I used to work in a photographic darkroom. I made black and white enlargements from customers photographic negatives. We had a regular customer who would send in a roll of 35 millimeter film, 36 exposures everyday, have it processed, and have a 8 by 10 enlargement made of each exposure.

One day, the film came in, was processed and the strip of negatives was brought to me to have the enlargements made. I looked at the film and saw that there were static electricity marks all over the film. (This happens sometimes when you rewind the film too quickly in the camera, and looks like lightening bolts all over your pictures) I took the film to my supervisor and showed it to him. I said that we should call the customer before we make the enlargements, because at 3.50 each for 8x10 enlargements, that would be very expensive if the customer rejected the pictures.

But the supervisor ( a very old Japanese man) said "Go ahead, print them and send them out). I did so, but the next day, I was called into the lab owners office. "Why did you print all these 8x10's from these bad negatives?" asked the owner, "The customer was very upset, and you should know better!"

I replied that my supervisor told me to print the pics., and he called him into the office, but to my dismay, the supervisor said "I never saw that roll of film before, and I did not tell him to print them." I was chewed out for lying and being incompetent, and they deducted the cost of the 8x10's out of my salary.

2 weeks later, the same customer sent in another roll of film with the same problem. Again, I took it to the supervisor, who again said "do the enlargements," this time, I took the roll of film into the owners office, and told him that the supervisor told me to make the enlargements. He called the supervisor in, who promptly denied telling me to do them. However, I had made the precaution of having 2 witnesses present when I was talking to the supervisor. I called them into the owners office, and they confirmed my story. But guess what! I was chewed out again, for going over the supervisor's head, and not being a "team player."

I quit that job that day.

Do you have a bad boss? Have you ever had one? Would you like to earn $10? If you'd like to tell the world about your experience, e-mail us at info@employeesurveys.com. If we like the story, we'll print it here on these pages. If we print it, we'll pay you ten dollars. Please include your name and address for the purposes of mailing a check if we use your story . . . rest assured that we won't include either in the web site.