Work isn’t necessarily meant to be fun, but it isn’t meant to be unbearably miserable either! Nevertheless, when one has a terrible boss, that’s exactly what it can become. Whether it’s an unnecessary power trip, a lack of concern for the well-being of their employees, or just a lousy attitude in general, there are truly no limits to just how awful some bosses can be. Here are 50 first-hand accounts from Redditors of some of the worst bosses that people have ever wound up working for.
1. Open for No Business
Right after Hurricane Sandy, the bank I worked for had no power for several days, so obviously we couldn't do any banking. Rather than just closing, my manager insisted that the entire staff show up for shifts as usual, just so that we could sit in our normal seats in our uniforms and winter jackets to tell any customers who wandered in that we didn't have power and couldn't help them with anything at all.
Just about every single person who we spoke to asked us some variation of "Then what the heck are you doing here?" It sucked!
2. Not My Idea of a Vacation...
I once had a boss who refused to let me take an "unplanned vacation" to see my grandma on her deathbed. It was strange because, up until that incident, she had always been really cool and laid back. But when I asked for the weekend off to go visit my dying grandmother, she snapped and lectured me about how I needed to "plan" my "vacations" better. I quit on the spot.
3. Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
I used to work for a small café, doing a manager's amount of work while being paid minimum wage. When I contracted pink eye from caring for my sister, my boss got mad at me. After that, I applied and was hired at Starbucks. The other guy’s business fell apart without me there and closed within four months of me leaving.
4. Learning from History
I worked for a nonprofit. My last boss there was the absolute worst, and she even got investigated later on. She pitted us against each other and routinely blamed us for stuff that was out of our control. When I quit, I left some little surprises hidden around my office for my replacement to find. Things like printouts of emails in which she verbally abused people in the office...that sorta thing.
5. Cutting Ties
At my old office, the air-conditioner once broke down in the middle of a terrible heatwave. It was so bad that people started literally passing out at their desks from the heat. Do you know what our boss’s response to that situation was? He said we could temporarily take our ties off. We still had to keep the rest of our uniforms on, though. How generous of him!
6. Feeling Powerless
The power once went out in our office at around 8 in the morning, yet we weren't allowed to go home. We sat around doing nothing for nearly eight hours, "just in case" the power would come back on. Eventually, our boss said that if it didn't come on by 4 PM, then we could all go home and delay our work schedules by a full day.
Lo and behold, the power came on at 3:50 PM and we were expected to complete our full day’s workloads in just one hour!
7. Funding the Operation
I worked as a cashier at a public swimming pool. Some guy robbed us once and took more than $1,000 from my cash register. Note: According to my boss, employees were responsible for the money in the register. So, while the police were sorting things out with management and insurance, I was expected to go to the bank, get $1,000 of my own money for them, and then come back to work and finish off my shift as usual.
I quit on the spot.
8. Playing Hard to Get
The vice president of my company once told me I was being disrespectful during a conversation. I asked her how and she told me that I "knew what I was doing." I asked again, stating that I had asked because I didn't actually know. I was told that she didn't have time for me because “I know what you're doing and I don't have time for this." You're the vice president of a company, not a 15-year-old who’s angry at her boyfriend!
9. Did You Say Something?
I told my employer that I was moving across the country and that my last day was in two weeks. When the day arrived, they called me as I was on the road asking if I was going to be coming in that day. It made me glad to finally be getting away from a place that cared so little about its employees that they didn’t even pay attention to a thing they said…
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10. Gaslighting
My worst boss was the one who insisted I was imagining things when I told him there was a gas leak. He then told me to just keep working when I later told him I was getting lightheaded. When it turned out the next day that there WAS a gas leak—I reported it since I knew he wouldn't—and I confronted him about it, his reply was utterly chilling.
He told me that I should've just walked out on my job if I knew there was a problem.
11. There Will Be Blood
After dropping out of school, I had an evening job at the cinema for a brief little while. One day while on the job, I was physically assaulted by a patron in the middle of the theater...and my boss still expected to carry on with my shift for another four hours. This despite my bleeding everywhere. Let’s just say I didn’t come in for another shift after that!
12. Car Trouble
I once worked at a company where the CIO (Chief Information Officer) sideswiped a woman's car as she pulled into a parking space. The woman who had the car that got hit got out and stood beside her car to see what damage was done. The CIO’s reaction made my blood run cold. She got out of her Mercedes and brushed right past the woman without so much as stopping to speak to her.
She completely ignored the employee and just walked away. Even with a ton of witnesses standing right there. The woman who had her car damaged had to go to the HR department, and the company cut her a check for damages—i.e. the actual business paid for it, not the CIO. She got away scot-free without ever admitting anything or paying anything.
13. You’ve Got Male
My last boss was a psycho who hated all males. I happen to be male. Needless to say, we were not a good fit for each other. She would find any reason she could to yell at, demote, or degrade her male employees. She would often even yell at them in the most public places of the office, not seeming to have any problem whatsoever with embarrassing them.
I even confirmed with my female coworkers to make sure that I wasn't overacting or imagining this. This led me to find out that all she would want to do with the female employees during one-on-one meetings was talk smack about men and, specifically, their husbands. If, gasp, you loved your husband and didn't want to participate in this slander, you would quickly be put on her blacklist.
14. Dog Days
At one point in my life, I was working at a pet store and, naturally, I had gotten used to being bitten by the various pets we sold from time to time. Usually, the bites were coming from small animals like hamsters, ferrets, birds, etc. No big deal. This one day, however, as I was helping a woman who had brought her big dog in, it attacked me.
Luckily, it was a small-ish to medium-sized dog, so it didn't get my face. Nevertheless, I had big bleeding holes all up and down one arm. The lady never even said sorry to me, and my manager told me to just go to the back, get cleaned up, and come back out to handle the cash register for her. So I did, with big blood splatters all over my yellow uniform shirt.
15. No Laughing Matter
My boss, who also happened to be the owner of the company I worked for, once made fun of a lady for her baby dying after birth. She had purchased an educational online course from us and it had expired during the time she was grieving. It had only been a few months, and she was asking for an extension. She even offered to pay extra for it.
My boss thought this was hilarious, and decided to call me and another co-worker into his office to have us stand there listening while he read dead baby jokes to us. It was horrific.
16. Out to Lunch
My supervisor at this nonprofit was maybe a couple of years older than me and, for the entire six months that I worked there, she never bothered to set me up with my own computer. I'd work in the mornings and she tended to show up around lunchtime, so she told me I could use hers. That was pretty annoying in and of itself.
But more often than not, she'd come in about an hour before I was scheduled to leave. She would then stand over me, eating her lunch, as I worked at her desk. I'd say things like, "Oh, I'll go find somewhere else to work" but she'd just say “No no, you're fine!” while continuing to stand over me as I sat at her desk.
She was also the Director of Marketing and, for about two weeks, she had me walk around the city and put up flyers in various cafes and buildings for this class that we were hosting. Two weeks later, she was extremely frustrated that no one had signed up for it. As an organization’s Director of Marketing, you should probably have some sort of better strategy than putting up flyers in coffee shops...
17. What a Snake!
When I was about 18 or 19 years old, I had a job cleaning rat cages for a reptile breeder. The guy would drink and smoke up simultaneously while on the job. He was a bro though since he would always offer me some of whatever he was having. Unfortunately, it was really difficult to do my job properly while under the influence, and this got me into a lot of trouble with customers!
18. Child’s Play
I worked at a children’s “Boys and Girls Club” where the boss HATED kids. Hated them. There are too many stories of her terrible behavior to pick just one for here, so I'll instead sum her up with a story of how the kids viewed her. After teaching a cooking class one time, I was washing dishes with a tiny little 7-year-old—who happened to be the smallest, most adorable girl at this place.
She was so sweet, with huge eyes that made her look like a Pixar character. Then, all of a sudden, while we were washing away, the second-in-command boss walked by and coughed. The little girl looked up at me and said, "He's sick." I responded with "I know, isn't that sad?" To which she replied, with the darkest, most ominous voice I had ever heard from this angel child, "I wish Ms. Boss Lady would get sick instead."
When a sweet kid is saying that, you know it’s bad…
19. French Revolution
I once had a French boss who claimed he was descended from the House of Bourbon. He nicknamed himself the Sun King and bragged that he was going to melt all of us special little snowflakes with the power of his rays. When I asked him why we didn't have an employee of the month award, appreciation days, or premium parking spots for top performers, there was a bit of a culture clash…
He lashed out and told me that these things were all just “American garbage” and that your paycheck is your reward. I always got stuck training the new hires, yet when I tried to explain that it might be simpler to retain workers with recognition rather than extra pay, he would dismiss me as some know-it-all college boy who didn't understand how the real world worked.
20. Bad Reception
I worked as a receptionist for a couple of months. If one thing was ever out of place in the entire lobby, my boss would yell at me and, for some reason, say that I was wasting money. She would do this repeatedly and I never understood why. Sometimes, when things were out of place in the lobby, I simply didn't have the energy to get up and fix them—especially since it wasn’t my job to begin with.
She would just keep saying that I was wasting money and I never understood it...until one week, I’d had enough and decided to grab chairs and purposely mess them up. I also tipped over trash cans to spill little bits of garbage out and so on. That week, I noticed on my paycheck that I had gotten paid $80 less than usual.
I then took a closer look at all of my recent paychecks, and suddenly realized that the more the lobby had been messed up, the less I had been getting paid each week. I was totally shocked. As soon as I made this discovery, I confronted her about it and she gave me the money back. But the whole situation was still pretty messed up. She was also extremely rude when dealing with it...
21. Weathering the Storm
Hurricane Katrina was going to make landfall that day, and the owner of the restaurant I was managing at the time got super angry when I said I wasn't coming in. He wouldn't accept my reasoning and kept bargaining with me. "Okay,” he said, “you can go in for four hours, and I can get [other manager] to come relieve you.” Umm, no.
He finally agreed to let me take time off as long as I hid my key somewhere so that a substitute could come to pick it up. I, of course, accepted this deal. After the storm hit and devastated New Orleans, the owner called me up because he wanted me to return to town immediately. He needed people to open the restaurant for him.
Now, the roof had just blown completely off of my house and there was no way I could live in it until it was fixed. I asked my boss where he expected me to live while I was working for him if I returned right away. He said to just get a hotel as if he was paying me enough to afford such a thing. I also think hotels in the area were pretty well full at that time...
22. Jailbreak
At one of the places where I used to work, federal agents swarmed the office with a search warrant one afternoon before shutting down all our computers in order to inspect the hard drives as part of some kind of investigation. Believe it or not, according to my boss, we were still all expected to stay at work for the rest of that day!
We all just puttered around for the next few hours without computers before we finally got sent home at the regular time.
23. Giving New Meaning to “Swept Under the Rug”
A customer once accidentally spilled—or intentionally poured out, for all we know—an entire bottle of deer attractant on the floor under the shelves in the sporting goods section of the Wal-Mart where I used to work. My boss could not be bothered to ever clean it up. The whole store stank of deer urine for...well, actually, it probably still does!
After all, who has time to clean? We had ammo to sell!
24. Excuses, Excuses
You want to know the story of my worst boss? All I can say is...Jerry. Jerry wouldn't let me leave work to go to the emergency room after the heavy bleeding I had been experiencing suddenly got way worse. I went over his head and got permission to go from the higher-ups. I then called my mom and told her to meet me at the ER.
The ER nurse said he had never seen so much blood in his entire career. An ER nurse said this. It was then determined that I would need a couple of blood transfusions and would then be admitted to the hospital. My mom calls Jerry to inform him of all this. Jerry then proceeds to tell her that it's probably just stress and that I NEED TO GET BACK TO WORK RIGHT AWAY.
At this point, I couldn't even lift my own head up, but sure, I can take a bus across town and go back to work. I ended up needing another hospital stay later for a follow-up operation. They found a large growth on me that needed a biopsy. Jerry kept insisting that it couldn't be cancer because, if it was, I “would be tired and losing weight.”
What he hadn’t been aware of was that I had lost about eight pounds in under a week, and had been going to bed the minute I got home every day. I was still recovering from the procedure when Jerry called to let me know that I was being fired for taking too much time off. Five days later, I was diagnosed with cancer.
To hell with you, Jerry. Screw you.
25. Not Very Appetizing
When I was 17 years old, I worked at our local Chipotle. My manager was cool sometimes, but when things got busy—and, keep in mind, Chipotle is almost always busy—she would sweat a ton. I didn’t have a problem with that, because I knew it was obviously not something that she could control. It was one particular habit of hers that was the issue…
Whenever she would sweat, she smelled really bad...and her idea of encouraging people would be to go up to them, give them a big hug, and say, "Here, have some of my sweat!" Now, Chipotle is a very open restaurant, as in you can see almost every employee while getting your food. This means that customers could see her doing this.
I saw customers leave on multiple occasions as a result.
26. Full of Hot Gas
My first boss was the manager at a gas station where I used to work. He was good in most ways—efficient, fair, disciplined, ran a tight ship. There was just one drawback. He was racist. And when I say racist, I don't mean that he was insufficiently outraged by Dukes of Hazard re-runs. I mean that he used terrible racial slurs often and loudly.
This guy resurrected some old racist words that would have sent Bull Connor running for a thesaurus. And to make matters worse, the truck driver who delivered our tankers of fuel every week was a minority, and he often overheard my boss using this kind of language. The two of them almost came to blows over this on more than one occasion.
His comeuppance finally came when the corporate office hired a new third-level supervisor, a young man out of business school who happened to be of a minority background. The racist boss just could not take orders from someone of another race. When he quit, he trashed the office and tore up every floppy disk we had (it was the 80s) so that we couldn't do our accounting for a few days.
27. This Paints an Ugly Picture
I worked in automotive painting. I had been complaining about my mask parts needing replacing for a few weeks. Finally, my mask broke and I refused to paint because toxic fumes were coming into my mask. Being the only automotive painter, this meant work came to a halt. I was told to get in there and paint or else.
I pointed at the security camera and asked him to say that again but a little louder. He fired two people that day, but I wasn't one of them.
28. We’re Sick of Garbage Like This
I was working at McDonald’s and I was supposed to do the overnight shift, but I was sick. And I mean couldn't get out of bed and throwing up sick. So, I called in that day, several hours in advance, to say that I couldn't make it in. I had been working there for quite a few years by that point, so they knew that I was competent and trustworthy.
They also knew that I would never call in sick unless it was absolutely necessary. I got written up because “they needed me” that day. Why? Because apparently the freakin’ hygiene inspector was coming in that morning, and therefore they required all employees to be present. I couldn't believe it. I quit not long after.
29. Unfinished Business
In the middle of work, I got a call one day from my cousin saying that our house had been broken into and robbed. I immediately went home to deal with it and file a police report, and it was honestly so stressful. My supervisor then rang me to ask what time I was planning on coming back to work at later in the day because she still had some paperwork for me to finish.
30. Leaving You in Charge
I had just started working as an assistant at a daycare when the teacher in charge of the classroom got a call saying that her daughter had gotten into a car accident. She immediately left, and the boss told me that I was in charge of the whole classroom by myself for the rest of that day. As intimidating as that already was for me, it quickly turned out to be much worse.
The teacher ended up staying with her daughter all throughout her recovery process and then immediately took her vacation time for the year. This meant that beginning with that horrifying day, she was away for two full months straight. Naturally, you would think that they brought in a new teacher to take her place for all that time, right? Nope!
Little old me, with zero qualifications, was forced by my boss to look after the class on my own for two entire months—all the while being paid as an assistant!
31. The Early Bird Gets the Worm
I once had a boss who absolutely hated me. But after realizing that she wasn't qualified for the position and had already slept with two different guys at the company, I came to the conclusion that she was a joke and to just be dismissed. From that point on, I never paid much attention to her and when she'd show up at my building once every blue moon, I kind of just ignored her.
I was busy and didn't have time to play her stupid games. Then I learned that she had written me up for being late on three separate occasions. The first time I had been one minute late, the second time three minutes late, and the third time six minutes late. I lived an hour away from work and had to deal with traffic.
I left my house two hours early most days to account for this; but when there's a wreck on the road, there's not much you can do as the freeway is backed up and the side roads are clogged. Each time I got stuck in traffic, I called ahead of time to let her know. She still wrote me up each time in the hopes of eventually firing me.
But I had a plan. I started leaving the house crazy early. I'd get into work super early and then leave early in the afternoon. She haaaated it. Eventually, her behavior got her fired and people to this day remember her and laugh at what a horrible person she was. The best part? I also had that write up removed from my file, as it was recognized that she was treating many of her employees unfairly.
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32. Going Hungry
I work in a restaurant. One day, our oven broke; so we couldn’t cook any food. You’d think that would be viewed as a pretty big deal when your business is a restaurant! Nevertheless, the manager made us continue on with our jobs as normal, arguing that we could still sell salads (without the cooked elements), drinks, and cheesecakes. Our total sales for the day came out to $4.59.
That amount was from the cheesecake the manager bought for himself.
33. A Sonic Boom
I recently experienced one of my worst migraines of all time. I was literally sobbing and vomiting out of control. I happened to have been working my shift at Sonic at the time, and my manager said that we were too busy for me to be allowed to leave. That’s right, this manager saw no issue with an employee vomiting in front of potential customers.
Let that sink in…
34. Doing a Bang-Up Job
I once slammed my head on a forklift and suffered a concussion while working at a summer job during high school. My boss sent me to urgent care to get stitched up; but as soon as that was done, he expected me to come back to work and finish the day. I thought nothing of it at the time, but now I realize that he was a serious piece of garbage.
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35. Showing His True Colors
At an office job that I once had, I was asked by my boss one day to organize a set of folders according to color. The only problem was that I’m completely colorblind. So, as you’d expect in that situation, I told my boss, “Yo, I’m colorblind!” and expected him to understand. Nope! He thought that this was me trying to get out of work, and threatened to fire me.
36. I Love a Parade...Not!
I once worked at a store that was right in the middle of a common parade route. My boss would always single me out and put me on duty alone whenever there was a parade going on. That may not sound like a big deal but believe me, it was absolute hell. On the morning of every holiday that had a parade (i.e. Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc.), I would have to go in very early in the morning before the festivities started to get everything set up for the day.
I would then have to just kind of chill for hours on end until the store opened, which would not be until after the parade was over. They insisted that I arrive and set up extremely early on days like this to ensure that I would get my usual parking spot before the crowds showed up. If I didn’t come in super early, the lot would quickly fill to capacity with people's vehicles who were there to watch the parade.
So, this meant I always had to sit around doing nothing for several hours to start my day. But then it would get so much worse. Let’s put it this way: when there are that many people lining up on the side of the street, some of them will eventually need to pee. So, they would inevitably come up to the closed, locked doors of my store, read the sign that clearly stated we were closed until the parade ended, and that we did not have public restrooms for parade watchers.
Nevertheless, I kid you not, at least half of the dozens of people who walked up and read the sign would still proceed to yank repeatedly on the door handles over and over again; because, clearly, if the door was locked and wouldn't open on the first pull, then obviously the answer must be to try and rip the darn thing off its hinges! Right??
One Labor Day, I was the sole employee once again and, by the end of the parade, these people had literally ripped the door locks off of their tracks and I had to call maintenance to come to fix it. Otherwise, I would not have been able to close the doors and lock them when we closed—two big deadbolts would come out the top and bottom of the door into slots to lock them; these people destroyed those.
I definitely do not miss that job or the selfish boss I had there…
37. The Tables Have Turned
When I worked for my last boss, I cried every single morning on the way to work, and some of the others in the office were on antidepressants. She also once slept with someone in our office. What a dirty, ugly, poor excuse for a human being. Then, she said one day that she was taking a vacation when, in reality, she had checked herself into a mental institute.
It makes me appreciate what I have now.
38. Killing the Moment
I was an exterminator for a while and one of the places where I once did preventative treatments (i.e. spraying and treating before there was a problem) was an old creepy motel. My job was to go check in at the front desk, tell them I was there, and then walk to each room to complete the appropriate procedures. Maybe 20-25 rooms total.
To make a long story short, I found a dead guy in one of the rooms. The person did not answer their door when I knocked, so I assumed it was unoccupied and walked in. Yea, I was wrong. I was extremely shaken up by this and immediately called my boss to tell him what had happened. All he said in response was, "What time is your next appointment?"
I laughed and went home.
39. Heartless
On a day I can never forget: I was rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains, thinking I was about to have a heart attack. Seven hours later, I'm leaving and decide to call my boss since I hadn't been in touch with him for the entire day. I immediately find out that I’m in major trouble for not calling sooner and that I’m still expected to come into work right away.
40. In Graphic Detail
I worked for a small graphic design company fresh out of school. They used cracked software, didn't really pay anyone, and were generally shady, but I didn't really think anything of it...that is until the FBI showed up one day. Apparently, they also didn't pay their taxes, and so my boss was taken away in handcuffs and the office was abruptly closed.
...or so I thought. In reality, our boss called our creative director from jail and told us to all go and work from this seedy motel room he had set up to finish up the assignment, or else we wouldn't get paid. Not too surprisingly, though, nobody showed up. Apparently, we had all independently decided that now would be a good time to start looking for new opportunities.
41. “Ironic” Is an Understatement
When I was living out of state, I got word that my dad back home was dying. So, I told the district manager of the restaurant I served at that I needed to take a leave of absence for a few weeks to a month and go home immediately. This was in mid-June. Her immediate response was “I don’t know if I can allow that. We’re already short-staffed for Father’s Day.”
Yes, you read that right. For FATHER’S DAY.
42. A New Kind of Energy Crisis
I used to work in high-pressure sales. Once a week, the director would come in and, to get us all energized, she brought in energy drinks for everyone. She'd leave them in her office for the salespeople to have. Now, I liked the director. She was nice and professional. My manager, on the other hand, was a piece of absolute trash and a dirtbag.
I got tired of drinking energy drinks after a while, so I decided not to participate in this one week. My manager immediately came up to me and said, "I noticed you didn't have an energy drink today. You do know that Wendy (let's call her Wendy) bought these for the entire division, right?" I said I was aware of that but still didn't want one.
Without even so much as a pause, he then shouted: "Listen, you march straight into that office and get one right now." I was so stunned that I didn't know what to do. So I got up, grabbed a can, walked back to my desk, and just left it sitting there unopened. He then came back a few minutes later and asked why I didn't drink it.
I told him I didn't want to have one because my body doesn't do well with so much caffeine in it. At that point, he asked me to walk into his office. Now, I admit that I wasn't exactly the best at this job. As a matter of fact, I happened to hate it. When I sat down in my manager’s office, he stated to me that my lack of energy was extremely distracting to him (not to the team, to him).
He added that it shows in my performance. He ended off with the promise of "If you keep this up, we may have to let you go." All I said to him in response was, "Okay, well that's unfortunate. But I will not drink something that takes a toll on my body." Lo and behold, I ended up getting fired very soon after that conversation.
I enjoyed two glorious weeks of unemployment until I got a phone call from the higher-ups at that same company. They wanted to hire me for a different position, not in sales. No interview and higher pay. I took the offer and I absolutely loved it. I have since moved on to an even better opportunity, thanks to that experience.
As for my ex-manager, he ended up being terminated for substance use (and when I say substances, I mean bad ones). He actually had the audacity to recently send me a friend request on Facebook! I didn't accept it, but I heard from my prior sales coworkers that he was asking people for money.
43. Hit and Run
I was once involved in an accident where I was hit by a van while riding my bike. I was on my way to the hospital and shot a quick text to my immediate supervisor to let him know that I would probably not be in the next morning, as I did not yet know what the damage was or how long it would take me to deal with it.
He told me to take the day off to be sure that I recovered properly. I was very thankful and did exactly that. The following day, his boss called me up and asked me where the heck I had been the day before. I told him I had been hit by a van. "And?" was his reply. Let’s just say I didn't work there much longer after that.
44. Falling Apart
I literally passed out in the parking lot after pushing carts for two and a half hours straight. I then almost got run over by a car, threw up, got sunburned, and watched my heart rate skyrocket to 163. My boss literally just gave me a Band-Aid and said to walk it off. I don’t like him, in case that wasn’t obvious…
45. Pointing Fingers
I worked for a pizza chain years ago while I was at university. One afternoon, I was prepping ingredients for that night and managed to slice the tip of one of my fingers off. I was working alone, so I had to call my girlfriend to come and drive me to the emergency room. On the way there, I called my manager to let him know what had happened.
The first thing he asked was, "Can you still come in and work tonight?"
46. Wisdomless Tooth
My most recent boss literally could not accept the idea that anyone would miss work ever, even if you told him well in advance. Last year, I got all four of my wisdom teeth taken out at once, yet I was still scheduled for a shift the day after even with the several weeks of notice I had given him. I ended up having to call in sick on the day of, with him reluctantly accepting once he realized he had no choice.
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47. Under Pressure
My boss forgot to release the pressure in a water sprinkler system before he told me to replace several elements. As a result of this, while I was about 30 feet up in a scissor lift, I was blasted with a few hundred gallons of dark black water full of MIC (Microbiologically Induced Corrosion). I was instantly knocked onto my butt, could easily have fallen out, and got totally soaked.
Not only was I still required to finish the remainder of my shift, but my boss actually had the audacity to chew me out for flooding the shop floor!
48. Getting Down and Dirty
One time, a pipe leading to the sewage tank burst through a wall that I was standing next to. I tried to clean it up and move the product out of the way until someone ran in screaming that it was sewage. When I asked to go home, my boss said I was “the only closer” and therefore had to finish my shift. Needless to say, I quit immediately.
That was the first and hopefully last time I will ever be covered in human poop while on a job.
49. A Jerk of Historic Proportions
During the attacks on the World Trade Center, I was managing a small team. When we heard the news, we were all shocked and gathered around our computers trying to understand what exactly had happened. The jerk owner who was my boss at the time called me into his office and told me to tell everyone to get back to work right away.
He said that there was nothing we could do about what happened, and that we were wasting time and money. Nope.
50. What A Beautiful Sight
Over the course of six months, through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor, I eventually got my boss fired for changing people's time-keeping information to steal overtime from them. During those months I was treated like dirt by this guy, but I never actually did anything wrong so I couldn't be punished.
At one point, management—against contract rules—denied my time off request to be at my best friend’s wedding and my boss brought me into his office and threatened to fire me. At this point, I had called the northeast district business associate on him, and I will never forget the look on my boss’s face when he realized I knew he couldn't do anything to me.
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