35 Employees Share Their “Boss From Hell” Stories

Worst is hard to say. How do you quantify one bad behavior as being worse than another. I’ve worked for some doozies though.

In the Army—

I had a boss who was so technically and tactically incompetent had he not died (natural causes) himself, I’m sure he would have gotten himself and an entire team k****d in combat. No doubt in my mind. The man was an idiot.

I had one who could no kidding sleep 20+ hours a day and would take a nap while I did all the work every time we moved positions. He refused to send me to school that I needed for a promotion because “If I send you to school, you get promoted and I lose you. You make me look good.”

I had a First Sergeant who also refused to send me to required school for the same reason. A promotion would mean I would move.

At a large consultancy—

I had a VP who had exactly zero people skills whatsoever. He would throw his own people under the bus in meetings to try to make himself look good. He was the absolute master of avoiding any responsibility while taking maximum credit for other people’s work. He was unethical, amoral, and generally just a piece of s**t. He spent huge amounts of the company’s money on personal things and would order us to pick up tabs when we were out under the auspices of “if you put it on your expense report I just approve it. If I have to do it, I’ll have to answer questions about it.”

For a huge tech company (you’ve heard of them)—

I had a boss who wouldn’t attend any meetings whatsoever then swoop in at the very last minute with a million changes. We called it “pigeon management”. Fly in, poop on everything, fly away. Incredibly frustrating especially since most of the changes were useless.

My boss now, however, is awesome. I actually took this job just for the opportunity to work with him, such is his reputation. I’m glad I did.

My very first work study job in college was in a small sub section of the University library. I took the position to have some kind of income my first year of college.

I only lasted about a month. She would come back from random meetings into the room and find something to flip out about and blame on whomever was working that shift.

“Why are these cards over here?” “You placed them there.” “Well why didn't anyone put them back? Why did I hire you if you are going to sit there and do 'nothing'?”

Add your own profanities to the conversation to get an idea of how these conversations really went down. These accusations included room setup, are you working on the right task of the 50 I gave you, why did I even hire you.

The final blow was when she shoved a chair across the room, slamming and collapsing a shelf, and called me every name in the book while saying I showed no respect. It was only a work study job. Only part time. Not worth this.

I later joined another office area, where I in fact met my future and current wife, so I am thankful for the strength and courage I took to just say to myself “I have no money but I am not going to try to earn any working in this environment.”

I found out later what all the grief was about. Each meeting was a chopping block discussion of what to cut to keep the University library within budget and that specialty office she ran that I worked in was always up for chopping. She would spend all meeting fighting for her job trying to be the humblest person in the room amongst the bosses and elite of the college.

This hold back is of course now released in anger on us low wage workers since we had no power over her. Many took it as just another stupid rant; I couldn't because it reminded me too much of the drunken-high parents of mine that would always yell at me and I did not want to go through with that anymore, let alone my first year finally away from it all in college. Especially all the accusations of laziness, disrespect, and stupidity being labeled on me by her.

They eventually did get rid of that library sub-department. She had to find work elsewhere, yet no one in the university library would take her, so she went somewhere else. Those work study students who did survive to the end were thankfully given other small jobs in the main library branch to work until the end of the school year.

I had a retail boss, I was the department manager of the ladies intimate apparel section. I’d go in and she’d hand me the daily “to-do” list; fixtures to set, wall displays to change, mannequins to dress and so on and so on. Well, about ten minutes into the day she’d call me up to registers, someone called in sick, so you’re working registers now.

ME-but I have to get those fixtures set, blah blah blah. HER-you can go to your dept. but just listen for assistance pages on the radio. End of the day. HER-sign this Me. What is it? HER-notice that you failed to complete your daily. ME-you moved me to the register, I got stuck there most of the day. HER-you also left your return cart at customer service full and your fitting rooms are a mess. ME-but I wasn’t in the department. HER-are you refusing to sign it? ME-yes! Because you pulled me out of my department. HER-you’ll need to sign this one as well (an already filled out form for refusing to sign a write-up. Meaning instead of one write up, I was getting two.

She only did this when she was the manager on duty, which she filed complaint with the head manager that I was blatantly not doing my job when she was in charge (bucking authority and all that)

She was also the manager to fire me for too many call ins while my mom was fighting cancer and I was waiting for my FMLA papers to go through

When I was in my teens I interned at a then-Fortune 500 company doing network security. My boss wasn't bad per se - they were pretty nice, but they clearly didn't want me to do my job (or maybe I just had unrealistically literal job expectations).

I was supposed to audit the company's global security infrastructure. The more flaws I discovered, the more they didn't want to hear about it (probably out of concern for their job if I was too successful). The company also had some sadly typical hard/crunchy-outside,soft/chewy-inside ideas about security (they had me wardial for rogue modems, which is good but who even does that anymore?) and the office had some sort of weird radioreflective structure that interfered with cell phone signals.

During my time there I compromised most of their internal systems, up to and including the CEO's email (which, from a more mature perspective, someone should have told the 18 y/o intern was off-limits). They deactivated all of my accounts at 5:00 sharp my last day, and I'm fairly certain my report got shredded (they were hacked a year or two later through a vulnerability I'd previously found. Amusingly, I ran into the hax0r online and sent them a screenshot of my EvilCorp corporate security ID. They were less amused.).

16 years later I still haven't broken the habit of getting sucked into issues that are none of my business. I imagine this'll come up on my life issues performance review.

Yes, more than once and I got out of there. People who do not belong in positions of authority, who don’t know what they are doing, and are abusive. When you are a young woman out in the working world for the first time, you should not be objected to foul language, dirty jokes, or crude comments. Now this would be called sexual harassment. In the 70’s it was just the way it was. Hey, what’s your problem?

So you learned to deal with it. Everything was about how you looked, how you dressed, etc. Nothing about your skills or abilities. You were hired for your appearance.

I have been spoken to in a very inappropriate way, groped, propositioned. When I was very young and yes, I was married to a man overseas serving his country. I was just trying to make some money for us to build a life.

No one seemed to respect that at the time. I made lousy money and put up with a lot of c**p. Even later on, I dealt with a few bosses (men) who were of the mindset that I was somehow just a thing.

Never paid well, always spoke bad about women and culture, made me work overtime and never paid me for it, sexually harassed me, abused his wife, made me work in a terrible office which had cracked walls and flooring and looked like a m****r scene.

When I was working on an associate's in music, I took a part-time job at a piano store. I was young and naive and was willing to work under iffy conditions...below minimum wage, for a start...to have a piano store all to myself during the evenings and do my homework on a Steinway. I lasted about two years before it all came crashing down due to some management issues I won't go into here (that's an entirely different horrible boss story).

When all was said and done, this was what really stung me: I got married a couple of years after I left that job, and I wanted to hire one of the store's piano teachers to play at the reception. I found his number online and gave him a call. When I finally got through to him, he mentioned that my calling had really creeped him out. Why? "Well, it was from beyond the grave, you know." No, I didn't know. Finally, he told me that the store's owner, my former boss, told all of the employees that my cancer had returned and I left my job to go die. He essentially told all my coworkers I was dead. And I guess they had no reason not to believe him.

Why on earth would someone do that?

I once worked for a company, there was a client and a manager. Manager was clueless on what was happening on the client end. The client. He was the worst nightmare anyone could have. We used to have repititve tasks. So if for the first time you took 30 mins. Next time should be 15 mins then 5 mins and it goes reducing. He never believed in giving a fair amount of time in the name of productivity. He always had complaints even after me putting more than 12 hours. He always berated on the calls and said i am not doing a good job. Although I reached a point that i put 12 hours a day but nothing mattered. I always felt under threat. I used to feel burnt out at the end of the day. Here comes the manager. “I know that person has some issue but you need to adjust". And ultimately ended up throwing me under the bus. How to identify such people. You get a negative vibe during the interview if its someone like this. So my suggestion is to avoid or leave such places to maintain your sanity. Later i came to know that many others also left within a short span due to his attitude. You will come to a point you will suspect your skills but it's not worth it. He complained that I'm not good in one of the key skills. I switched and I'm taking training for others on that. That itself would potray the hell i have been through. I'm writing this answer because i want the awareness to be spread that this is normal and one will always get out of this. I want this answer to be an inspiration for others who are working under such sadistic bosses. Money matters but sanity and happiness even more. Also lastly remember, few people do exist in this world who will always be unsatisfied irrespective of how much efforts you take. It's not only with you but others. They are wrong and not you. So don't take it on you.

mostly “over” or “close” management was usually the biggest cause of stress when I worked.

I experienced this two or three times.

Good Manger: Give me the job, show me the objectives, teach me the “environment” and leave me alone unless I need guidance.

Bad Manager: Give me the job, don’t show me the objectives, don’t advise me of the environment, criticise negatively, and keep bothering me.

Another ..one manager “poached” me from another department causing a big rift, on the promise that he’d get me another “level” and therefore a considerable rise. After three months , I asked hm why this hadn’t yet happened. He asked me if I had his promise in writing. Naturally it was a “gentleman's agreement” so he smiled and said that I was a **** for believing him. I could do nothing.

Sometime later, we BOTH experienced redundancy and I found myself sitting next to him in an outplacement office. I made it known to the others that he was an unprincipled lying ****. He could do nothing and became a laughing stock.

Scary Terry was probably bipolar or something like that. When she hired me, she was so nice. Other days, she could be a monster. Everyone in the warehouse was affected by this, and when she wasn’t there we all were much more relaxed and happy.

I was hired to be a receptionist/cashier at a plumbing parts warehouse. I could do that. No problem.

Then, she wanted me to learn bookkeeping. Something I never went to school for. Something I was not trained in. Something I was not particularly interested in. I shrugged and said I would try, but to remember I had no training. Her idea of training was to lean over my shoulder and scream into my ear. Sometimes she would shove me away from the computer and do it herself.

Many mornings, I would cry on my way to work. This is NOT like me. I stuck it out because if you quit your job in this state, you probably won’t qualify for Unemployment. It was such a relief when she finally fired me.

Here's mine:

It was my first job. I was still in college. The job was an afternoon shift so I would go after my classes. It was in a very big media house. My job was to keep the live news ticker (the one that runs on the bottom of the TV screen) running all the time and keep an eye out for breaking news.

The work itself was not tedious. We were 2 members so 1 person ALWAYS had to be on the seat lest some breaking news comes.

Our department boss was a fellow with a huge ego, who loved to trample on his minions. Any mistake and he would grab the boys by their hair and shake them vigorously. With the girls, he would bang their tables loudly till they cried. He would shout, scream, curse, throw things. There were numerous complaints against him, but his behaviour was always excused by the management for being under ‘constant stress and pressure of daily news’. Real reason was that his show was the most successful and brought in the maximum moolah so nobody could touch him.

Being only 18 years old, I was aghast and believed thats how the job market is every where.

As was inevitable, my turn soon came. My partner was absent and I was dying of hunger. After delaying my lunch by 5 hours, I could bear no more. I begged someone to take my place while I ran to the pantry. When I returned, the boss was fuming. Apparently there was a breaking news in the 7 minutes that I was away. The other guy had made a spelling mistake in the ticker and the entire blame was shifted on me. He mumbled “I ll see you after the show.” Oh, was I scared. Everyone was looking at me with sympathy. I wanted to run home. I kept thinking I m only 18. I don't deserve this. There is a lot more I could be doing with my life. But I decided to make peace with whatever was coming my way.

He came and threw my laptop. Then he tore up the pages lying on desk. I calmly looked him in the eye as he abused me and told him i went to eat. This riled him even more. He threw my bag and phone. Now he raised his hand and was coming to slap me. I didn't flinch. He stopped midway, mumbled some abuses and went away. Next day, I complained of harassment.

The HR response was unbelievably baffling. They said he never touched me so there was no case of harassment. They said I should resolve such “petty” issues within the department and not waste their time.

Needless to say, I resigned. When I went to collect my final salary, the HR Not only withheld all my dues, but asked me to pay! For laptop repair, resigning without notice and jeopardising the programme (no kidding).

I was only a trainee so my pay was a pittance. This was the biggest shock that they would like to keep my hard earned money just out of spite.

My salary was gone but I told them I will not pay anything out of my pocket to them. I walked out and challenged them to stop me. They quietly closed the door and that was the last I saw of them.

I will name my worst boss “Bill.” Bill, for the most part, was a good person. Bill, in the worst way was a terrible “boss.”

I worked in a liquid and powder production company, back in the Eighties where Bill had been working since the early Seventies. In that time, he had taken jobs in every part of the production process. Most guys would find a niche and return to that part of the facility for the remainder of their time (until a forklift driving job opened up). Then they would retire. Maybe Bill had ADHD; either way, someone higher in command thought Bill would be an ideal production supervisor. Although Bill knew how to run every machine, his generational peers saw him as a production numbers buffoon. As a common production employee, he never reached his daily quotas and on the rare times he did, he sang his own praises way too loudly. He was cocky and thought he knew it all. When he got hired as a supervisor, I was told, he quickly became twice as obnoxious. That’s the way I found him when I was hired on.

Bill did not have the necessary people skills to be a successful “boss.” He didn’t know how to motivate, encourage, teach, or in any other way, ‘help’ his workers. As things like this go, they moved Bill up to Receiving Warehouse Supervisor. He would now have the privilege to oversee the duties of some of the company’s most dedicated, longtime employees.

I so enjoyed going to work every day after Bill went to the warehouse, but only for one week! Once settled in his new position, he decided the warehouse could run much more efficiently if they had a “runner” to unload the elevator after the -lift drivers loaded it. When asked which of the new hires he would prefer, he chose me. His ineptitude followed him from the production facility to the warehouse and in a matter of mere months, Bill had the docile, placidly compliant near-retirees ready to revolt.

As Bill’s bosses started breathing down his neck, he would make the next three years of (once calm) warehouse work, some of the most contentious, and dangerous days in the company’s history.

One day, Bill ordered me to dispose of a longtime quarantined product that was “just taking up space” to make room for an insignificant shipment of packaging, because he didn’t want to deal with an angry trucker. Days later, I was ordered to go with Bill to the local landfill and retrieve the load of quarantined material which had been deemed carcinogenic (cancer causing), hence the quarantine. We only found some shredded bags that once held the material. The overstuffed bags that I had thrown so easily into the dumpster had been crushed, compacted, dumped, run over innumerable times, and then plowed under and over for three long days. The company had to pay a HUGE environmental fine. I was brought before a panel of company administrators, contract company bigwigs, and an environmental lawyer to tell my side of the story. Bill didn’t last a year after that.

Bill simply should never have been promoted to a role he couldn’t handle. These type of people make the worst bosses. They are so full of self-doubt that they usually overcompensate through overconfidence and demanding. His replacement was a younger, laid back, college graduate with 10 years real world (Fortune 500) managing experience. So, life got placidly better under “Phil” in the warehouse, and that’s when I put it all in my rearview and moved on.

I've only had one boss until now, and he was nice. So I'm going to tell you about my friend's current boss because he fits the description(worst). Now, my friend graduated from law school but he's working in a restaurant during his military service period. You know, in movies, when the boss keep yelling many orders at an employee at the same time, not giving him/her time to do any of them, and then gets mad at them for not doing them all at once. That's literally what my friend's boss does, and then when he gets mad, he starts telling him that his education(and him) doesn't matter, he won't get anywhere in life, etc. You see, it's not what you are, it's what you do that earns you respect(and defines you, thank you everyone in the dark knight trilogy for this beautiful quote :D).

I have 2 come to mind. Boss A was a very nice guy. Good ‘ole boy attitude. I rank him amoung my worst boss’ because he was a leader who did not know how to lead. He did not know how to inspire greatness in his employees. He promoted by seniority instead of merit. Meaning that if you had been in your position for 2 years and another person at the same level had been there 3, the other guy got the next jump, regardless of how good both of you are. Boss A was incampable of deciding who was a strong contributor to the team and who was dead wood.

Boss B was just the opposite. He was a very sneaky snake in the grass. He was only looking at what he could do to get himself promoted. He would lie, cheat, steal, or do anything else to get ahead. Boss A was a very likeable guy. Boss B was not. Boss A is still a friend.

A 40+ year old virgin that liked to pretend he was a tough guy while being the most reprehensible poltroon in the department. This a**hole was so malevolently stupid, and resented us so much, that he would actually hurt himself to hurt others. I helped get him demoted. Every time he stepped out of line, I’d report it by email to the big boss. The a**hole finally got hung with his own rope, knotted securely the big boss and me. When the other workers realised the t***sucker was essentially powerless to stop them, further revelations of absolute cement-headedness were revealed.