Please Fire Me

December 3, 2010 3:54 PM

Anonymously submit why you hate the job you can't leave.

The unemployment rate is officially at 10%, though many argue it is much higher. In fact, it’s so bad George Clooney had to make a PSA about it as if laid off workers were one of his third world causes célèbres. And since his Up in the Air has garnered Oscar buzz we think the jobless are having their day in the sun. But what about the malemployed? The people with crappy jobs only immigrants would do - except now the immigrants are going back home and we have to do them ourselves? The job market is like a Tale of Two Cities – the Wall Street guys and CEOs make billions and the rest of us can’t figure out how we got stuck in these damn cubicles.

Our soul-crushingly indistinguishable jobs are the Darwinistic extension of Henry Ford’s assembly line. Our jobs are interchangeable parts designed to be quick, cheap and easy to replace even by an HR person. All to keep labor costs down and drive profits ever higher to satisfy investors and Jim Cramer’s Mad Money crew. And we know why we stay – we need the money and there is nothing else out there.

Since drinking at work is no longer socially acceptable – except on AMC – PleaseFireMe.com is here to get you through the hellish work day. Post your gripe or join the chorus – let the world know you are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. The Man might be saying “let them eat cake” in the break room every friggin' day someone has a birthday, but we are starting a new revolution and our rally cry is Please Fire Me.

Adam Chromy, Creator

posted by gman (51 comments total)

PFM, because FML.
posted by jquinby at 3:56 PM on December 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

You mean there are people who hate their jobs? Must be this damn economy.
posted by absalom at 3:56 PM on December 3, 2010

My boss starts off the mornings with Styx’s “Come Sail Away With Me."

"Hello, OSHA?"
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:59 PM on December 3, 2010 [7 favorites]

Too bad there's not a way to submit video. I've got a great one of my boss sexually harassing a female co-worker and talking about how much he loves getting blow jobs from "skanky hos" and how his wife will never, ever find out.
posted by item at 4:02 PM on December 3, 2010 [9 favorites]

I don't care too much for that job.
posted by item at 4:02 PM on December 3, 2010

That's why they call it "work".
posted by BitterOldPunk at 4:07 PM on December 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Item: Upload to youtube, link here, we all win.

As to the site, my heart (what's left of it) goes out to people in crappy jobs, but does the world really need another blog-formula or formula-blog?

BF or FB: _____insert link_____
Email | Twitter
Facebook | RSS
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:09 PM on December 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

I couldn't find a link to submit my resume.
posted by scratch at 4:12 PM on December 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Please get decent employment laws
posted by fullerine at 4:16 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Please fire me. My boss starts off the mornings with Styx’s “Come Sail Away With Me”. I find myself singing it at random hours of the day. It is the worst song ever.

OMG the humanity!! I can't believe people are being treated this way in the United States.

Please fire me. My co-worker returned to the office today after suffering an alcohol-induced injury. We all had to suffer the gory details. He had pictures in case we couldn’t imagine what was beneath his bandages.

I wouldn't want to get fired from this job.
posted by fuq at 4:28 PM on December 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

And the Machine gets another nice steam valve.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 4:32 PM on December 3, 2010 [21 favorites]

I think you crashed the servers, gman.
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 4:32 PM on December 3, 2010

Wonder if I qualify. In my 20 year career I have worked in four different buildings. Only one was originally constructed as office space. The other three were converted warehouses. The carpets get vacuumed during the day, as we have a NISH contractor for janitorial services. Same story with the bathrooms, they get cleaned at nine a.m. The woman in the next cube does her nails at her desk, giving me an instant headache.
posted by fixedgear at 4:32 PM on December 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Um, I think I broke it?!
posted by thinkpiece at 4:35 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Given how specific some of these posts are I wouldn't be surprised if their wishes came true.
posted by special-k at 4:43 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Please Hire Me.

And quit your whining. You have a job.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:08 PM on December 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

I need the money.

One-income couple. Good-sized mortgage in a depressed economy. Partner with health issues. No matter how intractable the dev team, no matter how ill-advised the product, no matter how ignorant the PM, no matter how pointless the effort, I still write docs and code business apps because I still need the money.

If I didn't need the money, I'd switch occupations in a hot second. I've a shop full of leatherworking tools, begging for use. Saddles, scabbards, upholstery, art - none of that will pay the mortgage, buy the medicines, or feed us, though, and so I do what I need to do to make money. I'd cut, mold, carve, stamp, sew, dye, polish, repair, and otherwise practice my art to my heart's content, happy to sell my work.

Someday, perhaps, that will change. When the house is paid off (in about five years), when universal healthcare means I won't have to worry about my partner, when I can relax and focus on a trade instead of a gig. Now, though, I need the money.
posted by FormlessOne at 5:19 PM on December 3, 2010 [7 favorites]

Not to belittle anyone's complaints, but I'd love to see posts from third world sweat shop workers about the work situations that they have to put up with... just for some context.
posted by russmaxdesign at 5:26 PM on December 3, 2010 [8 favorites]

Hey, I almost did a bunch of design work last summer for the guy who runs this site. Well, I did do some comps, but no final work. Good guy, good ideas, looking forward to what he's doing next.
posted by Brainy at 5:30 PM on December 3, 2010

I feel really lucky that I've held a wide variety of jobs starting in high school - retail, teaching mentally disabled children, ground support at an airport, restaurant work, painting houses, and now I have my "professional" job. I've actually enjoyed the work at every job I've had so far, except one. That was at a garden center.

I took the job at the garden center because one of my friends got a job as a cashier and I thought we'd be able to hang out all day. Somehow, despite being scrawnier and weaker than him, I got put in "the yard" - hauling bags of mulch, watering plants, replenishing outside stock, loading customers' cars. Even then, the work wasn't half bad - I got home exhausted every day, but it was that good kind of exhaustion that comes from a hard day's labor.

There were three things that pushed me over the edge. First, I got stuck working with another young adult who everyone called "Dolittle", because, guess what, he didn't do very much. In fact, he hated working there and was actively trying to get fired. Problem was, he was the owner's nephew and try as he might, just couldn't get canned.

Second, our major task (meaning my major task) for the better part of the summer was to mow the yard. The first time I did it, it took me about an afternoon - after which I was informed that, instead of mowing between all the plants (which is what I did), I needed to pick up each plant (some potted, some just had root balls in burlap), mow underneath of it, and then return the plant to its original location. Including all the shrubs and evergreens that hadn't been sold in years and had since rooted into the ground. Also including the half of the yard with poor drainage that essentially turned into a swamp.

So, I mowed a swamp for the better part of the summer, and during my lunch break I got to listen to the other employees (all somehow related to the owner) complain about how "the Dominicans" were moving into their neighborhoods and bringing down property values. All of this while the friend I was hoping to work with was inside, in the air conditioning, putting price tags on seed packets.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:33 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yea, it's FML for the workplace. But... why not find another job? If you think getting fired from a shitty job is super-awesome, you'll find that unemployment brings an whole 'nother level of stress to the game.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:39 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love my job more than some members of my family.
posted by GuyZero at 5:42 PM on December 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

In 2001, I did some office temping - semi-skilled 40wpm college grad - and was paid between £6 and £6.50 an hour. I used to gripe gently about the £6 jobs. Minimum wage was £4.50ph and my electricity bill was about £20 a month.

Now I'm looking at doing a few more months of these to save up for plane fare for a nice TEFL job. I can type at about 55wpm now and have more experience of software (I'm ignoring college-stuff and just considering the needs of a bog-standard office-drone job) - and the y pay £6 an hour. Minimum wage is £5.93 and my electricity bill is £40.

How has this terrible drift in wages been allowed to happen? Why were people once willing to pay £1.50 over the min wage and now they'll only pay 7p?
posted by grapefruitzzz at 5:43 PM on December 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

This makes me think of fuckedcompany.com. This calamity's version possibly?
posted by pywacket at 5:47 PM on December 3, 2010

My forty-year-old co-worker mentions every day that she was “gifted and talented” as a child.

Hahaha. Is that a Mefite coworker? It must be. There are so many threads with Mefites backdoor bragging about how they're gifted and were "gifted" as children. I
posted by anniecat at 5:54 PM on December 3, 2010

Please fire me. We found out that the drinking water dispensers were hooked up to the HVAC system. This means we’ve been drinking an anti-corrosive chemical for the last five years.

Seriously?!
posted by limeonaire at 5:56 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Someone whining about having to reach into the toilet tank to flush the toilet doesn't get much sympathy from me.
posted by blucevalo at 5:57 PM on December 3, 2010

You guys are right. Getting sexually harassed is no biggie. Walk it off!
posted by Brocktoon at 6:00 PM on December 3, 2010 [4 favorites]

It's not easy to tell people to "just get another job." Worklife should not be an episode of Survivor or some Darwinian struggle. Not everyone can swing from vine to vine, especially not in this economy.

Traditionally, labour mobility has been the great advantage held by workers, but how can you follow the jobs with a mortgage, kids in school, car payments, etc. It can be done, and sometimes it needs to be done, but it all takes a lot of planning and a lot of resources.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:14 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I realize this site is just for entertainment, but what's to stop this website from finding identifying info in these submissions and then selling these horror stories back to the companies these people work for at a profit as a "weed out" aid?
posted by peppito at 6:33 PM on December 3, 2010

Pleas fire me: The woman in the next cubical spends the entire day on the phone with her mother. She does no work, and there conversation goes like this...

"ummmm, I don't know, pen, notebook, keyboard, you know, the usual, what's on your desk? uh huh... mmmm... yeah uh huh... same yeah, bic, that's right.... nah black... nah, just the one"

This goes on for six hours. No one asks her what she does, nor expects any output. no one can ring her because she's constantly on the telephone. I hate her.

The other cubical is occupied by a fiery paranoid Russian who's constantly at war with the workplace. EVERYTHING is a personal slight. Momentarily sluggish internet connection? They are monitoring his web activity and is about to be sacked / They are deliberately slowing down the web so he's unproductive and will get sacked. Found out that company superannuation scheme is not as cheap as another scheme - disaster. That was a week ago and he's still at war over it. He also does no work - and would be unemployable.
posted by the noob at 6:48 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Item: Upload to youtube, link here, we all win.

I would, but I'm saving it for 'insurance' purposes.

God I wish I was kidding.
posted by item at 7:40 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of the annoying coworker website.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 8:01 PM on December 3, 2010

'Anonymously submit why you hate the job you can't leave.'

you are my hero sir
'dam talkies'

posted by clavdivs at 8:27 PM on December 3, 2010

Please fire me. My boss starts off the mornings with Styx’s “Come Sail Away With Me”. I find myself singing it at random hours of the day. It is the worst song ever.

Three words: First. World. Problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:16 PM on December 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

There are so many threads with Mefites backdoor bragging about how they're gifted and were "gifted" as children.

I was gifted with a Buff Banner an the MeFight server just an hour ago!
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:33 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Some of these people really need to be fired, and I would gladly be the one to do it.
posted by Xoebe at 10:04 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I dunno, that Styx hater should've worked my temp gig one Christmas.

Temp lockbox operator, midsize local bank. One radio in the shared cube. Every goddamn morning, the one radio station we were allowed played "Dominic the Donkey," sometimes more than once.

Seriously, no jury would have convicted me.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:59 PM on December 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Please fire me. My co-worker sits there all day submitting whining bitchy remarks to this dumb website.
posted by Segundus at 1:53 AM on December 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Not to belittle anyone's complaints, but I'd love to see posts from third world sweat shop workers about the work situations that they have to put up with... just for some context.

Within three posts there'd be one from someone telling them to quit whining, they should count themselves lucky they're not from the ranks of the third world unemployed.
posted by reynir at 4:33 AM on December 4, 2010 [9 favorites]

"Dominic the Donkey" is awesome, and that is one workplace tradition I could get behind. Chinga de ching!
posted by fixedgear at 5:05 AM on December 4, 2010

Not to belittle anyone's complaints, but I'd love to see posts from third world sweat shop workers about the work situations that they have to put up with... just for some context.

Just because a swift kick in the junk is better than a sharp stick in the eye, that doesn't make getting a swift kick in the junk somehow awesome. That said, I think Please Help Me Get Some Fucking Perspective Dot Com would be a better match for most of these folks.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:13 AM on December 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

...I'd love to see posts from third world sweat shop workers...

...a swift kick in the junk is better than a sharp stick in the eye... That said, I think Please Help Me Get Some Fucking Perspective Dot Com would be a better match...

When I was 15 or 16, at the end of a long day of hiking over some Welsh mountains or something, I was sitting quietly at the mouth of my tent with my boots off cutting molefoam donuts when this teacher* walks by and asks how I'm doing in his obligatory chaperone way, and I motion to my sore, aching, blistered feet which I'm tending to and do you know what this asshole says? "Have you seen X's feet? She's got huuuuuge blisters (much bigger than yours) which are bleeding and she can barely walk." And, because I was always raised to be polite and to respect my elders, I didn't say anything, but WTF did that have to do with my feet? Just because her blisters are worse than mine, doesn't make my feet hurt any less. And it's not like I was dragging my stumps around the camp going, "Woe is me, woe is me, look upon my infirmities and despair" or anything-- you came and asked how I was doing and I told you. Sure, if rampant goats came attacking or meteors started falling on our campsite, I would be in a better position to run and would have helped carry her out because I, apparently, had a leg-up (no pun intended) on walking, but just sitting there in the evening relaxing and preparing for bed, my feet fucking hurt and they didn't hurt any less than hers and they didn't hurt any less because hers also hurt.

*Everybody loved this particular teacher and thought he was so young and fine and cool and awesome, but I found him to be smarmy and insufferable. This bias may have also clouded my perception of the exchange. On the other hand, this exchange didn't do anything for his reputation in my eyes.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 8:04 AM on December 4, 2010 [12 favorites]

all complaints are invalid unless you are the worst off person in the world ever like you have no arms or legs and you have to eat poop all day and people poke you with sticks while you eat poop
posted by tehloki at 8:24 AM on December 4, 2010 [23 favorites]

Traditionally, labour mobility has been the great advantage held by workers

And once upon a time, the great strides of dinosaurs used to shake the very earth.
posted by scratch at 10:02 AM on December 4, 2010

all complaints are invalid unless you are the worst off person in the world ever like you have no arms or legs and you have to eat poop all day and people poke you with sticks while you eat poop

I smell reality show!

and poop
posted by item at 10:50 AM on December 4, 2010

Ooh, I hate it when people do this.
posted by Neofelis at 2:03 PM on December 4, 2010

"If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should people give up these rights when they enter their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for freedom of movement, choice of residence, choice of what work to pursue - control of our lives, in short. And then we wake up in the morning and go to work, and all those rights disappear. We no longer insist on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism..."

From Blue Mars.
posted by robertc at 3:35 PM on December 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

all complaints are invalid unless you are the worst off person in the world ever like you have no arms or legs and you have to eat poop all day and people poke you with sticks while you eat poop

Are they hiring?
posted by krinklyfig at 3:45 PM on December 4, 2010

Please fire me. My boss is so cheap that he won’t hire a plumber to fix the toilet in the women’s bathroom. To flush it I have to take off the back of the toilet, remove my jewelry, roll up my sleeve, reach my arm into the vat of toilet water and pull up the round rubber thing.

Oh, come on. Yes, that's annoying, but how long do you do that before you work out that you can just bend a coat hanger as a replacement and not put your arm in any more? It seems some people like to complain but not in any way help themselves.

A toilet you have to flush with a coat hanger because no-one will fix it is STILL worthy of being called annoying. But it's hardly as dramatic as "I have to take my jewelry off to shove my hand into perfectly clean water in a totally avoidable way", so I guess they should bitch about that instead.
posted by Brockles at 7:05 PM on December 4, 2010

Well, considering I just told my boss two days ago that if I was living in a larger city, I'd be looking for a different job, I supposed this might be a sign.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 10:03 AM on December 5, 2010