I was one of five corporate level fitness faculty members for a company with a significant presence in nine different states. Our responsibilities included, but were not limited to, teaching the basic fundamentals of personal training, facilitating personal training certification workshops, leading a workshop on the company’s fitness policies and procedures, all of which were two or three day events, in addition to overseeing certain aspects of the fitness departments of all of the clubs within the region.

I was the epitome of a successful teacher, especially since the company would hire anybody with a pulse that the club managers thought had what it took to be successful, I had people in my classes that knew absolutely nothing about the human body. That was one of the perks of the job because, while I refer to myself as a teacher, I must relay my favorite quote from Socrates: “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think,” I got to form the foundation of a new train of thought; and I had no trouble making the learning process fun. In fact, here I am 13-months later and still in contact with several of the people I had in my classes. So, on second day back from two weeks of vacation and I’m doing a site visit with my immediate supervisor when he gets a page and informs me that he has a conference call at 12 and I should come in 15 minutes later.

I enter the office, close the door and make myself comfortable. Next thing I know, the two HR reps on the line inform me that due to the [workings of the Obama agenda], they were eliminating the position of fitness faculty to reduce company expenditures. My last day on salary was two weeks to the so I guess that was them giving me two-weeks notice.

As for my responsibilities, they were added to those of the person that taught the “business” aspect of the business to sales people and GMs. The first question from my mouth was, “What does he know about fitness?” Their response… “He has seven personal training certifications.” I responded with “What does that tell me about his knowledge of the human body?” They were positive that those certifications made him an expert, but, as most are aware, all a PT certification tells you is they know how to study the way (insert your choice of any PT cert here) wants you to know how the body works to fulfill THEIR objectives in the way that THEY dictate when it should be your client telling you their objectives so that you can fulfill them based upon your knowledge of how this magnificent machine works. I was pissed, especially I’ve forgotten more since grad school than he’ll ever know, and I let them know it, but what’s done is done. By the way, to supplement my point, he resigned from his new responsibilities just a few weeks into the mission. So because I’m still unemployed, I’ve returned to school for a PhD and they are still losing market share!

This post was submitted by Sheik Yerbouti.

After I graduated college I took this great job at a large bank where I would be doing a 2 year rotational program. I would rotate within all the different departments of the bank i.e Finance Credit Risk etc etc. Well 6 months into the job the economy started tanking and the rotations were canceled due to saving costs.

So in the meantime I was stuck at my home base in this terrible department where the managers were the biggest low lifes. The department i was stuck in is the one department no consumers ever see or could even imagine a bank has. Its called payment processing. They take people who have GED’s (if that) and put them into this factory like setting but call it a bank job. None of the managers had a college education, which is not a big deal if you don’t have a degree, but at least bring some professionalism into your work. These managers all came from these rough upbringings and would swear at employees. You had to tell them if you were going to the bathroom that’s how badly they micro managed. I remember an incident where my manager came up to me and said we need to you start coming in at 6am I said no because I drive my mom to the train every morning. She has the nerve to tell me because my family is wealthy that my mom should just buy a car. I told her that’s great my family is rich but my mom doesn’t know how to drive a car. It was all these different incidents week after week that would just irritate me. So I decided to stick it out till the economy got better.

In the meantime, I went above and beyond everything they asked me to do. I got along with everyone so well that people would come up to me and say thank goodness you’re here because without you I would be so miserable. I became the go to guy everyone would ask for help. So one day the department manager made an announcement that our department was being sold off to another company and starting Sep 1st we would all work for this new company.

Well 4 months later I took a day off of work for personal reasons and got a telephone call from a manager saying please call the department manager a quarter after 12. So I did that and he laid me off. How terrible is that to lay someone off over the phone? The thing that gets me the most is he said to me I hope you don’t think that I couldn’t face you and do this it was just the only time HR had? What a tool you just lay me off and you’re worried about my impression of you?

This post was submitted by Paul M.

Today is my last day at work. And so I sit and type while my students work through their project. I work for a private, post-secondary school (for the next couple of hours at least) and have been here for nearly nine years. I teach and am the network administrator, but have worn many hats during my time here.

Three years ago my boss, the owner and founder of the school, was approached by some sleazy con-artist who talked him into establishing an online school teaching medical billing. To my boss it seemed like a match made in heaven since we already taught medical billing in our brick and mortar school. Everyone in the school from staff to faculty took an immediate dislike to this person – he gave off such an unsavory vibe.

But the proposal for an online school sounded good to the boss and in the spring of 2007 we started the online school. I was responsible for the tech support and trouble shooting for the instructors and students and for setting up the virtual lecture halls for our teachers to hold live lectures for the students who were scattered all over the country.

Then the guy who sold this bill of goods to our boss brought in one of his cronies to manage the school as the “president” of the school. He was woefully unqualified and had no managerial skills. I will admit, however, that the man could bullshit like nobody’s business and would have been right at home on a used car lot.

To make it short, we were enrolling students hand over fist and making money like we were printing it in house. The sleazy con-artist ran off with a butt load of money leaving the school holding the bag. The living joke we called the “president” of the school mismanaged the place so badly we went bankrupt.

My boss, the best guy ever, lost everything after twenty years. That truly breaks my heart. His only option was to sell the school. The Department of Education gave him permission to sell, but a condition of that sale was that no one who had a substantial administrative role in the online school would stay employed with the organization that purchased the school. Yes indeed, that includes me.

Because of the ass-hat that ran the school into the ground the Department of Education painted the rest of us with a black brush. We have been found unclean and not fit to work here.

So in another hour and twenty minutes I bid good-bye to nine years of my life and one of the best groups of people I ever worked with.

This post was submitted by John Pickens.

I was hired after a long job search as a manager for a not-for-profit agency. My boss was one difficult person with vicious personality. Everyone in the organization told me that the previous supervisor left because of him. At first I didn’t want to believe all the bad I heard about this person. This person was locking himself into an office and was operating with top secrecy at all times. He was only available at his discretion. Working late nights, long hours, criticism were the norm. Needless to say, he decided to eliminate my position. Reason stated: budget cuts. The real reason – I was an adult who didn’t want to take his abuse.

This company is very tough on their employees and they sell EAP and mental health services. The job was a huge waste of time! Not for profits are organizations where a few individuals make huge profits at expense of some well-minded hard-working individuals. I will never give money to not-for-profits again.

This post was submitted by Not to bosses liking.

On my second day in a new job as a tech support person, I started a download of OpenOffice.org, a free alternative to Microsoft Office. Midway through the process, the system administrator came up to me and asked what I was downloading. When I told him, he stated that “we use Microsoft Office. We sell software, and we support other software publishers.”

I’m not one to take dictation from anyone, and our disagreement became rather noisy and ugly. This was on a Tuesday. Two days later, my boss called me into a conference room and fired me. Why he didn’t fire me immediately? Because he sent an email asking me to talk with him to the wrong email address, and because he chose not to sacrifice a day working at home on the Wednesday.

This post was submitted by Tim Carmell.