The Only Time I Was Ever Sacked

Introduction

This is for Kay Husnick's Challenge that you can check out here:

The music is "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths

A Contract At The Manchester Co-Op

This was a six-month contract in the early eighties as an analyst/programmer for a new property system.

The computer we were working on had manuals that weighed more than the computer supposedly.

When I turned up I was told to go and sit in a big empty room. I sat there for an hour without even a cup of coffee or a glass of water.

The project leader finally turned up and turned out to be one of the worst people I have ever met.

I asked where the computer manuals were, and they said that I was a contractor and should know everything. This was a bad start.

They had a trainee, and normal practice was to take trainees on after twelve months. The trainee was told to walk the project manager's dog on a daily basis. After eleven months, the project manager told the trainee that the policy had changed and the trainee would not be taken on.

The trainee was distraught.

The project manager had lied.

The trainee was taken on.

Another programmer suffered from peripheral vision and was registered blind. Each day, the project manager told the programmer that they were only there on their sufferance.

The project manager would say one thing one day and exactly the opposite the next.

Another contractor recorded meetings, and when he spoke to his agency about the situation, the agency contacted the project manager who sacked the contractor.

I had friends who had started up an agency and gave them the project manager's contact details.

They called and asked if they could provide a service to help with any project.

The response they got was roughly:

"Who the fuck do you think you are? We've got people who can add one and one and get two. Fuck Off!!"

I was publicly berated because a computer listing had the initials FMS on it.

They told me I was an idiot because the Co Op used TDMS, not FMS. When I pointed out they were my initials, not the operating system, I was subject to a stream of profanity.

The Sunday before Christmas, I got a call from my agency to say I'd been sacked, but they wanted me to go in for another week to do a handover.

I said no, I'll just take a couple of weeks off, and the agency was fine with it.

I had been sacked because the project manager thought I would have a miserable Christmas, as everywhere would be shutting down.

The reality was that my contract was finishing anyway in the first week of January, and I had my next contract lined up.

I later found out that the project manager's department had a 95% staff turnover from around the day I started.

So that was the worst job I ever had.