Worst thing a manager has ever said

[Cosmos123]

A senior partner of one of one of the big 4 on a social evening last week.
He mentions to the new graduate recruits that he spend 3 years in Sweden.

When asked why he was there

He responded 'I wanted to live somewhere where I could blend in'.

Bearing in mind he said this to a young black recruit.
How shocking is that!

Many years ago, I worked with a young single woman, in her early twenties who became pregnant but miscarried.
Our boss, in front of the other staff, told her ' good, it serves you bloody right! '
It was my first job after arriving here in the UK and I was absolutely appalled. I left for a much nicer employer not long after.

I was one of the companies top performers. On coming back from maternity leave the MD said "I know your husband is a high earner, are you just here for pin money?"

Out of the blue, one boss of mine said ‘You know, it is thought the Jews went to their deaths willingly, to save the sins of the world’. In the corridor. To me and a Jewish member of staff. Total nut job he was.

I was 18 and working in a terrible law firm (crash4cash kinda deal) the manager I was under was a proper salesman type who flirted horribly with the girls (they were early 20’s he was 40’s) I’m talking neck massaging, hair touching … it was gross and he was awful if you weren’t one of his favourites who played along.

I didn’t play along. So he decided I sucked at my job and tried to fire me. HR appointed a lovely woman to support me as I’d not had any real training. She was a junior manager and quickly assessed I was perfectly fine at my job. She asked what has happened and I told her EVERYTHING fully complained about the greasy, flirty awful manager guy.

….so this woman was his WIFE they had a 2 year old at home and he had met her when she was early 20’s and worked for him. I had no idea they were married as she used her maiden name still at work. Needless to say the manager guy suddenly got A LOT less flirty, she used to call in to see him multiple times a day after that. Keeping a close eye on him. He hated me until I left.

"you're pregnant anxious pixie! Congratulations!!! We'll look to move you to a lower grade post so you don't have to do so much." This was a woman.

Bullying boss …”if you have stress it can’t be work related, because being a single parent is far more stressful than working “.

When I was younger I was asked if my mother sucked cocks in hell!
Far too many other things I got a yr and half wages when I had a breakdown.
Decades on my manager who wasn't good looking in the slightest) I went outside his dog was on site he said oh look 2 dogs now.
Hideous.

When I was 26, and having some problems line managing older colleagues, I was told 'Your problem is that you look too young. If you were a man I'd suggest that you grow a moustache'.

I’d like to say I’m shocked at some of these but I’m really not 😡

MD of company (silver spoon job) hated anyone disagreeing with him, but more so if it was a woman. I was a senior manager, when I started in the role the company had 12 court cases pending for breaches of law. His attitude was to argue the lawyers were wrong (he did not have any legal training) and refuse to engage. My take was to engage with the monitoring body, liaise and acknowledge the things we absolutely were doing wrong and fix them whilst debating some of the tenuous issues. None of the cases ended in court and when I resigned 9 months later we had no pending legal actions. However he felt the need to repeatedly tell me I was "fucking shit" at my job, that I needed to listen to him and do it exactly as he said and when I refused to work late after having already done a 60 hour week he told the whole company in a meeting that I was a "fucking cunt" and then lied about it when I reported him to the hr director.

They begged me to stay I told her I wasn't prepared to work for misogynistic narcissistic psychopath.

We later found out he was snagging one of the office girls, cost him millions on divorce fees and he lost his kids as his wife took them back to her home country. Couldn't have happened to a nicer chap.

I worked in a role where I had to let my manager know I was pregnant early on for safety reasons. I sadly had a miscarriage, then when I conceived again, I told my manager I was pregnant once more and he said “You know you could lose this baby too”.

Dp's mum had died and the family were having a cremation, followed the next day with the burial of her ashes. When I asked for both days off the reply I got was "can't they just scatter her around the graveyard on Saturday, it's not like she's going to care is it?"
The same manager also asked for proof from a colleague that her mum really had been rushed into hospital and was in ICU because " anyone can claim that can't they?"

Worked in a menswear store a long time ago, a Man came in wanting trousers, I showed him to the changing room. He said they didn't fit. When I took him another pair, he exposed himself to me. I told my manager, who said "Aren't you a lucky girl, then!!" I told another manager what happened, and the man was arrested. I also complained about the way I was spoken to by the first Manager, who also said he wanted me to wear mini-skirts on Thursday.

In a 'listening group' on the topic of feeling undervalued, she said 'if you want to be paid more the reality is you'll have to leave' .... What a great way to motivate your team. I was gone a couple of months after that.

Goodness me, some of these are utterly awful. Makes me cringe that men who are old enough to be dads and grandad are making such disgusting comments. It's also scary that people with racist views and opinions are the ones working right at the top.

Sorry to all those who have had to go through this shit, I hope you are all in a better working environment now.

When I first started work in the 80’s there was one non-white man in the factory. The men only seemed to speak to him when India was playing England at cricket and that was to tell him his team were either crap or cheating.
Anyway one of the shift managers, a nasty, greasy little middle-aged mini Hitler told me
“People are like cats aren’t they? Your pedigree white Persian is always going to be more valuable than your black moggie?”

I'd been with a company for 12years and a new person started. She never worked a full month, always off sick and there was a pattern forming, the sickness always fell just before or after school holidays or her planned annual leave. Anyway, she had everyone wrapped around her finger in the office but me, she didn't like it that I wasn't all ow poor xxx off sick again, or ask her what was wrong. So she turned the whole team against me, refused to speak to me, if a customer called for me, she'd lie and say I wasn't in or I was busy to steal my commissions. Eventually I signed myself off with stress for a few days, and Hr and my line manager called me in to discuss the situation. My line manager turned around in front of HR and said Stress wasn't a real illness. The look on HR face when she said that was priceless. I still remember it to this day. Thankfully HR listened to me and investigated the other persons sickness etc.

i had a manager (female) who actively disliked me. I had the misfortune to sit next to her and She badly bullied me - One time in particular stands out. she asked me not to ask questions of her as soon as she came
into work.

One morning i got a call from
the top VP which needed her attention. when she came in, I said I her name to explain and she shushed me. She then proceeded to chat to my colleague on the desk opposite for 15 minutes about the School run and what was on telly. she then went round the whole team (bar me) and asked how evening was.

When she finally sat down and started to log in, I said he name again, and she shushed me again. I told her this was urgent and relayed the message. She berated me then for both speaking when shushed and being incompetent for not raising before. All this in an open plan office.

I finally left when in a 1:1 she said let's talk development and handed me a book titled "applying for your next job". she was an utter cow and the team were not much better for area licking while this went on.

manager wasn't very nice, used to blank me and laugh about me behind my back, exclude me from all-staff events, and even changed time of a meeting once wo telling me (the old ones are the best). I once said my toddler hadn't slept well and she said "that's because she probably feels so unsettled as you work full time"

once in a huge london venue at an event I'd worked hard on, on, she launched in to a long anecdote about how she'd dreamed I'd tried to commit suicide the night before but had changed my mind and was begging for mercy. this was in front of all the sorts of event staff, launch/marketing people...I was mortified.

My ex boss was caught on cctv masturbating over porn he watched at MY computer at my desk...and didn't have an ounce of shame about it. Presumably at mine so his wife couldn't see what he had searched on his computer. Let's just say I left a few months after that...

@Sunshineboo our bosses sound similar!
I said I felt I needed to cover something as it was a strength of mine and she smirked and said "that will be for your next role in another organisation ".

I guess with hindsight she just hated me

Manager - "don't stand against that wall, you blend in and I can't see you". It was a dark wall. You get the idea

Same manager - "was this baby planned?". Right after I'd taken a month off after an ectopic and losing a tube.

Same manager - "will you be bottle or breast feeding?"

I don't know how he still has a fucking job to be honest.

You have no classroom presence compared to X (X had been a teacher for 10 years, I had been teaching 4 days).

As a teen - why can't you work full time and study for your degree too?! That's exactly what I did. You can't go part time! Wish I'd had the thought at the time to say, "Is that why you only got a 2:1, not a 1st?" (I got a 2:1 for reference anyway 😂... working part time)

I was at a job interview when I was 22 to be the receptionist at an art gallery in Mayfair. It was a great gallery and I really wanted the job. Half way through the guy interviewing me (it was his family name above the door) answered his mobile, speaking in French, which I speak fluently (and it says so on my CV, which was in front of him. If he looked at it.... ) He proceeded to discuss his plans for the evening ahead, said he was interviewing another imbecile (I had an MA - as I imagine everyone interviewing for the position did as it was a prerequisite), that he was going to wrap it up quickly as he'd preferred the girl before me who had bigger tits. The worst thing is that I stayed and tried to prove my worth - and when he asked me what my second language was (also a prerequisite) said Italian. However now I write about the London art scene (among other subjects) for glossy magazines. And I never ever even name check that gallery.

A colleagues girlfriend committed suicide. On the day of the funeral one of the directors (a woman) noticed his empty seat and said to the whole office he "was better off without her".