Granny: Worst Co-Worker Ever.
Earlier today, I was reading a statement I'd written for the local Labour Board about my last job. I've been gone from this job for some time now, but I thought I'd post some details here, since it seemed like the perfect thing to post in this comm.
In late 2014, I accepted a job as an accountant for a local warehousing company. I found the job through a staffing agency. The pay seemed pretty good, the office was really nice, and the interview had gone well. I was there for just over a year, total. For most of my duration there, I didn't have to deal with the owner's grandmother, who I'll refer to as 'Granny'. The last three months saw Granny practically living at the office, and things went straight to hell in a major hurry. Since I was the only financial-type employee, and she'd been a bookkeeper for 40 years (so she claimed), she made it her life's purpose to supervise me specifically, but she also had to have her nose in everyone else's job.
She was miserable. She was vile. The woman was 100% certifiably batshit nuts. I think she had some sort of paranoid or delusional disorder, or dementia, because her behavior was completely out to lunch. My boss was a bit of an odd duck, as well; he was terrified of confrontation, and he hated communicating with people, so he'd send everyone emails instead of actually talking to them. If you had a question and went into his office, he'd get this fear in his eyes. I never knew why until Granny showed up. She was the one who'd raised him, and after spending a month or so around the woman, I realized she'd fucked this guy up (and his sister, but that's another story). Whatever the case, he was terrified of her, and would never stand up to her. I was actually warned about this from the previous accountant who I'd taken over from (Granny was the reason she was quitting), but I thought it was just a personality conflict that wasn't going to affect me.
Boy, was I wrong.
My first clue should have been how she treated my boss. It was his company, but she was the one in charge simply because no one dared stand up to her. He didn't want her there, but he would never tell her that to her face, and she did her best to run the show. She treated him like a child, even though he was in his forties. I almost fell over one day when she stood at the door to the men's room (my boss was in there), and she called out, "(BOSS NAME), BE SURE YOU WIPE PROPERLY! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T!"
I was like, WHAT. THE. FUCK. Everyone else acted like nothing had happened. As time went on, that became a pattern. Granny would act up, and everyone else would act like it was completely normal (typical dysfunctional family shit). If anyone commented on the craziness, one of the family members would give them a blank look, and go, 'What?", as if her behaviour was the most normal thing in the world. If my mother had've done that to me, I would've walked out and never come back just for the sheer embarrassment factor. And, this ended up being a constant thing.
Actually, once Granny showed up, the entire work environment was one big WTF.
If Granny thought you were alone in the building (she had a key and would show up at all hours), and she walked up behind you and scared the shit out of you, she'd stand over you all day and watch you like a hawk. Her reasoning was that if you startled when she touched you, you were 'obviously doing something you shouldn't be doing', and you were guilty of something. Normal logic would have it that pretty much anyone would jump out of their skin if they thought they were alone in a dark building and someone snuck up behind them and touched them on the shoulder. She also used to tiptoe around in her sock feet so you wouldn't hear her coming.
She would ask you for something, and when you gave it to her, she would get angry and yell at you, using terms like 'dummy' and 'retard'. She would then make it perfectly clear that you were clueless and incompetent to anyone who would listen. She claimed to know accounting and the associated terminology (she supposedly did bookkeeping for 40 years, so you'd think she'd have a clue), but she really didn't. She kept asking me for the GL activity for certain things, and when I'd print out the GL activity and give it to her, she'd fly into a rage. What she actually wanted was a Journal Entry Record (two completely different things). It's similar to someone asking for a bucket, and when you hand them a bucket, they get pissed off and start going off on you. Then, you find out that they actually wanted a mop, not a bucket. When you told them that a bucket wasn't a mop, they'd look at you like you'd grown a second head, and call you an idiot. At that point, I'd been doing accounting for close to 30 years, and had glowing reviews from my past jobs, so I think I knew what I was doing. Granny, however, saw me as a slack-jawed moron.
She was absolutely certain that people would be using their cell phones in the bathroom, and she didn't like it (I guess staring at the wall while you're doing your business was the only option). I once heard a shuffling noise outside the door while I was peeing, and instead of flushing and washing my hands as usual, I simply finished, pulled up my pants, and yanked the door open. She'd had her ear to the door, and she almost fell into the bathroom (it was a private bathroom with one toilet and sink, not stalls, so she couldn't tell what I was doing). When I asked her if she was listening to me pee, she got flustered and came up with the excuse that she was 'just passing by' and that she had stopped for a second to adjust her shoe. She was in her sock feet. The bathroom was at the end of a hall with no other door at the end. There was no way anyone could 'pass by'. And, she almost fell in head first. She'd obviously had her ear to the door. I had problems peeing at work after that, because I was sure she was always standing there, listening to me. It was creepy as shit. I'm sure she had cameras hidden in the bathroom, I just couldn't find them (the rest of the facility had 67 cameras covering every square inch of the place, you couldn't fart without someone knowing about it).
Employees weren't allowed to talk to each other unless it was completely work related, and one of the family members had to be nearby to make sure we weren't talking about personal stuff. Once, I was in the sales office, trying to figure out why my co-worker's Outlook app was screwing up, and Granny barged in, yelling, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?! WHY AREN'T YOU AT YOUR OWN DESK?! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" When I explained that I was trying to fix a software problem, she stood there, folded her arms, and glared at me and my co-worker until I was finished.
My hours of work were from 7:30am to 4:00pm, Monday to Friday. Since traffic would be ridiculous in the morning (large city issues), I'd usually leave extra early, just in case there was an accident or something (I'm almost phobic about being late). Most days, I ended up getting to work around 6:50 - 7:00am. Since I wasn't the type to just sit around, I'd be at my desk by 7:00, working. So, most days, they'd get an extra, free half hour of work from me. One day, I wanted to leave 15 minutes early, and Granny wanted to dock my time. I reminded her that I usually always showed up half an hour early each day, and that if we wanted to get picky, I could put all that extra time on my time sheet. Of course, she had a fit over that. The reason I wanted to leave early? I had to do the company banking. According to her, I should be doing the banking after hours. Leaving early wasn't allowed. That meant that I got to drive around and wait in line for an extra 60-90 minutes at two different banks, two weeknights per week, all on my own time and my own gas.
When my boss (her grandson) failed to give me his credit card receipts for the company Visa statement (after I'd nagged him repeatedly for several weeks), she chose to sit on the floor of my office for an entire day, screaming at me and belittling me, calling me an 'incompetent idiot' because her grandson didn't do his job. I would've walked out that day if I hadn't needed the paycheck so badly. I'm not a violent person, but I had visions of punching her in the face repeatedly.
The business had been around for 20+ years, so there were a lot of old records. Before I'd come along, she had created a bunch of boxes for an entire years' worth of stuff (old invoices, waybills, packing slips, work orders, etc.) Then, she mislabelled everything; all the box labels were off by one year (e.g. the fiscal year was 2011-2012, but she labelled all the boxes 2010-2011). When she tried to find an old receipt, she discovered that the boxes were mislabelled, and the proceeded to freak out at me over it. She screamed and ranted, and I finally had to create new labels and re-label all the boxes. It was her handwriting on the incorrect labels, so I really have no idea why she had to scream at me, but that's how she rolled. Nothing was ever her fault.
We had some family and some non-family working there (about half and half). If a family member made a mistake or didn't do their job, a non-family employee was always blamed or took the fall. Once, the boss's wife forgot to send out a very important shipment (the client was pissed), so one of the guys in the warehouse was fired as a result. Everyone knew it wasn't his job to do the shipment (wifey was the only one who was allowed to do the 'very important' stuff), but he took the fall anyway. The guy did take the company to court, and won a settlement, but it didn't change anything. Also, according to Granny, family were the only ones who could do anything right around there. If one of the family fucked up, there was obviously a very good reason for it, and it totally wasn't their fault. To hear Granny talk, every family member had been robbed of a Nobel Peace Prize, or some shit. They all deserved an award just for existing. In her eyes, their efforts weren't recognized nearly enough, and the rest of us were nothing but a bunch of lazy idiots who couldn't do anything right (it was actually the other way around, but no point in trying to get her to see that). Family got to come and go as they pleased, and although they were paid a full-time salary, they only worked part-time. The rest of us got to slave away for no thanks or recognition whatsoever. She would accuse everyone of 'stealing'. She'd check all the non-family time cards and if someone clocked in our out at any time before or after they should, she'd freak out and call them a thief. She once went harpy on one guy's ass because he was supposed to work until 4:30, and he had clocked out at 4:29:44. She freaked out over 16 seconds. To her, this was a huge deal, and she 'hated thieves'.
Sales bonuses were supposed to be based on performance; you sell a lot of shit, you get a big bonus. The boss had calculations printed on a sheet that was posted in the sales offices; the total sales was tallied for each salesperson, then they'd deduct a base amount. 10% of the remainder was calculated and paid (e.g. $1,000,000 in sales, deduct a base of $750,000, leaving $250,000. 10% of $250K is 25,000). Nice, right? Only if you're family. One of the non-family salespeople calculated her bonus at around $28K. I double-checked her math against her sales figures, and she was correct. The family salesperson (who didn't work much and didn't sell much) had much less to work with. I did the calculations for her, and she would've ended up with about $6300 for a bonus. When it came time to actually pay the bonus payments, the family member got a check for $40K. The non-family co-worker got a gift certificate for $100. When the calculation sheet was brought up at a tearful meeting, it suddenly disappeared, and we were all told by Granny that the sheet never existed (I guess we were all having the same group delusion for an entire year). I mentioned to my co-worker that I still had a copy of the sheet, and the next thing I know, Granny is tearing my desk apart trying to find it (even though it didn't 'exist').
One of my co-workers was seven months pregnant, and she was only working because she desperately needed the money. Her job was fairly physical (lots of lifting, standing and bending; it was a warehouse position), and she had some sort of complication, so she got a doctor's note stating that she now had limitations (no standing for more than 4 hours per day, no lifting anything over 25 pounds, etc.) She had been a loyal employee for almost ten years, and was always a top performer. When her performance review came up, Granny told her that she was incredibly lazy, and if she didn't 'smarten up', she'd be replaced. The reason for this bad review? My co-worker refused to lift boxes that were around 150 lbs each after the doctor told her to take it easy. They couldn't legally fire her, but they did make her life a living hell until she went on maternity leave (she eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and no, she has no intention of ever going back once her mat leave ends). When Granny's daughter-in-law got pregnant, she'd show up for about 2 hours a day, complain that she felt like shit, and then go home, doing practically no work. Granny thought this was fine, and acted like DIL should get a medal for even showing up.
The final straw for me happened Christmas Eve. I'd been looking for a job, and had secured three interviews in the new year, so I was already on the verge of quitting. My boss had gone out of town for the holidays, and Granny took advantage of his absence to try to drive me mental (for some reason, she pulled less shit when he was there, even though he was terrified of her). As soon as he left, she walked into my office, and literally stood over me, watching my every move. Whenever I'd type something and make a typo and then backspace to correct, she'd stand there and yell, "THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORD IS SPELLED! WHAT, ARE YOU STUPID?!" When she'd watch me add shit up, she'd miss stuff (I'm pretty quick on an adding machine), and she'd force me to re-add everything and make an adding machine tape so she could 'find all the mistakes' (there were none). Anything I would touch or look at or write would be under intense scrutiny. She was literally treating me like a fucking six-year old. After about three hours of this, I snapped, and told her I was going to call her grandson. He didn't answer his phone (he had already left on his flight and had to shut his cell phone off), and my threat only made her behaviour worse. She started finding things for me to do that were totally unnecessary (rearrange old boxes of files that no one really looked in, clean out the filing cabinet, look for a Visa statement from seven years' prior), and when I reminded her that it was Christmas Eve and that we were all leaving at noon (there was about an hour left before it was time to go home), she pointedly told me that I'd be leaving when SHE was good and ready to let me leave, whether that was at noon or midnight. She figured she'd punish me. On Christmas Eve.
That was my breaking point. I got up, grabbed my personal belongings, and walked out. She ran behind me, shrieking like a banshee, threatening me and trying to prevent me from leaving, and I told her that if she touched me, I'd press assault charges. I found out later from my pregnant co-worker that after I'd left, she tore my office apart, looking for 'evidence' of whatever sort to use against me (I always did my job correctly and the accounting firm we'd used for year end was happy with my work, so I'm really not sure what, exactly, she thought she'd find, or what kind of revenge she had in mind).
Once I got home, I emailed my boss, telling him what had happened, and I told him I was done. I wasn't coming back. I also told him that his grandmother was toxic and batshit fucking crazy and that he'd never be able to keep accounting staff with her there. He never replied. I received my Record of Employment in the mail a week later. I also called the placement company that had found me the job to tell them what had happened.
The lady from the placement company called my boss several times after that, trying to get an explanation, and he refused to talk to her. I also called Human Rights and the local Labour Board to report what had happened, and he ignored all their calls, as well. I was told to file a statement for the Labour Board, and I did, but as of yet, I've heard nothing back.
They hired a replacement after my boss got back from vacation, and the replacement lasted less than a month. According to my co-worker, she just got up and walked out, too, telling my boss she couldn't work with his grandmother, and that the woman was intolerable.
The next replacement lasted three days. Again, just walked out. The boss's sister finally had to step in to do the accounting, but last I heard, everything was going wrong because she had no accounting experience whatsoever (by trade, she was a translator), and it was a fairly complicated business/set of books.
On the bright side, one of the after-Christmas interviews I'd set up worked out for me, and I can honestly say that my current job is one of the best I've ever had (I'm a Controller for an auto repair shop). I've been here for some time, and my current boss and co-workers all rock. I was afraid to quit the last job because the thought of losing a paycheck scares the hell out of me, but it was the best thing I could've done for myself. I can still hear Granny's voice, though, whenever I'm not sure of something, or if I make a typo. I also still have dreams about her, none of which are pleasant. But, I'm thankful that I can wake up each morning now and actually look forward to going to work.
So, yeah. Glad that's over.
In late 2014, I accepted a job as an accountant for a local warehousing company. I found the job through a staffing agency. The pay seemed pretty good, the office was really nice, and the interview had gone well. I was there for just over a year, total. For most of my duration there, I didn't have to deal with the owner's grandmother, who I'll refer to as 'Granny'. The last three months saw Granny practically living at the office, and things went straight to hell in a major hurry. Since I was the only financial-type employee, and she'd been a bookkeeper for 40 years (so she claimed), she made it her life's purpose to supervise me specifically, but she also had to have her nose in everyone else's job.
She was miserable. She was vile. The woman was 100% certifiably batshit nuts. I think she had some sort of paranoid or delusional disorder, or dementia, because her behavior was completely out to lunch. My boss was a bit of an odd duck, as well; he was terrified of confrontation, and he hated communicating with people, so he'd send everyone emails instead of actually talking to them. If you had a question and went into his office, he'd get this fear in his eyes. I never knew why until Granny showed up. She was the one who'd raised him, and after spending a month or so around the woman, I realized she'd fucked this guy up (and his sister, but that's another story). Whatever the case, he was terrified of her, and would never stand up to her. I was actually warned about this from the previous accountant who I'd taken over from (Granny was the reason she was quitting), but I thought it was just a personality conflict that wasn't going to affect me.
Boy, was I wrong.
My first clue should have been how she treated my boss. It was his company, but she was the one in charge simply because no one dared stand up to her. He didn't want her there, but he would never tell her that to her face, and she did her best to run the show. She treated him like a child, even though he was in his forties. I almost fell over one day when she stood at the door to the men's room (my boss was in there), and she called out, "(BOSS NAME), BE SURE YOU WIPE PROPERLY! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T!"
I was like, WHAT. THE. FUCK. Everyone else acted like nothing had happened. As time went on, that became a pattern. Granny would act up, and everyone else would act like it was completely normal (typical dysfunctional family shit). If anyone commented on the craziness, one of the family members would give them a blank look, and go, 'What?", as if her behaviour was the most normal thing in the world. If my mother had've done that to me, I would've walked out and never come back just for the sheer embarrassment factor. And, this ended up being a constant thing.
Actually, once Granny showed up, the entire work environment was one big WTF.
If Granny thought you were alone in the building (she had a key and would show up at all hours), and she walked up behind you and scared the shit out of you, she'd stand over you all day and watch you like a hawk. Her reasoning was that if you startled when she touched you, you were 'obviously doing something you shouldn't be doing', and you were guilty of something. Normal logic would have it that pretty much anyone would jump out of their skin if they thought they were alone in a dark building and someone snuck up behind them and touched them on the shoulder. She also used to tiptoe around in her sock feet so you wouldn't hear her coming.
She would ask you for something, and when you gave it to her, she would get angry and yell at you, using terms like 'dummy' and 'retard'. She would then make it perfectly clear that you were clueless and incompetent to anyone who would listen. She claimed to know accounting and the associated terminology (she supposedly did bookkeeping for 40 years, so you'd think she'd have a clue), but she really didn't. She kept asking me for the GL activity for certain things, and when I'd print out the GL activity and give it to her, she'd fly into a rage. What she actually wanted was a Journal Entry Record (two completely different things). It's similar to someone asking for a bucket, and when you hand them a bucket, they get pissed off and start going off on you. Then, you find out that they actually wanted a mop, not a bucket. When you told them that a bucket wasn't a mop, they'd look at you like you'd grown a second head, and call you an idiot. At that point, I'd been doing accounting for close to 30 years, and had glowing reviews from my past jobs, so I think I knew what I was doing. Granny, however, saw me as a slack-jawed moron.
She was absolutely certain that people would be using their cell phones in the bathroom, and she didn't like it (I guess staring at the wall while you're doing your business was the only option). I once heard a shuffling noise outside the door while I was peeing, and instead of flushing and washing my hands as usual, I simply finished, pulled up my pants, and yanked the door open. She'd had her ear to the door, and she almost fell into the bathroom (it was a private bathroom with one toilet and sink, not stalls, so she couldn't tell what I was doing). When I asked her if she was listening to me pee, she got flustered and came up with the excuse that she was 'just passing by' and that she had stopped for a second to adjust her shoe. She was in her sock feet. The bathroom was at the end of a hall with no other door at the end. There was no way anyone could 'pass by'. And, she almost fell in head first. She'd obviously had her ear to the door. I had problems peeing at work after that, because I was sure she was always standing there, listening to me. It was creepy as shit. I'm sure she had cameras hidden in the bathroom, I just couldn't find them (the rest of the facility had 67 cameras covering every square inch of the place, you couldn't fart without someone knowing about it).
Employees weren't allowed to talk to each other unless it was completely work related, and one of the family members had to be nearby to make sure we weren't talking about personal stuff. Once, I was in the sales office, trying to figure out why my co-worker's Outlook app was screwing up, and Granny barged in, yelling, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?! WHY AREN'T YOU AT YOUR OWN DESK?! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" When I explained that I was trying to fix a software problem, she stood there, folded her arms, and glared at me and my co-worker until I was finished.
My hours of work were from 7:30am to 4:00pm, Monday to Friday. Since traffic would be ridiculous in the morning (large city issues), I'd usually leave extra early, just in case there was an accident or something (I'm almost phobic about being late). Most days, I ended up getting to work around 6:50 - 7:00am. Since I wasn't the type to just sit around, I'd be at my desk by 7:00, working. So, most days, they'd get an extra, free half hour of work from me. One day, I wanted to leave 15 minutes early, and Granny wanted to dock my time. I reminded her that I usually always showed up half an hour early each day, and that if we wanted to get picky, I could put all that extra time on my time sheet. Of course, she had a fit over that. The reason I wanted to leave early? I had to do the company banking. According to her, I should be doing the banking after hours. Leaving early wasn't allowed. That meant that I got to drive around and wait in line for an extra 60-90 minutes at two different banks, two weeknights per week, all on my own time and my own gas.
When my boss (her grandson) failed to give me his credit card receipts for the company Visa statement (after I'd nagged him repeatedly for several weeks), she chose to sit on the floor of my office for an entire day, screaming at me and belittling me, calling me an 'incompetent idiot' because her grandson didn't do his job. I would've walked out that day if I hadn't needed the paycheck so badly. I'm not a violent person, but I had visions of punching her in the face repeatedly.
The business had been around for 20+ years, so there were a lot of old records. Before I'd come along, she had created a bunch of boxes for an entire years' worth of stuff (old invoices, waybills, packing slips, work orders, etc.) Then, she mislabelled everything; all the box labels were off by one year (e.g. the fiscal year was 2011-2012, but she labelled all the boxes 2010-2011). When she tried to find an old receipt, she discovered that the boxes were mislabelled, and the proceeded to freak out at me over it. She screamed and ranted, and I finally had to create new labels and re-label all the boxes. It was her handwriting on the incorrect labels, so I really have no idea why she had to scream at me, but that's how she rolled. Nothing was ever her fault.
We had some family and some non-family working there (about half and half). If a family member made a mistake or didn't do their job, a non-family employee was always blamed or took the fall. Once, the boss's wife forgot to send out a very important shipment (the client was pissed), so one of the guys in the warehouse was fired as a result. Everyone knew it wasn't his job to do the shipment (wifey was the only one who was allowed to do the 'very important' stuff), but he took the fall anyway. The guy did take the company to court, and won a settlement, but it didn't change anything. Also, according to Granny, family were the only ones who could do anything right around there. If one of the family fucked up, there was obviously a very good reason for it, and it totally wasn't their fault. To hear Granny talk, every family member had been robbed of a Nobel Peace Prize, or some shit. They all deserved an award just for existing. In her eyes, their efforts weren't recognized nearly enough, and the rest of us were nothing but a bunch of lazy idiots who couldn't do anything right (it was actually the other way around, but no point in trying to get her to see that). Family got to come and go as they pleased, and although they were paid a full-time salary, they only worked part-time. The rest of us got to slave away for no thanks or recognition whatsoever. She would accuse everyone of 'stealing'. She'd check all the non-family time cards and if someone clocked in our out at any time before or after they should, she'd freak out and call them a thief. She once went harpy on one guy's ass because he was supposed to work until 4:30, and he had clocked out at 4:29:44. She freaked out over 16 seconds. To her, this was a huge deal, and she 'hated thieves'.
Sales bonuses were supposed to be based on performance; you sell a lot of shit, you get a big bonus. The boss had calculations printed on a sheet that was posted in the sales offices; the total sales was tallied for each salesperson, then they'd deduct a base amount. 10% of the remainder was calculated and paid (e.g. $1,000,000 in sales, deduct a base of $750,000, leaving $250,000. 10% of $250K is 25,000). Nice, right? Only if you're family. One of the non-family salespeople calculated her bonus at around $28K. I double-checked her math against her sales figures, and she was correct. The family salesperson (who didn't work much and didn't sell much) had much less to work with. I did the calculations for her, and she would've ended up with about $6300 for a bonus. When it came time to actually pay the bonus payments, the family member got a check for $40K. The non-family co-worker got a gift certificate for $100. When the calculation sheet was brought up at a tearful meeting, it suddenly disappeared, and we were all told by Granny that the sheet never existed (I guess we were all having the same group delusion for an entire year). I mentioned to my co-worker that I still had a copy of the sheet, and the next thing I know, Granny is tearing my desk apart trying to find it (even though it didn't 'exist').
One of my co-workers was seven months pregnant, and she was only working because she desperately needed the money. Her job was fairly physical (lots of lifting, standing and bending; it was a warehouse position), and she had some sort of complication, so she got a doctor's note stating that she now had limitations (no standing for more than 4 hours per day, no lifting anything over 25 pounds, etc.) She had been a loyal employee for almost ten years, and was always a top performer. When her performance review came up, Granny told her that she was incredibly lazy, and if she didn't 'smarten up', she'd be replaced. The reason for this bad review? My co-worker refused to lift boxes that were around 150 lbs each after the doctor told her to take it easy. They couldn't legally fire her, but they did make her life a living hell until she went on maternity leave (she eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and no, she has no intention of ever going back once her mat leave ends). When Granny's daughter-in-law got pregnant, she'd show up for about 2 hours a day, complain that she felt like shit, and then go home, doing practically no work. Granny thought this was fine, and acted like DIL should get a medal for even showing up.
The final straw for me happened Christmas Eve. I'd been looking for a job, and had secured three interviews in the new year, so I was already on the verge of quitting. My boss had gone out of town for the holidays, and Granny took advantage of his absence to try to drive me mental (for some reason, she pulled less shit when he was there, even though he was terrified of her). As soon as he left, she walked into my office, and literally stood over me, watching my every move. Whenever I'd type something and make a typo and then backspace to correct, she'd stand there and yell, "THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORD IS SPELLED! WHAT, ARE YOU STUPID?!" When she'd watch me add shit up, she'd miss stuff (I'm pretty quick on an adding machine), and she'd force me to re-add everything and make an adding machine tape so she could 'find all the mistakes' (there were none). Anything I would touch or look at or write would be under intense scrutiny. She was literally treating me like a fucking six-year old. After about three hours of this, I snapped, and told her I was going to call her grandson. He didn't answer his phone (he had already left on his flight and had to shut his cell phone off), and my threat only made her behaviour worse. She started finding things for me to do that were totally unnecessary (rearrange old boxes of files that no one really looked in, clean out the filing cabinet, look for a Visa statement from seven years' prior), and when I reminded her that it was Christmas Eve and that we were all leaving at noon (there was about an hour left before it was time to go home), she pointedly told me that I'd be leaving when SHE was good and ready to let me leave, whether that was at noon or midnight. She figured she'd punish me. On Christmas Eve.
That was my breaking point. I got up, grabbed my personal belongings, and walked out. She ran behind me, shrieking like a banshee, threatening me and trying to prevent me from leaving, and I told her that if she touched me, I'd press assault charges. I found out later from my pregnant co-worker that after I'd left, she tore my office apart, looking for 'evidence' of whatever sort to use against me (I always did my job correctly and the accounting firm we'd used for year end was happy with my work, so I'm really not sure what, exactly, she thought she'd find, or what kind of revenge she had in mind).
Once I got home, I emailed my boss, telling him what had happened, and I told him I was done. I wasn't coming back. I also told him that his grandmother was toxic and batshit fucking crazy and that he'd never be able to keep accounting staff with her there. He never replied. I received my Record of Employment in the mail a week later. I also called the placement company that had found me the job to tell them what had happened.
The lady from the placement company called my boss several times after that, trying to get an explanation, and he refused to talk to her. I also called Human Rights and the local Labour Board to report what had happened, and he ignored all their calls, as well. I was told to file a statement for the Labour Board, and I did, but as of yet, I've heard nothing back.
They hired a replacement after my boss got back from vacation, and the replacement lasted less than a month. According to my co-worker, she just got up and walked out, too, telling my boss she couldn't work with his grandmother, and that the woman was intolerable.
The next replacement lasted three days. Again, just walked out. The boss's sister finally had to step in to do the accounting, but last I heard, everything was going wrong because she had no accounting experience whatsoever (by trade, she was a translator), and it was a fairly complicated business/set of books.
On the bright side, one of the after-Christmas interviews I'd set up worked out for me, and I can honestly say that my current job is one of the best I've ever had (I'm a Controller for an auto repair shop). I've been here for some time, and my current boss and co-workers all rock. I was afraid to quit the last job because the thought of losing a paycheck scares the hell out of me, but it was the best thing I could've done for myself. I can still hear Granny's voice, though, whenever I'm not sure of something, or if I make a typo. I also still have dreams about her, none of which are pleasant. But, I'm thankful that I can wake up each morning now and actually look forward to going to work.
So, yeah. Glad that's over.