Horrible Bosses - the worst you have ever had?

[carocaro]

Saw the trailer to the above movie and got me thinking about my worst ever boss.

Mad large woman who would not let us use the fridge to store our lunch; she once put a pitta bread of mine in the bin in from of me as I had dared use the fridge! She suggested we use lunch boxes with ice packs a la primary school.

Same woman had a tiny dog who hated thunder and lightening and once when there was a storm and she was out of the office called me to say to go pick up the dog and sit with it on my knee until she got back. It pooped all over me, runny poop, and she never said sorry.

Had a letchy pervy boss who once said to me on a client night out if I had remembered to set my alarm for the morning, perplexed at such a question I said no and he said "how about I roll over and nudge you?" JUST VILE.

a 60 yearold alcoholic who threatened to rearrange my face if I didn't agree to stay for overtime.

it was 1998, I was 18, he only paid £3 an hour, no extra overtime rate, and he was used to his staff not being ABLE to go home until he said so, as he drove them all into work in his landrover. I had a motorbike, and he didn't like that.

Evil boss who slapped me for giving a customer the wrong size of plate for the salad bar. It was too big - that customer could have got extra lettuce and minging beetroot salad!

The one that used to call me "lumpy jumper"

boss who told me that:

I would never be promoted because of my disability.
Arranged a team lunch at a pub that was within driving distance of work and then told me I couldn't go because no-one could be expected to carry my guide dog in their car.
Fed my guide dog haribo even though it was common knowledge that she was not to be fed.

When she was reported (by a colleague) to the equal opportunities officer she dragged me into her office and demanded to know what I was going to say to the equal ops officer.

Some years ago, acted entirely on a whim, sacking people for the most trivial of reasons - if anyone was called in to his office on a Friday it meant a sacking. He sacked me verbally one afternoon, told me to leave immediately, then wrote to me and apologised profusely for having had to make me redundant. When one woman on the staff was going through a vile divorce he gave her no quarter at all but when he had an affair with another member of staff his paramour was given time off because she couldn't cope when his wife became upset. Shudders at memory.

Just want to say thanks to you all as I've had a horrible day fighting with my boss - he is a twunt but you've put it in perspective!

Lumpy jumper?!?!
'Roll over and nudge you'?!?!

And am just glad that guide dog fattener/uninviter/discriminatory wanker eventually got reported!

I still work indirectly with the one who called me lumpy jumper - he used to be very much my senior - I have been promoted to almost his level whereas he has stayed in much the same grade I will have a job a lot longer than he will

I worked in a pub when I was a student and did my back in lifting a beer barrel. I was told by my boss that if I was looking for sympathy I would find it in the dictionary between shit and syphillys!

Boss who, when my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer with weeks to live, refused to give me time off to spend with her. (I took it off anyway and my mum's doctor certified me sick as he was so horrified).
Upon my return, I was then hauled into a disciplinary meeting for my failure to meet my sales targets (which I had no chance of meeting as I was off!) and put on special measures.
I then got a transfer to a different location within the company and when, 2 years later I was the "go-to" person in the branch, and he was transfered in as my manager again, I took great joy in telling him to stick his job and watching from afar as he sank without trace as I wasn't there to run things behind the scenes.

The one who:

• Tried to dictate how I spent my lunch break
• Commented that my desk was untidy when I had just lost 2 staff and was doing their work myself
• When I was pregnant tried telling me that I had no right to paid time off for antenatal appointments - I had to show her the relevant Government web page to set her straight. And this was when I was bending over backwards to get the latest antenatals I could so as to miss the least possible work time.

Needless to say she completely changed her tune on how to treat pregnant women when she became one herself...

The one who tried to justify no pay-rise for me over a 6 year period on the basis "she could get someone just as good as me for less".

Worst boss I had used to be a lecturer in business at the local college. She came in and started giving all the full time members of staff part time shifts and the extra hours to her ex students.

I was utterly horrified, the full time members of staff needed the money to pay rent and childcare. The students were doing it for a bit of pocket money.

She knew I had a job in a nightclub too and would change the rota to make things difficult for me. She would asks me "what time you in tomorrow?" I would say, " the rota says 11" and she would change it to 7am which she knew fine well meant me getting the 6am bus and hanging around for half an hour.

She also used to bring all staff in on a Saturday and then send her least favourites home after 2 hours, which barely paid my bus fare.

After that happening to me for the third Saturday in a row I just didn't go back.

Awful awful woman.

I'm a vet.
When I was pregnant with my first my (Male) boss showed too much interest in whether I would BF or not by asking periodically if I'd 'get my tits out'.
He went on holiday when I was 37 weeks pregnant, left me in charge of two clinics and I ended up having to do a 3 hour surgery on a very ill dog. I thought I was going to faint at one point, the poor nurse was having kittens trying to keep an eye on the dog and the vet.
When I was on maternity leave and was trying to organise returning to work, he asked if I thought I'd be any good as a vet any more now I was a mother.
After that I decided not to go back to work for him.

Ooh, I had a boss who used to get me to not only run personal errands for her (pick up her dry cleaning, etc) but do her teenage son's homework. As in, she got me to write her son's application and thank you letters for work experience, draft an English report, etc.

She and the boss of the section (it was an academic institution, she was office manager and he was educational manager) were having an affair, and used to kiss in his office with the door open, so if there was a phone call or visitor for her one would have to walk Very Loudly and call out, well before being in line of sight, that there was someone here to see her.

Both of them later got fired when it was discovered that they'd been engaged in petty theft from the company for about five years.

The café owner who chased me (aged 15) around his office trying to grab my arse saying I "owed him" for a recent pay rise.

Some of these are awful.

I had a boss who would scratch his bum. I mean in a fingers jammed up there rummaging sort of way, and then he would sniff his fingers in front of you. He would also stand next to me and fart while I was doing telesales, and then say into the ear without the phone on it "you didn't hear that, did you".

Not the sort of behaviour you'd expect from a bank manager.

He made my life difficult, as did the guy that followed him. I left not long after.

Amongst many many horrors in the 2007-8 period in my career (being shouted at in front of the whole office, mocked, asked about my sex life by Evil Boss), this was my favourite:

Letter came in to the department in Spanish. I offered to have a go at translating it - my Spanish is a little rusty but I was probably the best placed to have a go at it as I told Evil Boss I had studied it at school. Evil Boss: "Oh, you did Spanish at school? That figures. At my school only the retards did Spanish, the rest of us were allowed to do German."

I was so stunned I did not know what to say. BTW I have a first class honours degree in business from a well respected university and never had a problem with any boss, previous or since. I don't know where the hatred came from.

I worked for someone who had seen off 5 PAs in 6 months - I was PA number 6. She used to make me type up loads of illegible notes and then, when they were done, tell me that she'd had a call an hour previously that whatever they were needed for was cancelled, so she ripped them up in front of me. She generally called people names, shouted, ranted and was very bitchy. Her paralegal (she was a lawyer) was admitted to hospital with a nervous breakdown and I lasted 14 months. She knew she couldn't break me, it was like water off a duck's back, so eventually softened a bit.

One boss who was ex Army and decided that it would be funny to pick me up and hold my head under water in the kitchen sink. I did get a few thumps in afterwards though and went to the police. Horrible bully of a man.

3 years ago it was my last day in the office before maternity leave and my lazy arse boss asked if it was ok to go to the pub for lunch, I was like 'oh yes, that's fine '. She then told me she was taking the other girls and I wasn't to have my lunch (on my own in the canteen) until they got back, dragged their back-sides in after 1:30. I was ravenous . Silly bitch is still there, total slacker though.

The one I've got at the moment. Had a run in with them recently. Put something on a report that I did not say, did not agree with and was completely and utterly personal and not related to the job. I refused to sign it and asked for a meeting only to be told that if they didn't put that, they would put something worse instead.

Have been in the job for many many years and this person has been my boss for a few months. Every report I had before was top notch, suddenly I'm shit at the job and my work is satisfactory only some of the time. I fucking hate my job now, used to love it. I am leaving soon and will now leave under a black cloud rather than being sorry to go. I saw DH being bullied out of his job a couple of years back, was full of good advice and how could he let this happen. Now I know because it's happening to me.

I was sixteen, working as a cook in an old people's home (pity the residents, all i had going for me was a surprising pass in O level domestic science).

The male half of the owner couple kept turning up in the kitchen in a state of lesser and lesser dress. I was trying to cook (badly) for fifty whilst skirting around the kitchen table to maintain a safe distance.

His wife walked in the day he was there in a grubby sting vest and tracksuit bottoms with conveniently knackered elastic.

I then got called every horrible name under the sun, rather than fire me and do the cooking herself she took up residence in the kitchen to sit, criticize and berate me in moral terms.

Obviously i was looking for a new job, that's how i discovered she had put my job up in the job centre, this time asking for a cook in their 50s.

I was too young to cope in any sense of the word. When I spoke to the job centre begging them to help me find a job, any job (telling them why in floods of tears) I got it in the neck cos the man kept asking if I had "encouraged" the bloke. He then kept chuntering about not wanting to send me on other interviews cos there were plenty of other school leavers who were able to conduct themselves in a more mature fashion, who were more deserving of opportunities cos they were less likely to screw up being given a chance and I had to realize that as an unqualified school leaver this was my lot and i should just get used to it.

Which is possibly part of the reason why it took me a long time to reject the behavior of future horrible bosses. Never a good thing if you go into TEFL.

sorry about the i instead of I, my shift key is being a bugger.

Probably my last one - the main reason why I left the company. He excelled himself when he asked me to type a letter of acceptance of resignation. MY resignation. Twat.

The one that, when I told him I was pregnant, said "oh well, it is still pretty early. You will probably miscarry"

The job where I met my DH had two awful bosses. One who made sexist and sexual remarks about me to my DH (not knowing we were together) and no-one listened when I tried to complain. In fact the women I worked with all told me I was overreaction and that if I were older I'd be more mature about it (I was 19)
The same job, but the overal boss made life very difficult for DH and I when we got together. We had differing shift patterns so only worked together for about 4 hours a week and we got about 24 hours together when our time off co-incided. I was spending one morning off at DH's and his mum was spending time with her dying MIL so asked DH to pick up his siblings from school and watch them so he rang in, and the boss was "joking" that he was only asking for time off to spend it with me. DH made it for most of his shift, but we both left soon after. That was a joy--handing in our notices together.

In my current job before I got pg I had a Governor and a Senior Officer colluding to get me out of my job because I didn't say how high when they said jump. I was naive in that I should have kept emails I'd sent to them both telling them they were demanding too much of my time on petty things and not allowing me to do my job, because the first leave I took they "suddenly discovered" that I was behind on certain tasks, never mind that I had continually told the SO of this and begged for a chance to catch up and not play the runaround for him and his stupid little tasks. When I came back they removed me from my job and gave me something else to do. Utterly humiliating.

I did later complain about the SO when I was pregnant as he was constantly making remarks about my husband being ugly and about our sex life. Horrible man. He also had a very inappropriate relationship with a colleague of mine. She showed me some emails that were just vile.