Tell us about your Worst Boss

This was a floor manager in a restaurant, he would lock himself in his office during the dinner rush.

She was also the owner of the company. We had weekly “staff meetings” which consisted of her getting wound up over an hour - she’d start out with how great the company could be, there were all these synergies between part of the business, then gradually devolving into how we were all failing her, the company was doing badly because of us.

Sometimes one or two people would come in for individual abuse. Eventually our paychecks starting bouncing - paper checks, you had to rush out as soon as you got yours to see if you could get paid before the funds ran out.

Finally she disappeared for three days - no one could find her, including her husband. After I left, I found out she had drained her kids’ college funds to keep the place afloat. That’s when her family had her involuntarily committed.

She’s not the boss who, when I was at the emergency room with a suicidal student, and called in to update her, told me she was taking the call at my desk and was in the middle of eating my lunch.

She gave the black employees Martin Luther King Day off, but everyone else had to work. I know she meant well, but it created resentment.

I worked at a law firm ten years ago as a legal assistant. I had to ask my office manager, Agnes, for a day off to take my MS stricken sister to a doctor’s appointment. Agnes granted the time off reluctantly, and suggested I put my sister in a nursing home.

Agnes had a daughter who had some form of mental retardation. Her daughter she put in a home when she turned 18 years old. The home was in a different state.

Once or twice a year Agnes would bring her daughter home for a week, to visit. In the office kitchen, Agnes sat her daughter to give her lunch. To everyone’s horror, she removed from a plastic lunch bag a can of pork and beans, opened it, and dumped its contents into a bowl before her daughter, who began eating it. I must have had quite a look on my face for Agnes offered, “This is her favorite meal!” Every day during her visit, Agnes only gave her daughter a can of cold pork and beans.

R4 that has to be in the South. That’s some What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? shit.

R4, you are correct: Charleston SC

Current: Wet Noodle.

It has its time and place, but lately he seems to have given up entirely and is just waiting for a retirement date that he has not announced. We do whatever the fuck we want, when we want. We create our own work and opportunities, but he is not propping our office up for more growth with our national leadership. I'm riding out the summer (and hopefully these current economic woes) and then looking elsewhere.

He's also as Boomer as they get. The guy used to show up in a suit and day every day, hated WFH, ass in seats type guy. Further confirmation that style of work is all for show.

I’ve always noticed that bad bosses take all the credit for anything good and never take accountability for anything bad, even when it’s their fault.

A woman who thought she was all that and a bag of potato chips. She was nuts. She’d have a different personality everyday, you never knew what you were going to get. Very impulsive. She was a master at taking credit for the work of others and deferring blame from herself, yet she always preached about “accountability”. Sociopath cunt.

South African. Charming but nasty. Abusive. Loved to play head games. The incident that sticks in my mind (and it wasn’t the worst thing he ever did to me) was at the holiday party. I was wearing a corduroy jacket when all of the other men were dressed in suits. Sorry but I’m poor. He walked over to me, rubbed his fingers on my sleeve, laughed, shook his head and walked away.

I have the absolute best and totally worse all in the same person at this very moment!

R11 tell us about them

Overzealous office manager who wanted me to pick up an expensive gift for the chairman of the company. Just an hour earlier I had collapsed on the floor from dehydration, which he knew. When I said I was not up to walking to Tiffanys, he said "do you have a doctor's note?"

[quote]I’ve always noticed that bad bosses take all the credit for anything good and never take accountability for anything bad, even when it’s their fault.

I don't know what you're talking about.

A raging cunt with a drug problem. One time she took time off to have her wisdom teeth removed. The next day a coworker saw her at the bar we would frequent buying adderall from the bartender.

Women in positions of authority in the workplace is not a good idea. They are vindictive, try to act like they think a man would in their position, are threatened by other women, use their sexuality to get ahead while condemning other women for doing the same. Histrionic, can't handle criticism but are very critical of those below them on the food chain. If they don't have children themselves, they expect those that do to still put their careers before family.

R16 the other thing with women is that the worst ones make it to the top. That’s how they get there, it’s a product of sexism I guess. But with men you have nice guys who get into power. I agree though women get so power drunk. They’re also obsessed with anyone “talking about” them, they never move past high school. Sorry but periods make women emotionally unstable, I’ve seen women make psychotic decisions in the workplace because they were on the rag.

My worst boss was a white gay male with unresolved racial issues. He spread toxic rumors about me because I kept him waiting on his date night. I contacted human resources about him and he resigned but the damage was done.

Bad Boss 1: She picked through my office garbage can and confronted me with something she found in my garbage can. (I can't even remember what it was.) She ate my food from the fridge.

Bad Boss 2: She was fucking the Big Boss and she was dumb (but I guess she was kind of smart to be fucking the Big Boss). She told me to rewrite something (some type of in-house report). I was pissed but I did rewrite it. At the end of the report. I wrote: "The End."

A CEO at a nationally known breast cancer foundation was hooked on Adderall and went around 'outlawing' anyone bringing in snacks or treats because she said everyone was too fat. She openly and proudly admitted that when problems came up in her life, she'd hop on a plane. She traveled constantly. Before she landed this job, this DOG-FACED CUNT was a top exec at CHURCH'S CHICKEN. Now she heads some arts group in Atlanta.

This happened to a young colleague of mine who worked as the secretary to an executive years ago.

The female executive noticed a run in her pantyhose so around lunchtime she took the pantyhose off, handed it to the poor young girl and instructed her to go to Saks to buy a replacement pair. Paid for by office petty cash.

Sidenote - this exec had been one of the founding members of Ms. magazine prior to coming to our company. It wasn’t Gloria Steinem.

R20 found her

Georgia has some of the shittiest schools in the country, so not surprised, R22.

Boss at a law firm asked me in late December to prepare some documents and get a cheap associate to send them out for signature. I told the associate to the send the documents by FedEx overnight and include pre-addressed return overnight envelopes so people could return them ASAP. 3 days pass and the boss asks why no one has returned the documents. I email the associate who says "it takes a week for mail to get somewhere by US postal mail". I get the email on my blackberry while I'm driving in blizzard to Boston, and I send it to boss. Boss calls me, tells me the client will leave our firm, and that I'm the worst attorney he's ever worked with. I pull over to the closest hotel and spend the next 8 hours sorting everything out.

At 4 a.m., the client finally calls me and says "your boss is really pissed at you! But I don't know why. I asked him to get those documents signed in August".

^Same boss the next year. In September, he asks me to do some work for his client for the end of the year. I email the client and tell him I'm going to help. Client emails back "I told your boss we don't want that work done."

I forward that to boss who emails "don't do any work on it until I tell you". I hear nothing, so I send a follow up email in early December to boss asking if I should do anything. He says "no".

On December 31, I emailed boss and said "just to remind you we didn't do this work". Boss emails back "who told you not to do this work?" I sent him the earlier emails he sent me telling me as much. In 2 seconds, he was in my office screaming bloody murder about "how dare you countermand my orders for you to work". Apparently, boss and client had talked earlier that week, and boss thought everything was done (forgetting that he told me to do nothing).

A Don Draper antic I've had from several male bosses, never a female boss - he made me stay late so I'd miss an engagement I had after work.

Goddamn R24 R25 sounds like some asshole who was developing Dementia

OP, was your boss Matt Lauer?

He was what I imagine Donald Trump was like working for: loud, obnoxious, stupid, rash, unthinking, a blowhard and proud of it. Even though he only owned 25% of the company, the other owners were cowed and intimidated by him and deferred to him no matter how stupid his ideas, plans and schemes were. Screaming and coercion were his favorite business tactics.

With that kind of leadership, is it any wonder the company is no longer in business?

R29 so many people like that get into power, it’s amazing. I equally hate their female counterpart: clueless, passive-aggressive, histrionic, and no personal accountability

The Devil Wears Lane Bryant.

[quote]I equally hate their female counterpart: clueless, passive-aggressive, histrionic, and no personal accountability

This describes 3 male supervisors I've had, all failed ahow-biz types.

When I was a recent high school graduate working in fast food I had some terrible, miserable bosses. The good thing about them was that I realized I had to get some job skills or I would end up a pathetic loser as well. But then this was back when you could get into a technical program in a community college your first try.

Vernon Tirey. Total narcissistic worthless piece of shit.

I had a manager/boss. Web based business.

We would have meetings where she'd say everything was fine and we were doing well but well, we weren't and numbers were down.

I asked what topics on our site got more hits. Well, that changes. Ok. Who is getting more hits today. Or what is.

I can't really say. It keeps changing.

She left and I've never been happier or productive.

More!!!

I had a boss who was such a control freak that one day she called me into her office to tell me she had a seen a member of my staff talking to a senior executive and she didn't like it and would I tell that person not to talk to senior staff in future. I told her no, I would not do that and if she wanted that to happen, she could. It was crazy shit like that all the time. I quit the job within ten months of starting (and found out from the senior executive in question so had the previous occupant - ten months, exactly.) I was so psyched out by her the day I quit I spent the entire morning steeling myself to go in. She was insane.

The one who told staff members to use assigned breaktimes to use the toilet.

A manager can monitor the production of the staff, not the amount of time people need to piss or shit.

2. The boss who informed staff one of our team members tested positive for covid then put his hands on his hips to lecture the staff about how much time we spent socializing off hours during the pandemic.

The infection could very well have spread in the office, so why he made that conclusion is evidence of the mans lack of critical thinking skills

The manager who spread a vicious rumor about me after we butted heads.

The rumor was so bad, no one dared tell me what he said.

I spoke with human resources about the conflict and homeboi decided to find another job after HR popped him. His friends soon followed him out the door but the damage was done and my reputation suffered.

I realize now, I was supposed to quit and sue him and the company for harassment.

R15, oh shit, lol. What a messy ho.

The best bosses are always lipstick lesbians. Always. Love them.

R41 disagree, I had a LL boss and she was a huge bitch. Now a Diesel Dyke boss is cool, the butcher the better.

Women bosses tend to be obsessed by following all the company rules to a T. They watch the clock as if your coming in on time has anything to do with your being a productive worker.

Men bosses give much more freedom to their employees.

I have had my share of both types and it's always the same depending on the gender.

I have two women bosses who report directly to a man.

They’re all fucking twats who manage up.

Two worst bosses were narcissistic ugly women. I don't need to recount the horrors, do I? The best boss was a happily married beautiful Park Avenue lady, with very successful children. She didn't work very hard, nor did she have to, and she was gracious about everything and always polite, upbeat and pleasant.

Women bosses are mostly the worst. I have a good one now, but I had some early on in my career and they were horrible.

Women are too power hungry. Men just want to get the job done RIGHT, make money and go home. I agree with R43 that women in leadership turn into librarians, if you get your job done correctly in half the time, they don’t care… but they want to track you to control you. It’s so fucking annoying and women have ruined the workplace, not to mention any man who stares for 7 seconds might be up-to-bat for a sexual harassment charge. They’re also clique-y as fuck and play Queen Bee, you have to be BFF and suck up, most men aren’t like that.

I am many people’s worst boss

What I have found is that women bosses are bean-counters. I am talking about corporate level. Not pink collar or blue collar work. Women bosses maybe good or bad managers of subordinates, but they basically DO NOT CARE about subordinates and everything is about how they present themselves up the chain. They are bean-counters and present good stats upwards. I've never had a cheap wad for a male boss. They throw money around because they don't consider it their money, it's corporate money. They want results and aren't too interested in how they are produced, and they reward results. Women can't make this leap.

I think part of the problem for women in the workplace is they think they're acting like men would act. But it goes off the rails. I have recently retired. I would far rather work for men than women. That said, when a woman is self confident and has her act together, they're terrific. Sadly, there aren't a lot of them.

R49 if you’re in sales, nothing will kill the new accounts flowing in and cause attrition like a woman stepping in as the boss.

R50 they act like caricature of what they think a man would do, but they just seem like cunts.

R52, regrettably, yes.

I was a delivery driver for a local pizza place, owned by two chaldean brother-in-laws. The first one (let's call him Mike) was insane, aggressive, abusive, and frankly ruined a couple years of my life. The other one was depressed and really incompetent but a nice enough guy. Mike was a LOT like Sammy from the Amy's Baking Company ep of Kitchen Nightmares. I don't even know where to start with him. He threw empty plastic buckets at my head like a dozen times at least, regularly screamed in peoples faces calling us retarded, accused us constantly of stealing, went on psychotic rants against customers if they asked for parmesan or plates calling them freeloaders, threw a bucket of cheese on the ground and kicked me out of the restaurant for the day because i asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted me to clean as i had just finished some other task (he explained later that he exploded because he knows I faked a car accident to get out of work "to do whatever I want" when I begged for more hours every day, I just had to take two days off to sort out getting a rental), told a female coworker that he could do anything he wants and no one would know when they were both in the walk-in, stole more than 12k from the cash registers over time (he had some kind of dirt on the brother because he still got bought out after this was discovered), never let any of us take breaks because "our jobs are a break", fell asleep drooling with his gut hanging out in the front chair next to the entrance disgusting customers, flipped out and got angry if any of us did too much cleaning at night because he was anxious to leave asap but would randomly blow up and scream at us about how these huge cleaning tasks aren't finished (stuff that's impossible to do when you're open), i'm sure a lot more will come to me but I'd rather bury all these memories down deep again. Even on a day when he didn't get angry about something, it was hell going through the nonstop internal pressure of trying to avoid his unpredictable explosions and because all I could think about was not making him mad it was hard to focus which would make him mad. It was one of the worst things I ever went through to be honest.

Miss Monkey

She was really jealous of my extraordinary skill set and pissed on a sandwich I brought for my lunch.

I'm sorry to hear you had to work in those conditions R54.

I was a summer blue collar job during college in a food plant, my boss was a former Marine Corp drill instructor and he acted like he was still in the Marines. If he could have made us do pushups I am sure he would have.

In the dark ages, around 1985, I worked for the most tight fisted, misogynistic, racist bastard. He was German and I think a secret Nazi. He would ask for a doctor's note if I called in sick. When I got back to work, he'd stare me down looking for post-flu signs. I had an ear infection, he asked for my prescription bottle and he inspected it thoroughly. The only thing he did well was procrastinate which resulted in my having to stay late many times and miss class to prepare his reports which were due that day. He would stand so close to me (I'm female), I could smell his stale breath. I finally wised up and used a file folder when he got near me to create a barrier. I was the only minority but he hired another one he mistook for white cuz she was light complected and had a white, via marriage, last name but she was a barrio as I was. I didn't make many personal phone calls but the few I did (calling home or the garage for updates on my continuously broke down car), he heard them and chastised me about it. I finally told the bastard that Tina, the hussy in the next cubicle, was on the phone way more than I was. He didn't like that. He berated me for not heating up his shitty potluck dish during Xmas party, in front of his wife who looked like she stepped out of 1950 suburban hell hole and the whole office. He was overlooked for a promotion and demoted so he had to move into the cubicle farm w/the rest of us puds where we could smell his tuna fish sandwiches and hear him clipping his toenails.

Working for female bosses was no walk in the park. They thrive in clique type, mean girl atmospheres. Still, the nazi was the worst.

I had a boss who NEVER let me leave on time but once dragged me into her office to dress me down for being consistently 2 or 3 minutes late (minimum wage food service). I don't consider myself a bigot but sometimes I wonder if her horrendous, entitled, hitler-esque management style had anything to do with her being a butch lesbian.

I once worked in a hotel where the boss was a 40 something, totally insecure woman. She was dressed in a "please tell me I'm still fuckable" way, had always a forced smile on her face and somehow felt looked down by the nobody that I was . She also thought that I wasn't corporate enough and that I wouldn't stand for my coworkers in front of the clients. Though the hotel owner liked me and wanted to keep me, she finally had her way and obtained my sacking. I hate those horrible women who play strong but go crying in the toilets when just a little something goes against them.

Her name was Muriel. After I stalked and catfished young gay guys to publicly humiliate them to satiate my own self-loathing and got caught up with law enforcement she made me promise not to do it anymore or I might get this site shut down. Now I shit on her all day and all night.

[quote]Men just want to get the job done RIGHT, make money and go home.

What planet are you dialing in from?

I'm not saying women do not have power complexes in trying to prove themselves but I suspect many of you with consistently bad experiences with female bosses are creating your own problems. You are nit respecting them in a way you would male leaders so the relationships start off to a bad start. Women demand the same respect men get just naturally because of society's internalized patriarchy.

Also I notice a tendency of gay men to get too comfortable with other gay men and females. You do not divulge personal info too early in a working relationship; info that you would never reveal to male supervisors. In turn the women bosses are not respecting you the same, and all your flaws are heightened. That's just my 2 cents.

R63 female bosses will put themselves in that position with gay men.

I can't imagine divulging a bunch of personal info to some female coworker I barely knew. Life isn't an episode of SATC, r63

You don’t divulge personal info to coworkers, period. Coworkers are not your friends.

I worked for a slimy white Jewish homophobic boss. He was the third guy in 1 year to get this position from outside the company because of who he knew. The moment he took power he started gaslighting people he didn't like. Firing people left and right escorting them out without even letting them get their things. But more often he would do things like take away their work so all they could do is show up and he could point to how they were not needed. He put black dots by people names he didn't like on an employee list. He fucked with my schedule giving me the shittiest hours so I would quit. Plotted against me and painted a really negative picture with the CEO to justify his actions. Pushed me into 4 hours short of full work week so that I would loose all my health benefits yet publicly say how valuable I was to the company. He would give me a really positive review in person, including a raise but on paper the marks were really low to create a paper trail.

I found out later through a legal deposition he was calling me a fag behind my back and everything I was thinking I was paranoid about he was doing only much more. He was very careful to cover his tracks so whenever he spoke to me it was in person never in an email. When I tried to pin him down that way, like "per our discussion on ......Date, you said....." He would not respond through email and instead pop his head into my space and say "can I talk to you for a minute in the hallway" to avoid others from hearing what he said and to avoid anything being in digital record.

R67 avoiding anything in email is a huge red flag

He sounds like a total loser, r67. Hopefully he's rotting away in a South American prison right now.

None of that ridiculous antisemitic story is believable.

Go Kanye yourself somewhere else.

I wish R69. Unfortunately corporate America reworded him with an even better paying job from what I heard. The only good news is I heard he had to move to another city Sacramento CA to get the position and from the few times I have been there, kind of a shit hole of a city. I hope he's stuck there.

"Corporate America"? Is that out The Deplorable Troll Handbook?

Grow up R70, not every Jewish person is god's gift to the world. Besides it's not about his religion. My boss was just a major tool.

Deplorables dont work in white collar corprate jobs R72. Have you ever seen a Trump rally?

"Corporate America" is a deplorable's magical fantasy world where Jews and "Fraus" have "all the power". Insufferable troll.

And haven't you been reading all the "Women in the workplace" and the endless "frau" and "What's the point of women having sex?" threads that you write? They're all the same. ALWAYS.

I absolutely detested my current boss for the first year,

Then I realized she was a narcissist so fed into that—complimenting her management style and her hobbies. Now she loves me

Fuck em