and yes, there's always one.

 

He reminded me of a grasshopper, spitting tobacco, although his was actual tobacco.  It was a disgusting combination of saliva and chewing tobacco, spit into a paper coffee cup, about every fourth sentence.

This was supposed to be a management type, well educated and leading by example.  The entire time he held meetings he displayed this kind of behavior.  I often questioned why I was there.  Was this what I really wanted to do with my life, sit and listen to this moron?

My parents had always told me to respect my elders.  The military said to respect the chain of command.   My gut was telling me this guy had no clue what he was doing, and should I really be following his direction?  Turns out, upper management also saw what the rest of us were seeing and he was soon gone.

My overall experience with large companies showed me how much of a crapshoot everything was.  The people in charge shouldn’t have been, the decisions made were usually proven to be wrong ones and things had to be redone, and the blame always rolled downhill, no matter what.

If I told you the name of the companies, you’d never fly on a plane again.  It truly is scary out there.   Had they not been paying me to be there, I might have shown up anyway just to watch. (Not really)

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but mostly I’m just making excuses for them.  “Well, maybe he’s a little slow.  Maybe he never had the opportunities the rest of us did.  Then again, nobody could be that stupid.”

One time, I was working for a nice, little Mom and Pop company.  The owner’s best friend, who was also the V.P. of purchasing, would sell raw material out the back door, sticking the money in his pocket.  He would also threaten the vendors, telling them that if they didn’t buy him a new color television, they were not going to get the next contract.

But on the weekends, he would shovel the snow off of the owner’s sidewalk, and in the summer, he would chase the owner’s golf balls that had gone astray.  Of course, they thought he could do no wrong. What a guy.

I really disliked that person and I didn’t hide it.  Looking back over my life, I never did have a job where I saw the good side of anyone in a position of authority.   The power always seemed to go to their head.  They were mean and often went out of their way to blame someone else for their mistakes.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be retired, to be out of the game.  It isn’t anything you can win.  Whenever somebody tells me what a great and wonderful job they once had, I simply smile, knowing they must have been that one employee that never got it.