How does it work?

Describe the boss who made you feel most upset, humiliated or uncomfortable. No specific names of individuals or corporate entities, please, but do include a basic description of your job and industry. Make sure to describe your boss’s inappropriate behavior and tell us how you handled it.

We are seeking true stories that provide insight into the tension between bosses and subordinates. Please note that the boss does not have to be CEO of the entire company; he or she can simply be a supervisor.

Approximately two hundred essays will be selected for publication in our forthcoming anthology, The World’s Worst Bosses, which will be the first in our planned Jobs of the Damned series. These essays must convey an unusual story and be told with wit and style.

Authors can be identified by name in our book and on the website or be published anonymously.

Who can enter?

Anyone over 18 years old may post stories. However, both cash prizes and publication in the anthology are limited to authors not directly acquainted with the principals of Heliotrope Books, LLC.

Submission requirements

Your essay must be written in English, approximately 200 - 1000 words. Please do not do not use obscene language or denigrate any country, ethnic group, political party or leader. The stories should portray a conflict between a boss and employee, per our samples below.

Deadline

The contest will be open between Monday, February 8 and Sunday, May 2, 2010. Any author may submit a maximum of 12 stories — one each week. Weekly Winners will be announced each week, Finalists and Grand Prize Winners will be announced by June 15, 2010. It is expected the book will be published in Fall 2010.

Weekly schedule

Submissions are posted to the website once a week, on Monday at 12:01 a.m. EST. Voting for the week’s most popular essay runs from Monday 12:01 a.m. EST until Sunday 11:59 p.m. EST. The entry with the most votes for the week wins $200 and will be published in The World’s Worst Bosses anthology.

Weekly winners are eligible for the $2000, $1000, or $500 best essay awards.

Entry fee

There is a $10 entry fee for each essay submitted. Participants can submit up to twelve essays.

Awards

Awards include:

• $2000 for best essay, as determined by judges
• $1000 for second best essay, as determined by judges
• $500 for third best essay, as determined by judges
• $200 for the most popular essay of the week and publication in the anthology.
• A chance to be published in The World’s Worst Bosses, as determined by judges.

There will be no other compensation or payments for submitted stories, including those selected for publication.

Samples

Below are three samples of the kinds of true stories we seek. They are told in a direct, spirited way, without identifying individuals or companies. In very few words, they describe at least two characters, a conflict, decision and resolution:

 

“I walked up to his desk and called him every nasty thing I could think of.”

One year, I worked as assistant to an irritable maniac who was impossible to please. I quickly learned why none of his previous assistants had lasted more than a few months.

He would provide vague, even contradictory, information for the weekly reports I was to write. If I asked for clarification he would confuse me more and sometimes change the topic. When I took notes he’d snap: “Look at me when I speak to you!” But when the reports I wrote failed meet to his expectations he would curse a blue streak.

I complained to Human Resources a million times. Unfortunately, he was a big producer for this insurance company, and they did nothing to discipline or constrain him. One day I got so fed up that I went back into his office three minutes after he lambasted me. I walked up to his desk and called him every nasty thing I could think of, added that he had a “Napoleon complex,” and told him exactly where he could go shove it.

He smiled weirdly and said: “Now we’re going to get along just fine.”

My mouth hung open for a second; then I called him a “sick bastard.” I told him that I was going to look for a transfer within the company, and that I expected him to sign a glowing review that I would write for myself.

He did.

 

(232 words)

 

“When I finish lunch I’d love you for dessert.”

As a guy, I have always been sympathetic when women have complained that they are being sexually harassed on a job. Then I got a taste of it myself: a female boss made sexual advances, and hinted that my taking her up on them would advance my career in the ad agency where I worked as a junior copy writer.

“When I finish lunch,” she said, “I’d love you for dessert.”

I was desperate for money, and needed the job. But I certainly didn’t appreciate her, or the terms of my tenure.

It didn’t help that she was the CEO’s niece.

“What are you doing Friday?” she eventually asked me.

I thought carefully. I didn’t want to offend her or to encourage her. I had to walk a fine line.

“I’m sorry. My prayer group meets that night,” I said. “Unless perhaps you’d care to come along? How is your relationship with Jesus?”

Needless to say, she never hit on me again. But she did hit on several other young guys. They banded together and filed a complaint with Human Resources about her invitations, innuendos, thinly disguised threats, and generally intimidating behavior, and I believe they spoke to an attorney about filing a lawsuit.

The result was that she was asked to work from a home office. The CEO’s niece was not going to be fired. But she could be removed.

 

(231 words)

 

“Do you enjoy sex in this position...?”

It was my first job out of college in a major corporation. One of the younger Managing Directors in my department pulled me aside one evening when I was working late and said, “Look, could I ask you a question?”

I said sure.

He said, “OK, I was wondering ... you’re about my girlfriend’s age, and I know that you’re newly married. Could I ask you ... do you enjoy sex this way” — and he described a particular position to me — “or do you think it’s weird? Because my girlfriend doesn’t like it, and I wanted to find out if other women her age felt the same way. I mean ... am I weird, or is she?”

I tried to answer the question as neutrally as I could because the guy had a lot of clout in my department, and I was just beginning a career.

But subsequently, any time I worked late this guy would approach me, describe what he and his girlfriend did in bed, and ask whether or not I would object to the activity. After a couple of weeks I was so upset, crazed and nervous that I wanted to quit. I couldn’t stand going into the office anymore. I was forgetful and preoccupied on the job, and felt afraid to stay after hours and couldn’t look this guy in the face.

Finally I went to the Human Resources department in tears. They obtained a statement from me, offering absolute assurance that I would not, in any way, suffer for having brought the matter to their attention. And they arranged to meet with this Managing Director the very next day.

Looking back, I realize that dense doesn’t begin to describe this poor fool. He admitted, rather sheepishly, that yes, he had been having such conversations with me, but was, frankly, stunned that I was upset: he hadn’t been hitting on me; he just wanted a clue as to how he could better please his own girlfriend … like, what’s the problem? To him, this was just the kind of conversation guys have in a locker room. HR had to explain to him, using words of one syllable, that a) this wasn’t a locker room; b) I wasn’t a guy, and c) his behavior was against the law. Period.

Because he had never committed such an offense before, and because he swore it would never happen again, he was put on permanent final written warning — despite his executive title in the organization — and told to have no further contact with me outside of daily business. If I, or anyone else, complained about his conduct, his employment would be terminated immediately.

Still, I did not want to stay in his department. I was then offered the opportunity to transfer, in an equal capacity, with no loss of status or pay.

I have no idea whether he ever learned what pleased his girlfriend … but given his crude, tone-deaf way with me, I can hazard a pretty good guess.

(500 words)

Who we are

Heliotrope Books LLC, is an independent book packager and publisher with a small annual list. We develop manuscripts that are either contracted to larger publishers through our literary agent, published ourselves and distributed nationally via Ingram Publisher Services, or adapted to online format.

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