What is the worst thing ever said to you by a boss?

[Chocywockydodahhhhhh]

So many posts on here about bad bosses I was just wondering mine would be
I had a miscarriage on the Sunday and came into work on the Sunday and managed to get through. By Tuesday afternoon I was bleeding through my pads, pants and onto the chair and I was in a lot of pain so went home. I was off two days and when I got back my boss didn’t ask how I was or how I was coping and instead said
“why couldn’t you have worn a thicker pad and not gone home, we had some in the cuboard, you could have put two together”

Bitch

"Be careful about what you wear around the Male councillors. You we're in a dress the other day and they were making comments about your bum and legs, no one will take you seriously if you keep wearing that kind of thing."

God I've had it easy compared to some on here.

Working a summer job and boss asked me to see her at 5pm. It was lunch time. Just knew she was gonna fire me because it was a shit job and I hated it. Why wait till 5, I said, let's do it now. No, 5, she replied. I'm not waiting around till 5 to talk to you, I said. I take it that's your notice, she screamed. Yeah, I said and left.

I was about 14 I think and did work experience at a hair dressers. I liked it and my boss thought I did well so with permission from the school and parents, I stayed on and worked Saturdays. One Saturday shortly after, he called me into the office to get me to sign something, can't remember what it was and then asked me to take a box of dye down to a stylist the box of dye was above him, so I stood on a chair to reach it and he grabbed my arse. I got such a fright I fell off the chair and banged my head. He just looked at me and picked up the dye, tossed it at me and told me to get out.

My next job, I was 16 and one of my teachers friends was looking for an office junior. Teacher told me about it, I applied and got the job. Not long after I started it turned out my cousin, that I barely knew had worked their previously and the office staff had hated her. I was sixteen, they were in their thirties and for a year, my boss made my life a living hell.

I came down with glandular fever and she made me come to work to prove I was sick. I could barely stand but I went in. She hid letters I was to take up and have signed, before the office went on Christmas holidays then replaced them after the holidays so it looked like I had not bothered to take them. She refused to let me leave work for over two hours when I got a call from the hospital to say my boyfriend had been rushed in with a heart problem. She made me apologise to the other office workers and thank them for picking up my load before I was allowed to leave. One of my jobs was to frank the mail and one afternoon she had another office staff start it for me, as she said I was very busy. I suspected she was up to something and reweighed some of the franked parcels to find they were massively underpriced. When I started redoing them she accused me of messing with the scales and made out I was setting the other worker up.

Finally after a year of abuse I couldn't take it anymore and didn't go into work with no reason. One of the partners of the firm called me and the only excuse I could think to give was that I was pregnant. He immediately said, don't come back and hung up the phone.

All in all, the start of my working life was really not pleasant!

Another one actually, I was working in a hotel when I was 18, in the south of England. I started off as a chamber maid, then got moved to waitressing, then bar work and then all three depending on what they needed. I was live in. I was working the breakfast shift waitressing, then opening the bar at ten, finishing at 2pm for 2 hours, then evening waitressing then back to the bar. I was exhausted but needed the live in room and was worried I could lose it if I didn't work what they wanted me to do.

One particular shift, I had finished the breakfast shift and went to open the bar, only to find the lad on the evening before had not bothered cleaning up. Dirty glasses, dried mustard pots, the works. There was no way I was going to get it open by ten. A new staff member came to join me that was employed just for the bar and through conversation, I found he was being paid two pounds more than me.

My boss came down the stairs to see why the bar wasn't open on time. I grumbled a response and he said, are you in a mood collywobbles? I said, yes a bit actually, the bar was left in a right state. He said: moods are not productive collywobbles.

I looked at him for a second then said, hmm, yep they aren't, and neither is working here. Picked up my jacket and walked out. Left all my stuff, everything and went to stay with a friend. I guess they just worked me too far.

I was told by a female manager to have an abortion when I told her I was pregnant (she was serious) I also asked that she didn't tell other staff members til I was a certain number of weeks pregnant, she immediately called a staff meeting and told everyone.

My female boss asked me why I had needed to take so much time off after the death of my grandfather because after all he was just a grandparent and 4 days (the 1st day I was at his bedside whilst he took his last breath and the last was for the funeral) was ridiculous.
We were incredibly close and he pretty much played the role of my father as he wasn't there much.

My male boss pressed up against me and told me to wear skirts as I would look sexier.

Needless to say I have now worked self employed for many years.

I am glad I am out of there. She is a really respected figure and has been given all sorts of awards and honours. She really treats her staff like shit though apart from her favourites. Some is always on the paper saying this and that about things yet I know she thinks the opposite. She has no emotion about anything at all and no empathy. She is actually a textbook narssacist

Not as blankly awful as many. I resigned to go and work at one of our clients, a large public body with very flexible working. At the time I did not have any family commitments, nor any plans to, but was also fed up of the bonkers consultancy hours:

“When you’ve finished having babies, I might have you back”

13 years (and 2 dc) later, I am still with the “new” employer. I rather like my more diverse, and less self-important colleagues. Not to say the flexi time, which has allowed me to accomodate all sorts of things as well as a family.

Not a boss as such but a woman who was interviewing me to be her nanny (this was 2015)

"I know this isn't politically correct but are you planning on having children anytime soon? If my next Nanny gets pregnant Ill have a sense of humour failure."

She was an employment lawyer!!!

After working at a firm for over 15 years I was pregnant with my first child. I decided to ask the Practice Manager if they would consider paying more than just SMP. He responded, “but wouldn’t that be seen to be paying women to have babies?”

This was a firm of solicitors and I’m an Employment Lawyer

I might use some of these as case studies next time I deliver diversity training!!

Never did fit into the little clique around my boss, he joined when I had been there a couple years and definitely played favourites.

He was aware of DV I'd suffered before joining the company and on one occasion muttered "he could see why my ex hit me"

Charming.

“You’re f*cking lazy and you don’t contribute anything”.

Luckily, said in front of a witness. She did get a final written warning for it, but still remains a nasty piece of work to this day.

She’s still there, and is now the overall department head. The department is leaking staff like a sieve.

Literally, every time I was irritated by something perfectly rational, my male manager asked if I needed a 'rag' also endless jokes about a company called PMS that supplied us with a product. He thought it was also incredibly funny to throw a dead mouse at me.

I was 18. I wasn't brave enough to try get him disciplined, but I WAS brave enough to beg my area manager for a transfer.

What a depressing thread, it is hard to believe there are so many horrible people out there. I have been very lucky and never had anything as horrible as some of these happen to me.

There was one insensitive moment years ago, which upset me at the time, I was not actually there but heard about it afterwards. I was due to appear in court (as an expert witness) and had to send my apologies on the day as I was having a miscarriage (actually having the D and C that morning). The judge was told I could not appear because I was ill. He made the solicitor call my secretary to find out exactly what was wrong with me and then read out the reason to him in open court. It's not embarrassing to have a miscarriage, obviously, but I felt my privacy had been really violated.

Bloody hell some of these are awful, really shocking. My beef with work seems minor in comparison. The last one that sticks in my mind was a ''you've missed out on any training for good now as you were on mat leave when we trained'' which is discriminatory.

These are really shocking comments.

Not me, and not exactly a boss, but a while ago my friend Chris was applying for jobs after graduation. He applied for two simultaneously, one at Tiny New Business and one at Proper Established Firm (actual names ) Our mutual friend Paul worked for both at the time, but was imminently due to leave PEF and work for TNB full time.

Chris was almost immediately offered the job at TNB without even a formal interview - not hugely surprising as he's very good at what he does (he now has a very well paid government job in a similar role) and had skills they needed that were hard to come by in his area. He didn't hear back from PEF at all, which he put down to bad luck, until he discovered that Paul had 'lost' his application to PEF so that he would have no choice but to join TNB. When I asked how he'd found this out, he said that Paul had straight up told him, not seeming to realise it was a bad thing to do

That wasn't even the most shady story I heard from that company. I'm so glad he has a job at a legitimate place now, because it sounded awful.

My old boss gave me a big lecture about finances and managing money, not living beyond my means, making sure I paid all my bills on time etc.

This was because me and my boyfriend had split and I was left with the house and we worked in banking so had to be impeccable with regards to our finances.

I felt quite patronised and offended and embarrassed by the lecture. Especially as it was in front of the area manager. And I knew I would be struggling.

Anyhows. A couple of weeks later all the staff were pulled into an emergency meeting and told that the manager who had lectured me had been arrested for fraud. Turns out she had been embezzling money from the bank for years. Cheeky fucker had the nerve to lecture me about managing my finances when she had been helping herself. They proved about 100k worth but suspected more.

And she lived at home with her parents at the time so no excuse really. Except her cocaine addiction.

I didn’t work in sales, but won a sales award for a large multi national IT company for assisting significantly on closing a deal worth $millions. Award to be collected from the US CEO in Hawaii! With my DH!
First night and the 20 plus award winners and partners having pre drinks while arrogant, twattiah, CEO circulates with wife number 4 in his arm (80,000 employees so I’d never even met him). He’s introducing himself and circulating, he literally pushes me aside, leans over me and shakes my husbands hand, congratulates him on the hard work and asks him what he did to secure a place in Hawaii I was
Without missing a beat my Beloved DH shook his hand and said “married her” it was awesome. He was flustered and blushing every time he saw me for the rest of the week! That’ll teach him to assume!

Assuming I am in that category,.. I didn't need to.
The business owner who treated me like that (well known in the area for being a piece of work) relied on being the only pub/restaurant in the area which kept him going.
When Dh and I (10yrs after my "trial") set up a business not 5 minutes away.. his business crumbled underneath him and we bought that too.

I think that was way more effective than anything I could've said tbh!

Sorry that was to PP asking why we don't go back and bollock our dickhead ex bosses. I already got him where it hurts

I've got more than one but some still make me so angry I just can't, right now. One made me leave an industry I'd worked in for a decade and still makes me sick to the core.

But here's one for ya. A female manager told me that I'd "only ever work in a call centre" (a job I did for a mere 18 months) because I "wasn't intelligent enough for any other kind of work". She carried on that she would "see me again in my next appraisal in six months." I corrected her, that she wouldn't. She shit herself when six weeks later I handed in my notice and she found out I was off to be an engineer in Central London. Seven years later she's still working for the same company at the same shitty call centre when I've finally made to the organisation that I've always wanted to work for.

When I worked in a bar, it was taken over by new ownership and I was the only staff member to be kept on. I was pleased and thought it must have been my capability at the job. They were hiring new staff and I encouraged my best friend at the time to apply. She phoned me after her interview to say she had walked out of it as my boss had told her 'she was not attractive enough' and 'collywombles' only kept her job for being attractive.

(That is not a stealth boast, this was years back, I look like a haggard old boot now 👀)

Safe to say, I did not return for another shift and my then best friend and I ended up finding a much better job in the same company.

Chocy that's unbelievable! You'd hope a woman would be understanding.

From my line manager:
"Your annual leave for next month has been revoked because you made a (confidential) complaint about the senior manager to HR. That's your punishment". Then she laughed.

I had booked a holiday to see family in America. The senior manager had taken me into his office, shut the door and told me no one liked me. I was 21. It was my first proper job. It turned out he had done the same thing to a few women in the office.

cloudchasing I do hope that was your actual response!