Describe your worst "pointy haired" boss

[BuelahWitch]

Inspired by the story about the guy who got fired for posting the Dilbert strip.

When I worked for an IT company some years ago, my boss insisted on printing out his email every day. The problem is, this guy with an MBA did not know how. So he would pull one of the techs off whatever he was doing and make him print his mail. Every day. We were on a Unix based system that wasn't yet GUI, but it wasn't that difficult to do. I suppose it was some kind of power trip with him, but it made him look totally stupid.

You?

[Darth_Kitten]

1. Gosh, where to BEGIN?

Too many slimy worms, too little time. ;)

I like the boss who dragged me to a disclinary hearing because I was doing the work of 3 or 4 people for months on end. And I was actually doing it QUITE WELL.
She hated the fact her little darling was an ass the whole office hated and who did shoddy work and I spoke up about it.
When I left the area after many years, did I get a cake or a card or anything? NO! but if some summer student leaves after a few months or weeks, a bloody card goes around the office and it's a bloody bon vovage party.

[livetohike]

2. I had a boss who never spoke to me face to face

He would leave voice mail messages on my phone. There was an option where you could leave a message without having the other phone ring. I would see the light go on, that way I knew there was a message. I worked the 2nd shift, so was not included in his meetings which he held in the morning :eyes:.

HR was not helpful at all with this. I ended up leaving the company and wondered why I had put up with his idiocy for so long (14 months).

[mulsh]

3. Minutes after the Loma Prieta earthquake in an office 18 stories

up, top floor of the building our boss tells the staff, "finish what you were working on before you leave." no electricity the building is still shaking due to its seismic pad foundation. He tried to lock the doors but couldn't find his keys.

same boss a couple of years later signed a deal with a major corp. The fixed cost of the service we did was $50.00 per order, his great deal billed the client $30.00 per order. When asked how on earth we would make any money let alone break even her replied "economy of scale." That term has been a code word for we survivors low these many years.

the company went belly up 9 months after the ink dried. the boss did 2 years in a federal prison for tax fraud. couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. oh and he lost his large house in an affluent bay area town too.

[BuelahWitch]

6. OMG he tried to lock you in during an EARTHQUAKE?

I've worked in call centers where they wouldn't let us leave when we had bomb threats, but what your boss did is just INSANE. He deserved every minute he spent in jail just for that!

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. Egads. Who wins the "worst" category?

Is it the asshat who yelled at me and another employee for not handling events that occurred during our vacation time and were unrelated to our jobs, because he was too stupid to remember who should have been doing them and waited weeks instead of handling them?

Is it the creepy New Age proselytizer and sexual harasser, who literally demanded that people quit or start incorporating her religious/psychological beliefs into our personal lives? I can handle stupid at work, but my personal beliefs are none of her damned business.

Is it the dumbass that replaced her, Mrs. Blessurheart? Syrupy sweet in public and cruel behind everyone's back? She who openly screened employment applications for the least competent people, because she wanted people who 'made her feel smart'? And who happened to not hire anyone but white freepers during her tenure? (Which took effort, because stupid freepers don't generally work in non profits).

Luckily, I've been blessed to work with and for some fantastic people. And I escaped to grad school. However, these three are forever etched in my mind, as examples of how not to treat people.

[lizerdbits]

5. The one I have now

I enjoy the actual job and the projects I work on are run by someone else so it's not a bad job and I'm not thinking of leaving. The guy who runs the projects is actually capable of doing so, and we report to my current boss because she has one project and the competent guy has too many to deal with the administrative stuff of direct reports.

My current boss has repeatedly lied to our director regarding things people have said, says negative things to me about my coworkers that I know aren't true (so she probably says similar things about me to them), continuously talks about the urgency of this massive influx of work she's bringing in that hasn't materialized for the last year and a half (IT'S STARTING NEXT WEEK!!!! we hear every other week or so), complains no one tells her anything even though she hoards information and never attends meetings where she might be aware of such information, is late for or misses meetings she sets up, and has driven one project coordinator away from her to focus on the competent guy's' projects. But we've got a new PC that she's trying to woo but considering how transparent she is it probably won't last. She complains she doesn't have a project coordinator reporting to her even though she has one project that's about to end. We all see through it so she's the company joke.

Moral of her life: If you have a PhD you will always have a job no matter how capable you are.
*hides from DUers with PhDs*

[BuelahWitch]

7. How do these people get promoted?

Golden kneepads? :shrug:

[cordelia]

9. That's exactly how a former boss of mine

Made it. She's a company joke. Stupid and mean.

When another employee informed her he had been diagnosed with leukemia, her response: "How will this affect your work schedule?"

A real charmer, that one.

[lizerdbits]

10. We all have our CVs on the network visible to everyone

and she seems to get a new job every 3-4 years. So I'd guess she goes somewhere new after her craziness is evident. She's been here about 3 years so hopefully that will be soon.

[ThomCat]

8. I worked for a small consulting firm.

The boss was often drunk. Was having an open affair that the staff was expected to help hide from the spouse. The boss only did sales, made ridiculous promises, and then took credit for the people who busted our assed so deliver on those promises.

All but one person got fired, all at once, because we didn't "support the boss's management philosophy." The one person who didn't get fired was the suck-up who probably couldn't get a job anywhere else.

I still hear about that work that company does, and it is simplistic. They overcharge for underdeveloped solutions to complex issues. Basically, they fudge the work and hope the client doesn't notice.

[lizerdbits]

11. "Support the boss's management philosophy"

is code for "calling me on my bullshit/behavior."

[ThomCat]

12. That's absolutely right.

Three of us worked our asses off and that company had it's first Million Dollar Plus Year. (a very good year for a very small company.) It never happened before, and rumor has it that it hasn't happened since.

Yet part of the reason we were fired is because we knew we were responsible for the company's success that year. We turned around bad projects and repaired bad business relationships and brought in billable hours. We worked the late nights and the weekends.

My coworders openly joked that the boss was the head of the "Client Abuse Program" and my job was to rescue clients from that program and resolve the stagnant projects. Rescuing those projects brought in a lot of our billable hours, and the the clients were finally willing to pay invoices because they were finally seeing results.

Our one finance employee earned her nickname, "God" for producing miracles straightening out the books, and cleaning up the billing, and collecting on old invoices, and implmenting accurate time and project tracking.

Yet we were purged because we dared to deny the boss all the credit.

I learned a hell of a lot while working there. All of it the hard way. and I'm very glad I don't work there any more. :)

[Darth_Kitten]

14. It's sad that hardwork and caring about your job......

gets you on the receiving end of bullshit. I learned the hard way and now will NEVER give the same effort I did before. I care, just won't stress myself out for anybody. Not worth it. :(

[Jade Fox]

13. I had a boss who was openly abusive....

I guessed something was up when I found out I was the third person hired for the position in as many years. I think I was hired in part because HR thought I could stand up to this woman. They were right. I did stand up to her, and like most bullies she backed down. I, of course, got to keep the bruises from working with her for a year.

Shortly after my year with this boss she retired, and she died about a year later. That's the closest I've ever come to actually being glad someone died.

[BuelahWitch]

15. You guys made me think of another one, this time at UPS

She was a petite blonde who was a former Marine Sargent. She also had a lump of coal where her heart should have been.
One of my coworkers was experiencing a very difficult pregnancy and had taken alot of time off. She was terrified about losing the job. When she didn't show up for work for a couple of days one of my other coworkers asked about her. Marine Sarge said, "She lost it," and walked away.

[spindrifter]

16. Well, I was working

overseas for an NGO. The Chief of Party was from a different English-speaking country. The boss begins by telling me how much she dislikes Americans. Okay. She only has 10 years of experience with overseas work, including a stint with the UN. She decides to get some jewelry repaired, so one of the national staff finds a jeweler for her. She gives him the piece. He returns it and tells her it will cost $15. Boss lady pitches a fit and throws $6 dollars at him, telling him he can take it or leave it. It's national staff payday. Two guys who had been getting a couple hundred dollars a month show up and she says she's not paying them for the past month, and their services are no longer needed. It's a Muslim country. She wears jeans out in public with huge holes cut in the butt and across the legs along with a tank top. She tells everyone that two other internationals on staff don't think "like us,"--i.e., linearly, even though they are accomplishing the tasks in their contracts. She yells at national staff in front of their peers. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.