Top 10 worst moments working for someone else

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Hello, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach, coming to you from my Covid den. I have been sick with COVID since Tuesday and locked in this tiny room. And so welcome. Welcome to my bed. We're just gonna get cozy today. I'm going a little nutty if you can't tell by my posts, but I wanted. I'm a little lonely, so I wanted to come live with you guys because I miss you all. And welcome, whoever's watching. Just so you know, I'm doing this through stream yard. Sometimes the comments don't all come through. So if you comment something and I don't respond to it, it's not you. It's just the. The technology and. Hi, Asher. Welcome. But it's just a technology, so I try to make this as interactive as possible. If you have questions about the stories I'm going to tell or you have stories yourself that relate, please put them in the chat. I love this to be interactive, so. Oh, Asher, thank you. I. I showered. You know, I always feel like showering helps. I'm also on, like, a lot of, like, Sudafed and knacks and all the things which I'm sure you guys really want know. And so I'm a little out of it. Let's just be real. But I'm here and I'm not dead, so that's great. Anyway, so let's dive in. These are my 10. Well, okay, so let me just preface this. I have a lot more stories. I had awful, awful jobs, and I started working when I was 14. Okay. I am. How old am I? I'm 34. So I've been literally been working for 20 years. And I've had so many different jobs, usually stacking them multiple at a time. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. And if you're curious about hearing more, then I'm more than happy to do another one with a different list. But here, for the sake of a title, these are my top 10 worst things that have happened to me working for someone else. Okay, so number one is when I worked for Equinox Fitness. Now, if you know anything about Equinox Fitness, it's a high. Hi. What is it? Hi. Oh, my God. My brain isn't working. I'm losing words. It's a fitness club that caters to wealthy people, essentially. So every month and they have a very aggressive sales team. And I started my sales career on that sales team. And so we would be set a goal every single month of how many memberships we would need to sell to reach goal. And I remember it was February. One of my very good friends, 40th birthday parties was at the end of the month and I. It was in Vegas and they had gotten a room block and all the things and like it meant a lot to her that everyone go. And I was so excited about it. And February is a tough month because it's short especially you know, in the sales world. It's a short month. Our goal was absolutely ridiculous because we had just opened this club and so our numbers were all way off. Right. So like there were. Yeah, high end luxury, exclusive. Thank you Asher. You know what I'm talking about. And hi, Jensen, welcome. Oh, from Cambridge. I'm on Cape Cod. Hello. You're just across the bay. Anyway, so our numbers were like way inflated because we had just opened and when you open a new thing like of course you get a ton of people who sign up. It had also just been January so like everyone wanted their New Year's resolution gym membership and so we had this inflated number and I wasn't going to reach it. I was like, it was just too far. It was, it was a bad month for me, I think. I was also sick like twice. And they don't make any, any. There's no forgiveness for being sick essentially when you're on a sales team at Equinox. So anyway, came to the end of the month and I was left. I was literally supposed to leave for the airport that evening and my sales manager came in and insinuated that if I left, if I went to my good friend's 40th birthday, then I would not have a job to come home to. And so I was devastated. I was so sad. She was incredibly upset and hurt and I don't blame her. But I had to cancel my trip and I still didn't hit my numbers. I was able to help the team, but it was just the awful worst way. The other thing about Equinox is the last three or four days of the month they expect their sales team to be in at 9am and stay until 9pm okay. Because they need. It's. It's this closeout culture where you have to like hit it hard, which sets you up the next month to be like, like hungover from working that hard for the first week. So you're not actually able to like build momentum at Least not me. It just burned me out. So anyways, that was number one on the list. Number two. So I worked for, in the solar industry for about a year and a half. And let me tell you, it is one of the most sexist industries you will ever come across. So I remember, I'll never forget I was doing some lead generation activities with a coworker who had just been hired. He'd been referred in by another coworker who I really liked and respected. And we're standing there and I had just gotten back from a vacation to Hawaii with this guy I was dating who was a doctor and all this stuff. And you know, this co worker was asking me about it and asking me about my love life, which I was not, not terribly willing to share a lot of my details. But like, you know, for the sake of making conversation, having, you know, a friend at work, you know, told him about, you know, this person I was dating and he legit suggested that I should quit my job and go become an escort. And I think he thought it was a compliment. I think he thought he was complimenting my looks and complimenting a whole bunch of things. Katya. Yeah? You can't be productive working that many hours. No, you cannot. I think that's with the equinox bit. Yeah, absolutely not. But anyway, he got fired that day. He full. And he also did some touching which was completely inappropriate. But yeah, it's not. Women don't like being told that they should basically become a prostitute. It's not, not very professional. And hello from Nottingham. Anytime I see Nottingham, I think of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham. So I hope, I hope that, you know, you don't have a similar character roaming the woods and causing trouble for people. Anyway, so that was number two, now number three. So remember I started working when I was 14, okay. My very first job was at like a very small family owned grocery store. My second job was at this, this touristy restaurant in Harwich, port of, you know, Cape Cod called Brax Landing. And I'll never forget I had gotten a job as a bus girl. I was also hostessing and like occasionally I would help out in the kitchens by doing like some cold prep stuff. And I'll never forget one of the line cooks, 15 years old. This is a grown ass man in his 20s. Okay? So I'm 15 years old and this line cook like starts grilling me about what my bra size was and being 15 and like not knowing what's allowed and what's appropriate and all this stuff. I Told him, but it was, like, the grossest moment. I. For the rest of my time there, if whenever he was there, I refused to go into the storeroom alone because I knew he would, like, follow me and ask me more questions. It was really creepy. Need to teach young women who are starting in the workforce about sexual harassment. It just has to happen because I had no concept that that wasn't allowed. Hi, Ronald. Thank you. I showered. You know, that's. That's one of the things that helps you feel a little bit better when you're. When you're sick. Let me just pop that up so people know who's commenting. Okay. So that was number three of the top. Top 10 worst situations at work. Now, number four was kind of interesting. So I. Again, on Cape Cod one summer, I was supervisor for room service. Okay. So. And I usually had the evening shift, which, surprisingly, was like, a slow shift because a lot of people wanted to go out to dinner. The morning shift was the crazy one. I'm so happy I didn't have that. But one evening, this guy called in room service and ordered. And he sounded fine on the phone, like, absolutely fine. Wasn't slurring his words. He seemed to be all with it. And he ordered. Ordered, you know, dinner. And so it took about a half hour for the food to get put together and, like, get it all trade up. And then I. Because it was a resort and, like, all the buildings were separate. You know, my servers had to load things into a golf cart and, like, drive it to his building and, you know, go to his room. And they get there, and I get. I get a radio from them saying he's not answering the door. I'm like, well, that's weird, because he said he was going to be in and, you know, he ordered this. So I call the room, and there's no answer. And I call it again, and again there's no answer. And they're knocking, and they're not getting an answer. And I said, okay, well, maybe he. Maybe he popped out to the pool and. And, you know, or is going for a walk and he wants to come back to the food. And there's no do not disturb sign on the door. Just want to be clear here. So I'm like, well, why don't you just go in and leave the tray on his desk and then. And then come back. And so my server, because, you know, we have. It was kind of a busy night, and we had other deliveries to make. So the server goes in, and he immediately radios me, and he's Like, I think this guy is dead. He's not responsive. He's not moving. He's just passed out across the bed. And so we had to call an ambulance. They came. This guy somehow in the 30 minutes that he ordered got so blackout drunk that he passed out to the point that he gave himself alcohol poisoning. No lie, like, and he like, wasn't functional. I think they had to take him to the, the emergency room actually to pump his stomach. Anyway, that was terrifying and not something I ever want to repeat in my life. So that was number four. Okay. So when I was in college, I also spent a couple months working at a private airport. So if you've ever been to Cape Cod, there's Barnstable Airport, which has a lot of small planes coming through. Adjacent to that, there's Rectrix, which is a private hangar for people who are fancy and charter their jets and like want to come to the Cape. And so there are a lot of small companies that operated chartered jets that would come through there. And let me tell you something, I never, ever after working this job and I quit mid summer, it was so bad. I never ever want to work in, in travel in that way because, and this is probably not true for all pilots, but the pilots that I had to deal with said the most inappropriate things to me. I was literally sitting at my desk, you know, processing their bill and you know, getting their invoice up so they could pay it for fuel and for, you know, taxing and all that stuff. And I had this little vase on my desk and it had just one single flower in it. And I'll never forget, this pilot walked right up to me and pointed to the vase and said, hey, can I deflower you? And like winked. It was so gross. It was so disgusting. I reported it to my manager, they did nothing. And I very soon, very quickly after that, put in my two weeks notice and they let me just leave. It was the worst thing in the world. Andreas. Andreas, I think. Let me know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. You're German. Way to go. I love the German people. You guys are great. Welcome to the Live. And of course this past story, like all these things happened before. Me too, right? So like speaking out was not okay. Or at least there wasn't like a comfort level that I had. And again, I was young. Like I'd never gotten trained on what sexual harassment was. So we need to teach our young women and our young people and grown ass adults, specifically men. Anyway, different story. So that was number five. Okay, so Number six of the top ten worst moments that I've had at work. So I was working for this video production company called Seasons Productions. They have since gone out of business, not surprisingly. Anyway, it was my very, very first sales job. Literally I was cold calling a whole, whole ton of businesses asking if they wanted video services for commercials and whatnot. Anyway, they were having a hard time getting clients because they didn't have a niche, right. So they were trying to do three separate niches and it just wasn't going well. And I'll never forget our. The owner of the company took us all to lunch, which was bizarre because we knew that the purse strings were tight. Like we knew that there wasn't a whole lot of money coming in. So she takes us to lunch and you know those booths like at tables? So there was this booth, but it was like extra long so you could fit like four people on one side and four people on the other. You know, I got in first and so I went all the way in. So I'm cornered at this table. My life had just recently fallen apart. I was broke as a joke. I was basically living off credit cards and I had patched together full time work with like three to five different part time jobs. Anyway, in this lunch, she starts it off by telling us that they were running out of money so they were going to cut our hours and then they were going to cut our pay. And. But she still needed us to work the same amount, if not more time on the business. And she later told me that she regretted sitting at that table because my face just went white and it looked like I was gonna throw up, which I felt in that moment. Just. Yeah, one of the worst moments in working for someone. Now this same company, I forget it is before or after this, this same company. I was suffering from migraines at the time and I think I had to do with like a whole bunch of stuff that was going on in my life. But I was suffering from migraines and my manager, who was also a friend that I'm no longer friends with, she as I called in sick to work because I had this migraine and she didn't believe me. She actually texted me and said, listen, if you want to keep this job, which by the way, like I could barely afford my life. I wasn't affording my life. Like this job was helping me eat. If you want to keep your job, you have to come in. I don't believe you. I need to see how sick you are. And I went in and I didn't realize that two other of our employees had also called in sick for very valid reasons. It was just, it was just an anomaly that we'd all gotten ill at the same time. And she had called us all in saying that, you know, we would be fired if we didn't come in. And we all came in, we all looked like hell. And she basically said, you know, if you ever call in sick again, you're fired. And that was my. On my way out, I was, I was pretty done. I was pretty done with that. So that was seven. Okay. So when I worked for SolarCity, which is a has been gobbled up by Tesla, and really it was always a part of Tesla. It was always part of the Elon Musk world. They did this super sketchy thing when they were prepping to be sold to Tesla by Elon Musk, where they over hired a ton of people. So there just weren't enough leads to go around for the sales team. So they over hired all these salespeople so that they could lay them off and show that like the company wasn't going well. To devalue it so Tesla could come in and buy it for cheap is super obvious internally. I don't know if you guys noticed this externally, but anyway, I'll never forget being in this sales meeting with the sales director, Jolie. She was, she spoke a big game about leadership, spoke a huge game about leadership. And she at one point held up a stack of resumes because she wasn't happy with where we were in our progress in the month. She held up a stack of resumes and said, hey, listen, if you guys want to keep your job, then you have to do better. Because here's all the people who want to take your job. They've been applying, they all have tons of experience and you're 100% replaceable. You want to motivate a team. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's not good leadership. So that was number eight in my list of the top 10 worst moments working for other people. Now, I don't know if you guys like, I mean, I have people here from all over the world in the United States, like, higher education is very expensive. And so one of the financial aid options in a lot of universities is work study. So basically you' given a budget of like say $900 per semester and you can actually work for it. So you do some kind of small job for the university and you get paid minimum wage out of that budget and it kind of helps you with your expenses. Throughout the school year. So I got a work study job with a drama teacher at Bridgewater State College, where I was going. And I was her personal assistant. I was her, you know, her pa. And you know, I had various responsibilities like photocopying stuff, you know, filtering emails, you know, organizing her script library, which is a fucking mess. And I'll never forget I made friends with a lot of her students because they would drop by to ask for stuff and I'd, you know, be the go to person to like, get them their scripts and stuff. And I'll never forget I went to get Frosty's with them at one point and they were like, so when are we going to get back our essays and our tests? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like, oh, well, Suzanne told us that she's waiting on you to grade them. Which, by the way, guys, I was a freshman in college. And also that's illegal within the college for a student to have any ownership over grades. I was already breaking the rules because she had me inputting grades and doing the math in her grade book, which I should not have been able to touch because I was friends with these people. I could have easily gone in and changed the grade and given them a better grade or, you know, gone the other way. And that was my very first time quitting with no notice. I sent her an email saying, suzanne, you know, life is too short. I quit. And then forwarded all the emails to the head of the department that she sent me afterwards that were threatening me. Super fun. So that's number nine. And finally number ten, simple one. You know, I worked at this two Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco called Qua. They had hired this manager who was off his rocker. I don't even remember his name. I've blocked it. I only worked there for like two months when I first became a sommelier. And when he would get angry, he would throw stuff at the staff. He was big on the temper tantrums. And yeah, that I, I quit. There's, yeah, didn't want to continue working there. So that is my horror stories. My, you know, these are all the reasons that I work for myself. Because I've had some really awful jobs in, in my life, as you can tell. And I just don't want to put myself through that ever again. And I'm happy to tell more stories or extrapolate on the ones that I have already told. But here's what I want from you is I want to hear your bad job stories. So if you're here or if you're going to be coming back to this, I want you to think about like, what was the worst thing that ever happened to you at work? And I want you to either share it in the comments or DM it to me because I'm super curious. Anyway, I'm starting to feel super loopy. This is day four of COVID for me and I think I need to go lie down. And how handy that I'm already in bed. I just need to close my computer and lay down. Anyway, thank you. Gabriel. Hi. Oh, wait, hold on. So Gabriel and Andres and Ronald and Katya and Asher and Jensen. Thank you for joining. Oh, and Katya. Okay, so controversial. Robin Hood was not actually from Nottingham. Apparently Yorkshire have claimed him with evidence, but I've never seen it. Only the nasty sheriff of Nottingham was definitely from here. So Robin Hood gets associated with it. We still have a sheriff. Her name is Nicola Heaton. I hope Nicola Heaton is super nice and doesn't, you know, go around arresting people for no reason and I don't know, plot to, you know, I don't know, I forgot. I'm not that up to date on. On Robin Hood, I guess. Ronald, hard to believe you aren't feeling great. Well, I. I mean, it's all spectrum, Ronald. You know, also, you didn't see me before I took all the medication that I took. So this is just me boosted up by chemicals. Anyway, thank you for joining, guys. I hope to be feeling better and back to my normal live schedule next week. Have a happy Friday. And again, I want to hear your bad job stories. Oh, she's ceremonial only now. Okay, got it. So she can't cause any trouble. That's good. Anyway, I want to hear your bad job story, so pop them in the comments or shoot me a dm. I'd love to hear them. Anyway, have a great weekend and I will talk to you all soon.