People Whose Bosses Are Michael Scott In Real Life Share 30 Ridiculous Stories

Long ago, my 80 year old boss pulled me into his office

B: "Paul, I've noticed that your shirts come untucked and that looks unprofessional"

Me: I'm sorry about that Joel

B: I want you to start tucking your shirts into your underwear

Me: Uhhh...

B: Go ahead and and try it now.

Me: Joel, you know I have 15 women who report to me - I can't un-do my pants in the office.

B: Sure you can. Drops pants. He is 80 and wearing Spiderman underoos...

This is also the story of how I went to work at *oke instead.

Currently work for someone who played out, almost word for word, one of Michael’s crises. Remember the ep (during the Cathy Bates era) when the parent company was coming under fire for their printers catching on fire? Michael was equal parts aghast but also bizarrely loving being in the limelight.

My boss had a similar reaction to something. She would run around like a chicken with its head cut off constantly talking about this news story that we were only tangentially involved with. But it was national news. She was practically giddy, “...and now I have to return a call to Vanity Fair because they want an interview! And even TMZ is calling to!” When she would bring it up she sound so exasperated but at the same time she could barely contain her excitement that she might be quoted (for a sort of bad story mind you) in a major entertainment/news source. In the end, smarter heads prevailed and our response was, “no comment.”

Mine had aspects of Michael Scott but the ones that are sad and pathetic and not funny. A couple examples: - he called an all staff meeting to announce his divorce. He then instructed our receptionist to lie to his soon to be ex wife and deny he was in the office, all the time. - he was just so, so incompetent at his job. If a task was too big or complicated he would just .... Not do it. Wouldn't ask for help or anything, he'd just move on and leave whatever issue to fester. I would have to constantly monitor and follow up with him to get things done that effected my job - his writing read like he used a thesaurus heavily. Tons of superfluous words clearly put in there to make him sound smart - when he was terminated he kept the corporate laptop and cell phone. After several strongly worded letters requesting their return, he drove back to the office, parked on the edge of the road (think busy rural highway) and made his teenage son carry it all across the yard and parking lot to deliver them

I was eventually tasked by the big bosses to coordinate his termination. They then gave me his job plus my previous one. I can do both within a 40 hr week no problem.

I told him we were pregnant, but it was early and we weren't telling anyone (we had had a few miscarriages), so he emailed the entire agency congratulating us.

After the baby my wife had a little belly. Nothing major just a Pulp Fiction "pot". A year or so after the baby was born he congratulated her in the parking lot on being pregnant again. We were not. His wife was there and was mortified.

A year later he congratulated me again saying he saw my wife and when were we due. This was in front of all the ladies in the office. Again, we were not pregnant.

I once made him cry bc I told him a client didn't really like him and would rather deal with me.

He had one of those yoga balls he would sit on instead of an office chair and he would bounce up and down while taking to you.

The list is exhaustive. This was at the height of the American Office popularity so it was downright amazing to see it represented so accurately on a week to week basis.

I used to work stocking shelves at a grocery store. Thanksgiving was coming up and we were slammed. We were getting a massive shipment in, almost twice as many pallets as we normally get. After we unload the truck, we're all scrambling to get things done so we can leave on time. Well our manager calls an emergency meeting. We all get into the back office and he proceeded to have a 45 min meeting about this is a big shipment and we can't waste time. I thought it was a weird joke but he thought he was giving us a pep rally.

Yep, I had one.

Organized a thoroughly awkward award ceremony once (that we never did again).

Asked a Mexican employee if his new baby’s name was going to be “No Mas” during the shower we threw for him.

Heard me once use the phrase “economy of scale,” then used it wrong 5 minutes later in a conversation with different people.

Didn’t know the meaning behind “Black Friday” and what it meant for a company to be “in the black.”

Just like Michael Scott, only more of a d*ck.

I once worked for a family company (not my family) where my boss often had loud fights with her husband, mother, and sister (an addict with a penchant for stealing) in the halls. I have a million wonderful stories about that workplace but one that stuck out to me is this:

Once for someone’s birthday, she decided it would be fun to buy an anatomically correct, male blowup doll. She took this doll into the office, blew him up, and dressed him in a construction vest (the company was a contractor). When I walked by, my boss was trying to manipulate the position of the blowup d*ck, and asked me if I wanted to be the “fluffer”.

My mom's boss was the head manager at an office job in suburbia, pretty similar number of employees and function to the Office in the show. He was in his late 40's at the time and invited himself to my mom's birthday party at our house one year. Basically was just my siblings and and a few family friends meeting up to play cornhole and chat for a couple hours. He showed up in pastel blue shorts, a pink polo, and flip flops with a case of Natural Light. He got hammered by like 9pm and started yelling at everyone. He saw a couple of our neighbors (younger guys) drinking next door and took the liberty to invite them over. Eventually he ended up in a wrestling match with one of the neighbors in the living room, which he finished by lifting the neighbor up in the air and body slamming him directly onto our coffee table. His final act of the evening was sh*tting his pants in the kitchen and passing out on the linoleum.

I had a boss once offer me 50$ if I came in to cover a shift for him. Instead of paying me cash he gave me a comic he claimed was worth $50. It wasn't.

I believe every manager in the world has had a Michael Scott/David Brent moment; that is what makes it so hard to watch at times. I have had nights where I have often wondering how many I have had and how badly was I viewed as a result.

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My worst I think is telling someone they got a job (in a warehouse) and then realising I had told the wrong person and having to tell the him 30 minutes later that he didn't have a job after-all... dreadful.