Craziest things a boss has done

[GerbilsForever24]

Inspired by the "craziest reasons to sulk" thread, I thought it might be entertaining (and cathartic?) to do similar with bosses? The weird/crazy/irrational things a boss has done?

I'll start with a male boss with a team of 7 women. He would regularly send his PA or the most junior member of the team into the bathroom to "find" anyone who was in the toilet when he wanted to speak to them.

[no, as a rule, no one was spending hours in the toilet - we were hard working, conscientious, busy people. Also, it was a very busy office so it wasn't unusual to hold the need for a bathroom break to unacceptable levels.] He did this on more than one occasion to almost everyone in the office except me (most likely because he knew I'd have taken it straight to HR).

an ex manager of mine made up a little song for each of his direct reports. He used to sing them when he called us up on zoom.

I am responsible for running a specific process at my workplace. I spent months last year redesigning it, making proposals to make it more efficient, getting all the other managers to agree, selling it to the up line management etc etc. It involved consolidating 5 measurements into 1 measurement and is run quarterly.

I checked over & over that no one would miss the separate measurements.

Today I publish the results from Q1 and all hell breaks loose because there’s only 1 measurement and my boss “didn’t think I meant they’d lose all 5 numbers and only get 1”. I had to leave before I said something career limiting!

When I was about 6m pregnant I’d had to take over one of his meetings because he was late meaning that I had back to back meetings over lunch time. I asked him to start one of my afternoon meetings for me so I could go and eat something as I was going to pass out. He said no and in an extremely condescending voice told me that “sometimes, in business you just have to take one for the team and prioritise other things”.
I’ve never forgotten that phrase he used and made sure that I left my desk and had my unpaid one hour lunch break each day for my remaining pregnancy at work.

I had one who aspired to the Fish Philosophy... twenty years later on. He kept soft toy fish in his office and asked us all to throw and catch them during a training session. The team collectively declined.

A manager (not mine) where I used to work made everyone in her office sit in enforced silence because someone moved her chair. Going in there was so creepy and awkward.

She was a total nightmare

Like most of what she did would shock you to the core

We were a quiet, decent reliable team
Never spoke up to her

One day we had a serious meeting she did not bother to attend
She got into one of the breakout rooms and discovered one of us had left crumbs beside some donuts 🍩
She stormed into our meeting
Sat at the top of the table and told us not to move
She wanted the person responsible for the crumbs to stand up and admit to what they did
We all sat in silence

I so wanted this to be the day I told her to shove the job up her ass
Think I was too shocked
She left about a year later
And the. Apologised for being the cruelest boss ever said it was all due to the menopause 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮

All male. All different people. I don't know why I tolerated this shit but I did get my own back at a later stage.

1. Used to sit in his office and yell my name to come in rather than come to the door and speak to me. Once got so enraged that I was ignoring him that he fell off his chair.
2. Made a speech when I was moving to another dept and mentioned my large breasts.
3. On the way to an important meeting with a stakeholder on a big project, pulled car over, locked the doors and asked me if I was on his side or not.
4. Persuaded reps from a company that was selling us a huge deal to go out for lunch and leave their briefcases behind then got one of our team to go through the cases looking for info to help with negotiations.
5. Asked me to do overtime to type up his thesis when I had recently had an accident where I had multiple stitches in my hand. Then bought me a box of chocolates as recompense, and a couple of days later handed me his expense claim for the chocolates. I was the one who processed expense claims.

That's just my early work years, I'm sure I have more.

It would be a whole seperate post/ different topic for one company that I worked in where I managed mostly men and my (male) boss was a total dickhead.

Wow @FearMe you could write a book!

A manager in a sales type job put jars in the office for each of us with our name on, if we got a sale a plastic coloured counter went in our jar, we got chocolate at the end of the week if we had the most counters.
Lots of other 'parenting' techniques were used. We ranged in ages 20s-70s.

I had a boss that lied about children he didn’t have, he apparently had zero contact with these children. To make it more realistic in terms of his life he also lied about his age he was actually 3 years younger than he claimed. I discovered this when he left an original doctors letter on the photo copier (as admin I had the copied version) but with the DOB covered with paper so the copy version would have it hidden.

My manager called me in for a meeting regarding attendance as both parents had died within a few months of each other. Now I will just say I has 2 weeks off with both of them that was it. No other absences within that timeframe.
she asked me if I had anything to add to the form I said yes write on it I have no parents left to die. I then walked out of room

A manager I had (absolute psychopath as it turned out) completely fabricated a story that I had gone behind my friends back and tried to steal her promotion. They told an elaborate story involving emails and PowerPoints I had allegedly created.

It caused massive problems. No idea why they did it; they still routinely fuck with people just because they can.

I once had to babysit her children because she was drunk.

When I was a student nurse, the Operating Theatres Manager told me off for knitting in the staff canteen, during my (unpaid) lunch break. Apparently, if a patient or relative saw me, it would look unprofessional - heaven only knows why.

Secret Santa at a small tv production company. One of the (male) bosses gave a junior (male) member of staff a porn dvd 🤮

I had a hellish 18months where I lost my mother, my grandmother and had 2 miscarriages...then to top it all off my grandfather died, my manager told me I'd used up all my compassionate leave and that I couldn't have any time off to grieve...I told him where to stick his job (in total I'd missed less than 25days of work during that time)

I was disciplined for having a pencil case containing highlighters, apparently as I couldn't produce the receipt, I must have stolen them.

I also spent months working on the floor of the toilet with the seat and lid as a desk, which I would have to vacate if anyone needed the loo.

I don't know why I put up with it, youth and stupidity 😐

• Male boss who would jog during his lunch break. He'd start and finish his run by wearing VERY short, shorts within the office and doing leg stretches. One leg cocked up on someones desk whilst lunging down, or swiveling in his chair with legs wide apart!
• Another boss would drink to excess on work nights out, then go around the tables slurring 'Who has some COKE???'
• Female boss. A female colleague accused a male colleague (bosses brother who worked there ad hoc) of being sexually inappropriate and raised a formal complaint. Meeting arranged to discuss the allegations in local cafe. Instead of it being a confidential talk with the boss, she brought along the accused brother also!
• Remote working during covid. Boss would hold meetings in his PJ's, pick his nose and bodily scabs and eat them on camera 😱
• I MC on the work toilet floor, left 15mins early that day to got to A&E and took the following day off for a scan. I never told the boss the details, but when I resigned that toxic work place, was told I was unreasonable for taking a day off work, along with leaving early when sick! I only had that 1 sick day in 12mths!

Many years ago a boss of mine was fed up of ladies taking time off with period issues (pains/ heavy flow/ headaches) so he asked for a schedule of everyone cycles.

Needless to say nobody complied! And thought he was a dick!

A manager of mine kept sending me inappropriate emails across the office (think Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones). This went on for a while despite him knowing I was in a relationship. One day I was in the (big) archive room and he comes in to find me with a massive erection showing through his chinos, “saying touch it”.

I quit not longer after. Still cringe about it now.

You had to work in the TOILET!? @Landlubber2019 I’ve heard it all now.

Asked me to stand watch around the corner from the office for a certain car driving in and ring when I saw it. Turns out they were getting rid of a load of damning evidence before being audited that day!
The company shut down not long after, shock!!

I forgot even more batshittery!

• I was presented with business cards which I had no idea were being made. They included my home landline and personal mobile number but I had no work mobile and didn't work from home! They'd also spelt my very short, simple name incorrectly! I was told I was unreasonable because the owner had HIS mobile on his cards!

• A list of all staff home addresses, home landlines and personal mobile numbers was printed, laminated and given to all staff in the company! I was not asked beforehand and when I brought up GDPR, the boss had no clue what I meant and said I shouldn't be so difficult!

I took time off to go to my grandad's funeral. When I got back to work my manager told me she was sorry to hear about my 'grandma' - definitely trying to catch me in a lie about why I was off!

My old boss (He was a retired footballer & v kind to me actually) once asked me to smell his hair & describe what the smell was🤣

He also used to pick his nose with his thumb very theatrically & wipe it on the car seat.

He also got extremely drunk at a meal in Amsterdam when we were at a trade show, grabbed the tablecloth, pulled all the food off the table & fell on the floor!

I was so young & I just spent the whole time working for him thinking ‘WTF’!