Howdy folks. I wrote this article in a partly free verse poetic form and partly in a pissed off mood so it might come off as weird. All I can say is just try to flow with it!
This article isn’t political based, nor is it wrestling based, but rather I would like to expound on a theory that I’ve found to be glaringly true in the past year or so that I’ve worked at my current job. This theory is mainly the fact that rudeness is the weak man’s perception of power.
I don’t want to sound like some high and mighty ideologue on how we should act as humans, but after working for my current employer, I think that I’ve become an expert on rudeness. You see, my boss is a very insular person. He’s the type of man who will call a bank for a loan and when he is told “no” because of outstanding debts, he’ll start screaming and cursing and yelling until someone tells him “alright, we’ll think about it.”
Some might call him a shrewd businessman…bullshit. Some have said that he is really good at what he does…I work with him all day – he’s not. Will he get that loan at the end of the day? Maybe. But what is the cost?
My boss is the type of man who does things that are illegal because he thinks that he is above the law. He is the type of man who will blame his employees for making mistakes when he knows and the employees know that it is his business-sense and his business-style that created the problem. My boss is the type of man who will invite you out to dinner and try to become your friend so that when he yells at you for one of his mistakes or one of his illegal quandries, you’ll take the heat and say you’re sorry. This is the man who will do all of this in front of other people so that he can feel like a big man.
You see my boss has lost himself in space and time. Since we rent houses to many college students, he thinks that he is a college student himself. He keeps late hours and expects the rest of the working world to keep the same hours. When he brings a stack of letters to my desk at 6 PM EST (the end of our work day) and expects them to all be brought to the post office for next day delivery – he doesn’t understand why the post office won’t take them. He doesn’t understand that they are closed. He doesn’t want to understand – he wants things his way.
My boss is the type of man who gets a bill in the mail and not pay it. He’s the type of man who will call a company who we owe money to and yell at them for doing a bad job on whatever service they gave us (be it carpet cleaning, house cleaning, truck rentals, automobile servicing, etc.) and then tell them to take him to court for payment. Those of you who know the small town politics and about the court system know that for a company to take a debtor to court for payment does not pay off in the end (mainly because it could take years to get the matter settled and the lawyer costs are usually higher than the debt owed).
For everyone out there who is building themselves up and coming up in this world, let me at least teach you this one note – pay your bills! And if you can’t afford something, then don’t go out and get it. That’s living beyond your means and it’s the easiest way to lead to debt!
But I digress…
What is the big issue at this time of the year? Something called a security deposit. You see, when you rent a house or an apartment, you are usually required to put out a security deposit to ensure that the house or apartment will be left in good condition when you leave. If you do leave the rental in good shape, the law (in NJ at least) says that you have to refund the security deposits in 30 days or the landlord can be taken to court for the return of the money and a slight extra payment. Of course it’s common for landlords to be a bit late about returning this money, but by late I mean a week at the latest. My landlord is usually 9 – 10 months late. What does that mean? Oh nothing other than the fact that people begin to hate our company, we get a bad name at the local campus, and we are often sued for this ridiculous lateness. When they get mad at the company, they get mad at me – I work for the company. These are kids that I call friends during the school year, but that my cheap boss/landlord calls a mere tenant. And don’t make me mention the phone calls…we rent to 350 college students. The day is filled with answering the phone and trying to stall them for just another day so my boss has more time to sit on his ass and not give them their money back.
“Your first priority on the first of every month is to pay your rent!” That’s a favorite saying of my boss. He didn’t like it when I changed that one day and told him, “your first priority when a tenant moves out is to pay them their security.” He had no answer for that one. But it didn’t change him. He still continues to curse out parents who want and need this money back (usually ranging between $750 and $1150). He continues to throw out lawyer’s letters on the matter. He continues to tell students that they created damages that he knows, they know, and we all know they didn’t create.
But why should my boss respect the law and common decency when it comes to security deposits? This is the same man who refuses to get a building permit or a plumbing or electrical permit before doing any construction at any of our properties. Why should he have to get these permits? I mean come on, we all know that he’s above the law. For the other 6 or 7 local real estate agencies, yeah, they have to follow the law. But not our company…my boss thinks that the law is too intrusive and tries too much to look into things that they shouldn’t know about.
To a certain degree, I’ve learned that he might be correct on this issue. But when a permit sheet asks for an emergency phone number incase there is a problem – that’s not too intrusive for me. When a Certificate of Occupancy form asks for the former residence of the new tenants, that’s just standard information, not top secret information.
There are some good things about my boss. He buys the office staff lunch everyday.
There are many more bad things about him – the fact that he “propositions” many students – mostly male – (he readily admits that he doesn’t have a life among people his own age – though I don’t see how that justifies doing something so horrible), the fact that if something happens that he doesn’t like – he starts to curse and holler (at lawyers, parents, tenants, police, etc.), the fact that he doesn’t think that he’s 43 years old…
He also sucks because he drains the office staff. You see we all share one big office. When he’s hooting and hollering – we’re all there holding our ears and not being able to carry on with our own daily tasks. Have you ever tried to do a ton of paperwork and make a load of phone calls with a crazed asshole screaming and cursing in the background?
My boss thinks that work is life and life is work. He knows and admits that this is his life and he wants the same from his workers. When my 65 year old co-worker has a town social to go to, my boss wants her to meet him afterward so they can go over plans. On a Saturday…at night. My boss doesn’t think that people who work for him have lives. He makes our maintenance staff work a 50 hour work week and then he gets mad at them when they say that they are busy on Saturday. My boss expects his workers to live his life – a sad, sorry life.
My boss will not pay you money to progress yourself. He finds out as much as he can about you and only gives you enough money to survive. My boss likes to rent to his workers so he can give them a free place to live and subsequently lower their wages.
My boss doesn’t floss or brush his teeth and as such he makes a terrible odor in our office when he yells on the phone or talks close to you.
Are all bosses like this? Perhaps they are to some extent in the fact that they would like certain things done at certain times. That’s acceptable. However, when one places themselves in a situation where their desires cannot be achieved, there is no acceptable response to the situation other than to blame oneself for the situation and figure out a way around it. The trouble arises when the way around the problem is strictly yelling and screaming and cursing and hollering. This is no way to do business.
It’s pathetic.
My boss is pathetic.
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