bigboss

So first I have to pop back to Feb this year, I put my foot down about how everyone was being paid and how it was messing with everyone who worked here and got her to improve things.. kind of. It probably wasnt worth it because from that point on she has refused to speak to me, something that's still going on. The only stuff I've heard from her from most of the year has been her letting me know I'm terrible at my job and to come to her with x or y because I'm ruining her reputation, ect ect. I suddenly had a lot of random busywork to do, that no an apprentice could NOT do, buys the wrong gear now on purpose so I can't work. Possibly to get me to blow up at her but tbh I was balls deep in moving out of my apt and no sold it all.

Then we head to late May, she books a trip to Croatia with her family. Our Artist and Apprentice artist are delighted, so far the apprentice hadn't been able to actually practice on real humans because, well we had 2 benches for 3 artists. Boss blanked the Apprentice for most of the day so she'll only come in when the other Artist is in because they at least will offer advice and help. In fact the only way to get the Boss to help with training was to offer some of your own and to let her ego get the better of her. Finally she'll have the space to tattoo, right? Well no, of course not, because the boss went and booked a guest spot for the shop while she's out, secretly, and never told anyone. For weeks.

Eventually the Artist finds out about it and is pissed. Mainly, she said, at the secrecy. They were hoping to book the week out for themselves instead of having to pick over the dregs of the boss's appointments and that kind of fucked that plan. Additionally we have an artist coming to work here for a week and a half and there's been 0 promotion of it. So she goes to the boss, asks about it and immediately gets stonewalled, gets mad, gets stonewalled harder and somehow it turns into a massive confrontation that leads to the boss openly laughing in her face until she shut up. The rest of the week is icy, the boss tries her dual tactic of scheduling a talk for some time waaaay in the future while also refusing to speak. The Artist tried to speak privately before then and it went poorly, with the Boss refusing to speak to her about what was going on and trying to make it personal. The Artist walks out.

We spend the next few weeks in total silence.

Things start to go wrong in the shop because the boss will now only communicate with the Tattoo Apprentice, who is freaking out trying to keep track. Piercing Apprentice has been gone since April, quit over bullying from the boss. I started coming in exactly on time, waiting up to 20 minutes outside some times, the Artist joined me outside from then on. No one wants to be in the shop alone with the Boss.
We start sending each other commercial rent listings, we both start sending feelers out. I have a full spreadsheet of gear, where to get it and prices from last year I send to her. We both miss out on putting a deposit down on a new shop but keep looking. I get held up by stupid mortgage stuff (that the boss caused) but she ends up getting a small business loan. You know where this is going.
 People the boss told us never to speak to are coming out of the woodwork to help out, mainly with advice. And we both realize WHY we were told not to talk to our competitors, they know more, way more, than the boss does about our industry. I worked a few days as a tryout in a nice shop in the city and learned so much, it was incredible (unfortunately I didn't get hired).

 Meanwhile in the shop, the Boss is on some sort of charm offensive. Her only move is to buy people equipment, she's trying to win over the Apprentice. She finally gets given a bench to work on. It's jammed into a corner and she can barely fit in but she starts working on people and she's been doing great. It was great to see. The boss bought herself a new bench too, all new office chairs that are actually awful and microscopic, she refuses to sit on one, and rounded it out with another bench for a back room cos why not. It actually starts becoming a huge issue, because she wont remove any old furniture and things get tight. Somehow she manages to remove my desk so I cant work on my personal stuff anymore, or answer emails or any other random admin I did for free. She still refuses to engage with anyone really. She made the Apprentice double check all the chairs I built because.. yes. All in all she drops around €2k on the shop, all while a revolt is brewing.

 Artist gets her deposit in on a spot in a local strip mall that just got renovated. The spot needs some work done so things have to wait, we think until after the bosss' holiday, but suddenly she got the go ahead early and gets to hand in her week's notice TWO DAYS before the boss heads off. Incredible stuff. Boss mostly no sells it, except to speak in a slightly higher register for the rest of the day. ONe of the last things she does before she leaves is to offer me yet another new bench. Suddenly I'm back in. Funny that. I refuse.
 She's even nicer to the Apprentice now, we figure part of her lack of reaction is she feels she can try fast track her through the apprenticeship and avoid missing out on our Summer season. The Apprentice however, is our Artist's best friend from primary school, she considers herself the Artist's apprentice and not our Boss' and is planning to leave before the start of September. We started this year with 5 people in the shop and we'll end possibly with 2. As for me once my taxes are paid I'm out of here, we are waiting for the bill, plus some penalties. I was pretty upset about it, and I'm chomping at the bit to leave, hopefully it'll be sorted soon.
 In the process of opening this other shop we've uncovered more and more random little corners the boss cut here, some quite dangerous. At least 2 things she might actually get fined for, fingers crossed.

 Boss fucks off to Croatia, spends a huge amount of time making sure I know how to lock the doors (I've been locking them for 10 years) and where the money is and NOT to touch it. The front door wont lock all the way now because she left her keys inside (remember she lives in the back room like Bernard Black) and because she will NOT speak to the two people who have spare keys, ended up breaking into the shop with a crowbar and tore the whole doorframe out.
 Nothing about the Guest, never actually tells me about it or says anything to anyone about how she'll be working, getting paid, anything like that. We've had a mad week and a half with her gone. She restocked nothing before she left, she got the days the guest was due in wrong in our book and so removed them ALL, left clients half booked or offered days to people when no artist would be here, some bookings (now all for the guest and the apprentice) had little to no information attached, some where just a single name. She left €35 in change in the til which we used to break a 50 note immediately. Without her being rude to customers I worked harder than I have in that particular week in July EVER. The boss usually blames it on a local summer festival, I pierced all day long all week.

 Anyway here's a short list of things she decided not to reorder before she left that we then ran out of

 Needles,
 Nose studs, (the starter one for our most popular piercing, she only ordered something like 10 last time because she ignores the info on my stockchecks)
 Alcohol,
 Alcohol swabs,
 Kitchen Paper,
 Tongue depressors,
 Gloves, but only the gloves that come in sizes she doesn't wear
 Sterilisation Pouches,


 She returned on Friday. I paid the others but not myself. It was something like 35c where she was and she had a terrible time, her family hate her over her causing her mother to leave her father's deathbed this year to pick her up (she would not get a taxi) and.. uh he died while they were driving back... They all caught a stomach virus and fell victim to it one by one as the week went on, she insists it was food poisoning from one place, but thats... not how that works. She's lost her phone. She left it in an Uber, so Uber told her to kick rocks. She has yet to replace it.
 She currently cannot access her revolut account that we told her not to set up for business, her whatsapp account (that we told her not to use for business) that contains booking information, or her paypal acc, nor can she access or use our card machine. At certain points this week she'll be 100% unable to take card payments at all because she'll be here alone. She was asking us if we were logging into certain accounts of hers during the week, yesterday, obviously whoever got her phone has been trying to use it.
 I'm living for this.