I've had a variety of different jobs. In each of them there has always been an employee which completely defied reason. How could this person be working ANYWHERE let alone in an otherwise well run organization like this?

My first experience was likely the most baffling. The person in question was the head of the program. She was a devout Catholic and had no problems preaching daily. Now this would be pretty gross in any venue, but she ran a youth theater program for ages 5-18. I find this criminal. A true form of child abuse. But the abuse didn't end there. On top of that she would play favorites with children, casting the same people over and over in lead roles. If it were a real theater company this obviously would not be a problem, but she sold the program as a theater school of sorts. What kind of education in theater can a kid get if year after year they are girl #2 while watching the prettiest girls and biggest personalities always get everything. It was sickening to watch.

The first game store I worked at had an employee who cheated when he played, cheated when he ran tournaments, and skimmed off the customers by ripping them off in trades and then selling his spoils to the store. While this isn't that different from the way normal dealers conduct business, to do it in an atmosphere where customers expect a level of trust is bad. He would also make false claims to knowledge about games, rules, etc. and not hear any dissenting opinions (unless it was from me b/c of my success on the PT ONLY).

I lucked out with the first movie theater I worked at. Everyone there was relatively competent and nice as I recall. We were all a bunch of stoners, but we knew how to be courteous and thorough. Mistakes were made as we were young kids making minimum or near minimum wage, but there was no one it was intolerable to work with as I recall.

Then it was on to 2nd game store. Our boss was a complete megalomaniac as well as a compulsive liar and cheater. He also had completely unreasonable expectations of all his employees. To his credit, when the chips were down he was there for you, but his day to day interactions could only be described as tyrannical and sociopathic.

Now it was on to the 2nd movie theater I worked at. The only thing more painful to watch than an employee with no idea what she is doing is when that employee NEVER takes responsibility for their errors. Particularly when that employee was an assistant manager. This person was also found in the parking lot canoodling with one of our contractors. This is certainly their business...as long as it isn't happening publicly on the property! (also a jesus freak I believe)

For my first cubicle job, it was as if the woman from the 2nd movie theater had been transported there just to remind me how awful some people could be. This woman delegated every stitch of work she had despite not being a very high level employee. This was good in a way as she was a complete retard with absolutely no clue what was going on around her. I could, however, understand that she needed time in her day to come up with new excuses of why she screwed up. This truly could be a full time job in itself. Yet another woman who felt the workplace was a great place to talk about her god. I imagine she had a really strong upper body, because she spent most days throwing people under buses. Anything she did "accomplish" was so horribly wrong that it took more work to correct than it would have to do from scratch.

Now is probably the worst situation yet, only because I work from home now and the co-worker in question is a ubiquitous house guest. We have a group here that is working together, playing poker on a shared bankroll. This person is a complete moron. Easily the least intelligent person I have met since coming down here. I haven't watched him play much poker (mostly out of fear) but watching him play Magic is so horrifying I can't imagine how he could play poker properly. On top of that, I don't trust him as far as I could throw Manhattan. He has time and again proven himself to be a gamer of his friends cooking up stories and angles to get small benefits. You know what the worst thing an idiot scumbag can do? Talk. And he talks non-stop. Everything he says is so stupid it hurts my brain, and when I realize that in addition to being stupid that it's also scummy, I start to lose it.

I don't believe in sayings like "I guess that's life." People create these situations for themselves and find it difficult to extract themselves from it. Or maybe I am too hard on people, I'm not sure. But considering at each job there was only a maximum of 1 person who was prohibitively bad, I don't think it's me. I have never felt it was my place to make a play against these people. I don't like office drama or politics, but I often get frustrated that people can't see what's right in front of them.