From "Worried in Cork".

Dear Problem Pages,

I'm hoping you can help me with an embarrassing problem I'm having, financially and professionally. I think I'm being bullied and I don't know where to turn.

I hired this company of gobshites to do a job. I didn't have much faith in them, but they were suggested by my peers and to be honest I didn't have much say in the matter.

"How should I pay you?" I said. "How much to you want for this job I have no faith at all in you completing satisfactorily?"

"We're not telling you," they said.

"Eh? But how then can I reward you for completing the project?"

"How about you give us your bank account PIN number and we take a little here, and a little there? That's policy, like."

"Well, fair enough, if everyone else is happy to pay you that way, then I suppose... "

"They are. That's the way of things."

A few weeks later, as it was becoming more and more obvious that Gobshites Inc were banjaxing the project I'd contracted them to complete, I decided to fire them.

"You can't do that!" they said. "Sure haven't you contracted us to this project for five years?"

"But it's clear you have no interest in, or indeed aptitude for, this project and its challenges!"

"What rubbish," they blustered. "None of our other clients feel the same way you do."

"Well, actually, there is a lot of bad feeling out there towards you, Gobshites Inc. In fact, I am going to give you the opportunity to redeem yourselves by your accepting a small reduction in the contract price, seeing as I can't fire you."

"Go fuck yourself!"

"But... all my other projects are in heaps because you're not doing your job! Everything relies on your caring professionalism, and frankly that's a facet unseen to what I might happily call your blatant fucktardery! All of the mistakes you make I HAVE TO PAY FOR OUT OF MY OWN POCKET! On top of your fee! That's just not right! I refuse to pay you any..."

"Stuff you, dickhead, we've got your PIN number."

"Fine. I'll call the guards."

"Why? Over a legal contract you signed? Haha, fool!"

I was briefly cheered by a phonecall that evening from someone working at Gobshites Inc, who informed me in a hushed voice that himself and a small band of his colleagues cared about their PR and so had accepted the reduction in fees I had offered. I checked my bank account! It was true! Somewhat placated, I phoned Gobshites Inc's accounts department and asked for the names of those who'd taken the proposed cut, so that I could send fruit baskets to them and car bombs to their wankstain colleagues.

"I'm afraid we can't tell you that," said Gobshite Inc's accounts dept.

"Er... the money comes out of my account anyway? Surely I have to right to know where it goes."

"Well, you don't. It's confidential. Nyah nyah!"

"How can it be confidential? It's my FUCKING MONEY. These people are MY EMPLOYEES! I have a right to know what I'm paying my own employees! Tell me where it goes you arrogant arseboils!"

"Nope. No can do. Can do not. Besides, half of the people who took the paycut thought it was something they had to do, and on realising it was voluntary, they asked for it back."

"The absolute cunts! Tell me who they are!"

"Nah. We've had a bit of a problem with car bombs in the past, see."

Please can you give me some advice? I feel like I've been backed into a corner by these cowboys and they're slowly turning me around and unbuckling their belts. I can't fire them. I can't stop paying them. I can't dock their pay when they fuck up a multitude. And I can't fathom their attitude... how the hell can they get away with this? How the hell do these arseholes keep getting work? And would it really be seen as murder if I sent each of them a car bomb?

I'm at my wits end. I tried painting as a means of stress relief, and I ended up with a criminal record. I think more drastic action is needed, but I'm fucked if I know what.

Best regards,

Sweary