THE MEANEST BOSS IN THE WORLD

(September, 2016) “Tiger” Mike Davis died at the age of 85 earlier this month, from prostate cancer. Davis was known to some as the meanest boss in the world. Some background: He was a high school dropout. In his 20’s, he was driving the limo of 69-year-old Helen Bonfils, owner of the Denver Post newspaper. After her husband died in 1956, she married Davis, who was 28 years old. When the two divorced in 1971, Davis received a substantial settlement, which he used to start his oil exploration business, the Tiger Oil Company. And that’s when he started putting out memos. The memos have become infamous. Here are some of them:
– December 9, 1977: “Effective now, employees will be docked for the time they are off sick, unless I authorize you to pay them.”
– December 22, 1977: “If you are not happy working here, I suggest you get a job somewhere else. Any conversation of unhappiness or unrest among my employees pertaining to this will mean immediate termination.”
– January 3, 1978: “This is a business office. All correspondence and other things relating to this office will be typewritten. Handwriting takes much longer than a typewriter – you’re wasting your time, but more importantly you’re wasting my time.”
– January 8, 1978: “Gertrude Love has been hired to work in our kitchen. The kitchen will be her ‘office’ and no one will be permitted to loiter there.”
– January 12, 1978: “I swear, but since I am the owner of this company that is my privilege. That differentiates me from you. There will be absolutely no swearing by any employee, male or female, in this office, ever.”
– January 12, 1978: “I am not fond of hippies, long-hairs, dope fiends or alcoholics. I suggest each and every person in a supervisory category eliminate these people.”
– January 13, 1978: “Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to all you sons-of-bitches.”
– February 22, 1978: “This memorandum is intended as an addendum to a memo I wrote on January 12 about people speaking to me. Any supervisor who has anything to say to me, day or night, the fastest way he can say it is too slow. The terms about not talking to me meant I do not have time to stop and talk to everyone – saying hello, goodbye, goodnight, etc. – that is what I was talking about. If you have business with me, the fastest way is too slow – day or night.”
– February 8, 1978: “There will be no more birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebrations of any kind within the office. This is a business office. If you have to celebrate, do it after office hours on your own time.”
– February 23, 1978: “I do not appreciate people coming into my office and helping themselves to my candy, cigars, medicine, and other personal items. I don’t mind giving, but I would like the privilege of knowing and giving it myself.”
– April 10, 1978: “If you do not want to eat the food that is prepared here, don’t do me any favors by eating it. Go out to lunch.”
– April 20, 1978: “I am paying you to work, not slouch in your chair with your feet up on a desk or table. I do not go to your home and put my feet on your furniture, so don’t put your feet on mine.”
– June 1, 1978: “I have noticed the rugs throughout this office are very dirty from people spilling things on them. In the future, if people cannot carry their coffee without spilling it on my rugs, we will do away with the coffee pots entirely just as we did away with the food.”
– June 1, 1978: “Executive personnel who are in my office and have to be excused to go to the bathroom may use the one located just outside my office so no time is wasted going all the way down the hall.”
* Even Kim Jong-un is impressed.
* And this is just the six months from December 1977 to June, 1978.
* Wait just a minute … late 1977 is when Farrah Fawcett quit “Charlie’s Angels”! That must be what set him off!
* This guy is like Ebeneezer Scrooge without the big turnaround at the end.
* Fact: Adolph Hitler was more fun in the workplace.
* Come on – all those movies where Hitler is laughing out loud? You think “Tiger” Mike Davis ever laughed out loud at work?
* You should see the memos that didn’t make it. Like the one about not leaving your desk just because you have to go to the bathroom.
* Then there’s the one where he charges his employees for breathing his air.
* PHONE TOPIC: Is this guy the meanest boss in the world, or is yours meaner?