I have one. After working with a company for many years and having a lovely boss for many of those years, after a reorganisation, my lovely boss lost their position and had to accept a much diminished role. I was given the opportunity to work on a very interesting project that would be great on my CV, if I worked for this other person, Bitch Boss. Now years previous, I collaborated in an organisation wide project with someone who worked for this lady and had been told many instances of her horrid behaviour. Yet when I met with this boss, she was lovely to me. She actually courted me to come work with her - we’re talking spa evenings together, wine tasting etc outside of work plus including me in all sorts of higher level meetings and trips to our other European offices. So I thought perhaps it was a case that the lady I knew just had a problem with this boss. Oh I should have known.
Once this boss lady had what she wanted from me for this project, she turned and would do all sorts of things to try to discredit me. She’d give me instructions to do A, B, and C but tell others I was to do X, Y, and Z. Thankfully I had good connections within the business that I would find these things out and started a CYA train of emails confirming her instructions. For months I’d wake in the middle of the night, gasping out load wondering if I’d managed to catch everything she was trying to do to set me up.
Then there was the time we had a big board meeting. She and I were to meet early in the morning (about 7:30 am) to gather all the board packs from office A and take them together to office B via taxi for the board meeting in office B, taking place at 9am.
On the morning, She then decided to go straight to office B. I could work around that as I could get Porter to help me load the boxes into the taxi and organise Porter on other end. Only I hadn’t booked the taxi. When it didn’t show up, I called taxi firm. No record of booking and couldn’t send a taxi until 9. I said please come as soon as you can and if I find another transport would let them know. By then there’d be loads of traffic and no way could I make the meeting time. She’d booked a taxi firm not a supplier to the company so even receptionist (who usually booked taxied) had no record. Turns out she’d given only her mobile number and no name of the company, and not full address. As She turned her mobile off the Taxi driver couldn’t find our building and was ringing/messaging her from 7:30 until 8:45 when she finally turned on her mobile and gave the driver my number. Well, you can imagine how late I was. This driver didn’t know the one way road lay out around office B , made a wrong turn but the office building was just on the other side of multi lane road so I hopped out of the taxi in traffic, balancing boxes of board packs and ran across lanes of traffic to get to the building. Wishing all the time I’d get hit by a car as that could be the only excuse acceptable.
She never owned up to the fiasco and totally blamed me.
Next thing she did was give me a list of dates that external board member could attend. Spent days working out next meeting dates for the year- coordinating everyone’s diaries with some internal board members reorganising their meetings and even holidays to attend. Turns out the dates were actually all dates this external board member COULD NOT attend.
The final straw for me was the death of my sister, who lived abroad. I needed to organise funeral, empty her flat etc. Boss said she couldn’t possibly manage without me in the office and I couldn’t attend funeral nor have any time off, even though I contacted HR for bereavement policy (one week paid leave for close family member, which included sibling) before letting her know and organising colleagues to cover my work, staying until midnight organising very detailed hand over notes. I contacted HR that I was being denied leave and what I’d organised to go, so I went but also handed in my notice. When I got back, I agreed with HR leaving date (long notice period - worst time of my life!) as well as dates towards the end of my notice to use my holiday time as they do not pay for unused holiday days. One important date I booked months in advance was my daughter’s prom. I’d promised to do her hair/make up, host a pre prom party at our house with her friends and take all the photos. Boss tried very hard to cancel this leave the morning of the event but I held firm as by this time I had handed over all my work to my replacement. No way was I needed or so indispensable. I still have nightmares years later about her and what I should have said or done.