Just how cheap is your boss?

[zmatrix]

When my company went into money saving mode, my owner comes in one day and and turns off all the lights and asks, can you work like this? Everyone was dumbfounded. How stupid can a person be....then we all said no we can't. Here is the kicker....he turns on one of the three light switches and asks, how about now?

Mind you this is a guy who drives three top of the line MBenz and drinks wine at $600 a pop.

I have many more stories...

EDIT: Took out the stamp example...may cause probs...

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

postal fraud!

 

[Yossarian]

my last company got pretty cheap for a while. they cancelled the janitorial service and asked me if I would take the trash out to the dumpster. I was the engineering manager for their product development department. I told them to suck it.

 

[Nanotech]

That's ludacrious

 

[shimsham]

sounds excessive unless youre the one paying the bills. i wouldnt try to reuse a stamp tho. have you ever noticed the cheap people are the ones that usually have the most money?

 

[Balt]

Mine can't be that cheap because last time he took me and a couple of co-workers to lunch I ordered a Samuel Adams, and he seemed impressed and ordered one himself. My co-workers were dorks and decided to copy us, rather than get water with lemon as they had originally ordered.

 

[MrDingleDangle]

Originally posted by: Balt
Mine can't be that cheap because last time he took me and a couple of co-workers to lunch I ordered a Samuel Adams, and he seemed impressed and ordered one himself. My co-workers were dorks and decided to copy us, rather than get water with lemon as they had originally ordered.

alright mr. cant tell the difference between reality and a commercial

 

[BornStar]

Originally posted by: shimsham
sounds excessive unless youre the one paying the bills. i wouldnt try to reuse a stamp tho. have you ever noticed the cheap people are the ones that usually have the most money?

Typically the reason they have the most money is because they're cheap. Cutting coupons can really add up after a while but most people aren't interested in that. It's the same deal.

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: BornStar18
Typically the reason they have the most money is because they're cheap. Cutting coupons can really add up after a while but most people aren't interested in that. It's the same deal.

This is simply not true. These people have the most money because they respect it. They know how much it is worth and do not spend it willy-nilly.

They are not cheap, they are frugal. They spend their money where it needs to go and most importantly, they do not spend it where it shouldn't go.

 

[Balt]

Originally posted by: MrDingleDangle

Originally posted by: Balt
Mine can't be that cheap because last time he took me and a couple of co-workers to lunch I ordered a Samuel Adams, and he seemed impressed and ordered one himself. My co-workers were dorks and decided to copy us, rather than get water with lemon as they had originally ordered.

alright mr. cant tell the difference between reality and a commercial

I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[stev0]

while my employment situation is pretty different (i work for a friend of the family, who owns a few businesses, i oversee all of the projects that he has going, basically his eyes and ears .. and mouth when he isn't there)

he has bought a new chevy 2500 HD for me to use for work for the past 3 years, definatly not cheap

 

[BornStar]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax

Originally posted by: BornStar18
Typically the reason they have the most money is because they're cheap. Cutting coupons can really add up after a while but most people aren't interested in that. It's the same deal.

This is simply not true. These people have the most money because they respect it. They know how much it is worth and do not spend it willy-nilly.

They are not cheap, they are frugal. They spend their money where it needs to go and most importantly, they do not spend it where it shouldn't go.

Fine, call it what you will, we're talking about the same thing.

 

[m2kewl]

n/m

 

[StageLeft]

my owner comes in one day and and turns off all the lights and asks, can you work like this? Everyone was dumbfounded.

That is far cheaper than I can even imagine.

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: BornStar18
Fine, call it what you will, we're talking about the same thing.

They aren't the same thing. The person who is cheap doesn't buy anything. They horde their money and generally don't know how to enjoy it at all.

A frugal person will spend good amounts of money on vacations, houses, their hobbies, their retirement (whatever is important to them) but will forego things that other people couldn't imagine living without.

There is a very big difference.

 

[Fritzo]

We're running a $6 million dollar national ISP and using $500 HP computers from Best Buy for servers and workstations

Although, I do have to say that they work wonderfully...some are going on 3 years of 24/7 service.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax

Originally posted by: BornStar18
Fine, call it what you will, we're talking about the same thing.

They aren't the same thing. The person who is cheap doesn't buy anything. They horde their money and generally don't know how to enjoy it at all.

A frugal person will spend good amounts of money on vacations, houses, their hobbies, their retirement (whatever is important to them) but will forego things that other people couldn't imagine living without.

There is a very big difference.

I think we would all agree that asking employees if they can work with the lights off is cheap and not frugal, no?

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: DBL
I think we would all agree that asking employees if they can work with the lights off is cheap and not frugal, no?

Yes. We can agree on this.

 

[kranky]

Let me share some examples from a boss I had at a previous job. Not only was he cheap, he was insane, too.

If you needed a pen, you had to turn in your old pen to prove it no longer would write. If you needed a tablet, you had to bring back the cardboard stiffener from the one you used up. This was designed to keep people from taking office supplies home.

No paper clips. He said that all the paper clips we would ever need have already been bought and they just move around from department to department. Just get some from someone else who had some.

Most phones could not dial out. Even fewer could dial long-distance.

For the company Christmas party, he would extort "gifts" from his suppliers in order to give them away as door prizes to the employees. One person won a case of toilet paper. Gee, wouldn't that make you feel special!

At the same time he had the maintenance staff working on his vacation home on company time, he would tell them to pull out nails from scrap lumber so they could be reused. Bent nail? Pound it back out straight with a hammer.

One day he had the maintenance guys remove a railing from a stairway for some reason. An employee carrying a 3-foot high stack of boxes fell down the steps. Not seriously injured, but he missed a day of work. When the employee asked to be paid for the missed day, the boss told him he'd like to pay him, but he can't because it would set a bad precedent.

My favorite: He contacted the Boy Scouts and offered them the chance to tour the facility on a Saturday. When they came in, he tried to get them to perform work by using the explanation that he was giving them a great opportunity to have hands-on experience with how to operate shrink-wrap and packaging machines. Never gave a thought to how illegal it was for people under 18 to operate that machinery - he was slapping himself on the back for thinking of a way to get work done for free without having to pay the regular people overtime for working on a Saturday.

 

[BornStar]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax

Originally posted by: BornStar18
Fine, call it what you will, we're talking about the same thing.

They aren't the same thing. The person who is cheap doesn't buy anything. They horde their money and generally don't know how to enjoy it at all.

A frugal person will spend good amounts of money on vacations, houses, their hobbies, their retirement (whatever is important to them) but will forego things that other people couldn't imagine living without.

There is a very big difference.

Listen, I didn't use the word you did, but the idea was the same. I'm well aware of people who spend money on necessities; I live with one. My dad makes a substantial amount of money yet he drives a 99 Odyssey and my mom drives a 98 LeSabre. He wants a 330i but "can't afford it" yet he just spent a substantial amount of money making a change to our house that 99% of people will never notice. I know what I'm talking about. Just because I didn't use the same word you did, doesn't mean that I'm not talking about the same thing as you or don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by: kranky
One day he had the maintenance guys remove a railing from a stairway for some reason. An employee carrying a 3-foot high stack of boxes fell down the steps. Not seriously injured, but he missed a day of work. When the employee asked to be paid for the missed day, the boss told him he'd like to pay him, but he can't because it would set a bad precedent.

mmm juicy lawsuit.

 

[slycat]

for the past 3 yrs, i've gotten failed-dot-com memorabilia as christmas presents...read:notepads, keychains and calculators. :disgust:

 

[zmatrix]

Originally posted by: kranky
Let me share some examples from a boss I had at a previous job. Not only was he cheap, he was insane, too.

If you needed a pen, you had to turn in your old pen to prove it no longer would write. If you needed a tablet, you had to bring back the cardboard stiffener from the one you used up. This was designed to keep people from taking office supplies home.

No paper clips. He said that all the paper clips we would ever need have already been bought and they just move around from department to department. Just get some from someone else who had some.

Most phones could not dial out. Even fewer could dial long-distance.

For the company Christmas party, he would extort "gifts" from his suppliers in order to give them away as door prizes to the employees. One person won a case of toilet paper. Gee, wouldn't that make you feel special!

At the same time he had the maintenance staff working on his vacation home on company time, he would tell them to pull out nails from scrap lumber so they could be reused. Bent nail? Pound it back out straight with a hammer.

One day he had the maintenance guys remove a railing from a stairway for some reason. An employee carrying a 3-foot high stack of boxes fell down the steps. Not seriously injured, but he missed a day of work. When the employee asked to be paid for the missed day, the boss told him he'd like to pay him, but he can't because it would set a bad precedent.

My favorite: He contacted the Boy Scouts and offered them the chance to tour the facility on a Saturday. When they came in, he tried to get them to perform work by using the explanation that he was giving them a great opportunity to have hands-on experience with how to operate shrink-wrap and packaging machines. Never gave a thought to how illegal it was for people under 18 to operate that machinery - he was slapping himself on the back for thinking of a way to get work done for free without having to pay the regular people overtime for working on a Saturday.

Regarding the pens and pads, the idea came up to beg our trucking companies for them so we never would have to buy them.

My boss did the same during Christmas, made the head of the departments write letters to our vendors to ask, wait, to BEG them to donate gifts to us so we can "reward" our precious employees.
They horde all the christmas Sees candies and then about 6 months later decide they dont want it and gives them to the us!

We had hit a target sales numbers for a particular month and he surprisingly, rewarded us for that by ordering food for us. When the luncheon was over, he saw that there were some leftover food and asked how much we spent per person. When it was calculated, it came to less than $5 per person and he said, that was too much spent. Adding further insult, he told us we did a mediocre job and that he expected more from us even tho we hit the target. I just wanted to puke up the food I ate and hand it back to him on the plate.

 

[BCYL]

When my company was in a cash crunch, it started charging employees for coffee and water (drinking water from the watercooler)... Needless to say that didnt last...

 

[CPA]

Yes. I'm cheap. But I'm under budget constraints. And making budget is one of my annual goals. Damned if I'm going to get my bonus reduced, just for a department lunch.