35 Employees Share Their “Boss From Hell” Stories

I had my ex-boss forbid me to accompany my grandma on her deathbed. The nursing home called and was told to come quickly if I wanted to see her again. I asked my boss for two days off, to be with her. He said no and I didn't break his ban. She died the day after the call. She died alone because I was too cowardly to contradict my boss on probation. As her wonderful heart For the last time, I was sitting at my desk doing insignificant office work for this terrible boss. I never forgive myself for that. I have learned painfully that I have to defend my priorities at all costs.

No, I’ve come close though. It comes to a point when you just know that it's not good for you to stay despite your best efforts to stay positive and get along.

I had a boss once that really had it in for me. He wasn’t popular around the organisation, lost his temper with everyone, so very senior people when they needed stuff done would call me instead of him. That really pissed him off but there was nothing I could do about it, my boss was impossible to work with. He flat out refused to meet with me to discuss anything but sent long winded nasty emails and text messages every chance he got. He got himself in trouble with HR when he tried to give my coworker but not me a pay rise when our mutual boss left. When the head of HR queried him about the inconsistency he sent a two-page email telling her I was useless and cc’d me.

At this point I was over it, ready to resign, I contacted the head of HR because I was devastated about the email and said I couldn’t do this anymore, they were helpful and sympathetic, told me to take a few days off and we would work together to resolve it. I knew he was in a bunch of trouble over all kinds of stuff (like awarding a dodgy contact to his lover). A week later he has escorted out the door by security - sacked!

I got the pay rise which was back paid.

Yes. More than once in fact.

If you don’t value me as an employee, I’ll start looking for another job.

If you treat me poorly, I will be out that door almost immediately.

Understand that as an employee, the power is with YOU. They need you, they went through time to find you, hire you, and train you, they’ve invested in you. Now if you’re a hard worker (like I am) you can always find another job and you can usually find it fairly quickly. Mind you I’m a professional with a degree and I worked in a specific field (I’ve since gone to work for myself), so replacing ME isn’t easy.

The last time I quit because of my boss was after my original boss got in a big argument with his boss and walked out the door. They had to pay him a pretty serious severance package or he would have sued (his boss was a racist AND a sexist - plus he treated people like c**p).

Well I come back from vacation to find out my boss had quit and his boss was now MY boss. I had to take over my bosses job (but he wouldn’t give me the title) and then he proceeded to talk c**p about me and undercut me constantly. Mind you I’d done jobs for the company that no one thought could be done, and done them in record time.

So on the day I was going to quit (I’d gone to HR and they refused to do anything about what was going on) I went to lunch with another boss, and talked trash about MY current boss in front of him and everyone else there for the entire hour. Shortly after getting back I get called into my boss’s office and he’s about to tear me a new one and I said ‘Oh, I’m glad you called this meeting, you saved me the time of setting it up! I quit.’

I’d never seen someone actually do a double take like that in my life before. It was epic.

Back in the early 90s, I worked for a computer rental company as a computer technician. We often rented computers to companies who were doing training to new employees or for conferences. With only one day notice, me and another tech were sent to install 90 computers at a convention center. This included loading specific software, setup, testing, etc. On top of this, the location was 2 hours away from the office. To haul everything, it took us several trips. We ended up working 20+ hours that day. The boss (also the owner of the company) would call and check in every couple of hours to see how we were doing. He kept telling us how great we were and that he was really going to take care of us for doing this job and working all these hours. By the time we finished and made it back to the shop, he was waiting for us. Our reward for working 20+ hours was a Rally's hamburger. The guy I was working with looked at me and we both said almost in unison… “W…T…F…”. We both threw the hamburgers in the trash and went home. He expected us back to work in a couple hours but neither of us showed up. We both took the day off and returned the following day. When we returned, the boss asked us why we didn't come to work. We both just walked to our area, put in our 8 hours and left without saying a word to him. Nothing more was said.

I was once fired from a job as a Graphic Artist because I "smiled too much". That's right, folks....my boss told me that he couldn't trust anyone who was always happy. And he hated laughter. I really just didn't know what to say to that. So I just smiled at him and left.

Yes, I quit, without giving notice and by doing so, lost my accumulated PTO. I wanted to draw attention to that boss’s incompetence. It actually worked because shortly after I left the “boss” was demoted to a mere worker. I had two “final” warnings because I did the right thing. I went back to my old job at twice the pay and less hours. It was worth it. Note: I felt it was unprofessional to do so, but sometimes upper management only notices when extreme measures are taken.

I had a boss who had another employee that left the company. She was in LA, we were in NYC. When she came to pick up her final paycheck, she had her husband and 3-year old with her. They were in his office for a few minutes, then I heard her yelling and the boss came out of his office and said to his brother, “Call security and tell them to ship these monkeys back to Africa!”

I was staring incredulously. He said, “What the f*** are YOU looking at?”

I said, “A huge, racist a**hole!”

He said, “F*** you, you’re…”

I interrupted him, “Walking out the door cuz I quit, you moron!”

I was responsible for allocating carpet orders. It was very time consuming because you had to optimize shipments from the same dye-lots, otherwise, you’d have color variations. I wrote a quick formula to randomize the orders so everything would need to be manually reallocated. Based on my day-to-day orders, I figured it would take DAYS to unravel what I did…. and I walked out. I got numerous thumbs up from my former coworkers. It felt great.

My wife works for the government, so my stockpile of "bad boss" stories from that bureaucratic hell is extensive.

A short, but TRUE, bad boss story:

One of my wife's best 'work' friends had a medical problem from birth or early childhood that made her blind in one eye (further, it was visually noticeable, so also disfiguring). She was put on the waiting list for an eye transplant and waited many months, years in fact. Then she got a fairly large amount of advance notice (several days?) that a suitable transplant would soon be forthcoming and to be ready for the procedure. When she told her boss the operation would be coming up shortly, his response was:

"we're actually fairly busy next week, could you reschedule for later in the year? What if I need the "X" report? I can't let you have next week off."

... for an EYE TRANSPLANT !!!

(She actually had to risk her job by skipping work for about two weeks, knowing that if she declined the operation she'd likely never get to the top of the recipient list again. Back at work the 'bigger boss' was thankfully aghast at the boss' response, so she kept her job, but shortly thereafter he didn't!)

Madame slapped me in the face once while I was working for her. As the lady of the house, she considered it her right to abuse me, her domestic servant, in front of her child, because I, a college-educated woman, expected her to change her unsafe behavior while I was driving her car.

Yes. I worked for a boss that was just horrible. Antsy, neurotic, a liar, unreasonable, unfocused, maybe even a sociopath. Everyone mocked him behind his back, even upper management. But he had the skill of being able to say the right things and the unfailing ability to say “yes” to any and all requests. He never rocked the boat.

It was so miserable, I discussed with my spouse finding another job as soon as I could before the stress would k**l me. Fortunately, I had a friend in another department who saw what was going on, and he convinced his boss to help get me into their group. So, while my boss was on vacation, my new boss engineered a transfer with HR. When the old boss came back to work, he was red faced furious, but could do nothing about it. I just smiled.

Yes, one of my bosses favored women while despising men.

He was always high-fiving the girls, luring them aside for small talk, and subtly flirting with them. When it came to the guys, however, he was constantly making disparaging remarks and threatening our jobs for no apparent reason other than to appear "alpha." It was quite cringe tbh. Many guys, including myself, left. Some of the girls too, as they felt uneasy.

Yes, I have. One of my first bosses after I graduated from college told me that my review is coming up and then begin talking about how a coworker who was getting a good review took him and his wife to Las Vegas for the weekend and picked up the tab.

I had another job where it rapidly became apparent that if you wish to progress you needed to join the church that my boss was also a pastor at. About two-thirds of the employees of the company were members of the church and it was obvious they were special.

I left both positions fairly soon.

YES.

Well, today is Saturday and I can’t wait until Monday morning to attach a resignation letter , put a title stating: Important information and the hit send button. Bye! ( in 2 weeks)

Never let someone think they can rule you and ridicule you. Have an exit plan, do the right thing by putting in 2 weeks. Save, save, save before leaving. Even better; have another job lined up. Go for better pay etc. Go for your dreams. Don’t sit around idling like things will get better, you know it won’t.

Starting a new job is nerve racking but it’s way worse being sick to your stomach because you have a terrible manager.
I wanted change so I myself went after a manager position and I landed it. I am tired of egocentric jerks managing people. We need to more empathic managers in the world.

Most importantly remember you’re a bad a** that deserves nothing less than the best.

“John“ was ex military. He treated all his employees as if we were enlisted people. For example, he once ordered us to clear out our system staging area so he could have a meeting there. He was going to save a few bucks on a conference room, but all progress would stop on the projects. We were all degreed engineers with lots of experience. We had other options than working for “John”. Half of us left in a few months. The company noticed the high attrition, and he soon had a job with no direct reports.

It was my first real job as a 16-year-old. I worked bagging groceries, collecting shopping carts in the parking lot, and eventually as a cashier for a supermarket. I was hired for minimum wage ($3.35 an hour in November 1983), and was grateful for it. My boss, Frank, was an acquaintance of the family who lived nearby, who as I would find out held it over me that I “wouldn’t have a job except for him.” This was the early 1980s recession, made worse by being in northeast Pennsylvania coal country, whose economy was shaky even in the best of times. He was likely quite correct that I would not have found a better job in town.

I was (and still am) grateful for that job, the money it gave me to pay for my first car, college, and my spending on everyday life and hobbies. But my boss loved to abuse those who worked under him, especially the kids who in a few years would probably be living somewhere better, making more than he did.

It didn’t take me long to lose my wonderment at my good fortune and just see this as “just a job.” There had been a snowstorm the night before, and I was heading to the break room for my nightly 15-minute break. As I walked into the store’s back stock room, my boss came at me aggressively and grabbed my shoulder. I didn’t see him coming, so I whirled around, ready to perhaps fight.

The verbal barrage stunned the 16-year-old me. “Do you know how much a f***ing shopping cart costs? No? They’re $110. Two were left outside in the snowstorm last night, and the snowplow wrecked both of them. Maybe I should take it out of your miserable pay? How would you like that?” This continued for about thirty seconds, during which I kept repeating, louder each time, “But Frank, but Frank!” Eventually my persistence was rewarded with him shrieking at me, “But WHAT?”

“But I didn’t work last night.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know. You make the schedule, not me.” A comment from my very wise mother’s playbook, and I was glad it came to me fast.

“Oh.” He turned and walked away.

I thought to myself, “At least now I know the rules of engagement here.” I may have been 16, but I wasn’t stupid. I later found out that he had a self-designed catwalk in the rafters above the store’s floor that he used to spy on employees. (“What were you doing in Aisle 7 at 8:45 last night when you stopped sweeping and looked at the shelf for a while?”). This guy was a textbook case of how to not successfully manage your good employees.

He had a big heart attack at about age 40, gave up smoking, and was moved by the company to “less stressful” store. I visited him in the hospital, and he talked about having had a near-death experience, and how he was going to change how he treated people. I believed him.

I ended up working for him on select days a few summers later when there wasn’t enough work in my “home” store (my new manager was a great guy who helped me any way that he could, including working for other stores in the chain that were short-handed). By then I was 20, and my time to work in the supermarket business was rapidly coming to a close. He was quite nice to me, and seemed to have developed a softer demeanor toward his employees, although the old resentment to the recently-hired, promising kids was still there, but further under the surface.

He bought this second store from the chain that owned it in 1999 and by all accounts turned it into a prospering, independent supermarket. The last time I googled him, he was running it, and had purchased part of another store in another town as well. I just looked him up for the first time in several years, and he died in November 2012, aged 66. Rest in peace, Frank. I learned a lot from you, both good and bad, and appreciate your work to become a kinder, more gentle person.

Life is short. Treat good people well. And don’t waste time on the bad ones.

I once had two bosses at once; what a disaster!

It was retail w/ a home delivery component. One boss was senior VP. The other was nominally his report, a Golden Boy of the company founder, a store manager. I was put in charge of inventory. There were three major, but easy-to-fix problems:

Salespeople could not finish a sale w/o filling in a delivery date. Many customers said they would have to call back w/ that info. The salespeople weren’t instructed what to do. So they put in a random date.
Customer service didn’t call customers to confirm they would be there.
The above wasted a lot of time, effort and money. 20% of deliveries were returned as nobody-at-home. Merchandise was sometimes damaged and, perhaps, stolen. Because when goods were returned to the warehouse, they were not located in inventory. Moreover, at this point, the merchandise no longer had any identifying label, so the inventory reports quickly got out of whack. All this played havoc w/ sales.
But neither boss would fix the problem. the VP would come down from HQ and yell at warehouse people; but he never seemed to yell at Golden Boy. So I began calling for weekly inventories which, otherwise, would be done twice a year. Golden Boy tried to bribe me and then threatened to fire me.

So I told him, “If you feel froggy? Jump!” So he fired me. I then called our mutual boss (the VP) and demanded severance. And then I sent a personal letter to every member of the Board of Directors explaining the problem. Soon the company fired both guys.

I was literally talking to the president of my new employer when the fired VP called her, looking for a job.

I worked at a museum once and there was this 87-year-old woman that was the director, when I first started she was very nice but before I hit one full year I could do nothing right. I got chewed out or scolded for my handwriting (which was 100x better than hers), putting things away, inventorying something she told me to but wasn’t the right thing, and writing on a calendar upcoming local events. I finally quit I couldn’t take her anymore.

I would say the worst boss I ever had was when I did hair way back in 1982. I had 2 ladies that owned a thriving salon. The one was super nice great stylist well liked and the other, well she was the Queen, no one did hair like her, she was the best. Or so she thought she was. She had a way of degrading other stylists in the salon, would gossip about everyone just had a personality not many liked. I came to realize, I’m going to listen, watch and take in all the free training I can and then find another job to where I could thrive and not be working in a tense situation. Best decision I ever made. They closed not long after. Due to the owners personality conflicts!

I just did and am starting my first official day with a new company. This past Saturday 12–16–2022 was my last day with one business who got a new boss I can’t deal with. There was something about him from the start but then I went for a lead position but he gave it to someone he knew before he became our manager. Not great but what could I do. Then slowly they were expecting me to do the lead work but not the position. I was able to walk people through security and they took advantage of that always making me go. Then he blew off another worker being lazy about something simple and acted like it was no big deal when if I had done the same thing I’d hear about it for years on end. That day is when I put in for a new job.

An oral surgeon that I don’t wish to name as I’m still in the field. He was the most heartless human I’ve ever known. He made fun of his patients & threw temper tantrums over his own change of mind. He was just plain mean! I was asked by the other two employees to pitch in 1/3 twd his expensive Christmas gift. An amount I could ill afford, as a poor newlywed. I was coerced by being told he was very generous at Christmas, & I would be embarrassed if I didn’t pay up. After Christmas, I finally got the nerve to ask his office manager/girlfriend about the mentioned gift. She asked if my unused sick pay was on my last check. It was. That was the gift! money I was already owed by never calling in sick to use my days. Oh & by the way his divorce & the office manager’s were final on the same day. They denied their relationship until my coworker had an emergency that took her by his house at 3:00am, where she noted Cindy’s car happened to be. Lier too!