Comments (81)

1. One time at my previous job, we had water pipes burst and flood our offices. My boss took that opportunity to add our old PCs are ruined computer equipment on the insurance claim. I also heard from a couple sources that the cars he bought for his daughters were written off on taxes as computer equipment for the company.

   After he sold the company for $10 Million and retired, after a couple of years he got bored and started robbing banks with his brother.

   I guess I can’t use him as a reference anymore…

   posted by skopi on 1-10-2008 at 2:37 pm

2. My mom works at a horrid closet company. Her boss supposedly [a company rumor, aka, from what his personal secretary says] won the company in a really heated poker game. The man had already owned a construction company, and it would explain why the two companies have very, VERY different names. My favorite part is that the boss takes pleasure in slapping his employees of the female nature on their ass as he goes by them. Oh and he still plays poker, it seems he is not as lucky as he used to be. See the employees get their checks the day after the boss always play poker, and their paychecks always mysteriously bounce [even though when the checks were written there was a plentiful amount of money in the account]. I mean the man is no saint, but I guess I should be happy he has not killed any employees yet…….

   posted by Charlie on 1-10-2008 at 4:30 pm

3. I worked for a boss of a six person compnay. There was a huge power outage that knocked out the entire West coast. She demanded to now why there was a power outage and insisted that somehow I knew exactly why the power was out. When I said I had no idea, I was told that I had to get PG&E on the phone and MAKE them explain why the power was out and to bring our power back up immediately. She told me that she was holding me accountable for the power being out. I assured her that the City of San Francisco was high on their priority list, but she continued to berate me and insisted I tell her exactly why the power was out and what I was going to do about it. I picked up my hat and said, “I’m going to lunch. That’s what I’m going to do about it.” Strangely, I did not get fired.

   posted by Goethe Helen Waite on 1-10-2008 at 4:49 pm

4. Dude, Leona Helmsley looks like the Joker.

   posted by Dany on 1-10-2008 at 5:16 pm

5. I worked in the “upstairs” of a book warehouse in the crappiest building in the crappiest city in the crappiest state in the USA. Our office looked like it had survived and earthquake with no repairs – doorframes were actually parallelograms.

   The worst was the cockroaches. Sure, you expect a few here and there in the warehouse, but when one crawls OUT OF YOUR KEYBOARD, you tend to stop and think a little bit about your job situation.

   I mentioned this to my boss, and all she said was “well, you have to expect these kinds of things when you have a real job.” (All my jobs up to then had been in retail or restaurant settings, you see. Nothing “real.)

   I went to lunch that day and simply didn’t go back.

   posted by Rachel on 1-10-2008 at 5:40 pm

6. DUDE!! She does look like the JOKER!!
   Leona, why so serious?!

   posted by Gil on 1-10-2008 at 6:09 pm

7. I worked at a reprographic company here in Seattle. It was located in a very old building. One day, several of us smelled smoke or something burning. It didn’t take long to see the smoke on the ceiling – some wires were burning and they were in contact with the VERY old wooden beams on the exposed ceiling.

   We were told explicitly to NOT evacuate – there was work to be done! If we left to go outside we’d be fired. Nobody called the fire department either.

   The hour or so it took to explain what a fax modem was to one of the managers is another story.

   posted by Dianne on 1-10-2008 at 6:20 pm

8. I had a boss we called Devil Spawn. He would actually not pay employees overtime or travel time when they were required to run his yearly convention in other states. In addition, he had the company accountant (the company was run as a nonprofit) do all his personal finances, and he used the warehouse to keep his antique Mercedes.

   posted by Karyn on 1-10-2008 at 6:50 pm

9. I work for a company that has offices on one half floor of a 10-story building. One day, a flood of people start pouring down the stairwell in front of the glass doors to our office. We wondered what was going on. After 10 minutes of what was clearly a mass evacuation, a police officer poked his head in and asked why we were not leaving due to the bomb threat!? Naturally, at that point, we evacuated the offices. However, there was a great deal of concern when we could not find the Director or Commissioners who ran the business. We all assumed they must have left by a different door. Well, we are all standing outside, when these four bosses walked out of a nearby tavern, saw us, and turned around & went back in (it was 9:30am). We found out later that the building security had called all the tenants of the building & informed them of the bomb threat. Rather than tell the employees & have them “goof off” for an hour or so, the four of them snuck out and waited in a bar to see if there was any credence to the bomb threat. Nice, huh?

   posted by Larry on 1-10-2008 at 9:32 pm

10. My job was to answer phones. In reality, I did everything in the world for my clearly bipolar boss, while occasionally answering the phones. I was fired for answering the phones.

    My last day was insane. I was berated for cleaning a giant mess made by a customer. I was told that women should wear shorts to work because he was an “ass man” (I did tell him that if he wanted to see my ass, it would be while he was kissing it). I was screamed at because it was somehow my fault that the regular plumber was unavailable that day (I was told to call him repeatedly and scream at him until he came). “But boss, he’s not there. It’s Sunday. Maybe we could call someone else?” “Well, find out his home phone number! If you have to go to his house and knock on his windows, do that! ONLY HE can come. No one else!”

    Finally, at the end of the day, I was told in no uncertain terms how stupid I was because customers called us to ask for our business hours. Apparently, I was supposed to psychically make them NOT call. Instead of taking two seconds to tell them our hours on the phone, he wanted me to call them losers, tell them never to come back, and then hang up on them (which obviously would have taken longer). I suggested that instead, we could put our business hours on the website to prevent them from calling. I was then promptly fired for being a “f*cking idiot” to suggest something like that.

    One week later, he put the business hours on the website.

    posted by Bea on 1-10-2008 at 11:45 pm

11. Elizabeth Báthory getting house arrest is inaccurate. She got four years of constant solitary confinement without so much as a glimpse or sound of another human being. She undoubtedly went insane(r) from it, and it certainly is what killed her. House arrest isn’t a death sentence, and her sentence wasn’t light in any sense of the word; it was chosen as the most ghastly thing they could get away with doing to a rich white woman back then.

    posted by Grey on 1-11-2008 at 12:34 am

12. She definitely is the pissed off Joker!

    posted by Eve Isk on 1-11-2008 at 3:16 am

13. Anyone who has worked for a dentist can relate to this – one that I worked for would throw instruments across the room when frustrated with a procedure. Also, his method for dealing with children who made any noise was to put his entire hand over their mouth and nose until they thought they were choking, repeating until they were quiet (and terrified). The parents were not allowed in the room. One time he randomly blew a gasket at a workman he had hired because he dared to walk in the room while he was “in surgery”. (Doing a filling). I was never so glad to be unemployed in my life.

    posted by Karen on 1-11-2008 at 5:06 am

14. I once worked weekends at a bicycle shop for folding money and a sweet discount on components. On a late November Sunday, I answered the phone at opening time and told a customer we didn’t have the specific item he wanted in stock. The owner, an obese former cyclist, grabbed the phone from my hands and talked the guy. When he got off, he berated me up one end and down the other– “Never, never, NEVER tell the customer that we don’t stock what he needs!” was his response. Fine, I thought. The guy came in shortly thereafter and the owner sold him something I knew wouldn’t work on his bike. We had no other phone calls or walk-in customers that day; except for that same guy, who came in at closing time, and returned the item the owner sold him because it didn’t work for him. I left that day with a smile and never returned. The last paycheck was mailed to me several weeks later after he realized that he was dead to me.

    posted by JohnL on 1-11-2008 at 7:30 am

15. @Karen – When I was younger, I had to go to a dentist who must have went to the same school as your former boss. Schmucks like that are the reason why I still sometimes hyperventilate when sitting in that godawful chair.

    Thanks for being someone on the other side of the surgical mask who at least admits that they do things like this.

    posted by caitlen315 on 1-11-2008 at 8:06 am

16. She’s the QUIZZICAL pissed off Joker!

    /Top THAT one!

    posted by Moon on 1-11-2008 at 9:20 am

17. I used to work for a vet who was great with the animals but lacked a lot of people skills. After informing her that my grandfather was on his death bed and that I would need some time off she asked me if it would take all week for him to die…and if not I needed to stay at work until he did because it was our “busy time” of the year. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I walked out.

    Oh yeah, this was after being accused of mis-diagnosing the animals conditions. Hello! I’m not the vet!!

    posted by Angela on 1-11-2008 at 9:40 am

18. to karen and caitlen-

    my dad has been a dentist for over 30 years, and he has never once done anything like that. as a kid i would sit in on his procedures and hold the suction for him. he was always gentle and polite and would never ever have done anything like what you have described. he has had over the years several dentists work for him, and i have never seen them do anything similar to that crazed behaviour you described. i have always wondered why people are scared of the dentist, and now i know why.

    also karen, why did you not report him for what he did to those kids? that is clearly abuse, and he wouldn’t let the parents come in, so he knew what he was doing was wrong. maybe instead of assuming that’s how it’s done you should have called the authorities or told those parents so they could tell the authorities. no job is worth being an accomplice to child abuse.

    posted by lindsay m on 1-11-2008 at 9:57 am

19. I had a female boss at my first job right out of school. She assigned me to go on a business trip to St. Louis with her- by car- HER car- WITH her. Oh, and we were in Philadelphia! That was bad enough to be driving with her like that (to save money) but I had to draw the line at sharing a hotel room with her. I called her boss to complain and his response was “Enjoy it! She is a tiger (She was also 43 and I was 24) and you won’t be disappointed.” (Apparently this was how she got her job.)

    I flew back on my own ($450!!!) and had a new job the following week. I ran into her at a wedding a few months later and, no, I was NOT disappointed.- very hammered but not disapointed.

    posted by Ronald on 1-11-2008 at 12:27 pm

20. lindsay m – That’s a fair question and one I’ve grappled with for years. My rationalizations are that I was very young, it was my first job, I was afraid of him, but the fact is, I was wrong not to turn him in. Like many doctors he had an astounding sense of entitlement. I hope you never have to face that situation and if so, are in a better state of rationality than I was. I know there are dentists like your dad because I subsequently worked for one.
    caitlyn315 – my sympathies. If it helps, you’re not alone.

    posted by karen on 1-11-2008 at 12:28 pm

21. I used to work for a huge financial institution in Pittsburgh. One day the building cafeteria caught fire, my boss found out that the fire alarm was in fact not a drill and propmtly left without telling a soul. Our fearless leader just left us inside a burning building! When asked about his actions he replied, “Well I figured that if you smelled smoke you would leave on your own.”
    I wonder if they teach that in MBA school?

    posted by Brad on 1-11-2008 at 12:49 pm

22. karen-

    i have experienced medical professionals with god complexes. it’s hard to stand up to them especially when you are young. i have also had a few nightmare bosses, one who landed me on anxiety medication. (never needed it before or since) i also had a boss who is now in federal prison for embezzlement and fraud. i know it’s hard to quit a job, believe me. i’m glad you got out of there before you ended up in prison. it amazes me that he wasn’t sued or anything. do you know what has happened to him since? is he still practicing? my heart breaks for all those kids that were traumatized by him.

    my dad once had a very old woman come in because she needed her teeth pulled and replaced by dentures. she had not seen a dentist since she was a child because she was so traumatized by her first visit. my dad sat in the waiting room with her and just held her hand while she cried for the first three appointments. after that she finally came with him into one of the exam rooms and sat in the chair and cried. her next appointment she let him look at her teeth and take an impression and some x rays. on her next appointment she actually allowed him to sedate her and remove her rotten and painful teeth and fit a brand new pair of dentures into her mouth. she came back after a month and brought him a big knitted blanket she had made for him out of gratitude. now that her mouth didn’t hurt she had put on some weight and improved her health. now she could smile without feeling self concious and could eat solid food without agonizing pain. my dad never charged her for those extra appointments and charged her nothing beyond what medicare would pay for all the dental work. there are good people in the world, medical or otherwise. you just have to find them. that’s why it breaks my heart to hear about the bad dentists out there giving the entire profession a bad rep.

    posted by lindsay m on 1-11-2008 at 1:21 pm

23. Wow, you guys have some F’d up boss experiences. I guess i’ve been lucky. The worst boss i had was a homosexual restaurant manager who tried to seduce me in the fridge (i was a 17 year old bus boy). I reacted predictably by curling up in the corner crying like a scared puppy and he backed off. He got fired shortly after for bending a male waiter over the bar and pretending to sodomize him. This was in plain sight of the entire restaurant.

    … and yea Leona looks like the Joker.

    posted by Jared P on 1-11-2008 at 1:38 pm

24. As far as bad dentists go, the one I saw as a child was a very old man who needed to retire but wouldn’t. His hands shook while the tools were in my mouth, which cut me several times… and that little sucky thing they put in your mouth to take out the spit? He left that in my mouth and walked out of the room, returning 15 minutes later when the nurse reminded him I was still in there. After that I refused to go back to the dentist until over 10 years later. The guy I see now is AWESOME, he more than makes up for the horrible one from before. Being a child, I didn’t realize that doctors can make mistakes and I thought that was what he was supposed to do. He has since retired, by the way.

    As far as bad bosses, here goes. A few years ago I worked in an all boys’ school, as a secretary. My supervisors were great, and I made friends quickly with the other secretaries, who were all female and about 30 years older than me. The headmaster of the school was a giant git and no one liked him, but I never paid much thought to it. A few months after starting there, the headmaster’s secretary was fired out of nowhere, and I was told not to ask questions as to why. I had been spending a lot of time with her, going to lunch together, chatting in the hallways. I was having problems with depression and anxiety at that time, and was missing work because of it. I informed human resources that this was why I was missing work, and gave them doctors’ notes explaining it. A few months later, I was let go from my job, them saying I had missed too much work. When I told them I had only missed because of the medical problems, they basically denied knowing anything about it, and claimed I had never given them doctors’ notes.
    I found out later that the headmaster was being sued, by at least 3 former employees (including my friend), for discrimination. It appears I had gotten too close to the one secretary, and he wanted me out no matter what. I could and should have sued, but I basically had a nervous breakdown when this happened and didn’t regain myself until over a year later, when it was too late to sue.

    posted by M. on 1-11-2008 at 2:28 pm

25. My firs boss (when i was 13) when I worked at a pizza place got so mad once he through a 14 inch pizza across the room where it just stuck on the wall and slid down (comical yet scary)
    My second boss (the previous summer) payed me 4.10 an hour which was fine with me because he didn’t tax me because I worked their illegally (only 15 yrs old) when I found out he didn’t pay anyone else there more than 4 dollars per hour I mentioned to him that this was under minimum wage, he became very defensive and explained he payed per day not per hour. The following week he had a poster of the minimum wages only closer inspection I found that the poster was printed in 1993. The same boss also fired his own brother for coming in fifteen minutes late.

    posted by aaron on 1-11-2008 at 2:32 pm

26. i currently work for the laziest and most annoying boss on the planet.

    i feel more like her indentured servant. i’ve been made to go to her house and clean out her garage because it had some supplies from work crowding it.

    just this morning, she called me at 8:30 to see if i would “chauffeur” her around town to do errands because she fell at work because her office is completely full of boxes and trash, i didn’t show up at her house until 12:00 and all she needed to do was go to target. so i dropped her off, filled up her gas tank, and then waited in front of target for 30 minutes for her to limp out.

    my office is right down the hall from her, two doors over, and instead of getting up and coming to ask me to do something, she just yells my orders to me.

    and the worst part is her husband works in the same department and he won’t do a thing for her, so i become her bitch. i can’t stand the sight of her.

    posted by Jack on 1-11-2008 at 2:53 pm

27. I worked in a butcher shop in a strip mall. One day in a very hot summer we were getting our back door fixed – so it was open for most of the day. Same day some workers were re-tar’ing the roof of the strip mall. The vat machine used to melt the tar was conveinently placed outside our door. The wind, being helpful, blew the fumes right into the back room where the cutters were. After explaining to our boss that we were getting pretty woozy from the fumes and probably SHOULDNT be using knives and bandsaws, he told us it wasn’t that bad (he was up front and out of the fumes) and we should just ignore it.

    Good times.

    posted by adam on 1-11-2008 at 2:58 pm

28. I had a boss who would pretend to be the nicest guy and then screw you over later. This was compounded by the company’s horrible polices which offered NO sick time (you could call out but it would be held against you and if it happened more then 5 times in 6 months… which meant you couldn’t be sick for more than a week in any half year… you would be written up and if after that you were out 1 day for the next 6 months you would be fired. You also got one week of vacation time, that’s it).

    I decided to look for another job when my grandfather was on his deathbed. I took the day to go see him and when he subsequently died I was out for another two days and my boss assured me I would get bereavement leave for this. Come back to find out that I did not get leave and they took the reminder of my vacation time to cover it.

    Then, I had finally found another job and was waiting for the paperwork to go through to quit. At the same time my husband told me he wanted a divorce. That was on a Sunday and I was so distraught I called out from work for the following Monday. My boss said how bed he felt and that he understood because he had gone through that when we spoke on the Tuesday I returned. Two hours later I was sitting with my boss and the head of HR as they wrote me up for too many absences. My boss fabricated discussions we had that never happened like that on the write up and included dates I was told wouldn’t count against me (the days I was with my family for my grandfather’s death that they took from vacation so they wouldn’t count agasint me).

    I gave my notice right then and there and they walked me out at the end of the day… making sure to get a full day’s work from me.

    posted by Jen on 1-11-2008 at 3:02 pm

29. lol, these are all pretty bad.

    I once worked for a solicitor in england. He was a massive football fan and whenever something went wrong for the team he would throw very heavy files all over the office floor.

    he also monitored his clerks/typists with CCTV and would ring down to them if he caught them talking to each other.

    He’d call his staff names, and even made one cry once.

    posted by Joey on 1-11-2008 at 3:19 pm

30. My first job was cashiering while in high school. I had exams coming up and wanted to take a night to study. I was already working an illegal amount of hours, unaware that minors in school were supposed to work part-time hours, I was part-time on paper but worked at least 40 hours a week. I was told that I needed to study between customers. Yeah, it could have been worse, but at 16, I was a delicate little flower.

    posted by Pearl on 1-11-2008 at 3:23 pm

31. I have a boss (still I work here, why, I don’t know), who openly farts around people, and makes crude comments when you meet up in the men’s room. It’s disgusting. He actually mooned me once while I was in my office working for him. It was horrifying…I didn’t know whether to file for harassment or medical disability!

    posted by Jeff T. on 1-11-2008 at 3:24 pm

32. I’ve had several bad bosses, but two stand out. Bad Boss #1 ran a wheelchair van company – more or less a taxi service for people in wheelchairs. One of the female drivers came to him to tell her she was going to have a baby. “Great! Now I’m going to have to hire another driver!”, he responded.

    He did the absolute minimum of maintenance on the vans, fixing things only when they broke down. Our biggest customer, the VA hospital, had warned them about the shoddy maintenance and told them that if they didn’t shape up they would cancel the contract. The boss responded with the suggestion that the drivers come in and help work on the vans – without pay.

    On one pre-dawn pickup with several passengers, the entire electrical system failed on my van, leaving me in pitch darkness until the sun came up. Another day I had the van idling in front of the VA hospital as I was loading passengers. Suddenly the radiator exploded, spewing steam and hot antifreeze everywhere. I knew the contract would canceled immediately, so I went back to working for my dad the next day.

    posted by Ken on 1-11-2008 at 3:52 pm

33. Wow, these stories are amazing. I’ve never had a job where I would be mistreated. If at any point I feel as though I’m being done any injustice, I clearly point it out. The thing is to correct any ordeal before the boss turns it into a habit. I also have a philosophy where no job is worth having if it means degrading myself to satisfy another individual’s ego.

    posted by anonymous on 1-11-2008 at 3:58 pm

34. Bad boss #2 was a very charismatic guy who ran a software and consulting business. He had a cult-like influence over his employees, and could talk some of them into just about anything. He even boasted about being like a cult leader. He would often motivate the troops with weird, almost admiring Nazi imagery, like “We will come down on the competition like the Panzer division!”

    Once it became clear that he was driving the company into the toilet, I decided it was time to leave. Shortly after that, I heard that he had quietly stopped paying the health insurance premiums, which was discovered by a co-worker with a very sick daughter with massive medical bills who was suddenly denied coverage.

    He also skipped out on his lease for office space, quietly moving out everything but the reception area, which was visible from the hallway. He would also buy office equipment on “six months, no interest” deals with no intention of ever paying for it. He was always sure to pay his lawyer, who was always able to somehow keep him out of jail.

    When he didn’t have enough cash for payroll, he convinced two developers to work for a couple of months without pay on the promise that he’d pay them all that plus a 50% bonus once the ever-elusive “big deal” came to pass. It never did, and the developers quit, but were never paid.

    Eventually, the company shriveled back down to the original five founders, who worked out of the basement of his triple-mortgaged house until he was forced to declare bankruptcy and move. Somehow, these five are still with him. Perhaps they have sunk so much of their own money into the venture that they can’t leave, or maybe the realize they are in the same boat with the crooked boss and will likely go down with him.

    posted by Ken on 1-11-2008 at 4:07 pm

35. Man this is exactly why I’m trying to be my own boss instead of being a typical worker bee, you’ll get screwed either way. Why are those Enron bosses not included in this list? I think losing your retirement to your bosses is far worse than being fired on the spot by your boss.

    posted by Marsello on 1-11-2008 at 6:25 pm

36. A friend of mine worked at a company where they had an employee whose sole job was to follow you to the bathroom and make sure you didn’t take too long a bathroom break. If you went over a certain time limit, you had to sign a paper saying you acknowledge that you went over the time limit, and the difference was deducted off your next paycheque. My friend got SO pi$$ed at this that when he decided yo quit, he deliberately went over his time limit, and when he was asked to sign the paper, he did – with his own feces.

    posted by MurrayC on 1-11-2008 at 6:40 pm

37. I get a kick out of #26 because the commenter is writing such things about their boss while at work.

    posted by Stephen on 1-11-2008 at 6:53 pm

38. This is why I’m my own boss.

    posted by Helen Tarnation on 1-11-2008 at 8:31 pm

39. shortly after i quit working at a local fast food chain the manager was arrested on federal child porn charges.

    yikes.

    posted by ekf1500 on 1-11-2008 at 9:38 pm

40. Well, I’ve not been shot yet. I guess my boss is pretty nice.

    posted by stephen on 1-11-2008 at 9:40 pm

41. I did not think it was possible to have a hostile takeover of a small software company. I got hired to outsource this software company that got gobbled up. The sleaze ball company gave the software developers, and ONLY the developers, a one way ticket to CA. The others were fired. There were 24 total people in the company that got bought up, with 10 developers.

    The software developers and ONlY the developers got this ticket. So they thought, “Hmmm… they can’t fire ALL of us…” Wrong – these idiots fired everyone after no one decided to come to CA! The idiots that bought this company then thought, “Oh fudge! No one knows anything about this software!!!” So they hired me to find out about the software. Needless to say, this was NOT a very good job.

    posted by Pierce on 1-11-2008 at 10:17 pm

42. I love my job! We repair medical equipment which can be kinda stressful.
    So…
    Our most recent “team building” excercise was going to a gun range. I got to shoot a tommy gun (full auto!!) and an uzi. Awesome!! Did I say how much I love my job?

    posted by misty on 1-11-2008 at 10:52 pm

43. Wow. Those were really horrible bosses.

    posted by David Mackey on 1-12-2008 at 12:15 am

44. My very first job was at a local restaurant. I was underage, got hired with an altered copy of my birth certificate back in the stone ages when it was an easy thing to do. One day, I came in the back door to see the boss sitting on an overturned five gallon pail, sifting corn meal that he used to make his “World famous home made corn dogs.”

    Imagine my surprise when he looked up at me, smiled, and said, “I’m sifting out the ants.” And he was. I started at McDonald’s the week after I turned 16.

    When I was employed in a steel mill, I worked for a guy who called everyone “My people” as in, “My people” will do it, regardless of the job. We had a great crew that pumped out a very large amout of quality work. One day, after he had committed us to bail out another department’s ineptitude yet again, after already working a 16 hour day, I looked at him and said “I am not YOUR PEOPLE and have had it with your self serving B.S. Take care of your commitments yourself!” Less than a year later, he was gone, I had his job, and have never referred to my co-workers as “My people.” I thank him for teaching me how not to be a boss, everyday.

    Now, I’m a business manager for a school district where I work for a woman who literally cries whenever there is conflict. Then, treating me like her 2nd secretary, she’ll look at me with a mascara streaked face and ask me to handle the problem parent, employee, vendor, etc. This is a superintendent for crying out loud! As a woman in business myself, I learned a long time ago to keep my powder dry, talk softly, and don’t hide behind lies and half-truths (learned as a result of working for the moron described in the steel mill above). I’m the number two person in this district, responsible for a $20+ mm budget, and this chick comes into my office 7 – 10 times a day looking for validation of her “feelings.” She doesn’t know how to support her employees, is duplicitous in all dealings, and most heinously negotiated a teachers’ contract that resulted in some employees getting a 15% raise, while others received less than 2% just to make it more lucrative for her to negotiate her personal retirement contract. Under the guise of being politically correct, she is actually deceptive, dishonest, and unethical. If I hear her say it’s all about the kids one more time, (which is a bunch of bologna whenever uttered by an educator by the way)I’ll scream!!

    After 3 years of her lameness and inability to make a decision of any kind, I’ve accepted a job with another school district where I’ll be the only female administrator, glad to be back in the company of men. I can’t wait for July 1st!

    posted by memory470 on 1-12-2008 at 12:16 am

45. I don’t know who will read something this far down.

    But I worked at Border’s Books in Jacksonville Florida. I had a manager named “Ian” who took an immediate dislike to me… Maybe because I was from out of state, I honestly don’t know. He harassed me day in and day out for months, calling me on everything he could find. If there was a 5 minute lull between projects he would accuse me of being lazy, and I’m not kidding, a 5 minute lull…

    It got so bad I would take 10 minute breaks so he would stop accusing me of going over my 15 minutes allotted, and he still did it, eventually I started noting the exact time of my break and coming back and noting the exact time again and he STILL accused me of going over.

    He invited everyone in the store to his birthday “bash” except me, and wrote me up half a dozen times for being 3-4 minutes late. He actually changed my schedule to match his and said it was so he could “keep an eye on me” then he actually told me he didn’t like me and was going to get me to quit. I was far from home and desperate for work, so I couldn’t leave and finally when I put in my two week notice… He pulled me into his office the DAY before my last day and fired me for “too many write ups”. I politely shook his hand and told him it was nice working with him. He looked shocked and walked out of his office bewildered. That’s when I locked his office door and proceeded to tell the entire store about how much of an asshole he was – over the intercom – It took them about 5 minutes to figure out how to over-ride me and shut it off, and I walked out amidst shocked expressions and utter chaos. Later I was congratulated by several employees who hated his guts and I hear he was given a formal inquiry and demoted at some point.

    Whew…

    posted by Adam on 1-12-2008 at 4:31 am

46. My boss insists on sleeping at my home when he comes to visit me, the first time he did so, he accidentally killed my baby cat while folding the pliable bed :’(

    posted by spamis on 1-12-2008 at 5:27 am

47. I saw a couple of you mention that you were fired after giving notice. It’s good to know that it’s illegal to fire someone after they have turned in notice. They can ask you not to come back, but they still have to pay you for the entire time.

    I used this to my advantage once when I had a bad boss. He was trying to get me fired, so I gave him a month notice that gave me time to find another job. He couldn’t touch me, and he knew it.

    I had a lot of fun pissing him off at the end. He was pissed at me over some religious crap unrelated to work, so he kept trying to write me up. It was a government job, so you have to write someone up a lot to fire them. I’d file responses to his writeup that basically gave the real facts and dates of facts that made it obvious he was lying. When he kept trying to peek in my office every chance he could to spy on me for any little thing, I let him know that my office door couldn’t be kept open by law because it was a fire code violation (it was a spring loaded fire door). If he wanted my door open to spy on me every time he walked by, he needed to install a magnetic release. He said he would do that, but then it never did happen. I think he couldn’t justify the cost to his boss.

    After I left that job he managed to get me fired from another campus job when they talked to him. It wasn’t a job I cared about, but I did sit down with him and let him know that if he pulled that crap again that I would take him to court over religious discrimination. I pointed out to him that it didn’t matter if I won or lost, because either way, his name was going to be in the papers and even if I lost, he would have a lot of troubles. I also let him know that I would call him in the future and pretend to be an employer wanting a reference, and I would nail him to the wall if he tried to pull that crap again. Which reminds me, it’s been a couple years. I think it’s time for me to follow up on that. :)

    posted by Matt on 1-12-2008 at 8:24 pm

48. I knew I was in trouble when, on my first day, there was a picture of my new boss with the words ‘Little Hitler’ in my cubicle.

    posted by What? on 1-13-2008 at 7:14 pm

49. My current boss is a sweetheart, but my only problem with him is that I know way, way, way too much about his sex life. He makes off-color jokes out of nowhere that make the rest of us go “erm… okay” and he’s like a ten-year-old, you have to acknowledge that you heard him or he’ll gleefully repeat it until you give a token laugh.

    I know I’ll come off as a prude, but they really aren’t funny jokes at all. No one here (guys included) wants to hear it, but we don’t want to embarrass the guy. It’s true what they say, the biggest loudmouth on the subject really isn’t getting that much at home (know what I mean?)

    posted by Andie on 1-14-2008 at 11:27 am

50. My worst boss was a woman who would take credit for all my accomplishments, and try to assign blame to me for any of her personal failures.
    The worst part was that, over time, her period came to co-incide with that of my wacky ex, so I’d know in the morning that, if the ex was on the warpath, the day at work would offer no relief at all.

    posted by Miles on 1-16-2008 at 12:27 pm

51. I had a bully for a boss and I have tons of stories about him but the one that sticks out for me was the time I got very sick, went to the Dr. (On my day off) and found out that I had two mini strokes and was told to go for an emergancy MRI the next day to discover the source as I am under 40. The next day was a work day and I told him, what had happened and I would need to take a long lunch break to get the MRI and then would return to work.

    He threw a fit yelling and screaming at me that this was uncalled for and that I should plan my dr’s appts around my work days. (I had not taken any sick days and had been with the company with an excellent preformance record for 5 years)

    I went to his boss and asked why the company felt an emergancy MRI for a stroke in a person under 40 was no nessary…he told me to go …take time off if I needed…and then counsled my boss.

    When I returned to work, my boss appologized to me for my “not understanding” his issue with my leaving for a few hours.

    I smiled and walked away wondering what part of “You can’t go” I had not understood.

    posted by Rachel on 1-16-2008 at 5:01 pm

52. Years ago, I worked in marketing for a well-known market research firm in Chicago. While there, I hired and trained a man – someone that was to be my coworker – how to do everything I was doing, including teaching him how to use several software programs.

    Everything was OK until I became pregnant. Then my female boss, who could not have children, “suddenly” took a disliking to me.

    I left for maternity leave, which was supposed to be 3 months. But because I was getting so many calls begging me to come back early, I cut my leave in half, returning after only 6 weeks.

    It wasn’t until I came back, I was told that the person I hired and trained was promoted and would be my supervisor. My boss outright told me it was because I had a baby and wouldn’t be able to devote myself to my job as much as a man (even though I never cut back hours or workload and had to put my daughter right into daycare after 6 weeks)!

    If I had known that was illegal to say back then, I would have pressed charges. Fortunately, I got my revenge… I got a new job shortly thereafter and heard that my former boss was fired and that several other people in the department were let go. Guess she didn’t get away with her discrimination after all.

    posted by Jennifer on 1-16-2008 at 6:14 pm

53. I worked for a nutjob in NYC at a big-name ad agency on Madison Avenue who constantly had me run his personal errands like buying his lunch daily, cleaning his office, etc. But the things that took the cake were being asked to watch his car while it was illegally parked on the street and driving it away if cops should arrive (w/o a license – I let the cop write him a ticket when it happened), buying his wife gifts, babysitting his cat at his apartment when he went on business trips, writing-off limo rides to the strip clubs with his friends as client expenses, getting him reimbursed for all of his cable television bills because he was doing “opposition research” at home, and doing personal tasks for his wife. One time, he asked me to go to Tiffany to buy “cologne” and get it wrapped as a gift, but didn’t bother to mention it was a gift for his wife — when he gave it to her on Christmas, he called and yelled at me because I bought her exactly what he asked for — cologne! Yea, Merry Christmas to you, too, a$$hole. All this was done with the constant promise that I’d be promoted, but after being abused by this jerk for almost two years and watching my colleagues rise up in the ranks, I realized he wanted to keep me as a slave and never went back.

    posted by Heather on 1-18-2008 at 10:21 am

54. Wow… I always complain about my boss but this kinda makes me realize that I have it relatively easy.

    I guess the worst part of my job is the issue of vacation time. Legally, we have 22 work days off a year, not including sick days (this amounts to roughly 1 month vacation). Sounds great, right? WRONG. My first two yeats at my job I was only allowed to take one week off a year because because there was just “too much work” all the time.

    The result? I ended up with a lot of accumulated vacation days.

    About six months ago, my father was in the hospital with a heart condition and since I am the only child currently living near my parents, I ended up being responsible for talking with the doctors, making decisions, etc. My boss had told me nt to worry, that I could take as much time as I needed, etc. I would come into the office every morning then work from the hospital in the afternoons.In the end, my dad got better and I was really happy to have such an understanding boss.

    Last week, I was informed that due to new laws that prohibited the acumulation of vacation days (and compensation was about 3 times your monthly salary) I would be fined two weeks vacation time for when I was working from out the office.

    Admittedly, not as bad as some other a$$holes out there but it still made me pretty mad.

    posted by GTT on 1-18-2008 at 1:03 pm

55. I’ve worked for a lot of egotistical and petty bosses, but because of my labor union memberships, have never had to endure the hardships listed at this site.
    There really is strenth in numbers.

    posted by Gordon R Ferguson on 1-18-2008 at 1:16 pm

56. I was a teacher in a school where the new female principal started coming on to my husband (also a teacher there). She was also playing games with the federal funding for my program. When my husband turned her down, she told us to find new jobs somewhere else, because she was going to eliminate ours. I was dumb and young and didn’t know enough about the law to turn her in (and we had planned to leave in another year or two anyway). I hear that she got in trouble for sunbathing nude in her backyard – all the neighborhood boys would sit on the garage roof and watch her.

    posted by Gayle on 1-18-2008 at 3:22 pm

57. I work for a boss who when she first got hired was rediculous, i guess she was on some sort of power trip but, our day shift is 7 hours long and our night shift is 10 hours long at the restaurant i work at and she decided she would take away our one break we get… which is illegal but, i guess she decided she was better then that, she also decided if you are sick you can’t call out unless you find someone to work for you, which resulted in girls having to come in to work with pink eye, flu, and pneumonia. Yes, at a restaurant. She also is very hot all the time which makes all of us suffer cuz we freeze all the time at work and she said if we touch the thermostat she’ll fire us on the spot! Well, pretty soon one of my co-workers got a lawyer involved and our corporate boss came to our store and had a long chat with our boss and after that she completely changed and is now just as nice as anything. HA

    posted by J on 1-20-2008 at 11:55 am

58. I worked at a very small tea company under the watchful eye of Satan Himself. This man hired me for a job that required me to move to a new city, 12 hours from where I lived at the time, and then proceeded to make my new life there HELL.
    From day one, every single thing that I did was wrong. I didn’t do the FedEx stuff right, I didn’t come in early enough, I didn’t leave late enough… the list goes on and on, but suffice it to say that no matter how hard I worked or how much I smiled when he yelled, it amounted to nothing with this guy. I had been working almost 60 hour workweeks to get all my projects done, amidst constant heckling. Finally my boss told me he couldn’t afford to keep paying me the overtime, so I had to only work 40 hours a week. I’m sure they wanted me to work longer and just not get paid, but I wasn’t about to do that.
    At the company holiday party, a month after I’d started working, someone asked me how my 40 hour workweek was treating me. I said I was enjoying it.
    The next day at work, my boss stormed in and told me that my having said I liked working 40 hours a week was “a sign that something was wrong.” Because “everyone else worked 120 hours a week and loved it.”
    I realized then that nothing I could do or say would ever be right, and I quit a week later, after finding out he was going to fire me by coming across a Wanted Ad online FOR MY JOB!

    posted by Lynsey on 1-22-2008 at 3:02 pm

59. I have really enjoyed reading about the bad bosses on this page. It makes me thankful for the one I have now.

    I had a supervisor a few years back who threw things when he got mad. The day I gave notice, he threw a pen at the wall next to the door as I was leaving the room. I don’t know for sure if he was aiming at me or not.

    I had another at a restaurant I worked at when I was 17. I cut my finger on a piece of glass while washing dishes. It was a deep cut, requiring stitches. He really did not want me to go to the hospital because he would have to wash the dishes himself. He tried to wrap the cut with about ten band-aids, but it bled thru. Finally he let me go get it fixed up. Not that bad, I know, but at 17, I didn’t want to pass out from blood loss. Then, he really got mad when I had to tell him that I couldn’t wash dishes for a few days because I couldn’t get the finger wet.

    Just a side note on dentists. I had a bad experience with the one we went to as children. He drilled three of my teeth for fillings without numbing my mouth. One of the teeth ended up breaking in half because he cracked it. He also pulled two of my sister’s teeth, which were not loose at the time, also without numbing her mouth. After that, we never went back to him and ended up finding a really good dentist that we went to until he retired a few years ago.

    posted by Philip on 1-23-2008 at 8:43 am

60. I once worked at the busiest Medicine Shoppe on the planet. We filled about 600 rxs in an 8 hour day. All the employees were women. The owner was quite the dominating male. One morning before unlocking the door he turned around to us and said “ok, you bitches are on MY time, now shut your mouths and get to work”.
    Another job I had was for a small computer consulting company. My desk was right by one of the doors. Winters are VERY cold in this part of the country. Snow would blow int he door almost onto my feet when the door was opened. I asked the owner if I could get a space heater. She took off her scarf and put it around my neck and said “see, now isn’t that better?” and walked into the back into her toasty office.

    posted by The Cube Monkey on 1-24-2008 at 4:17 am

61. My first job out of college was a position where they marginally got away with classifying me as a salaried employee so they didn’t have to pay me overtime. My supervisor would only give me one task at a time and, because she had no life, I was usually there into the night plus working Saturdays and Sundays. One Friday morning I walked in with 42 hrs for the week and told them that I had to move because it was the end of the month and my lease was up. I’d have 50 hours by the end of the day, and I wasn’t coming in for the weekend. The VP called me into his office and chewed me up one side and down the other. He told me that they’d let me “float along on my little 40 hours a week” if that’s what I wanted and that they’d hire somone else to take up the slack and put a note in my personnel file to that effect. After working 60 – 80 hrs per week for 6 months with no overtime, I quit and found another job. I got ~$200/month more, rarely worked over 39 hrs a week, and within 2 years the original firm had gone under. :)

    posted by LMOTTP on 1-29-2008 at 3:41 pm

62. Worst boss i ever had was my skiing buddy turned boss.
    Came from an alcoholic seeped railway family. Was told from birth “You be the manager”
    Never mind front line employee given authority and responsibility in this day of age.
    Asked what have you learnt Frank in the last year > “I learnt the golden rule ”
    ( good i thought there is hope, good for him ) What is that ? “The Rules are Golden and they are My Rules”
    Frank died at a young age. I was a pallbearer. I had to fight not to be docked a days pay and for the firm to pay travel expenses.

    posted by Get a Real Job on 1-30-2008 at 8:01 pm

63. She’s not the joker

    She’s Cruella Deville with a bad haircut.

    posted by Fion on 2-9-2008 at 1:17 am

64. I had a boss that was so horrible that I equate the year with him as being worse than childbirth. He refered to women as “broads” and “chicks” and made racial and ethnic slurs on a daily basis. Since I sat outside his office, I heard everything he said, including how easy it would be to embezzle money from the company! I even caught him giving one set of financial reports to the President and then changing them and filing the revised copies. (I had a closed door meeting with the President and told him what was going on.)

    After a year of pure torture and harrassment, the guy’s one year agreement was up, so the company let him go. Unfortunately, he then decided to sue to company for discrimination (white, middle-aged man). I was deposed in the suit because I had documented many of the things this guy did.

    Other than the year of the butthead, the other 16 years I spent at that company were actually pretty good!

    posted by Lorzo on 2-11-2008 at 1:36 pm

65. Unlike many of these other detestable people, Henry Clay Frick was a devastatingly handsome man. He became a millionaire at the age of 30 by pioneering steel production from his coke plants. I know some of the things he had done were extreme, but face it…. He was painstakingly beautiful.

    posted by sandog on 10-14-2008 at 10:25 pm

66. My worst boss was a woman who would take credit for all my accomplishments, and try to assign blame to me for any of her personal failures.
    The worst part was that, over time, her period came to co-incide with that of my wacky ex, so I’d know in the morning that, if the ex was on the warpath, the day at work would offer no relief at all.

    posted by replica tiffany jewelry on 11-5-2008 at 11:16 pm

67. To my upstair, why not get rid of your women boss? maybe that will give your good luck.

    posted by silver on 1-9-2009 at 2:03 am

68. Well, I’ve not been shot yet. I guess my boss is pretty nice.

    posted by Atlantica Gold on 3-13-2009 at 3:38 am

69. had a supervisor a few years back who threw things when he got mad. The day I gave notice, he threw a pen at the wall next to the door as I was leaving the room. I don’t know for sure if he was aiming at me or not.

    I had another at a restaurant I worked at when I was 17. I cut my finger on a piece of glass while washing dishes. It was a deep cut, requiring stitches. He really did not want me to go to the hospital because he would have to wash the dishes himself. He tried to wrap the cut with about ten band-aids, but it bled thru. Finally he let me go get it fixed up. Not that bad, I know, but at 17, I didn’t want to pass out from blood loss. Then, he really got mad when I had to tell him that I couldn’t wash dishes for a few days because I couldn’t get the finger wet.

    Just a side note on dentists. I had a bad experience with the one we went to as children. He drilled three of my teeth for fillings without numbing my mouth. One of the teeth ended up breaking in half because he cracked it. He also pulled two of my sister’s teeth, which were not loose at the time, also without numbing her mouth. After that, we never went back to him and ended up finding a really good dentist that we went to until he retired a few years ago.

    posted by archlord gold on 3-14-2009 at 2:10 pm

70. Unlike many of these other detestable people, Henry Clay Frick was a devastatingly handsome man. He became a millionaire at the age of 30 by pioneering steel production from his coke plants. I know some of the things he had done were extreme, but face it…. He was painstakingly beautiful.
    thanks!

    posted by archlord gold on 3-14-2009 at 2:13 pm

71. had a supervisor a few years back who threw things when he got mad. The day I gave notice, he threw a pen at the wall next to the door as I was leaving the room. I don’t know for sure if he was aiming at me or not.

    posted by eve isk on 3-19-2009 at 2:35 am

72. Unlike many of these other detestable people, Henry Clay Frick was a devastatingly handsome man. He became a millionaire at the age of 30 by pioneering steel production from his coke plants. I know some of the things he had done were extreme, but face it…. He was painstakingly beautiful.
    thanks!

    posted by aion kinah on 7-2-2009 at 4:19 am

73. I worked at Micky-D’s in High School and the Manager used to lecture the workers on not wasting food. One of my coworkers got hassled for not wiping out the mustard from the dispenser and putting it back in the container. He said, “That’s enough mustard for 20 more burgers, you are throwing away $100.” Finally, my mean boss got fired for embezzling. He got hired somewhere else with his management experience to a company that didn’t check references.

    posted by picturepocket on 9-18-2009 at 2:37 pm

74. I had this boss in college who would often “work at home” but call me every day at 8 am on the dot to be sure I was in the office. She also had an ex-husband, live-in boyfriend and another guy that she had lunches with frequently. All three would call up looking for her. The Ex she used to string along saying stuff like, “I should have never left you.” There was someother family drama including a suspected murder where our answering machine tapes were taken as evidence. I can’t complain too much though because I learned how to write proper business letters and computer skills from her.

    posted by picturepocket on 9-18-2009 at 2:55 pm

75. A friend of mine worked for lawyers in New York. One day in the middle of winter she slipped on her icy stairs and broke her leg. When she called from the hospital, they informed her that she was fired for not being to work on time.

    posted by picturepocket on 9-18-2009 at 3:00 pm

76. Of those 12, five of them were found dead. Police also found a cozy quilt inside the house made of the clothing of the men the Copelands had killed.

    posted by Darkfall Gold on 10-4-2009 at 9:43 pm

77. My boss once told me that he went to a hypnotist to stop him staring at women’s breasts. He then proceeded to tell me that he only had a problem with it around me.

    posted by liz on 10-19-2009 at 10:43 am

78. My worst boss was when I was working as a Kitchen Manager for two brothers. Each one of them would give me conflicting instructions and when I would corner them both about what to do, I would be told there was no way I was going to come between them. They spent most of their time screaming, cursing, punching walls and telling me how worthless I was. Needless to say after 3 months, I was laid off. My replacement lasted one day. No surprises there.

    Worst dentist we ever had was someone my mother adored because he was German Old School. If you cried or moved, he calmly took the front of your shirt and slapped you twice. Mom said he was just letting you know he wasn’t taking any guff from kids. Thanks mom.

    posted by Wilburcat on 10-19-2009 at 11:45 am

79. Misery loves company and I’m sharing mine!

    My current boss is not nearly as bad as some of you guys, but still bad. I work in retail, and everyday she takes 2 hour long breaks, where if I go over the 30 min limit I get an earful. We’re all students, so we request days off for exams and normal stuff, a few days off a month. If she’s having a bad day she rips up the paper with days requested off and yells at everyone. When she inevitable schedules people on days they had needed for exams, we switch shifts. She then gets mad and tells everyone they cannot switch shifts. We wouldn’t need to if she hadn’t torn up the paper! Customers often complain about her. I’m sick, and I can’t come in for my shift tomorrow. Even when I get someone to cover it, she’ll refuse to give me shifts for several weeks. Often, if you piss her off or she can’t take her smoke break while you’re working she’ll refuse to give you hours.

    I once had a fantastic summer job, doing what I wanted to do as a CAREER, but at 17! (I’m 19 now.) As the youngest summer student ever hired there, they emphasized that part of why they hired me was because I was a peer to the kids. My supervisor constantly told everyone else that I wasn’t assertive, and that I was too much of a peer, too little of a leader. Even when other supervisors got up to bat for me she insisted that I was a bad hire. She was right in one way, I definitely was not assertive enough- with HER.

    Finally, I had this orthodontist with three amazing practices. State of the art EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, he was a giant d***. As soon as the contract was signed, he showed his true colours. He was verbally abusive to both his patients and his employees, he shoved kids into the dentist chairs, if he was in a sour mood he’d hurt you while the tools were in your mouth. He threw things around, and at his coworkers. I didn’t know it, but I had panic attacks before every appointment. I was later diagnosed with panic disorder, which ended after my contract did. My mom didn’t believe me, but my doctor told her if I was freaking out that much directly before EVERY appointment with this particular guy, then it might be worth looking into. So, she expressed some reluctance about renewing the contract for a retainer and he got NASTY. I love my regular dentist, but I still get scared going to him. I was 12 at the time, but I should have known to report him. Verbal and physical abuse is not something to mess around with.

    posted by Anonymous for fear of retribution! on 10-19-2009 at 6:20 pm

80. After reading these stories, i truly feel sorry for you all. I do have a story to add to the list of “Bosses from Hell”

    My very first job was at a car wash. My duties included spraying cars as they entered the wash when i worked the front, and drying them at the exit if i worked the back. Also, if working the back end, you were responsible for taking the barrel of dirty towels to the washroom and putting them through the washer and dryer. Anywho, the end of my 3rd week working there, i came in on a beautiful saturday morning and was assigned to work the exit and dry cars. Saturdays, especially nice ones when the weather was nice, were the busiest days of the week, and i was told by both managers that there were ALWAYS at least 2 people drying on saturdays, especially in the morning. Well, i was drying, on that saturday morning, BY MYSELF, which wouldnt have been a big deal, except my good manager, a coworker, and the boss were all working the front and sending cars through with literally about 5 inches of space between the back bumper of one and the front bumper of the other. I’d like to make sure that you all know that my boss at this job was the daughter of the man that owned the place. She was and still is a complete bitch. She would be there in her office maybe 2 hours a day, usually 3 days a week. Anyway, as i was saying, i was drying cars that saturday morning, alone, while the 3 of them were up front send cars in as fast as they could.
    After an hour or two, my coworker was sent back to tell me that the manager
    needed me. Well, as you can guess, i went to the manager and he informed me that the big bitchy boss lady told him to fire me. So, not only was i fired, but she made the manager, who didnt want to fire me, tell me the news while she hid away in her office. I was very upset as you can imagine being fired from my first job ever. I would just like to mention that although the boss was a horrid bitch, her father, the owner, was one of the nicest men i ever met. He would even bring pizza in for the closers once in a while. Too bad his daughter had to ruin that experience.

    posted by Cole on 10-19-2009 at 9:05 pm

81. The software developers and ONlY the developers got this ticket. So they thought, “Hmmm… they can’t fire ALL of us…” Wrong – these idiots fired everyone after no decided to come to CA!

    posted by Katter on 11-16-2009 at 12:20 am

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