Back in 1996, my former employer went out of business and my wife and I had our first child. I took the first decent accounting job offered, which was an Asst. Controller's position with Handler Textile in Moonachie NJ. Thankfully they too are out of business.
I would be lying if I said that I don't read the obituaries hoping to find my bosses name. She was the essence of pure evil. She was a brilliant tax accountant but a complete horse's a** as far as dealing with others.
On my very first day working for HTC, she told me, and I quote EXACTLY AS IT HAPPENED, "...I'm an honest person and I feel it's only right to tell you that you weren't my first choice for this position....but let's see if we can work together anyhow."
That was the high point.
My office was diagnally across the hall from hers. During lunch I would close my door because I didn't want the rest of the office to walk by and see me stuffing my face. She would walk over and open it, telling me that "she didn't want this door closed." I kept closing it, just to make her mad.
I only worked for her for 3 months until she went back to her old CPA firm in NYC, but it was 3 months of hell. I finally had enough of her insults and just lost it one day when she threw a spreadsheet back at me across her desk (yes, threw it) and demanded that I redo it, telling me to "...pretend that I'm stupid." I replied, "I don't have to pretend."
She finally decided that she had enough and tendered her resignation. You cannot imagine the joy I felt when I came back on Monday and saw her office empty.
Last updated August 20 2008: 4:45 PM ET
