Bad Bosses and other Work Horrors

The thread about playing hookey, and especially Marge's and Purity's posts about how their bosses ask "Are you really sick?" and call right before closing time to ensure they are still there. Yup, been there, done that, and all at one place. Thankfully I'm not there anymore!

So, I thought it would be interesting and maybe even kinda fun to tell our work horror stories. OK, maybe I'm just sadistic and think it would be funny. I guess since I've been out of that dreadful place for almost 4 years now, I can look back on it and laugh.

OK, my worst "boss" story by far happened when my mother passed away. OK, so I called in to the office to let them know that, obviously, I wouldn't be in to work, but I had to go in because I was also the IT person and had a computer that I had been working on at home over the weekend. The boss, who incidentally took a week and a half off when his step-father passed, straight-faced asked me when I came in, "So you'll be in tomorrow, right?"

This was less than 8 hours after I had lost my mother. I should have slapped him and quit right there, but I didn't. Holy cow, what an inconsiderate jerk!!

So tell me some of your work horror stories! No names or company names, please.

the entire staff of over 50 women made an offical complaint about my boss because she was such a bully.

head office were called in because this was her third complaint (one of which was for hitting a member of staff!)

her punishment? three weeks paid holiday and the promise she was sorry, made to her bosses, not us.

Originally Posted by valanhb

happened when my mother passed away. OK, so I called in to the office to let them know that, obviously, I wouldn't be in to work, but I had to go in because I was also the IT person and had a computer that I had been working on at home over the weekend. The boss, who incidentally took a week and a half off when his step-father passed, straight-faced asked me when I came in, "So you'll be in tomorrow, right?"
This was less than 8 hours after I had lost my mother. I should have slapped him and quit right there, but I didn't. Holy cow, what an inconsiderate jerk!!

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I can relate with you on this one as it happened to me as well!!! My mother passed away and they said the SAME thing! What a bunch of crap heads!

As for a rant on my current boss. I think she thinks she's hired a slave not an employee. Not only do I have to do my job, I have to: go get her lunch, babysit her grandkids, get beer for her husband, run her errands, mail her personal packages and pick up stamps, throw out her trash from home, and coutless other things, while she sits on her butt and plays spider solitaire. Bugs the poopy out of me!

Ok, I'm better now!

Heidi, that is truly horrible that your boss would expect you to go to work after you just lost your Mom! I have never had a job experience THAT bad.

When I worked for a restaurant, an owner came in yelling at everyone about something that happened when I wasn't even there. He called us ALL "MFs." I was so angry I wanted to quit, I stewed about it for 3 days and then told him I needed to talk to him. I planned on quitting on the spot and was really looking forward to it. He apologized! I never knew him to back down before. I was so ready to quit I was disapointed that he apologized.

im disabled so havent worked for a while,but my last boss was lovely

What a great thread! Are you sure you aren't sitting in my back pocket??

I work for a small, family owned business, and I have come to the conclusion recently that my boss thinks the rules that apply to a bigger corporation do not apply to him, in addition to the fact that he can treat each employee on an individual rule basis as opposed to one set policy. He also changes a job description on a whim.
When my grandmother died, whom I was close to, I had to use 3 days vacation for the funeral. He said they dont do bereavement pay, which I know is untrue, but couldnt prove it. If you are sick, compensation is from vacation time. Quite honestly, hes a bully. And the only reason I stay here is because I need the paycheck, and jobs like mine are hard to come by.
Granted, my last job was a nightmare job....but some of the events here, just really take the cake.

I haven't worked at a "real" job in about 7-8 years now. My last one was with the USPS though as what is called a DEO or Data Entry Operator, coding handwritten virtual mail from a computer terminal. They were horrendous about attendance, you just about dared not be 2 minutes late lest you be reprimanded. I never was except for once when I was caught in traffic for a half an hour and since you could see the freeway from the window it was obvious. Christmastime was HORRIBLE!!! I was supposed to be working a part-time job, 2-6 in the evenings 5 days a week. But when the holidays came up the overtime started ... and this was not optional overtime either. It got to where I was putting in a 60 hour week --- keying. If they called for overtime within 15 minutes of your scheduled leave time you were EXPECTED to work it. I always did except once when it was like 20 minutes until I was supposed to leave and they CALLED FOUR HOURS OF OVERTIME!!!! I was so mad I left anyway. That's the only time I've ever done anything like that. Not a really great section of town either and I would be leaving at 1 in the morning.

But the kicker, the kicker was that I NEVER took any leave except for 2 hours on our anniversary which I scheduled well in advance and as a result had all my leave that I had accrued in a year except for that two hours. I put in for two days off in July (A Friday and a Saturday, I already had Thursdays and Sundays off) so that I could drive down to Florida to pick up my new Pekingese puppy in person. I had already told the lady, we'd already set it up, I put in for the leave about 6 weeks ahead of time ... and they DENIED IT!!!

Two lousy effing days!!! I'd already won awards for my keying, gotten on their "manager's best" list... Talked it over with Sunny and handed in my resignation the next day. My supervisor kept asking me if I'd changed my mind about quitting in the ensuing two weeks and I just smiled and said no. 12,000 keystrokes per hour, there pretty much every minute I was supposed to be which was more than could be said for a lot of the employees.

Talk about wanting to Go Postal

I've got a few...
A girl in the office has had the boss' boss tell her that she thought she should clean her house better because her kids were always getting sick (she leaves from time to time to pick them up from school, but not THAT often).

At my last job, I used to go to the tanning bed on my lunch hour. I was never late returning, and they wouldn't have known if I hadn't told them... but my supervisor's boss tried to get my supervisor to tell me I couldn't do that. She stuck up for me and told her that she couldn't tell me what I could and couldn't do off the clock.

Prior to a meeting my supervisor and her boss discussed an issue and made a decision that they were going to present to the other supervisors which they knew they wouldn't like but it needed to be done. When my supervisor got up to present it, they tore into her until she ran out in tears... and her boss not only didn't defend her but announced she was out of line and they weren't going to do it that way. Her boss told one of the other supervisors later that she set her up on purpose because she was angry with her over something personal. What a way for a woman in her 50's to conduct business!

OOOOOoooooohhh yeahhh....
I worked at a Buick dealership as the service cashier once. They nit-picked every tiny thing I did and I was a nervous wreck for it. I got promoted to the warranty clerk position, by demand of the service manager which they didn't like (he threatened to quit if they gave it to the numbskull receptionist as they planned to).

The girl they hired to fill the empty cashier spot was a flake who stood outside flirting with the service techs for hours every day, and let her daily filing back up weeks at a time (they wrote me up for not having it done by lunch time!). I wonder... she was a big brown noser who started golfing and going to the gym with the boss.

Once the boss started whispering about me to other employees (purposefully making sure I knew what they were doing) I got so frustrated I went in on a Saturday and copied my employee file. There were notes I didn't know about, including one where they were planning on writing me up for something the new cashier did... She wasn't supposed to leave the cashier window without making sure there was someone to watch it. I was busy DOING MY JOB in another part of the dealership and the office was empty except for her when she decided to go flirt with the guys, and it was in MY employee file that I left the window unattended.

I wrote a scathing resignation letter and gave copies to all the bosses between me and including the owner of the dealership. JERKS! The dealership went belly-up, and I'm thinking, that's what you get!

Originally Posted by Sooz123

...The dealership went belly-up, and I'm thinking, that's what you get!

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"What goes around comes around." I don't see the USPS going belly up anytime soon though :

Cindy

The last tattoo shop that my s/o and I both worked in was a total nightmare. There was constant drama, fighting, and drug use.
We went on a "mandatory" charity ride for the owner's stepdaughter's retarded kid, (even though all his medical bills were paid by Medicaid) 3 hours away from home. Our bike broke down, and had to be loaded into the chase truck. It got loaded and my s/o was jumping out of the back of the truck when it started moving out from under him. I his leg snap, broken up into the ball joint of the knee. They did not offer to take him to the hospital, and got mad when we did not participate in the drunken revelry when the ride was over. The guy that owned the truck started complaining that the bike was still in it, and I ended up having to start getting it aout alone. Some guys came over and helped me get it down and load it into a truck going back to Jacksonville. We got back from the hospital that night, he was in a leg brace with a broken knee joint, and the boss comes over and tells him he had to be at work the next day, because he needed the day off to recover from his hangover. Never even asked how he was.

wow, I don't feel so bad about mine now.

I had a boss with IBS, whose office was in the back portion of the building with the Pres and VP's offices, and right next to the restroom. In the front office we had a ladies room behind the counter and a men's room in the public space, as the vast majority of people who came into the office were loggers (not a woman among them). MY boss didn't want to embarass himself to the Pres & VP by stinking up the back office, so he'd use the men's room out front, stinking up the public area. As the receptionist I kept a HUGE can of Lysol on my desk, hidden underneath the counter overhang, and held my breath as I ventured in to spray it down as soon as he'd turned the corner. The clerk at the desk behind me would always bust up laughing when I'd pick up that can!!

Back in my bartending days (about 25 years ago), I worked for the Antichrist. "S" would throw screaming fits, in the middle of the bar - at employees, customers or her husband. She was a junkie and one never knew what kind of mood she'd be in.

On Fridays, a bunch of copper miners came in, to cash their paychecks. It was my job to run the checks back to the office and take the envelopes of money back to the customers. One Friday, a guy didn't get his money. Mr. "S" had missed that one but, rather than admitting that and giving the miner his money, "S" accused me of stealing it. How DUMB did she think that I was? Screaming and refusing to listen to reason, she SLAPPED me. Showing great restraint, I merely grabbed my tip jar and purse and walked out, in the middle of Friday Happy Hour, leaving her with NO bartender.

I DID drop a dime to the Labor Board, the Health Department AND Liquor Control. She was subsequently busted, for setting up "burglaries" and buying stolen booze and selling it in the bar. As for me, I had a nice, long weekend and started my new job, the following Tuesday.

Here's one for ya. When I was working as a waitress at a major restaurant chain( Of course no names mentioned) I had to stand on my feet all the time. Now here is the real kicker, I had hit my left knee on the bumper of the car and moved my kneecap to the left side of my leg. I had to work a twelve hour shift like that. Iwas in tears the whole time but needed the money so I didn't quit. My boss wouldn't let me go home because they "Needed Me"........yeah right Needless to say when I got off work I went to the doctor who didn't let me work for a month after that.

Well my job is stressfull as it is. And I work for a small company so it can get catty. Luckily I work at home, out of the office. But of course, that can add for its own trouble.

One of the new supervisors, she just got promoted. Is on a major power trip. She is not my direct supervisor, and actually shes an "Assistant sup" anyways. She has started making demands, that i have to come into the office, and do this and do that. I told her I would arrange that with my direct supervisor, as i arrange all in office things with her. She didnt like that. and has now started lieing to upper management about me.

she is saying that i leave early without telling anyone. (Bull. that could get me fired...why in the WORLD would I do that?) as well as saying I am not having computer problems, rather I am just logging off because. and yet i send messages to everyone I need to about the problems, and its not just me. it is company wide. *fumes*

I learned about this stuff today. and I am pretty darn close to handing in my notice..working from home is nice. but its not worth some of this Bs.