My worst boss

May 9, 2005


Everyone’s had one. They either hover around you, like mosquitoes looking for stagnant water, forcing you to concentrate more on them than your work, or they do nothing at all, holding the entire responsibility of your business’ success over your head while they take the credit.

I’ve had a few. I worked for one in a bowling alley in Marshall – my first college job. I dealt with someone who was a little too needy, a little too confused, at an Erberts and Gerbert’s sub shop in St. Cloud. I acted as a clerk while a married couple (who also doubled as my bosses) became more and more suspicious of every employee at the craft and hobby store and eventually separated from each other.

But there’s one who was the worst.

This is the story of Chad Madison. The worst boss I’ve ever had.

In Sioux Falls, where I was still spending my college summers, I had quit my cushy job at Best Buy in order to take an even cushier job at Software Etc., a video game store at the Empire Mall, South Dakota’s biggest mall. By the next year I was pretty sure I’d just stay in St. Cloud instead of moving back home every summer, so I asked for a transfer to the St. Cloud FuncoLand, a company that had just been purchased by the Babbages/Software Etc. conglomerate.

After a few weeks of employment at FuncoLand, which was a dingy, dirty waste of retail space, I had made some great friends. Surprisingly, we were a pretty successful store. We were a smart group of employees and we knew our video games. We made sure that when customers made the effort to come in, usually with the knowledge that they were paying an extra five dollars for an “expert” opinion, that we weren’t disappointing them. We all had great chemistry – Mitch (the assistant manager,) John (a key holder, like myself), and later Doug. Nothing could break us. We were co-workers, but we were also comrades.

For some reason, the beginning of the end seemed very fuzzy to me, I guess in part because I never realized how close to the end we were.

I had been at the St. Cloud store for about four months when our current manager, John Bigelow, announced to us that he was resigning from his position and taking a more lucrative offer at Toys R Us. “Biggs” was not the personable manager, but he knew how to take care of his store. He had been relatively successful in training new managers in the company’s Manager In Training (MIT) program and was proud of his job and his store. He was a lifetime retail manager; his mind flooded with supervisory notes and techniques, and he was looking forward to a new challenge.

Still, he was dull, and a pain in the butt, so we eagerly awaited our new manager. This manager had gone through the MIT program with “Biggs” and was moving to St. Cloud to take over. His name was Chad. And we were all trouble.

Tags: Annoyances, Career |

Comments

15 Responses to “My worst boss”

  1. Dave on May 9th, 2005 1027 pm

    I’m heartbroken that I’m not your worst boss ever! I strived so hard to be a worse boss than Chad, I guess I couldn’t live up to his lofty accomplishments ;)

    Dave

  2. JScott on May 10th, 2005 927 am

    No Stads, you were EASILY the best manager we ever saw…well….cept maybe Pralle;)

  3. Wick on May 10th, 2005 324 pm

    Greatest Story Of All Time. Submit that one to the New Yorker. I have some more stories, but I’m late for my final, I’ll post later, Thanks CDUB.

  4. Wick on May 10th, 2005 538 pm

    I remember being hired by Chad. I came in a sophmore in college, never working in retail before and remembering being very confused about the inner workings of this store and how odd his practices seemed to be. I never really spoke up though, partly because of my ignorance of managing a retail space, and the other half not know who to really talk to in the first place. I couldn’t believe how dirty he let the store get. The backroom was a sesspool of old subway cups and back copies of gameinformer layered in dust. I totally remember though dealing with customers who would come back at night based upon a promise or information Chad would give them during the morning and having to tell them there was nothing I could do about it because he was a lying sob. The oddest memory I have of Chad was when I started a shift one night while working with dave and this other new guy. Chad comes waltzing in, still the store manager and wants to know if I want to go to this concert with him. I was confussed because I had just started my shift, but after some coaxing and fear of keeping my job stable I went along, leaving Dave with this new kid who had no idea what he was doing alone in the store. I can’t remember the new kids name, maybe it was Eric.So we go to this concert at the Delwin, out in St. Joe, which is now called the Lighthouse. American Head Charge is playing and apparently Chad has gotten the tickets from his hookup and sweet friends at Rockin 101. We show up like an hour early and can’t seem to find the tickets. After chad talks with the ticket lady he comes over to me and say they need some people to be the ticket takers for the show. Perplexed I just said OK. People start showing up for the show a little later. Chad and I are by the door ready to take tickets. Remind you I am still dressed up in my funcoland get up of a polo shirt and khakis, and the audience are all these wanabe goth punks. So I look like a total NARC and as they come and I collect tickets they give me the finger and call me all this fun names. So the concert begins and we’re still collecting tickets. Finnally half an hour in we are done and decide to go onto the floor. This is were it got fun, these goth kids were moshing each other to pieces. I’m a fairly big buy, and chad has his own gravitaional pull. So I go in there and find all the punk assess who flicked me off and throw them into chad. The kids just bounced right off him without chad moving. That was a lot fun to be honest.So that’s my memory of Chad Madison. Dave was a great manager and then after he left it just got wierd with the new manager. The new mananger chad would call me all the time at home to talk about the store, this got annoying, along with going to school full time and feeling like your running a store while being paid 6.50 just got lame so I quit. There were a lot of fun times and lame times at funcoland/gamestop, but most of all I miss Arthur.

  5. Corey Vilhauer on May 11th, 2005 1237 pm

    Awesome.

    Man, Chad sucked.

  6. JScott on May 11th, 2005 154 pm

    Yeah…Chad. He cheated on his wife with the Assistant Manager of the MoA Funco. Alan knew about it, and didn’t say anything…

    That company is so poorly run.

  7. Corey Vilhauer on May 11th, 2005 415 pm

    I forgot all about that! They had it on camera and everything, didn’t they??

  8. Wick on May 11th, 2005 1108 pm

    they had chad on camera make sweer love to that manager? Does it burn your eyes to watch that tape?

  9. Fresh on May 14th, 2005 212 am

    God, you fucking loser want to see that tape? Ugh. Chad is a war hero who fought in Desert Storm I, and I will always respect him and his slighty foul smelling ass.

  10. Corey Vilhauer on May 14th, 2005 214 am

    Yeah, it’s un-American to hate Chad.

  11. Fresh on May 14th, 2005 215 am

    Chad was a functional retard. And by ‘functional’ I mean retarded.

  12. dthomp on May 20th, 2005 338 pm

    Wick, I miss our time together buddy. I also had a crappy experience with a shitty Gamestop manager, because she was a worthless whore who didn’t like me out sub and reserving her. I guess that stuff happens when you have crappy GM’s like Barry was, and on a side note why the hell hasn’t Ken been fired from there if everybody else was?

  13. black marks on wood pulp » Unclaimed currency on May 27th, 2005 1242 pm

    [...] find: Gamestop? I have unclaimed currency from Gamestop? For those who haven’t read my story about Chad, the manager from hell, I offer some explanation. I worked at [...]

  14. black marks on wood pulp » 100 and counting! on July 7th, 2005 1156 am

    [...] The post with the most replies was, by far, My Worst Boss. I garnered 13 pieces of feedback, all of which expounded upon how horrible my worst boss (Chad Madison) was. [...]

  15. Mandy on August 5th, 2005 129 pm

    Hey,

    Oddly, the worst boss I ever had was at a gamestop. (I think you mentioned one of your bosses being incapable of keeping his cool for more than two minutes….well, that was my boss) When he made fun of my last name and threw a feather duster at my head, I decided to throw in the towel. Which is sad. I love gamestop, and I love flaunting my geek chic knowledge of video games.

    Someone mentioned earlier that this would be a good piece for the New Yorker. Actually, if you did some research….maybe interviewed other employees and managers at other small retail stores around the country…you could have a really good in-depth report article on the state of low level management in huge retail chains across the country. Hell, I smell a book deal here. Or maybe even a documentary movie.

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