This week is going to be the “Worst Ever.” I’m not saying it won’t be a pleasant week, I just thought I’d follow a theme of “The Worst [something or other] Ever.” Don’t worry. For Thanksgiving week I’ll balance it out with “So Grateful.”

I’m also starting a new feature for Thursdays called You Tell Me Yours. I just don’t hear enough from you people (did you know you can leave comments right below each entry?) This is why my pages load so slowly right now, you might as well make it worth the wait. So on Thursdays I’ll tell you my story, and You Tell Me Yours.

I find it hard to believe I’m the only one who experiences weird stuff, so please, one-up me on Thursdays. Well, you could any day. But Thursdays I expect it.

Okay, now to kick off the worst week ever with my worst boss ever!

When Jen was a little more than a year old, Dave decided to leave his dad’s construction company and go back to college. That meant my days dressing Jen up in costumes and taking rolls and rolls of pictures of her were over. (See, I told you the picture was relevant... Hmm, It just occurred to me why she’s such a ham.)

If Dave was going to be in school, I needed to get a job.

I was hired to do data entry for a teeny tiny company with an office built over the owner’s garage. It was a really nice house and a beautiful office. But it was basically a home office.

Of course, boss represented the company to the rest of the world as being some sort of huge corporation. All four of us.

You don’t know how much I wish I could tell you this man’s name so you could Google him and see what a giant fraud he is. Wow, I can’t believe how angry it makes me just thinking about him! Settle!

Let me give you a taste: He wore a cheap Armitron watch for day to day. But if he had a “client” meeting, he put on the fake Rolex he kept in a box in his sock drawer.

He had a subscription newsletter that literally hundreds of people paid a lot of money to receive. My job was to enter new subscriber names and delete disillusioned subscribers, which there were a lot of.

The command to delete an entire entry in that particular software was simply hitting the F1 key. So when an angry customer cancelled their subscription, boss would tell me to, “F them.” Nice.

The newsletter was supposed to teach subscribers how to do what boss pretended to do. But he never wrote a word of it, and all of the case studies and success stories were completely fabricated. I know this because I wrote some of them. I also collected pictures from people I knew to use as the pictures of these fictitious clients.

When the phone rang, I answered, “Good afternoon, [company name I can’t tell you], how may I direct your call?” If the caller asked for boss, I’d ask them to hold.

Then he actually expected me to CHANGE MY VOICE and answer AGAIN saying, “[Worst Boss’s] office, how may I help you?” Then I had to put the caller on hold A THIRD TIME while I checked to see if boss was available, even though he was sitting right next to me the whole time in his socks with the hole in the toe.

You can see how I would start to have an aversion to the man, right? But Dave was in school and only working part-time. I needed the job!

The office was a single room, about the size of a master bedroom, with a half-bath off to the side. It was bad enough that he could hear me doing my business in the bathroom, even with the water running full-blast, but he also felt the need to TALK TO ME THROUGH THE DOOR WHILE I WAS DOING MY BUSINESS.

HIM: [Knocking on door] Heidi?

ME: Uh? …? …? Yeah?

HIM: I’m going to lunch now. Can you get something done for me before I get back?

ME: …? Uh, sure.

HIM: It’s actually several things. Do you have something to write with in there?

ME [Thinking to myself, ‘does he think this is like math and I’m working it out with a pencil?’]: …? Um… No? I usually leave my pen on my desk when I come in here.

HIM: Oh, here it is! I’ll shove it under the door for you. Do you need some paper to write on?

ME: ?!!!! OR, how about you WAIT until I come out?

HIM: Are you going to be long?

I’m completely serious. That was an ACTUAL CONVERSATION.

But the low of his lows happened at Christmas-time.

One day when all four of us were in the office, boss brought me a beautiful little gift bag with tufts of tissue paper puffing out of the top, and raffia ribbon tied on the handles. “Merry Christmas,” he told me. “Go ahead and open it!”

Despite the fact that he was a repugnant idiot, his wife seemed to be a lovely, classy woman. So I hoped she had chosen my gift rather than he.

No such luck.

I peered into the bag between delicate folds of tissue and saw a single dead mouse.

In the flattest, most monotone voice I could conjure I said, “That’s hilarious,” and tossed the bag on the desk.

He was SO disappointed that I didn’t shriek or freak out. He actually POUTED the rest of the day because my reaction didn’t satisfy him.

At the end of the day, when he gave cheap particle-hams to the other two guys, I almost expected an apology with mine. But I got neither a ham NOR an apology.

I used to lay awake at night thinking of ways I could expose him to the world. But then, happy day! along came a little thing called the Internet, and now anyone can find out what a jerk he is!

Except for you, because I’m still not going to tell you his name.