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We've all worked for that boss at least once. The boss who made you come in on your off day. The boss who made you clean up vomit. This thread isn't about that boss. This thread is about the bosses that have gone above and beyond in the line of assholishness. The bosses that make you question the innate goodness of every human being. The bosses that make you terrified of how much damage one person can do with such a negligible amount of power. The bosses that, years later, still make you want to burn your old workplace to the ground. Let me start. I was 18 and had just gotten my first job at a Subway restaurant. My bosses, Roger and Judy, were both retired at 50. They co-owned this place as a way to keep busy. Roger was an alcoholic racist who constantly cheated on Judy, and Judy was a five foot nothing ball of rage who dealt with her employee's bi-weekly breakdowns by insinuating they hated her because she was a woman (even when the employee in question was a woman herself). Roger was BFFs with the owner of a local strip club. Said titty bar proprietor would show up drunk in the middle of the afternoon and try to recruit the girls, many of whom were under 18 at the time. When we told Roger what his friend was doing, he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. When my black coworker was there, Judy would ask him to do literally everything that needed doing. Not because he was black, she assured him, but because he "just stuck out more". They both resented the fact that I was still in school at 18. They honestly thought it was a reasonable expectation that I would drop out so I could work whenever they needed me. I was in class one time when I was called to the principal's office. They said my mother was on the line and that there was a family emergency. It was actually Judy who had posed as my mom. She told me to pretend that a family member had died and that I needed to leave early. This was all because they were dealing with a heavier than usual lunch rush.
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Mar 23, 2016 11:05
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Mar 23, 2016 11:17
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Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls 1. Just horribly designed and unfun.
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Mar 23, 2016 11:19
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grittyreboot posted:We've all worked for that boss at least once. The boss who made you come in on your off day. The boss who made you clean up vomit. This thread isn't about that boss. This thread is about the bosses that have gone above and beyond in the line of assholishness. The bosses that make you question the innate goodness of every human being. The bosses that make you terrified of how much damage one person can do with such a negligible amount of power. The bosses that, years later, still make you want to burn your old workplace to the ground. Round about 2008/9 I had a boss who stole from orphans. Literally. My first job out of university was as a junior developer for a mobile company. This was just as iPhones were entering the market so everything was still Java ME and "mobi-sites". Shortly after I got hired there, I learned that the company had done a whole big goodwill PR exercise by raising money for an orphanage, which received a lot of coverage by local media and was by and large successful. The bit that didn't get covered was that the boss had wangled some kind of legal loophole where the money would not be handed over until the charity in question jumped through a bunch of hoops. Needless to say it was constructed in such a way that the charity could not complete the requirements so my boss kept all the money for himself. Somebody who had just left the company at this time put up a tell all blog revealing what a monster this guy was. Naturally he sued them, won and the blog was scraped from the face of the internet. Similarly the company was doing massive staff turnover. Something like 100 different people walked in and out of the doors in the 11 months that I was there. This was a small business and there were below 20 people total employed at any one time. Said boss was prone to reducing people to tears with sheer verbal beatings and would dismiss somebody if they dared to even sniff at the wrong time. I ended up senior developer of the company purely by default as the team around me either resigned or were fired. Naturally he saw this as a problem and hired consultants to analyse the company and work out why people were leaving in droves. The consultants analysed all the information, crunched the numbers and concluded that the boss was the problem. He fired the consultants.  Late in the year my cat that I'd had since I was 7 was killed by a car and I applied for leave. When I gave my reasons he laughed. I resigned the following day.
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Mar 23, 2016 11:54
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E: Whoops wrong thread.
Radio Paranoia has a new favorite as of 12:29 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 12:18
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I suffered thru Dick Smith collapsing.. For various reasons i had a litterally poo poo ton of bosses during that period, none of whom were remotely qualified in the field they had been hired in. Highlights include: A boss that would not believe me when i told her Knights of the old republic 2 was mispriced and was NOT meant to be sold at $29.95.. Even after i pointed out we were buying them in for $80 a pop. A boss that instucted 45 stores to "test" its world of warcraft recharge cards by loading them onto a store account (based entirely on a rumour she heard that some were not working) A boss that at the hight of Napster file sharing insisted we roll out a knock off version of Itunes.. that only held a limited range of artists, that wasnt free like Napster and DID NOT WORK ON loving IPODS the only Mp3 player that sold at the time. Cost us 300k and i personally sold the only $20 voucher the company ever sold. A boss that decided to remove the staff discount, which caused the instant resignation of all the students working for us that only worked for us to get cheap eletrical doohickys.. and so we almost overnight lost all of our knowledge in componants. A boss that removed the discount on store damaged stock. He could not understand why i could not sell a repaired and missing the halo controller special edition Xbox for $340 when a brand new complete sealed one was only $10 more. The boss that decided to tie commision you earned to extended warrentys.. You used to get a flat 5% of sales, but now you ALSO have to sell a certain amount of extended warrenties.. and now that the general public knows they are crap and wont buy them no one was making any commision, which meant pretty soon no one was making any effort to try and sell anything, why bother?, nothing in it for the staff member but extra work. Good job kicking the cpmpany to death.
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Mar 23, 2016 12:25
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504 posted:I suffered thru Dick Smith collapsing.. Yeah, but look at the bright side, they'll all get bonuses far greater than your back pay when Dick Smith finally melts down for good. I didn't met him personally, but apparently my old boss at the dealership I briefly worked at was a cock. I got canned to be replaced with a cheaper, younger apprentice. A friend I had made there when working informed me that after I got fired, every single mechanical and car wash staff eventually quit within 6 months of my termination, including my replacement. My friend claims that said boss was clueless about why this was. The halo he saw above his own head blinded him, apparently. Just try to avoid dealerships at all costs. EDIT: Come to think of it, staff members breaking down and sobbing was relatively common there, as well as meth usage. Sic Semper Goon has a new favorite as of 13:06 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 13:00
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I was hired for a position where I was supposed to look at the answers people gave on surveys and figure out categories to group them by (so people who said a product was "good quality", "well made", "high quality" etc. would all get counted together). I had basically no relevant experience, but they were OK with that because I'd be given all the training I needed. When I showed up for my first day, the head of the department showed me to my desk and told me that IT hadn't got a computer for me yet but that was OK because I could start learning on hard copy. Also she didn't have time to introduce me around just now, but she would definitely do that later so I'd know who my coworkers were and what everyone did. She then gave me some printouts of survey answers and a bunch of highlighters and told me to give it a go and she'd go over it with me when I was done. So I did that and then I went to see her and she said she was too busy to go over it right now so I should just sit and read a book for a while or something. Eventually she came back and looked at what I'd done, and she brought over her "correct" groupings to compare. She pointed out some differences and I explained my thinking and asked where I'd gone wrong. She sort of waved the question off and told me I'd get the hang of it. Then she gave me another set of answers to practice on. The next day I had a computer and switched to working in Excel, but still mostly doing this "training", except that now when I finished and the boss was too busy I'd be told to do some other task that needed doing, like gluing print-outs into the first page of a bunch of exercise books, or going through spreadsheets of responses correcting things like spelling and punctuation. One time I was asked to convert a bunch of responses to upper-case by retyping them all. I pointed out that Excel had a way to do that automatically, and to her credit she actually agreed that that was a much better idea and insisted I write down the procedure so others could do it the same way. But that was the extent of the training and I was put onto doing the real survey responses (which the boss still checked over herself after I was done but never gave any real feedback on), but there really wasn't much of it to do (and most of the people around me didn't seem to be doing a lot either, but since I was never actually told what their jobs were it's hard to say) and on several occasions the boss told me to browse the internet and look busy so that no one would think the department was overstaffed. After the end of the two-month probationary period I was told that I was still making a lot of mistakes and there wasn't as much work for me as they'd expected anyway, so they decided not to keep me on.
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Mar 23, 2016 13:15
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Radio Paranoia posted:Late in the year my cat that I'd had since I was 7 was killed by a car and I applied for leave. When I gave my reasons he laughed. I resigned the following day. lol
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Mar 23, 2016 13:31
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I can strongly advise not working for narcissists suffering from dementia. I'm being relatively vague about specifics out of (probably unnecessary) self-preservation. Sorry,  inbound.I worked for a year at a local museum which was well regarded in the early 2000's, but in the intervening period had increasingly morphed into the founder's playground. At this point the founder was pushing 80, and while still in decent physical condition was in undergoing a noticeable (in the time I had known him) mental decline. The museum had a fairly high turnover, as it was mostly staffed by temporary summer workers, usually university-aged girls, I was the first male employee in over a decade, and apparently for the first few months of my employment I was viewed by the founder as more of a janitor than museum guide. Things started off fairly well between the founder and I, as the museum's subject was of both personal and professional interest to me, and he liked the prestige of having an American working for him. He had an extreme fixation on cleanliness, and I didn't think much of it at the time, a museum should look nice after all. This went so far as to having requirements for chair spacing and proper arrangements for coat hangers. These expectations were generally not explained beforehand, and would involve a 10 minute explanation afterwards of why he is fixing your mistake. He had a view of himself as being essential to the museum's operation, and had very clearly arranged things to make himself essential. The museum had at one point kept catalogs and records of its artifacts, but that had ceased several years ago; the founder insisted to guests that the only person who knew about the museums contents was himself, and that he wished he could take it all with him when he died. The first summer I was mostly just happy to have a job, and found that I really enjoyed guiding groups at the museum, things ran fairly smoothly, and the founder would be in three or four times a week to perform maintenance or guide groups which had specifically requested him. He had his oddities, but they could be mostly dealt with when he was present, and then ignored afterwards. After the first summer, I continued helping out at the museum without any fixed contract, while simultaneously running my own small business in the tourism/guiding industry. I enjoyed the museum, its subject, and its ostensible mission. I felt that the founder and I had a good relationship, he came over to my apartment for dinner on occasion, and I even helped him out with setting up his TV at home. I would occasionally receive small amounts of money (which came to around 5 dollars per hour) under the table when I would come in, but I had no expectation of pay. I was becoming useful to the museum, but there were some pretty significant signs that things were not all well. I sometimes got called in when groups he had forgotten were coming were already there, sometimes with 15 minutes notice. He was also increasingly giving out wrong information while he was giving the tours, blending names, dates, and events. He was also spending an increasing amount of time at the museum, he had broken up with his common-law wife the summer before. During the spring I arranged a day for local families to come to the museum for a child-friendly day of guiding and subject-related activities. The day was set-up as a cooperation between my company and the museum, the museum essentially providing the facilities, and my company providing the manpower and organization. The day was a big success, and we had arranged a profit sharing agreement with the museum, during the course of which he tried to convince me that the museum in no way paid tax, which was not the case. When we split the proceeds he insisted on receiving his part in cash and laughed at me when I explained that I was going to deposit the cash into my company account. When we began preparing for the summer I was hired on again in a more senior role, and things began to get weird. I was interviewed by a local newspaper for a human interest story, regarding both my own company and my work at the museum. After that happened the switch flipped in the founders head that changed me from "useful" to "threat." That summer he was at the museum every single day, and the guiding principle of everyone's work there was "keep the founder happy." He would putter around finding things that were wrong, and then loudly complain about it. He would give instructions that contradicted each other, and every day felt like a bizarre guessing game. He would wait until he saw kids touch the glass of museum cases and then yell at them, or follow groups being guided and slam doors behind them if they were left open. He actually never learned the names of the other two guides hired that summer, he instead referred to them by mine. It was clear the man was not well. At least once a week I was getting yelled at in front of guests over things he may or may not have instructed me to do, while he would sit in the museum's cafe and offer people who he considered important free coffee, muffins, and books. We calculated the amount, and he was giving away about 200 dollars worth per week. Things came to a head over an interactive exhibit for kids which I had been tasked with making. The museum contracted the project out to my company, with the stipulation that I keep track of the hours I work on it, and bill them accordingly by my normal museum pay rate. The majority of the work took place at my own home, as I knew that the founder would most likely find a way to both involve himself in and sabotage it. I kept the founder and other museum staff up to date with pictures as the project progressed. After I moved the exhibit to the museum site and put the finishing touches on it, things got ugly. The founder couldn't stand that guests were coming up and asking me questions about the project as I was working, a project he had been uninvolved in. Worse, when it was put into use, it was a hit. One afternoon he came up to me and started yelling at me to take home the exhibit, that it had not been asked for, that it was garbage, it had no place in the museum, and that it would never be paid for. This was upsetting, I'd put a lot of time and money into building it, and I replied that it had been asked for, it met the requirements requested, and that I would be paid for my work. He ended up ranting that he had built the museum and only he decided what happened to it. This ended up being the last straw, I contacted the museum's summer leader and explained the situation, we arranged a time to meet, all three of us that Sunday to discuss the situation. He showed up an hour late hungover, and refused to listen to either the summer leader or I. He mostly yelled at us both, calling the summer leader "little girl" (she was a 50+ woman) and referring to me the entire time in the third person. He kept threatening that he was a powerful man and ensure I would never work in the region again. After that I said it was clear that I was not welcome here, and that I felt pretty clearly bullied. The meeting ending and I let the other guides know I was quitting, they all quit in solidarity. After that members of the museum's board met with us and tried to convince them to return to work, but they would only do so at the insistence that the founder be reigned in. Said members later met with the founder and concluded that there were no problems at the museum, nor would there be any investigation into the way things had gone. I would later be told privately that many of the board members are there solely at the founders whim, and are afraid to make any waves, but everyone involved was very troubled. Since then I've focused on my own business and been much happier for it, and am gaining recognition in the region, even bought a house last week. In discussions with board members, they want me back, but are essentially waiting for the founder to die. I did finally get paid for the exhibit, and at the founder's insistence "took the garbage with me." It is now a nice conversation piece in my office. TL;DR Old man with delusions of grandeur, deteriorating mind, makes museum unpleasant place for everyone. I am caught in middle, things are not fun. I quit and take the museum's staff with me. Free Market Mambo has a new favorite as of 15:48 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 15:44
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I used to have bosses who would regularly make me clean up vomit, cat piss furniture, blood, guts, and brain chunks from a shotgun suicide. Crime scene clean up was pretty cool
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Mar 23, 2016 16:14
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I had a boss who was a diaper fetishist. I didn't know this until long after I stopped working for him, thankfully.
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Mar 23, 2016 17:36
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YeahTubaMike posted:I had a boss who was a diaper fetishist. I didn't know this until long after I stopped working for him, thankfully. How did you become privy to this information?
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Mar 23, 2016 17:44
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My first job was serving and I quit because the two kitchen/night managers were harassing me and making my work life hell. I'd already gone to my boss, and then the owners about it but no one would make them stop. They were mad at me because I'd told the owners about the kitchen staff selling live rabbits out the kitchen window. They had been keeping them in a lettuce box with all the other food in the kitchen. I was young and not experienced enough to call the food safety people about it.
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Mar 23, 2016 19:08
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When I worked at a Jimmy John's in high school, my night manager was supposedly fired for trying to cook a pizza in the bread oven. E: Oh wait, that was supposed to go in the "Bosses who own" thread.
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Mar 23, 2016 19:10
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Aesop Poprock posted:How did you become privy to this information? I worked IT at the company and when I left, I got my friend to replace me. My friend was cleaning out my old boss's computer, and my old boss had never cleared his internet history.
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Mar 23, 2016 19:34
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