I worked at a heavily funded Internet startup as a Computer Helpdesk Technician. My boss often came in at 10:30am and left by 2:00pm every day. But she was quick to judge employees who called in sick. She wore gaudy jewelry and acted with an air of superiority.
Whenever she felt in the mood, she would bring employees into her office for a “talk”. Talk about what you're wearing and how it didn't match the workplace. Talk about this one ticket you worked where she thought you didn't take the right steps. Talk about why you were on the phone with a client so long. She brought me in for quite a few talks where she told me I don't take enough notes and that I spend too long working on tickets.
I feel I do a good job, and I write enough notes for people to read the ticket and understand what transpired. But since my gaudy boss wants more notes, I will certainly do that. I can't do much about time spent on tickets since… well… a fix takes as long as it takes.
I started looking for work so that I can be free from this moron. It didn't take long for me to get an offer at a company where I'd be working at Sears Tower for a huge company with great Glassdoor reviews.
I was literally about to hit Send on my 3 week notice when my boss wanted to have a “talk”. Inside I screamed to myself “Yes! This is actually happening! Yeeessss!”. I have never felt more empowered than this moment.
She brings me into her office and tells me she noticed I had spent 6 hours working on 1 user's computer. I explained that I took a shot at fixing the computer without having to format over all the data. I spent a couple hours trying a quick fix. That bet didn't pan out and I had to reimage the computer and spend more time copying the user's data, then reconfiguring everything the way the user had it on the old computer.
Boss tells me I didn't take enough notes. She turns her laptop screen toward me to show a blank notes area. Her laptop is 11″ and has a low resolution, so not everything was on the screen. I show her the scrollbar and tell her to scroll down. I then show her the 900 words of notes I wrote explaining everything that transpired on this case and specifically why it took so much time.
Without even looking at the notes, she gets red and angry. She starts to shout “Well, I can't justify my employee spending so much time on one single ticket. That's just ridiculous!”. I ask her what she would've done. I don't get an answer. At this point I think she's embarrassed. She says “Just go back to your desk and I'll have to see what we can do about this problem!”
I sit down and my desk and I start to get my things together. I already know what's going to happen once I send my notice. So, I increase the notice to 4 weeks knowing this boss is just gonna blow her top, send me home, and I'm gonna get paid for 4 weeks!
Sure enough, not even 5 seconds after I send the email, she bolts toward the HR department. I'm already packing up. She comes back… visibly shaking in anger and tells me that I have to leave now. She sees that I have some flash drives in my bag. She demands I leave them. I explain they are personal drives I bought. She runs to another department to grab the building maintenance guy. She explains to him what's going on. She wants him to play as her bodyguard to get him to make me do what she wants.
She says “He needs to give me those drives now!”. Maintenance guy is baffled. He's like “What the hell do you want me to do about it?”. I continue about my way and leave the building.
Later I learn that she told HR she fired me. Thankfully I BCCed HR my 4 week notice. I got paid for 4 weeks.
Gaudy boss lost her job about 3 months later when they realized her high employee turnover. She later worked for the IT department at a large cup manufacturer known for making red plastic cups. She didn't last 6 months there before disappearing. Her LinkedIn hasn't been updated since.
My only regret is not giving a 3 month notice.
TLDR: Had an offer while boss chastised me. Things didn't go her way.