What has your boss said or done that has made you want to quit your job

[Lorddenning1]

Just been reading an article about this and it inspired me to start a a thread. What has your boss said or done that has made you want to quit on the spot.

Mine was to a colleague of mine, his apartment complex was on fire and it was spreading along to his row, he was evacuated and came into work to grab some things, we all knew what had happened and was all sad for him as he had children, my manager asked him to sort out her computer as he was our IT guy, he basically told her not right now he had bigger things to worry about and she stormed back into our office threw a stop, saying can you believe him, he is too busy to help and I bet he says it's because his flat is on fire. We all sat there like
Safe to say we didn't expect any compassion from her in regards to our personal life.

That my miscarriage was inconvenient and I couldn't leave work to seek medical attention

And, same manager, to a colleague of mine, that she couldn't take time off to accompany her 15 yo daughter for investigation for suspected gynae cancer, no dependant leave, sick leave or even holiday would be granted. And if she did take the time without permission, she'd be sacked.

Honestly, the biggest arsehole I've ever had the displease of encountering.

i just thought of one that happened to me in my first job, 3 brothers owned the company and the youngest was vile, used to click his fingers at me if he wanted me to make him a coffee. one day the ladies toilets blocked, and he got his odd job mate in to have a look, next thing he is walking through the office holding the toilet pipe in his hand, with a used tampax sticking out, asking all the ladies who did this belong to, which led to people saying its not mine, and the older ladies saying i dont have periods anymore so it cant be mine. it was so disgusting to work for them. when i announced i was pregnant, the finance manager told me i should of taken it up the backside so i wouldnt be in the mess i was in. i cant believe i stayed there as long as i did.

@MissConductUS

My boss, who understands almost nothing about what I do, has a habit that drives me batty. He'll ask me a question and if it's not the answer he wants, he'll just keep asking it. Perhaps he thinks that the answer will magically change and the impossible will have become possible in a day.

Ah, you must work for the same person as me!

Also, in meetings with clients, he will ask me for an update on something he should have been dealing with... Only once have I replied ' I don't have an update as that action is with you'

I'm working my notice period!!!
Boss calls people Gay, Scum, says they wouldn't get a job anywhere else.
Asked me why my sales figures were down after my Dad died,
Spoke to me like shit after my Mum died.
After a loosing a baby situation, pulled me to the side and had a proper go at me for having a day off.
Comes into the office and says 'I'm in a bad mood and I'm going to take it out on you'
If someone's off having Chemo, demanded to see every hospital letter.
You get the idea... Our work place has no HR department. I've bought my house outright, I have no money on my overdraft or credit card, no personal loans and I've saved up a massive fuck you fund.
The money was good so I stayed but now it's paid dividends I'm not staying any longer. I'll need a couple of years off just to get over this.

I’ve had a few, my manager stood by and let an older but similar level colleague who passed work to me call me a “silly little girl” when I passed some work back to him that wasn’t complete. No one stuck up for me so I stuck up for myself and got disciplined!
The same manager blamed me for not getting a report to his manager right in front of me so I reforwarded it and cc in the boss .
The same manager called me in to give me a “verbal bollocking” for no reason he could actually pinpoint he just wanted to shout at me so I called in HR and it was somehow a misunderstanding.
Same manager and same HR wouldn’t extend my contract when I became pregnant “oh dear was that planned?” and I managed to get them to confirm this in a letter which I then used to take them to tribunal.
Most awful place I’ve worked and I don’t know why I put up with it for so long!

Manager of another department told me she had hired two older women over me on purpose as she "had been hit hard by employees taking maternity leave" (she was always complaining about this & always used it as an excuse for things going wrong). I've never wanted kids.
Neither of the two women she hired stayed very long & for other reasons I ended up in her team eventually before also quitting. She made me pay for my own leaving lunch & gave me a boxed cake that was out of date.

I've had a few but the two that stuck in my mind are

When my DD was quite young and was asked to travel abroad the next day and when I said no as I had to organise childcare asked me why didn't I have a live in nanny to help - she didn't have children and work came before everything else

I had had an op which meant I couldn't weight bare for 6 weeks, and my boss demanded I went into the office which required me to walk to the station, take a train and then walk to the office. She then said I had to come in the following week as well so got a doctors note to say I wasn't allowed which she disputed. I ended up having a breakdown and was signed off sick, when I went back she tried to discipline me for something, I resigned the following day

Compared the domestic violence I'd been through, when requesting time off work, to his aunt's alcoholism which got her sacked from a pub.

But you know... We're both single mums now 🤨

Many years ago I was working installing a new Fire Alarm in a care home. This was before mobiles were usual so a long time ago.

Late afternoon a lady in the office came to say my Manager was on the phone. His exact words were 'Sorry, your wife called earlier this morning to say your dad has died and can you go home. And I'm letting you know we don't pay compassionate leave'.

I didn't know what gutted me most. My Dad dying (no real surprise as he was very ill in hospital), my Manager waiting nearly a full working day to contact me, or the immediate statement of no compassionate pay.

Packed my tools there and then and left, never went back. Started a new job two days later.

I heard Ex-Manager got the push a few weeks later. I made sure everyone I worked with on every site knew what he/they had done. He struggled to get back into work. Served him right.

I worked for a well known charity who own lots of old houses. I took a maternity cover to another house that was under the same management as the one I was already working in.

My boss who was a fairly young chap was lovely when I worked in the original house but then as soon as I got to the new place, I couldn't do anything right. He tried to make me quit by telling me all the volunteers at my previous place had written him a letter saying they didn't want me back there as I was awful.

Now funnily enough, I was still quite friendly with some volunteers who told me it was not only a lie but that he came to big volunteer meeting and was quite openly bitching about me to them.

I ended up quietly getting another job and getting out as quickly as possible. I've heard on the grapevine that he is being shunted around the houses to try and get rid of him.

Just today or....

I had explained that I was going through the menopause and was having difficult symptoms.

He asked me "what are you going to do about your mental health issues?".

I did quit actually.

My boss told me that my meds (10mg amitriptyline) made me stupid and useless. My other boss (joint director) was fuming as it was so untrue. Actually, I’d been working so hard - the entire company respected that I was knowledgeable and helpful. And every manager relied on me in one way or another.

Anyway, cruel Director refused to talk to me amicably since I caused a fallout between Directors and I handed in my notice shortly after.

He did the same to 2 other employees and it turned out that they were trying to recoup costs to pay for a huge financial loss (mistake with clients project). I found out that they were advised against making redundancies while taking a call from a HR Lawyer and taking a message - he obviously thought I was the secretary (I was taking the call because the secretary was on the phone)….

All 3 of us were targeted, manipulating and curated to hand in our notice due to feeling bullied at work.

Clever on his part. But an awful experience!

Not necessarily a line manager but a senior nurse (ANP). Short staffed again, only 2 qualifieds for 28 patients. I hadn't been qualified that long, the other nurse pregnant. I was closest to the office so popped up and told her the situation.
She said as I wasn't the nurse in charge she'd wait to hear it from then.
It was the last straw. I started my new job yesterday!

@Daffodil21

It was my fourth pregnancy after three miscarriages. My boss knew this and asked me to go on a building site every two weeks until maternity leave, during a pandemic + heavily pregnant for the first time ever for site inspections. I told him I want happy, he actively disagreed, so I resigned because my pregnancy was the most important thing.

Is there more to this?

Surely as long as they properly completed a risk assessment and followed the recommendations, there’s no more risk to your pregnancy on a site visit than there would’ve been in the office?

Ooh some corkers.

A job at college whilst my mum had cancer and I was her sole carer a line manager told me I needed to smile more and I looked like 'I was only here for the money'. I was on minimum wage, what did he expect?

My first 'real' job at 18 a line manager told me I shouldn't smoke because and I quote 'look what happened to your dad'. My Father had died of a heart attack when I was a child, unrelated to his smoking, and I had told this to some colleagues in passing once. Would have had some choice words for her now.

Same job, I was on an apprenticeship scheme and they pulled my funding and told me I could go back to admin and they'd think about it again next year. Put my notice in that day.

Another job a colleague told me I 'needed a good seeing to', HR laughed. Quit that one.

Another job they essentially made me redundant but said they could employ me one day a week. I declined that and they tried to avoid having to pay me redundancy by claiming they offered me alternative employment. That nearly went to a tribunal.

There's more but those are my favourite.

I worked one year as a retail Christmas temp at a well known cosmetic/pharmacy which was on two floors. I was assigned to the ground floor, and one day realised that we had all of the shop’s security tags at the ground floor till so decided to take some to the first floor till. When I got back all the older ladies were standing facing forwards not talking to each other and said ‘quick, back to your till- the team leader is watching us on CCTV! You shouldn’t have left your floor’

I was genuinely confused and wtf about it because surely using my initiative to return something to the other till was just common sense?! Apparently not- I was taken into a room and grilled by the team leader and accused of going up there to chat to other staff and waste time. Even though she should have been able to see that I was only there for 30 seconds.

Absolutely hated that job- we were constantly watched by management on the cameras and if we spent two seconds doing anything at all that they didn’t like they would appear out of nowhere and tell us off. It was honestly like being at school, they treated us and also the permanent staff, people in their 40s-60s, like naughty children.

I remember another Christmas temp whose gran went into hospital suddenly, she had to keep checking her phone in her locker on her break to see what was happening. Her mum texted her to say her gran was going to die anytime really and could she possibly come to the hospital to say goodbye. The same team leader who watched us on CCTV told her that if she left her shift she couldn’t expect to keep her job. I was so glad when she walked out!

one boss had quite a few... and I did quit. A year on 5 different people have replaced me and quit within a few weeks!

I was mid process in the application for a promotion and informed boss I was pregnant. What should have been a month long process took almost a year because she was incompetent and I happened to conceive near the end. She said 'so you're withdrawing then? I'd never give a job to a pregnant woman so you'd just be wasting our time'

A week or so later in a meeting, she hasn't acknowledged me at all since the previous incident, she spent the hour talking to me via another person- who'd been given the promotion. whispering into their ear for them to relay to me. Like a child, and the other person played along.

Took a week off because she was 'tired' but didn't want to waste holidays so just didn't come in.

Sent a group text to our small team calling us 'fucking cunts' because one of us expressed concern about a decision she made (that was super illegal).

Tried to take credit for my work and when other, more senior, people said 'actually no you didn't do that. Majestic did a really great job on it though' she stormed out and cried to the ceo she was being bullied.

That was just the last couple of weeks before I decided to quit... right after my mat leave and pay.

Picking up his work and angry, irate clients when he went on holiday because he hadn't done stuff he was meant to. Not my current boss, thankfully, but the most disorganised, painful and disingenuous person I've ever met in my profession. Seems like a nice guy on the surface, but actually pretty toxic. Used to dump stuff like this on juniors all the time and get them into trouble. I didn't get into trouble as I was more senior. Loads of people left quickly because of him. He was only kept on as far as I can see as some clients liked him (he actually knew his stuff) and on the face of it he brought in the money. In reality he did no work, massively over time recorded so juniors could not recoup their time properly which got written off and actually made things much more costly for clients by over-complicating everything.

When I asked my boss about promotion he told me to find a Plan B.
So I did. A better job, for more money, in a less frenetic team doing a less reactive job (in the same organisation).
He went ballistic when he found out and a) refused my pay rise and b) side lined me from everything.

Bearing in mine I led the 25 strong team on his behalf, had had an exceptional year (his words), and was doing something I had done for 16 years and therefore had huge loyalty to him, the business in which I worked and was very well respected.

Had horrendous confrontational conversation with him about my payrise which he back tracked on completely when I held up the equal pay card.

Long story short- was signed off on 30 September with exhaustion and stress. Got chronic Covid two weeks later. Slowly transitioning back to work (new role) today.

Fucking arse.

Called me back to work another five minutes and told me I must work my contract hours. I had been in the office half an hour early and worked through my lunchbreak, which I did nearly every day. I'd previously negotiated with difficulty leaving five minutes early - in return for about 90 minutes' unpaid overtime a day - but the fact that I was leaving five minutes earlier than agreed was an issue. I told her that in future I would work exactly my contracted hours and not a minute more. The following day she asked me to work late, and I did it. First job and I hadn't the guts to stand up to her. When I left that job, a few months later, she tried to bully me into staying on a few more weeks and I refused. This gave me very great pleasure.

Asked me if I could delay the start of my maternity leave to beyond my due date because she'd approved another colleagues holiday then when I said no, told me off for being so inflexible.

"I love you and I'm leaving my wife"

We weren't having an affair, barely any contact outside of work. I was already looking for a new role but it definitely have me the final push to move. Didn't particularly enjoy being the source of gossip for months on end.

I was told that management had decided to give the promotion to the YTS boy (who was pretty useless) because he was a man and would be the breadwinner and need to look after a family one day.