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).

My last boss.

Thought it was still the 70s.

Constantly sexually harassed female staff.

Watched a porn video on his phone during a lunch meeting.

Showed me a WhatsApp (obviously scam) photo of a young, south east Asian woman full frontal nudity and laughed.

Employed a member of staff because he fancied her on onlyfans. She was lazy and a thief. He only let me let her go when he turned up with the intention of shagging her (ick) and realised she looked fuck all like her photos. Like literally nothing at all.

Told me I would get "more tips" (when complaining about the conduct of said catfish onlyfans girl) if I wore "lower cut tops and short skirts" like her. Had to point out that wasn't the point I was making, that customers were unhappy with her fishing for tips, and that I had more self respect and was happily married to my husband who worked with me.

Final straw was he spoke to me like a piece of shit with two of his male equally pervy minions (with matching age gap south east Asian brides) after I'd worked all over Christmas whilst really unwell, had had to put up with his ex girlfriend saying she was the boss and constantly threatening to sack my frankly brilliant staff, and then he had the audacity to blame me for two years worth of shit when I'd worked there for 6 months. I lost my shit big time. I'd also found out when he said we were doing badly and he was having to put money in weekly, he was lying, in fact he had had a pat on the back from the big bosses as we were doing so well. He took all credit for my bloody hard work.

So I told him to go fuck himself. He didn't appreciate a woman saying as such. According to my former staffer he called me a "fucking mouthy feminist".

I'm now my own boss. I got head hunted. In fact I got three offers. I picked the one I liked best and we got the keys a week off ago. It's nice being the decision maker and not having some old pervert trying it on with my staff.

His business is in the toilet. People stopped coming after we left. He's had a notice to leave the business and hand his keys back. They've got in touch with me to take it but I've said no.

Karma is indeed a bitch. I like to think she's a gobby feminist.

Vile woman I worked for. I was leaving an abusive marriage and had a short period of sick leave due the stress of it all. She phoned me at home constantly while I was off work wanting to know when I would be back to work .Then when I stopped answering the phone she phoned my mother and asked her when I would be back at work! When I returned to work she had reported my absence to HR and I had to have an interview with them. She was the biggest skivver going. She left work every afternoon for an hour to collect her children from school and ‘put the tea on’. Then she returned to work as if she had never been away.

Wouldn’t let me leave work to go to the hospital, I had recently had surgery and my stomach swelled up 5 times its normal size. My temperature was 42 degrees and I was really unwell, only 20 years old too.

karma got her back though, the wound split open in the office toilet, spilling out 3 pints of muck from a severely infected wound.

she was made to clean it up while a colleague took me to A&E and she had to go on a first aid course.

I was diagnosed with septicaemia and told I was lucky to be alive when I got to hospital.

While working on a magazine, we had a columnist who submitted some dreadful pieces and we would sit in editorial meetings saying why we thought the column should be dropped. The columnist received more money than any other freelance journalist.
The editor would always support the columns so we believed the columnist was one of her friends. It turned out not only was editor the columnist and was being paid the higher column rate but the name of the columnist was an anagram of her name.
You had to admire her audacity. 😊

Worked for a CEO once who was both nasty and crazy. He genuinely didn't give a shit about how people felt, at all.

He (a white man) was in a meeting with our network of Black and Minority Ethnic staff. They were explaining in a really constructive, engaging way about some of the extra barriers that minority staff face in the workplace.

After about 25 minutes of this, he spread his arms and hands and just said, "People. You should know that daddy can't fix everything."

I'm hardly the most woke person but even I was shocked by that one

Left naked photos of himself in his desk drawer for me to find "accidentally" - the drawer where his appointments diary was kept and that I had to use multiple times a day.
Wanker.

I was made redundant and served out my notice period professionally. Male boss never really bothered coming into the office which we were all happy about anyway. On my last day, he came in and called me to come to his office. I declined and stayed in the open plan area. He then said he was going to conduct my leaving interview. Asked me why I was leaving. I said “you’ve made me redundant”. He told me to stop messing around and to answer the question. I repeated that they were making me redundant. He then asked if there was anything I would change about my employment, to which I childishly responded “yeah, I’d like not to have been made redundant”. He then said he was terminating my exit interview and wouldn’t provide me with a reference due to my attitude. He then came to the pub with us for drinks (didn’t buy any) and made everyone so uncomfortable they left early. Arsehole.

stole the fridge from work and replaced it with his one from home “cause the work one was better, “he was quite open about it . stole a chandelier from work. Saw that I had a newer work mobile than him and made me swop with him…said he was too busy to support me doing something yet when I went into his office he was making Christmas cards…never did any work.

Fabulous result. And absolute stones to you and your sister, Karma. 🌹

Had a boss that would bring his NTL cable box in a holdall into work with him whenever he'd argued with his wife. So she couldn't watch the telly while he was on the backshift.

she was made to clean it up while a colleague took me to A&E and she had to go on a first aid course.

A fitting outcome. Glad you made it OP, and hope you've gone from strength to strength since. 🌹

When I was a naive 18 year old on a work's do trying to snog me! I thought he was lovely, really respected him, was the one who interviewed me, total shock! I think that was a moment I started to realise men were more predatory and after one thing! Oh and the other manager did the same to my friend 🙄

Wanker

In several different ways, probably. 🌹

Oh at the time I had a "what the fuck have I done" moment because the job came with our home, which have us two weeks to leave. But it was worth it, and I ultimately don't regret it. I would have rather it didn't make us have nowhere to live for a bit, we had to stay with the in laws but yes, what I've since learnt about my ex-boss thank God I got out when I did.

Many, many years ago I had one who called me into into his office everyday to dictate a letter to the Times. He thought he was super witty. None were ever published to the best of my knowledge. In the same place, the coffee making stuff was in my office and I was expected to make drinks for visitors. I went on holiday and came back to a week's worth of moldy cups all heaped up. I was horrified and asked my immediate boss if she could at least give me hand to get them washed up. She went bat-shit crazy at the suggestion. I left not long after. They were very disappointed with me as I was letting them down by going off to a better paid role with no dictation or washing up duties.

Director was outraged when I applied for a promotion, demanded to know why. Because it's in my career plan I said - these were the days when succession planning and personal development was taken seriously.

Boss gave the promotion to a mate, who rang me in his first week in the job to ask for my help doing it. Err, that'll be a no. I quit, had already been snapped up elsewhere.

Was working out my notice, came in one day to find director had already given my desk to someone else. New occupant was suitably embarrassed but boss nowhere to be found of course. There were other examples of batshittery needless to say.

Last year I encountered the most sinister psychopath of my career.
He'd chosen a film characters name (think short arse, very busy action boy).
First day he told me he was here to greet me and then proceeded to tell me he would be quickly promoted over my head.
Day two he failed to inform me of a HQ meeting on VC. He'd booked it for 8am.
Day three he told me he had killed someone in cold blood as a close protection officer.
Day four he dragged me to the Fens and told me he had taken my staff into his confidence and I wasn't cutting it with them
Day five he would dismiss my marketing director for me as he was late that morning (I was out that day) HQ wouldn't tolerate that. He didn't and got pissed instead when I queried it.
The second week he hacked the email system and forged emails asking said marketing director to spy for him as he showed him made up correspondence.
This went on for months. He was an absolute nutter.
Turns out he was a conman.
Not his real name. No military service.
No country house.
I left after he did indeed get promoted to my manager. He threatened to shoot me if I told anyone anything about him however he's on the run having stolen £2.5m from the company. Finally and sadly he also sexually assaulted two female members of staff after I left. This has just come to light
The knickname he gave me, fat c**t.
I think I got PTSD after this one. Currently waiting on the court cases.

Male boss used to ride on a kid's scooter to work ! This was back in the 80's when social media did not exist, otherwise it would have been all over Facebook!

Have read since that one of the founders of MI5 or MI6, had an injured leg, and used to ride a kid's scooter up and down the corridors, maybe he inspired my former boss.

A previous boss sent me out in the snow (on foot) to collect an Alexander McQueen dress, for an event they were attending that evening (picked up by car). Spoiler: they are quite famous on the telly these days.

Had a female boss who was from an ‘IT’ background. She was like 28 when I started working there with a young daughter, always leaving her husband and the family home with said daughter because he was an alcoholic, but none of my business.

She was suspiciously close with the company director and dressed up massively on the days he was due in but whatever. Then she started accusing us of things.

Some petty cash allegedly went missing on one occasion, this all hinged on her having seen it on his desk before she left at 4pm. The only people who could have done it were those in the office after that and we’d had no walk in sales we always recorded those and any change we needed to issue.

So we all got pulled in and spoken to about it, except me as I was at a hospital appt being told I had a severe case of an incurable disease at 25 after being very poorly for years and taking that long to get a diagnosis after many tests and my GP going nuclear. I fully expected to be spoken to about it when I got back to the office (because fair is fair!) in the afternoon as a coworker had called me and explained to expect it while I was on my way back so I wasn’t blindsided after already having bad news that day.

Manager in question never said a word to me about it personally, turned out she only bothered to talk to the other customer service team and ignored several other people in the office who had equal access, including some after hours once we’d left for the day. I raised it with my supervisor, that it seemed unfair and he assured me they’d been interviewed via Google hangouts as it was at the time, despite the fact they were physically in the office?! I didn’t believe this so I asked them myself. They knew nothing at all about it. Didn’t even know it had happened never mind that they were considered as potentially responsible, because they fucking weren’t!

Certainly never interviewed via hangouts but I knew that was hogwash as soon as it was said because it was so ridiculous. Not that I thought any of them were responsible, it was the injustice of it. Supervisor’s response was less than useless so I went off sick for two weeks with ‘stress’ because the whole thing was such bullshit.

Apparently after I left he went in and read the manager the riot act throwing his hands around berating her because he’d been deceived too and she made him look an idiot. I don’t blame him and we’re still in touch now, lovely bloke.

Fast forward a year or so, company was bought out by a blue chip conglomerate. It emerged she had no idea at all about the IT and was happily drawing a massive wage on this basis and came up with an agreement with our CRM providers that they were doing all the back end work at no additional cost while she was claiming to be logging on at 9-10pm every night sorting out problems. She used to just wander out of lengthy meetings when she couldn’t do things they were asking of her and not go back in because she was completely out of her depth. We were cringing on her behalf watching it happen.

One day we’d hit a target and the bigwigs came up from London and we cracked the champagne and beers in the office to celebrate. Put the leftovers in the fridge and thought nothing of it. 2-3 days later when they had done all their meetings etc and went back to London three of us saw her swigging from a bottle at her desk in her office. All thought they must have imagined it but raised it with eachother to the other person saying “omg yes I saw that too!”

She then asked to be taken home because she didn’t drive and had a ‘migraine’ which I dutifully did, when I got back the cheeky bitch had sent an email round about someone nicking the company beers from the fridge!! Anyway the 3 people who saw her doing this at her desk and then pouring it into a mug took this to the MD and founder who was staying on to assist with the transition to avoid raising it formally with the new owners who we didn’t really know. If she hadn’t tried to blame us for it then I think we would have let it go providing it wasn’t a big weekly occurrence but whatever. She had taken a bin bag out with her when I took her to my car so no evidence of empty bottles in her office or anything.

He seemed to listen but was shocked, then all of a sudden both founding partners left without warning despite agreeing to stay on for a year to aid the transition. She stayed on maybe another 2-3 months and then left in tears because presumably of the lack of preferential treatment and the new owners imposing rules which treated us mere customer service staff like humans and not her personal gophers. The GM who visited from there literally tore her ‘rules’ for us off the wall in disgust.

Turned out after the fact (I found out from someone who knew her father purely coincidentally) that the original owner/founder we went to about her drinking on the job and accusing us of stealing the money and beers (because we’re just thick and will just be unable to control ourselves and take it right?!), that he bought her a house. Both married with kids but something so very weird and icky about the whole thing.

I genuinely suspect they think they did a good job of keeping it out of the workplace 🧐🤣🤣

it was WILD. We all got made redundant 18 months later but definitely brought us much closer as a team so not all bad. But yeah, it still feels like a fever dream!

Not bosses of mine ( been quite lucky) but my late husband was a civil engineer worked with a few nutcase Forman
One got angry about something took off his hi viz, and hard hat, tried to rip hi viz threw them on the floor and jumped up and down on them
Another continued to send him to jobs in another area couple of hundred miles from where we lived, because he knew my husband was from that area thought he'd be pleased, he then came to our wedding uninvited as was staying with The boss, and was caught urinating over curtains in hotel! 😯🤬
Husband while digging on another occasion discovered a burial site, he told a different Forman that he must tell archaeologists the Forman told him not to as would hold up the job, ( my husband had more sense and job was stopped).

I’ve got a few
i bought a puppy - my DP was working from home so no issues with care . Got a shitty email from my manager saying he hoped the new puppy would not impact on my work and I should have thought of the company before I bought it. Same guy told me if he had his way I’d work 24/7 for 365 days a year . He would text /call me at weekends , evenings , when I was on holiday . All stuff that would wait . Got more and more irate if I didn’t reply .
Got awarded a huge contract - all his staff had done unpaid hours to help him with it. He took his wife to Barcelona for a weekend to celebrate . Didn’t even buy his staff a drink . Told us we should be grateful to work for a successful company !
Had my pay cheque bounce two months in a row . Was told to bear with her . I refused to do any more work til I got paid - was two months in arrears by then . Had bounced direct debits and so on . Was told I lacked loyalty and I shouldn’t assume I’d be paid
Manager telling me she didn’t have a life so why should I
I’m self employed now. It has its ups and downs but reading some of these jaw dropping stories makes me very grateful i don’t work for anyone else anymore

Jogging to car park to start the day 💪 😄 Did you work in Dunder Miffin under Michael Scott by any chance?

I could write pages!

Talked about her sex life when no one asks- including the fact she'd had sex on a park bench, she's soooo tired as her partner woke her up at 5am for sex etc

Had an underwear/boudoir photo shoot which she not only told everyone, including people she didnt even know the name of, about at a work party (VERY strait laced corporate law firm) but sent photos to team members.

Told the entire team and her superior her partner was going to prostitutes (not sure how true this is)

Asked me to get her a drink at a work function while she was eating (free bar so not too fussed as I got myself one too) then proceeded in front of a table full of people to demand I go back and get her a straw.

Made a comment to a team member "at least you only have one mum to look after I have 2 kids"- said team member has a disabled parent with incurable cancer

Made a comment to HR "X doesn't have children so work is her baby"- then told team member she'd said it

When given £150 collection for a milestone birthday, didnt even say thank you until reminded the next day and then proceeded to speak to another team member asking who exactly the email had been sent to, why certain partners she doesn't work directly with or even in the same office as, had not contributed. They had been asked they just barely know her!

I'm sure there are more I can't think of right now. She's 95% of the reason I am about to leave this job.....

No, but horrific that there are more than one of these jogging obsessives out there!