon</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>ethbro</author><text>Stories like this are important.&lt;p&gt;Because sometimes the situation is bad for your boss too, the company is in financial straits, miscommunication, {insert other extenuating circumstances}.&lt;p&gt;... but sometimes your boss really is just an asshole, liar, alcoholic, and&amp;#x2F;or a sociopath.&lt;p&gt;Never assume the later off the bat, but never completely discount the possibility either. Because it&amp;#x27;ll probably happen at least once in an average career.</text></item><item><author>setquk</author><text>I worked for a similarly horrible person many years ago.&lt;p&gt;I was doing on call support for a bunch of Linux machines. Literally it was him and me left because the moment I started the other two engineers bailed. One went to work packing salad because it was a better job (big warning!) and the other one had a breakdown.&lt;p&gt;So didn&amp;#x27;t get paid properly, argued mileage down to the mile, the clients and him constantly gave me verbal abuse over and over and I ended up working until 10pm some nights with my 9 month pregant wife at home on her own and virtually immobile due to a back problem.&lt;p&gt;So I get home one night after a tirade of abuse for the day and sent him an email saying &amp;quot;Fuck you I quit&amp;quot;. Get a call about an hour later and he&amp;#x27;s drunk shouting abuse down the phone. This suddenly turns into undying love and care for me after the abuse wasn&amp;#x27;t working and he realised I couldn&amp;#x27;t be brow beat into coming back again. Then there&amp;#x27;s a thud which I assume was him falling off his chair. Never spoke to him again but the company folded about a year later.&lt;p&gt;So I sit down and I&amp;#x27;m about £2000 down then on salary and expenses that were missing. I had £250 in the bank, £400 rent due a week later, wife about to have a baby and an empty fridge. So fuck it. I sold all the stock I still had of the company on ebay (back when you had to take photos and get them developed and scanned and futz with cheques which was hard work), broke even and scraped a first pay cheque at a job just before my credit card melted into a puddle.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It took 10 years&lt;/i&gt; to get out of the hole and back to normality. NEVER put up with this for a second. If anyone treats you like this RUIN THEM before they ruin you, your life, your relationships and everyone else they go near. I don&amp;#x27;t usually advocate this attitude but the damage and destruction that type of person leaves is immense.</text></item><item><author>ownagefool</author><text>I had a manager that took over from a previous person when I was working remote.  There were a few issues, but the one that stands out is they flew me down to London for a week, set me up in a hotel, and had me take taxis back and fourth to the office and expense food etc.&lt;p&gt;After returning home, he rejected my expenses because of variance of costs of the taxis, despite me pointing out that I was using the stipulated vendor and the difference in cost was between me leaving the office at rush hour and me leaving the office around 9-10pm.&lt;p&gt;Not only did he reject the taxi expenses, but the hotel, the flights, the food, etc.  The guy was obviously a class act in his 50s, rejecting the expenses of a fairly underpaid 25 year old employee living in Scotland.&lt;p&gt;Super illegal but ultimatly I quit, because life is too short to work for horrible people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rdiddly</author><text>Point taken, but either way, it&amp;#x27;s so &lt;i&gt;not my problem&lt;/i&gt;.  Maybe in the former case I&amp;#x27;ll refrain from aiming a flamethrower back behind me as I run as fast as possible out of there!</text></comment>