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).

Oh my old boss boasted how when he’d moved house all his staff had done the lifting for him. Nutter

One guy would make us all sing and cheer and dance for him at 8.30am. if you were late he fined you. It was a commission only sales job. He sacked me for being late twice and then withheld my weeks wages. Apparently he did that to everyone. Most people only stayed a week. I managed about 6, but only bc I couldn't get a real job with no visa in the US. I then went to work for his rivals, who were all smoking crack and drinking spirits in the salon with customers looking on absolutely terrified?!

My old boss used to buy a salmon and cucumber sandwich from the shop every day. But didn't like cucumber. She would peel off the cucumber covered in salmon mush and leave them on my desk.

After a while of her doing this, I asked why??

And she said she thought I might want to eat it? Because I have salads for my lunch.

She thought I might want to eat the slimy salmon covered cucumber she had picked off her sandwich.

Even when I told her I didn't she continued to leave it on my desk.

Many years ago my male boss came up behind me and put his penis on my shoulder. He also asked me to shave his back for him (I didn’t) and deliver toilet roll to him while he was sat on the loo (I did).

Some examples that have scarred me:

1 - I had resigned my position and I was recruiting for my replacement. We were an all-female team so the other girls were joking that I should hire a guy. I looked through the CVs (as a joke) and they were all female candidates. Obviously I wasn’t basing my decision on the sex of the candidate. But, continuing the joke, I went to my HR director and asked why I only have female CVs. He wasn’t in on the joke so he, very seriously, replied that with the salary we offer (my salary) we can’t afford men…

2 - Same company as above and the reason I resigned: in the office we had meeting rooms that were all glass walls. It was a retail company and there was training going on for Christmas temps. They so happened that the majority of temps were of various ethnic groups that have a darker skin. The CEO walks past the meeting room and shouts very loudly: Well it’s looking very dark in there!
I looked at my manager in horror and an hour later gave my notice. (It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, he had done so much of similar level in the past)

3 - Different company, years later. The CEO and all the leadership team (his buddies) would ONLY work via Watchapp. No meetings or calls, just a constant stream of watchapp messages, getting added to different groups about projects etc etc. We were not given work phones and were expected to use our personal phones, and we had to reply at all times. We would be asked to share company data, revenue figures and other sensitive info on Watchapp. The CEO &co had a moto that they kept saying: “we work 23.5 hours a day 7 days a week. There is no excuse for not replying.” They would literally message all the time, on weekends or even Xmas day and we were all expected to be on and reply/work (with no overtime pay or time in lieu).
The majority of the staff (including me) resigned due to burnout.

I was thinking, 'Gosh, that guy must have been 7ft tall!' but I'm assuming you were sitting down when he put his penis on your shoulder! 😳

In the 80's i worked for a legal publishing company. My boss at the time had a serious drink problem and every lunchtime would take up to a two hour lunch in the local pub in central London. Sometimes on a Friday the rest of the team (I think there were about 6-7 of us in the department) would head to the pub for a lunchtime Friday drink. One Friday we did stay out at the pub a long time and we came back to the office shamefully drunk. My boss arrived back after us - so basically with him included the whole department were now shamefully drunk - he then got out his cannabis - rolled up numerous joints, offered them all round and then we all smoked them in the office!! one member of staff declined as his eyes were literally popping out of his head at our antics - we had an open plan office and to access it was a communal lift and at any moment one of the Executives could have arrived unannounced - and if so it would have been instant dismissal for us all . It was quite unbelievable what we did. Drinking at lunchtime and heading back to the office in the 80's in central London was not uncommon but to then start smoking weed offered by your boss!!!

Years ago but I'll never forget it.

I once received a call from a colleague on a Monday morning saying they couldn't come to work as his pregnant wife was in an ambulance and most likely heading for an emergency blood transfusion. I told him to just take a week off if needed and contact me on Friday if he needed longer. Get off the phone, focus on his wife & I would take care of work.

I have authority to grant discretionary leave for twice that. My boss went absolutely mental, told me that the woman could be fine by lunchtime!, what evidence did I have?, was I sure it wasn't bullshit?, said I was a ridiculously soft touch and that I had jumped the gun giving 5x more leave than I should. He also said both myself and the man's wife were overreacting as & that women are always too dramatic.

After all of that HE reported ME to HR who shut it down immediately and told him to apologise. I never told my colleague but couldn't believe someone could be so nasty. My colleague lost his baby and nearly his wife and my boss was worried about work & whether it was made up.

Still annoys me now thinking about it.

Drunk with power mean girl HR and office manager. Realised that most of us needed the job because the hours were flexible around school, which was quite rare in our area.

So she cottoned on quite quickly that we all had to put up with her shit and there is nothing like the power rush you can get when you realise you have control over people with absolutely no repercussions (she was the CEOs daughter in law)

She was a diabolical dictator.

Nothing personal in your drawers or desks - they weren't a storage lock-up
No drinks at your desk - but chastised if you left your desk for a drink
No eating in the building including the lunch room - it made a smell
No tea or coffee - she didn't like the smell
No personal cups or crockery - liked everything in the lunch room to match
No drink cans - concern for staff welfare
No outdoor shoes in the office - you used to have to keep a spare 'never been outdoors' set of shoes there.
No leave requests earlier than a week before the date
No leave requests less than a week before the date
No sick leave pay unless she came and saw you 'ill' - she would come to your house (as a 'welfare check)
No talking unless she was talking
No one was allowed to gain weight - she was on WW and mandated a weekly weigh-in as a 'community event' and ridiculed people for their gains or sulked at their losses
No one was safe - it was a new rule each week if she got a bee in her bonnet about something.
No one could be better or do better than her - I got a compliment direct to the CEO from a manager I was working with and she lied, said it was a complaint and tried to fire me. When I refused to sign her 'misconduct form' or pack up my desk she screamed at me and followed me home to continue the argument. Said it was a 'tiny' misunderstanding when the CEO intervened and reiterated it was a compliment.

The CEO just used to smile indulgently if we even hinted at a complaint and say 'She's all bark no bite with a heart of gold, that one - you know that'

Walked out after a particularly bullying week where she refused to entertain me being away from the office on my already pre-agreed leave date - to go be with a desperately ill family member. When I didn't come in she turned up at the house. She also turned up randomly for weeks afterwards and posted passive-aggressive notes through the door about 'concern for welfare' 'it is necessary to complete an exit process' 'That I was contractually obliged to meet to tie up paperwork' 'It is a requirement of UK law to have reference talk'

The kicker is she absolutely 100 per cent believed she was 'a great boss and fabulous wife and couldn't wait to become the world's best mother'. (actually her words)

Oh I’d have touched it-with my knee!

@peachie82 if you'd had scissors handy would you have snipped it off?

oooh thought of another one..

It was one of my first jobs in retail. It was a small shop but think uber-luxury Chanel-type brand. We got a new store manager who got transferred from a larger store (probably because he was useless). He did nothing all day. He refused to open or close the store, he would only do middle shift. We were a small team so the manager traditionally came on the shop floor to cover staff lunches. He never did so we were very short staffed during peak trading. If he ever came on the shop floor he would only act as doorman and greet the customers by saying "hello chap" - very luxury heh??!! He also hated confrontation so when we had a customer asking for the manager he would make every excuse under the sun to not come out of the office. He would pretend he was on the phone in a meeting (we never had remote meetings - this was pre-covid) or he would simply ignore us. Also he would come to work very hungover from going out the night before and sleep in the stockroom. He would use thousands of pounds worth of merchandise as a mattress.

Haha yes I was! It was in a bar I worked in and I had finished my shift and sat waiting for a taxi

I wish, I just slapped it away in horror

Ooh, not me but I suspect half the 18-28 year old population in our area...

We have a local branch of Clarks. The manager has been there for a very long time - at least 14 years. NONE of the assistants ever last more than a few months. I am not the only local resident who boycotts the branch becuse he is so rude to customers and, I suspect, if he's that rude in public to customers, how unpleasant is he to staff? Once, before I started boycotting, I said something about him to one of the staff in the children's section and she started to agree with me before she realised and shut up quickly.

The store is really really quiet a lot of the time now and he's often just wandering around on the floor looking slightly creepy. It's really odd.

I had a boss throw an American football at my head because he could not remember my name and wanted my attention.

Another boss told me about her painful anal sex the night before... we were not that close.

Our work is timesheet driven. In an old employment you were expected to put all 35 hours of work per week as chargeable time on your timesheet. No non-chargeable time, whatsoever. So if you went to the loo, or made a cup of tea, you had to charge your time to a client.

I ended up helping on an administrative task and stayed late multiple days of the week to do so. It was totally administrative, at the request of one of the bosses, so I recorded my time on my timesheet accordingly. I can't remember the exact details, but my final timesheet for the week had, say, 45 hours worth of work on it, 38 of which were chargeable hours.

I came into work the next day to an email from one of the other bosses bollocking me for putting 7 hours of non-chargeable time on my timesheet!

I typed an initial, angry, response, but didn't hit send. Re-visited it an hour later when I'd calmed down and reworded it to politely point out that: a) the work I'd done WAS non-chargeable; b) was over and above my normal working hours; and c) I'd already put MORE chargeable hours on the timesheet than was actually needed!

He then had the bloody cheek to tell me not to do it again! Perhaps I should have charged the time to one of his clients - see how he liked it then?!

My boss was visibly very overweight (I don't care about anyone's weight, but it's relevant to her behaviour in this story). She would go on and on about never having an appetite, that she never ate breakfast. She would poke your shoulder and comment disgustedly on whatever food you'd brought in every day, she would never accept any shared food/biscuits/whatever from packets opened for everyone. Basically she didn't eat in front of anyone.

But then she would buy several full size pork pies from the adjoining food shop every day (the cooked ones wrapped in paper) and hide somewhere and secretly eat them. I accidentally opened the cupboard once, then found her hiding round the back of the building and so on, eating this pie each time out of the wrapper and it was so awkward.

I felt very bad for her as she clearly carried a lot of shame or something that was a barrier for her, but no one would have given a shit if she'd eaten publicly. Of course that's no help to her though, she felt how she felt.

She would be very snippy with me afterwards even though it was accidental that I'd happened upon her hidden away.

I once got called in to managers office about my appearance at work the day before. I had chosen to go to work wearing no make up. I was a swimming teacher at the time!

Docked £50 from everyone in the company’s pay because someone committed the heinous crime of leaving the stationery cupboard open when we had a client in the building.

In a previous company - someone from C-suite got a book from one of my team members as a secret santa gift, and threw the book at his head.
Turns out she'd had an affair with the writer of said book (and the book was an autobiography that contained some details of an affair). WTF.

It's depressing how many of these involve older men sexually harassing/assaulting younger women.

Makes me realize that my own experiences of garden-variety bad bosses haven't been that bad. Well there was one who was evil, but I wasn't one of the main targets of his evilness. I think he realized he made my flesh crawl though, cos he said 'I notice you seem to avoid being in the same room as me.' Damn right I did. I left that job as fast as possible, which was a shame because until he arrived it was my dream job.

He nearly killed us both by being so preoccupied by something behind us on the motorway we nearly crashed into the car in front. The seatbelt snapped tight, my sunglasses flew off my face and I had aches for weeks. When we got to to meeting, spent to whole time giggling and whispering to my deputy, who perched on the arm of his chair for a while so they could share his phone. Promised her a massive promotion she was not ready or qualified for. He obviously thought he was in with a chance. We all knew she was in a committed relationship with another woman.

I used to work in a country golf club. The steward never did any work - he just used to sit in the lounge and watch me run the whole bar and lounge myself all shift. He used to send me to the cellar when a barrel needed changing or some bottles were needed, and then he would follow me down (if no-one was looking) and chase me around grabbing me and trying to kiss me and pull my clothes off.

I was only 18 and couldn't tell anyone. Eventually, when I was running the bar and a barrel needed changing or I needed a crate of bottles, I used to ask one of the men in the bar to do it for me and they never said no. One night the steward got so upset that he couldn't get me alone in the cellar that he drank a bottle of Glenmorangie, got in his car and drove onto the golf course. He was found on the green the next morning, in his car, passed out and naked. He had to leave after that. I breathed such a sigh of relief but the next steward was even worse....

Most of the office avoided ever being alone with the boss. Not a bad guy but he would take the opportunity to " witness " his faith to you as an evangelical Christian . Would contribute to baby presents , leaving cards , wedding gifts. Unless you were divorced getting married again or child was born of unmarried parents . Suppose he had a right to decide to do it but it did make us laugh if you were one of the naughty ones , unworthy of his £1 coin contribution.