They say people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. Well, these are the worst bosses in the world, so we'd leave these jobs in a heartbeat.
1. Stay Hydrated For The Haters
I'm on a diet that requires me to drink a metric ton of water, so I carry around a 1 liter Nalgene bottle at all times. I'm a mid-level manager at a 60-person company. At the end of the work day, on my way out I pass the water cooler and fill my bottle up for the commute home. I thought this was no big deal—I was extremely mistaken about that.
Yesterday I was doing just that when our office manager walked up and said the following: "You're leaving for the day, water is for employees to drink when they are working in the office only". I laughed it off, finished filling my bottle, and headed home. I thought she was kidding, or at the very worst having a bad day and lashing out.
Well, she wasn't. Today I get into the office with an email from her to myself, my boss (our CEO/founder), and our HR person saying that I am stealing from the company, that I didn't stop filling my water bottle and immediately apologize when confronted, and that she is officially reporting this behavior and asking to have it documented.
Needless to say, we all had a pretty good laugh about it, my boss/CEO called me in an absolute fit of laughter—he could barely form a sentence he was laughing so hard. Someone else wrote "Is proper hydration good for the company?" on my water bottle. Our office manager, however, is just walking by my office and glaring at me this morning.
2. Time Is Of The Essence
My boss once accused me of "time clock thievery" while I was doing volunteer work. It was a simple volunteer gig, like it wasn’t a major organization and nobody was keeping track of hours for anything. My volunteer work was also not court-mandated. We were cleaning up at the end of the day and I answered a phone call. The supervisor got all angry at me, saying "Get off the phone! That's time clock thievery!"
3. Drawing A Line In The Store
I was working retail at Best Buy at the time, and they had me working in MP3 players and cell phones department, despite the fact that DVDs/video games were really more my wheelhouse. But I worked where they told me and I did my job well. During Christmas season, it got really busy so everyone was running around helping every department.
I was hanging out in my own section when a woman comes over, asks about some headphones, and I help her. She then asks me if the Dance Revolution mat she bought for her daughter is any good. I ask if she has any of the games (she didn't) and showed her a slightly more expensive (but better) copy of a Konami mat with a game.
She thanked me since she didn't even know it needed a game to go with it and went off. I thought I’d done a good thing—but my boss’s response was ridiculous. My department manager comes up behind me, tells me to meet him in the breakroom in five minutes, and then rips into me for selling something related to video games.
He says that the department with the best revenue gets bonuses (only true for him, not for the rest of us below him) and we shouldn't be helping customers who are in other sections to get more expensive things. He says he'd be shocked if I made it past the winter. I just say "Yes, sir," and go back to work. Come January, I get fired by "department manager recommendation".
So, when you go to Best Buy, know that all the departments have their own agendas with you.
4. What A Load Of Garbage
I had an employer of mine write me up for stealing trash. In reality, at the end of my shift, one of my duties was to gather all the trash. Oftentimes, I would pick through the trash and sort all the paper, pop cans, and water bottles into our company's recycle bin. We had a special promotion with our trash company in which our company would get money based on the number of pounds we recycled.
It ended up being $1,500 per month AND we didn't pay our trash bill. So long story short, I got a final write-up for stealing company time for sorting our recyclables. But it gets worse. So I stopped, and the following month, our manager was angry that she had to pay a trash bill. She called the trash company and the company told her that the past two years she didn't pay for trash because our company would recycle so much.
Like, we would get a $1,500 check AND free trash service. Apparently, my boss thought that the checks were a bonus for her. Anyhow, the district manager was reviewing the write-ups and saw I got written up for stealing trash, so he called me up and asked me what was going on. I told him the story about the trash company and their promotion.
He congratulated me for a job well done. Then it got so, so good. The next day he flew in to talk to my manager. He asked my manager what happened to the $20,000 that she got from the trash company. Apparently, she tried to pin it back on me, and our district manager promptly fired her. After escorting her out, he called me into the office.
He told me what happened in that meeting and offered me a promotion to Assistant Manager.
5. They Are Out To Get You
After working at Subway for five years, three of those being a manager, I was accused of turning off the cameras in the store and getting high in the cooler. It was absolutely untrue, and I quit shortly after. But then I found out the chilling truth. In the end, it turned out the owner, who hated me for no reason, was just trying to set me up to fire me.
6. Back-End Shrimp Deals
I worked in a restaurant for a couple of years as a day supervisor. One of my duties was doing the twice-weekly ordering. When the deliveries came in, I would have to verify that we actually got everything on the invoice and reconcile it with the driver if there were any problems. One day there's a case of shrimp missing. I note this with the driver, he marks it on the invoice, removes it, and updates the total.
About a month or two later the same situation happens again, with the same result. As a quick aside, I had almost no power to do anything as a "supervisor". I didn't make hiring decisions, I couldn't fire anybody, and nobody would really listen to me since my other coworkers were all in their 40s or older and I was some 19-year-old kid in college with a better position than they had.
Despite all that, I still had a good relationship with everyone. So anyway, one of the cleaning people would drink during their shift CONSTANTLY. I complained to the head chef, I complained to the general manager, and nobody cared. Finally, one day, it became a big deal because she no-call/no-showed or something like that. That’s when I found out what a snake she was.
She accused me of stealing stuff to get some heat off of her. Shortly after this, I'm approached by the HR/finance lady about these missing cases of shrimp that we didn't pay for and never got. She comes out acting very suspicious of me, saying, "Somebody sure likes shrimp!" suggesting that I was in cahoots with the delivery driver to take shrimp.
I HATE seafood, so naturally, I laughed at first, but got really angry when I found out she was serious. After that, it was tense between everybody I used to have good relationships with because they thought I sold this other person up the river to save my own shrimp-stealing butt. I quit shortly after. Still one of the most ridiculous sagas of my life.
7. Watch Your Language
I once used the phrase "more than one way to skin a cat" around a manager who had never heard the phrase. She called me into her office later to ask why I was saying such disgusting things, accused me of being a sicko who kills animals, and then threatened to fire me if she heard anything like it ever again. She had never heard the phrase before.
8. Nickle And Diming
I got accused of pilfering a salad when I worked as a cashier at a grocery store while in high school. Because they had scheduled me for 6.5 hours, I only qualified for a 15-minute break, not a 30-minute. So I spend the first eight or so minutes of my break on the phone with a mechanic working out issues with my car. I then run back to the little cafe near the back of the store.
It has a salad bar and I make a quick salad, which you weigh and price there. By this time, I had about five minutes left on break, and the manager was very strict about not going over your 15 minutes. So I stand at the cafe register for a good minute, and no one is to be found. I quickly eat my salad, and then take the sticker up to the front registers to pay for the $1.99 salad.
I go back on the clock, and about 20 minutes later I am called into the office. Their words are super ominous. They say a “situation” has occurred, but don't tell me what. They said they are sending me home for the day. So I come back in the next day for my shift, and they call me into the office again. In the office is the store manager, the assistant manager, the office manager, the cafe manager, and my shift supervisor.
Mind you, I am a 16-year-old kid at their first job who had never been in any sort of trouble. This is when they accuse me of stealing the salad because, "Despite purchasing the salad, as our records do indicate, you consumed the salad before the purchase". WHAT. I explained to them how the cashier at the cafe was nowhere to be found at the time.
I said how if I wanted to eat during my break at that point, I would have had to eat it back in the cafe and then pay for it upfront. They tell me to go home, and that they will contact me tomorrow regarding if I keep my job or not. I left in tears, but then got really angry at the severe overreaction, so I came back in an hour later and told them I quit. Still glad I did.
9. The Stuffed Elephant In The Room
I worked in a souvenir shop at an amusement park. It was the fourth of July, AKA one of the busiest days because of the park's fireworks show. We were also understaffed. The shop was just inside the gate, so it would get swamped just before closing, as people bought the stuff they didn't want to walk around with all day.
I was left alone in the shop just before closing time, running the cash register as people flowed in. It was utter chaos. While closing out the register that night, someone noticed that a large stuffed animal had been stolen. My trouble started here. The manager simply could not fathom that one person manning a swamped store can't prevent theft because not all the displays are within sight of the register.
I think it must have been a team effort, with one or two people getting my attention in one area while the other walked off with the toy, but I didn't say that because I really didn't know when or how it happened. But my boss then accused me of being in on it and looking the other way while a friend took it so we could profit later. I didn't even know what to say.
I was 17, it was my first job, and I cried for days under the assumption that every job I'd ever hold would be like that one.
10. Pick Up The Phone
My former boss kept odd working hours, popped a lot of sleeping pills, would work for two days straight, and then not show up for a day. Stuff like that. A real piece of work, and definitely manic. We would have the same meetings and go over the same items multiple times. I don't know what demons caused all this behavior, they seemed to be manifestations of something larger.
Anyway, the dude was also a horrible driver and had outstanding tickets out the wazoo. But he was never late for a scheduled meeting, no matter what mental state he was in. Until one day it all changed. A meeting comes up and he is nowhere to be found. We all find this strange and I make the comment to a couple of co-workers, "I bet he is behind bars”.
No sooner had these words left my lips then the phone rings on the desk of one the co-workers. His practice is to never take a call from an unknown number, but he takes a look at the caller ID and the abbreviated text alludes to the local county lock-up. I say, "Told you so, he is making his one phone call!" 10 seconds later, the other co-worker's phone rings, he picks it up.
The man was picked up sleep-driving and eating a bag of cheese puffs wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Classic.
11. A High Price To Pay
At my last job, I must have been fired 30-40 times. Each time I left, knowing that I would be called back the next morning with my boss begging to have me meet him for breakfast. In most cases, I was paid $100 just to accept my old job back. Other times, I was given a raise or a paid day off, which are both unheard of in my industry. You'd think this crazy guy would just learn to mind his temper, but I guess he liked paying (literally) for each of his mistakes.
12. An Honest Day’s Work
Last night, my manager called me stupid and uneducated. Her reasons were mind-blowing. It was for not cheating a customer out of 15 dollars due to a computer error. She thought it was obvious I should lie about the error and garner another whopping 15 dollars from the struggling hospitality industry. Today I go in for a meeting to get scolded for not lying, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to burst into tears.
13. The Perfect Revenge
My first job with the state was awful. My supervisor was an idiot in every sense of the word. I remember once, I was called into a meeting with our bureau chief. He asked us some questions about office matters, and my supervisor flat-out made up lies about me that were completely against my character. I couldn't hold in my frustration and blew up at her.
I told my bureau chief I wasn't there to play childish games, and then walked out of the meeting. I ended up winning that one and got a promotion that paid twice as much as that terrible supervisor. It was one of those awesome revenge moments where nobody got hurt.
14. The Thief Is Coming From Inside The House
When I worked at Circuit City, I had an 80 GB iPod that my dad had given me because he no longer needed it (it was practically brand new). When I first plugged it into my computer, it came up as "Richard's iPod". Well, one day it's in my purse that I kept under my counter while I was working. It goes missing. I couldn't understand how it had gotten taken.
It had been one of the slowest days ever. Nonetheless, I was pretty freaking bummed out about it. Additionally, this happened during a time when the case we kept iPods at work in was broken and it was terribly easy to take them, and many had gone missing. Fast-forward a few weeks later, my co-worker tells me my former department manager, who had recently left for another job, thought I was the one taking iPods.
Apparently, he got into my purse when I wasn't looking and took it to check the serial number, but never gave it back because I was flipping out and causing a bit of scene, walking around asking everyone if they'd seen anyone take it. I was so mad.
15. Covering His Butt
In one of my darker life periods, I was doing part-time tech support for a dinky computer shop here in town. The owner was a pill-popping nutjob that kept a loaded piece in a drawer in the front desk, and regularly cheated his customers. Anyway, I'm working one day, and one of the other techs who had been there forever and a half tells me to go install a modem in some guy's computer.
I'm shaking my head, because this is in 2009 and I can't believe anyone would be requesting a modem. I ask him if he's sure before I go out there. He said he was. So, I go out, and sure enough, he doesn't need a modem at all. He needs a wireless card or adapter. I call, go back to the store, get the card, head back to the customer’s, install it, head back, and yell at the guy for being a jerk.
After all, common sense would tell anyone reasonably competent that he didn't need a modem. This came back to bite me—hard. Next week the boss comes in and fires me because the other guy made up some absolute garbage about me drilling a hole in a motherboard to fix a PC, which made no sense whatsoever. On my way out, I rolled my eyes and said "Fine, whatever".
I grabbed my stuff and left. The owner freaks out and follows me into the parking lot, yelling and screaming and ranting and raving and trying to pick a fight. I just calmly walked to my car, went home, and had a drink. I found out later that shortly thereafter the other guy was busted for stealing and the owner went bankrupt. Which, I could have seen that coming.
16. Big Swings, Big Misses
Several years ago, I was working for a sporting goods store as the customer service desk guy. Mostly what I did was returns and some special stuff with Ticketmaster and hunting/fishing licenses. While it wasn't a glamorous job, I liked it because I'm an outdoors guy, and so the clientele were fun to talk to. One day, we were informed we were getting a new general manager.
The old one—who decent guy, but distant—was being transferred. The new manager was a raving harpy. She enjoyed making employees upset, didn't care at all about our customers, did nothing to improve anything about the store, and kept the other managers in her office with endless meetings about "improving" the store. After a few months of this, and seeing some of the high school girls hired to work crying after her ranting at them, I had enough.
I wrote a rather eloquent letter to corporate about her behavior and actions, and had several employees sign it. Two days later, several regional higher-ups arrived and proceeded to chew her out big time. She was suspended for two weeks and told that if the store didn't improve within the next quarter, she'd be fired. But that's just the beginning of the story.
I thought I had won. But no, I had not. Apparently, she found out it was me who wrote the letter and wanted revenge. So she got into the computer system and started to fake records showing I had been selling gift cards to myself, pocketing the cash difference, and then buying merchandise with those cards. It was mostly candy/pop/small stuff, which she was probably pocketing since our counts weren't ever off.
She then called in loss prevention, who weren't doing their jobs too well, because they didn't look closely at the files because they believed it and called in the county sheriffs. Two deputies came and looked over the evidence. To their credit, they asked "Are you sure?" and "Can you explain this?" several times, and I got the feeling they were unsure about the whole mess.
Nice guys, too, they offered to take me out through the back instead of parading me past customers, and were generally courteous and respectful. Still, the hammer came down hard. They ended up arresting me on theft charges. Taken to the pokey, booked, the whole shebang. I was in tears for pretty much three days. But I knew this was garbage, so I got my parents to help hire a lawyer for me.
I told him the whole story, and said under no circumstance were we pleading out to anything. He said ok and set up a meeting with the DA to talk about motions and such. When we arrived, the DA was all smiles and very polite. His response made me want to burst out laughing. He informed me that the paperwork wasn't quite done yet, but that they were dropping all charges and filing False Report charges against my old manager.
The investigators had looked over the evidence, and found that A) the files for almost three months’ worth of "thefts" had all been edited on two days, both of which I had not been present for, but that she had, B) they had all been edited from her computer, a computer I did not have access to, and C) several of the "thefts" occurred on days when I was in the system as being out of state on vacation.
I felt a lot happier after that, and felt even better when my ex-boss was found to have fled the state. She had checked herself into a mental hospital for a "nervous breakdown". She was eventually brought back, charged, and convicted. Last I saw she was an assistant manager at a gas station, while I'm now a federal firefighter and in school. It's only after I saw her pumping gas that I could claim victory over her.
17. A Kindred Spirit
I worked in retail as a cashier at a pet store for a long time, and occasionally when there was nothing going on I would just grab a couple of tennis balls and juggle them to keep myself amused. I'm pretty good at it, can do three in all sorts of weird ways without looking at it or thinking about it, so I converse with customers perfectly normally when I need to.
Most of them find it funny. If I didn’t think they would, I'd stop before they even made it close to conversation range, and I'd done it long enough that I was a pretty good judge of that kind of thing. Cue a day such as that, I'm bored and juggling while I watch the front door. A family comes in with little kids, and they laugh at the juggling and come talk to me for a little while.
They talk about reptiles (and juggling) while I try to teach one of their sons (five or six years old) how to juggle because he asked me to. Good times were had by all. They walk off and do their shopping with their little son trying to juggle the mini tennis balls I gave him. Immediately I get called into the back by the assistant manager who decides he's going to rip me a new one.
Apparently, I was being disrespectful to the customers by juggling and not giving them my full attention. I respectfully (perhaps sarcastically, no promises) disagree, and when he looks to the other manager in the room to back him up, you could just tell the guy was completely uninterested in getting involved, and he basically had nothing bad to say.
The assistant manager continues to lay into me a bit more, says he's going to work with me on not being disrespectful like that and if it continued we'd have to have a talk about my employment. I leave. A month later, a new store manager gets hired, walks to the front with the assistant manager, and sees me juggling. The assistant manager gets the look like he's about to rip me a new one.
But the store manager laughs, compliments me on my juggling, goes and grabs his own tennis balls, and starts juggling too. Ah man, the look on the assistant manager's face...priceless.
18. On To Bigger, Better Things
A year after I started working for a company as a designer, my wife got pregnant with our first child. This was an office filled mostly with middle-aged women (I was in my mid-late 20s) and they were all excited. They even threw us a baby shower. All goes well and my son is born. I take two weeks’ vacation time to be with my wife and child.
It was two weeks that I had saved up. I come back to a nightmare. First, my boss is suddenly very aloof and non-communicative with me where previously she and I were pretty close. This goes on for several months…until I learn budget cuts have eliminated my position effective in six months from the time I found out. Except…that wasn’t the real reason.
Through my co-workers, I found out that my boss was angry that I had a baby and that I "wasn't dedicated to the cause". She was also at the budget meeting and initially, there were no cuts to our division, but she threw me under the bus saying my work was non-essential. So here I am with a young family and staring down the barrel of unemployment.
Turns out, though, that another company had been following my work and were eager to sign me on. Needless to say, I didn't do anything for the next six months and am now happy at my current position and making more moolah to boot. Their company is now failing and I poached one of their biggest clients on the way out.
19. A Penny Pincher
A friend of mine used to work for a well-known communications company. One day, the CEO of the company visited the office. He went into the break room and counted the supplies. He then announced that he could tell from the proportion of coffee to sweetener that people were taking the sweetener and taking it home. He then ordered the discontinuation of coffee service for all company offices.
20. An Interesting Accusation
I worked at Sears, and I gave someone 0% financing for six months on their Sears card on a purchase. I thought we were running a promotion at the time, though it turned out we were not. Later, they threatened to fire me for stealing, saying I had taken the money they might have made on the interest if the person had not made payments.
21. Take An Umbrella, Cause A Ruckus
My friend works at a very large pharmaceutical company at the San Diego office. Now, in San Diego it hardly ever rains, so very few people have umbrellas. Well, on the day of the company Christmas party, it happened to be raining. In the lobby at the security desk they have a pool of umbrellas to loan out to people that don't have umbrellas. Great!
So my friend borrowed one, went to his car, and drove off to the Christmas party. A good time was had by all. At about 10 pm, after leaving the Christmas party, he gets a phone call from his department manager. "Did you take an umbrella?" "Huh?" "Did you take an umbrella from the lobby today?" "Oh…yeah." "Dude, return the umbrella."
"Yeah, I will bring it back tomorrow." He couldn’t believe his boss’s next reply. "No…I need you to go bring it back. Right. Now. You can’t imagine the trouble this has caused." Well, it turns out that the understanding on the umbrellas is, you return them on the same day. Like, you are supposed to take the umbrella, go to your car, then come back to the front and run in to return the umbrella.
Someone who I can only imagine is both a huge witch was having a bad day, needed an umbrella, and went to get on from the front desk to find there were none there. She asked where they all were and the security guard, who I imagine was also having a bad day and is a huge jerk, told her “Well, this guy borrowed one hours ago and never brought it back”.
This woman then went on a rampage, calling HR and the manager of the entire site, and my friend's boss, and everyone else she could think of to complain about the sanctity of the shared umbrellas being ruined. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and nothing came of it, but for a few hours, the fact my friend borrowed an umbrella was treated by many people at the pharma company as if he had pilfered the recipe for the cure for cancer.
22. Slow Your Roll
I used to work for a Kroger in Little Rock, Arkansas as a cake decorator part-time. I was never actually trained for the job except how to properly put frosting on the cake or how to make a shell border. Everything else was pretty much self-taught. I used what artist skills I have to not only do a shell border, but also add art nouveau style borders with it, as well as create custom character cakes for birthdays if our store didn't have the cake kit to make it with.
I had created cakes that were unique. I created a "premium" chocolate cake by using chocolate frosting, then using malt balls to create grape vines all over it. It sold 15 minutes after I put it on the cooler, so I had to make another. Also, you know those little "cupcake cakes" where they take a bunch of cupcakes and make a character? Yeah, I did Goombas and Mario mushrooms from those.
After working there for about three months, the bakery manager called me over to the side and told me that the "head cake designer" complained that I was too slow at making the cakes, and because of that, I was now required to stand up for seven hours straight making sandwiches until they feel I can become fast enough to make cakes again.
I later found out from other employees that it wasn't that I was slow…it was because no one was buying the cakes she was making.
Wikimedia Commons, Michael Prudhomme
23. You’ve Got The Wrong Idea
In high school, I got into a fist fight at a party, and my opponent popped me in the nose. There was no bruising to my face, so there were no obvious signs of the altercation. I worked at a grocery store, and the next day I was helping my manager pull cases of toilet paper off a high-stock room shelf. I was up on the rack, tossing the cases down to him.
While doing this, my nose started bleeding again and dripped blood on his pristine white shirt. He got incredibly angry, pulled me into his office, and accused me of doing substances on the job. He suspended me right then and there. Also, I was in a “work program” with my high school, and it nearly caused me to fail that portion of the class. But I had a plan to get him back.
Fortunately, I was in a union, and filed a grievance. I got paid for the time lost, and had my grade for the work program class restored. But none of this was easy, and I was being accused of being an addict the entire time. I experienced several nail-biting weeks where I wondered if I was going to be able to graduate, all because this guy made a huge assumption.
24. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
I was living in Boston at the time, and the city got hit with an epic snowstorm/Nor'easter. Like the good little worker bee I am, though, I shovel out and brave the "state of emergency" to limp up the highway to work. "State of Emergency" means that many businesses (and sometimes the highways) are shut down. An Adult Snow Day, if you will.
When I get there, I just get to work, but my manager feels the need to castigate me for being 20 minutes late. I give him a "you're an interesting specimen" look and get back to work. That night, I had a previous engagement planned. I had already cleared leaving early with my manager, and by the way, I'm a salaried employee. When the end of the day neared, I packed up to go home.
It was a whopping 30 minutes early. I wanted to leave early, knowing that I would probably be a bit late due to the snow—but also knowing that the company is very sensitive about "clocking out early". So I walk out and am trudging to my car, when, you guessed it, my manager comes running out again. He asks me why I am leaving early.
I gently remind him about my prior engagement, and the conversation we had about it. He says, "Yeah, but you came in LATE this morning. You have to make up that time or you are STEALING from the company”. I just looked at him. Then I turned around and left anyway. What a small person he is. Needless to say probably, I don't work there anymore.
25. Taking A Little Off The Top
I worked at this expensive little supermarket in an uppity part of Connecticut. I got called to the service desk/floor management office and it turns out exactly $50 dollars was missing from my till. I didn't take it and a low-level manager whom everyone disliked actually rationalized, in my defense, the loss by saying that it's possible that some bills could have stuck together.
That in itself is unlikely because bills over $20 go in the part of the tray with the checks. Anyway, flash forward a few weeks and I'm starting to know how things typically work in that supermarket. At closing, all our till trays go in a large safe and when the last tray is in it gets locked right after that. But that one generally disliked manager seemed to take her time at the end of the night when locking up the safe and closing the store down.
Every time she would do this, within the next few days another person would get pulled aside for discrepancies. I get called in the office again because now $80 went missing, and I get a talking to and a warning. I quit sometime later, but the truth eventually came out. It turns out this manager would dip into the tills at the end of the night and pinch a few bills.
I don't know if it was exactly what it appeared she was doing, but I know she did get caught taking money nonetheless, in the same manner. Apparently, this manager would also, every few weeks, shop at the place she worked at and barely pay a thing. She would hand in dozens of receipts for bottle returns each time and coupons. The coupons weren't suspicious in itself.
It was the bottle return receipts. Nearly every one of them were from different times of the day, different days of the week. I even recognized a few. She eventually got caught stealing by reusing bottle return receipts from the tills.
26. You Should Have Known Better
At my work, they found a girl in the bathroom huffing hairspray. They watched the tape and accused me of selling it to her knowingly. I told them I'm not going to card people buying hairspray.
27. To Infinity And Below
I was a chemist working for the government. To measure density, we used to use “pyncometers”, which were defined volume vessels with a hole for a thermometer. We would then perform our analysis on an old balance. In short, it was a total mess and very hard to work with. We had extra money in the budget, so I bought an electronic density apparatus for a new balance.
Anyway, my team leader, who was in his 70s, had no idea how it worked—so he forbid me from using it. But he didn’t stop there. He then ends up telling the lab director that I was "making up science with the balances". Concerned, the lab director walked me into the wet lab and I showed him how this new piece of equipment would save us hours of work.
I did not get the response I wanted. He just laughed and said this is the government, what’s the hurry? Pretty sad.
28. Honesty Apparently Isn’t The Best Policy
I work as an editor in television. Once, I did a series for a production company and was told many times by the big bosses how wonderful my storytelling was. After the show ended, they asked me to stay and help edit some shows they had been doing for years. Day one of the new gig, the show's producer asks me what I think about the new show.
"Honest opinion?" I ask. "Of course" she says. "It's too slow, every episode feels the same and I learn nothing about the subject matter. With a little massaging we could make it a much more interesting show", I reply. I was fired two weeks later because my "editorial pacing" is off. I can't prove it, but I know that witch producer whined about me bagging on her precious show.
One of the heads of the company actually had tears in her eyes when she let me go because I was giving her a “what the heck” look the whole time. Silver lining: My next gig doubled my salary and got me an Emmy for editing! Suck it!
29. It Doesn’t Cut The Mustard
I worked as a shift supervisor for a sandwich shop. We had a girl come in and order a number of sandwiches. It was obvious that they weren't all for her, because she wasn't sure what the rest of the people wanted. Well, she ordered a sandwich with Dijon mustard on it. She only specified "mustard" but I'd been working here for a few years and knew the routine.
I asked her repeatedly if DIJON MUSTARD would be ok, she said that it would be fine. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. About 20 minutes later, one of my employees says to me that there is a customer on the phone who would like to speak with a manager. The minute I pick up the phone I hear somebody shout, literally at full volume, "WHY IS THERE DIJON MUSTARD ON MY SANDWICH?"
I asked him what he had ordered. His answer was " I DON'T KNOW MY DAUGHTER ORDERED IT FOR ME". I remember the young girl who was in the store earlier and say, "Oh, that's because she ordered the #8 for you, it comes with Dijon mustard". He began screaming again "I DIDN'T WANT DIJON MUSTARD, WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT DINNER?"
I kind of stammer now, because after all, a grown man is asking me what he should do for dinner. Once I began to talk, he exclaims, "WHAT ABOUT MY DINNER?" and every time I try to speak he begins yelling. I knew just what to do. I sit in silence. About 30 seconds of silence goes by and then he asks condescendingly, "Oh, nothing to say, huh?"
To this I reply, "Sir, if you are going to cut me off and yell at me I cannot help you". Well, he hung up. I thought it was all over…until he calls back even madder. “LET ME SPEAK TO THE MANAGER" "Sir, I am the manager" "NO YOU’RE NOT YOU'RE A KID" "I don't believe my age has any relevance to my ability to run a sandwich shop" "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT MY DINNER, IT'S RUINED!?"
"Sir, that is the sandwich your daughter ordered, I will gladly give you a new sandwich if you return the defective one" "OK I WANT IT DELIVERED" "Sure thing, where do you live?" Whatever he said was WAYYY out of our delivery range. "Sir, I cannot have our driver go that far, but if you would come back, I would gladly make you a new sandwich".
Incoherent screaming from that point on. I called the store owners and warned them that a corporate complaint was about to be lodged against me. I told them the story. They laughed, and said "good job". The rest of the night I thought at any moment there would be a very angry man who hates Dijon bust through the door and fight me. I felt really bad for his daughter, too.
30. Looking For Trouble
When I was 16, I worked at McDonald’s. I always volunteered for the early morning shift of the weekends because no one else wanted it. So, I would show up to work at 5:30 AM to open the store. One morning, I got a phone call at 5:00 AM in the morning as I was getting ready for work. Turns out, the manager was reviewing my timecards.
Apparently, it looked like SIX MONTHS AGO, instead of taking a 30-minute lunch break, I took a 26-minute lunch break, which is against company policy. I explained that it was because the store was really busy and my manager asked me to clock in early to help out during the lunch rush. The manager on the phone said, "Doesn't matter”.
“You should have known the rules and just because someone asks you to break a rule, you should know better than to listen. We cannot employ someone who knowingly breaks company rules". And I was fired with less than 30 minutes' notice. The real reason was infuriating. Turns out, since I had worked at the store since I was 14, I was owed a significant pay bump once I hit my two-year mark and they wanted to get rid of me before that happened.
31. The Cards Are Stacked Against You
I was fired for being late to work. Except, here’s the thing. They would schedule me for a 12-hour shift during the holidays, only to have me come back to work five hours later. It was a 30-minute drive to and from work. So at most, I'd be able to get three hours of sleep, and that was if I was lucky to fall asleep immediately. They did this several times.
I tried to make it back on time, but I would be anywhere from a half hour to an hour late. I would always get the work done that needed to be done as well.
32. Putting The Passive In Aggressive
An old boss of mine fired me by leaving a note under my windshield wiper. He was always conflict avoidant—not a great thing for a boss to be—but that was a new low.
33. No Sweater Weather For You
I was yelled at, like a child, in front of my officemates, for like three minutes. And the reason why baffles me to this day. It was for wearing a sweater. My boss accused me of using it to agitate my allergies and make me sneeze. I have no idea what me sneezing would accomplish to benefit me, but there you have it. Mind you, this was in Hawaii, and AC in buildings has two settings: broken and walk-in freezer... guess what ours was set to?
She was demoted a month later and transferred, so the story has a happy ending.
34. Working Hard Or Hardly Working?
I've worked as a city worker before. But I swear to God, it was one of the most annoying jobs ever. I was constantly told that I was working too hard and needed to be lazier. See, these old guys don't want to look bad as they sit around all day making lewd comments about girls that are too young for them, so they get mad at me for actually doing stuff.
I almost got fired a few times because of it. It just made the days take forever, and made me so angry.
35. One Giant Headache
I was accused by my general manager of stealing toilet paper…because I had a cold and was blowing my nose in the bathroom after I ran out of Kleenex. Yep, that was it. That same general manager also threw a stapler at my head once, just to give you an idea of the specimen we are dealing with. I should have gotten him fired, but I was happy just to leave.
36. One Button For All Your Woes
Many years ago (we're talking late 80s) there was another recession, and I had resorted to the lowest of the low to pay the rent: Data entry. The company I worked for used IBM terminals. My job was to take a paper invoice, enter all the details into the computer-based version of the handwritten form, and then send it off to have the next step of the process done.
Since this was being done for a single location, there were three or four bits of information that were specific to our location—these were the same, for every form. I came up with a genius plan. I used the terminal's basic macro capabilities that allowed me to press a function key when a new form came up to prefill those bits of data and then jump to the first row of text input for a form.
It makes things super easy. Well, my supervisor sees this in action one morning and nearly gave live birth to a bovine mammal right then and there. Literally screeching at me that I was doing something wrong, and refusing all my explanations. The next thing I knew I was being written up for "reprogramming the mainframe computer" and being hauled in front of the vice president for our division and the division IT guy to explain myself.
I did. They looked at my supervisor. The IT guy said, "This is like programming the TAB key on a typewriter for a form”. He then stared at her for an uncomfortable amount of time before simply walking out with the vice president. The two of us were left in the conference room staring at each other. All she said was "just get back to work" before hurrying out of the room.
I never had another problem with her again. In fact, I don't think she ever said more than two words to me or looked in my direction again.
37. And That’s The Tea
I had worked in a cafe for about three years when my (lovely) boss sold it to what I can only describe as the most mental creature I have ever met. The new owner lost about 80% of regular customers in a month, all while cutting quality and raising prices. She made the cafe into a tea shop and bought hideously, and I mean hideously, expensive new crockery and decorations.
The crockery was mostly antique and very fragile, and thus had no place in a cafe where it must be durable. Enter me: Hardworking, sincere, and friendly…but incredibly clumsy. I first met her rage for breaking a $40 cup that I was trying to wash quickly. We were busy and understaffed, and of course, her antique tea sets were far too delicate for the dishwasher, so the wait staff had to do it.
In the course of about a year, she hired and promptly fired about 15 members of staff, both waiting and kitchen. She would hire them and create an idea in her head of what she wanted, and when they didn't match up, she would scream at them in front of customers and tell them to get out of her sight. She gave me the title of “Saturday supervisor”.
I only worked there for eight hours on a Saturday for a bit of spending money, and there were many customers who would only come in to see me. She would constantly go over my head over decisions I'd made and intentionally make me appear thick and slow in front of customers. When the last chef walked out, she had to go into the kitchen and I was left to run front of house with no extra training.
The two members of staff under me—which was not enough as it was—were usually only there for about two or three weeks, and often with no waiting on experience whatsoever. It was an absolute nightmare. I would often go home in tears, and when the mental new owner bumped into the back of my dad's car and didn't apologize, I had to physically restrain him from going after her there on the street.
She literally told me the reason her business was failing was due to my “inability to cater to customers’ needs, and the service I provide is downright abysmal”. Blatant, blatant lies. I only worked there for eight hours on a Saturday! During the summer, she put me in charge of the takeaway service, a job I was terrible at, something I repeatedly told her.
When she eventually fired me, she said I couldn't hold her back anymore, and I would only do half a job. She listed the tasks I didn't perform, which I was not EVER told I had to do. In fact, they were tasks SHE should have done. She had no clue. I tried to tell her what I thought, but I was so angry and frustrated that all I could do in the moment was cry.
The business shut down two weeks later. I currently work in a similar job, where I am often praised for my skills as a waitress, and am looking forward to fast promotion.
38. Facing The Music
I was accused of "bringing down" my entire department of 40+ people for what the folks in charge consider "excessive internet usage". Let me explain—it is outrageous. My company is very strict as to what sites you can and cannot visit on the Internet. Apparently, every time you go to a site that isn't considered work-related, the site you go to is logged as well as the amount of bandwidth it "wastes".
Some other sites just get banned altogether and are usually sites that stream videos, gambling, stuff like that. Up until last year, I had a subscription to Sirius radio which included an internet subscription. So one day I tried to get on Sirius to see if it could be streamed. To my surprise/delight, I could not only access the site, but also the radio feature.
So for two weeks, I was streaming Sirius non-stop during my eight-hour workday. Fast forward to the Monday after those two weeks are up, and it all comes crashing down. I get a phone call from the head of my department asking me to come into her office. I figured it can't be all that bad as she and I speak on an almost regular basis.
So I try to log onto Sirius before I go to her office and it won't do it. In fact, I can't even access the site now. I didn't think anything of it until I went into my meeting. Apparently, the company chief technology officer contacted the head of my department and told her that I myself was the NUMBER ONE "abuser" of non-work-related internet usage for that particular month.
Evidently, I used 2.8gigs of bandwidth just from streaming music. I was given a pretty serious pep talk and was told that my actions not only hurt myself but also that the entire department is now suffering because of me. I was also told that my department is lucky to even still be existing after what I've done and that if she had her way in regards to the incident I’d never work here again.
Thankfully, all that happened was I was put on final warning (step three in the three-step warning process before being canned) and that my non-work-related internet was blocked for a month. Well, not one week later I found myself a job in a different department and that written warning went away. Needless to say, my boss was furious.
39. Don’t Put The Blame On Me
I worked at a pizza place for about two months before quitting. I was pretty bad at the job, but to top it off, the owners found the most random things to blame on me. We write a "K" or "Q" for King- or Queen-sized pizzas on the order ticket. These customers wanted a King but the cooks made a Queen by accident. The owner told everyone it was my fault for "using the wrong pen" on the ticket.
I ended up quitting because the cooks moved a ticket to the “in the oven” spot before they made it. Honest mistake. However, my family was in the restaurant that day and overheard the owners telling the customers that it was my fault for putting the ticket in the wrong spot. When I asked the owner if she said that, she said no. I quit right then.
I made a lot of money, but it was a terrible experience.
40. It’s A Dog-Eat-Dog World Out There
I worked at Office Depot as a salesman. What you might not realize about these stores—or anything that sells electronics—is usually they are "loss leading" with their electronics sales. At Office Depot, if we sold a laptop at a regular price, chances are we were losing 10% on that transaction. So if we sold it for $500, chances are we would lose $50.
Now how is this a sustainable business model? Protection plans! You buy it for almost half the laptop's (or other electronic device’s) value and it is effectively worthless, even if you are one of the roughly 1/3 of people who even REMEMBER that they own the policy. Anyway, you can do no right when you are in the position to sell these things.
I'd say 1/5 of customers who came in to buy a laptop would purchase one. Two others would just buy a laptop and I'd get yelled at for not offering it enough times. According to Office Depot, research shows a consumer has not definitively said "no" until offered something five times. Or else they’d get mad at me for me down-selling them to a lower-cost laptop that would lose us less money if we sold it to them off the books.
One of the other customers would buy the downsell and I'd get yelled at for not selling a protection plan...again. The fifth customer would demand to talk to my manager, who would then publicly scream at me for trying to force the plan on the customer. There was also a running thing where if you knew you were going to sell something off the books, you told them your store was out of stock but the one a few miles away had it.
I refused to do this—and thank God, because the store got into a bunch of trouble later for this practice—and would get yelled at on a near daily basis. Also, it was easy to tell when the other store pulled this on us. We saw all store’s inventory on our computer. There was no winning when this happened. If we were out of stock (the other store did this A LOT) I got in trouble from the customer. If we had it in stock, I got in trouble for the sale the other guy just pushed on me.
Then, the manager would scream at me for not telling the customer what the other store had done. One time I told them that we were in fact out of stock and informed them the other store had five units...almost got fired.
41. You Had One Job
I work in sales and my co-worker, who is quite paranoid, accused me of going in and making returns on his sales and then transferring the sales to my name. This is a complete lie—and he was covering up something bigger. He was just trying to save face when he realized that most of his customers were actually returning their products because he had done a horrible job of getting them the right sizes, colors, etc.
He was fired shortly afterward for incompetence.
42. Not A Temporary Grudge
Just recently, I was assigned to a one-day temp gig through the People Bank in Toronto. I showed up early, but it turned out they didn't have work for me and sent me home. The agency then sent me an email accusing me of showing up late, and because of that they were going to only pay me a half day. I pointed out that a) I showed up early, and it was the person who hired me who was late, b) I had in writing that if I were being sent home, they'd pay me for the full day.
They begrudgingly agreed. To make it up to me, they stuck me with a gig moving banker's boxes around for three weeks, and appear to be no longer offering me work. This is an agency I had a relationship with for 12 years, both as a worker and as a contractor.
43. Take A Square, Leave A Square
Office managers, gotta love them. I work in a small office, and we have a second office, even smaller, across the street. Whenever we would get supplies (paper towels, toilet paper, soap, etc.) someone from the other office would walk over and get what they needed. Our office manager didn't buy enough toilet paper one day, and when she was leaving to go home that afternoon, she noticed that all the toilet paper she had bought was gone.
She went back up to her desk and sent an email out basically saying that someone was taking the toilet paper. What had actually happened was people from across the street came and got most of it for their office. My boss, and everyone else, had a good laugh. A few weeks later he asked me to hang a picture up. I went to get some nails out of the closet and couldn't find any.
I went and got some, then told him that we were out. He immediately fired off an email to our office manager saying that someone had been taking nails, and he wanted her to get to the bottom of it. Some people never learn.
44. In The Eye Of The Beholder
I was told by my supervisor that I shouldn't wear jeans, meaning the "jeans" I was wearing. There was just one big problem. I was sporting brown khakis. I said as much. They were brown cotton and total khaki construction—not anywhere near jeans. She said that because other people had complained and said they were jeans, she had to say something to me.
45. Getting Their Wires Crossed
I briefly worked at a cooking school doing some administrative work during the days and helping out with the classes in the evening. The owner was an old-fashioned stubborn old goat who refused to modernize in any way. I was in working on a bank holiday, so nobody was phoning in to book classes because everybody thought we were closed.
So I'm sorting dishes and putting them away when my boss says from across the room that he's going out for lunch and that I could go home when I was finished. Great, I think, I'm bored out of my mind. I finish my stuff and go home. I run into him on the stairs on the way out and cheerfully say that I'm finished everything and that I'm going home now.
He looks vaguely puzzled and says ok. The next morning I get a phone call where he asks me “what happened yesterday?” I'm running through every phone call I made the day before wondering if there was some sort of a problem with a customer that I forgot to mention. I can't think of anything and ask what he means. His answer stunned me.
He says, “Why did you leave?” I reply it's because he said that I could go home when I was done my work. He says, no he didn't say that. I apologize for mishearing him. And here's where it gets really, unbelievably stupid. He just keeps repeating over and over how he never said that and that I was making it up and that he had more work for me to do in the afternoon.
He tells me to come into the office later. I'm confused and angry at this point because has he never heard of a misunderstanding before? And if he had more work for me to do, why in the heck didn’t he say anything when I ran into him in the stairway on the way out? I get there and he says very somberly that he had thought about it and had to let me go because I was a liar and he couldn't have untrustworthy people working for him.
I said that's fine because I didn't want to work for anyone so rigid, who couldn't fathom that his words could be misheard.
46. Life Isn’t So Sweet
At my old job, I worked at a candy store. There were many reasons why I quit, but mostly I just got too old (I was 18, and it was more of a teenager thing). Anyway, my boss at the time didn't understand that she's supposed to have boss duties. She'd complain about having to come in, she’d complain when "nobody told her something was broken" even though we'd text and tell her about it.
She wanted an only-female crew basically, and the only exception she made was her nephew for a month. "Boys don't know how to do anything", she'd say. All around, she had no clue what she was doing. The worst part is she over-bought a lot of things and "forgot" pay the fee to have the delivery guy to bring it into the store. So we basically had to spend an hour running back and forth down the street to bring huge boxes in.
Ice cream and candy would come on the same day, so that was extra stressful. Myself and two other girls were the only employees who actually closed and opened properly, who cleaned and put candy away, and who overall knew what we were doing. We worked really hard trying to get the rest of the girls to do something, but they sat in the back of the store ignoring customers.
I opened a lot so I'd walk into everything being a mess and having to spend an hour cleaning up so I can continue with the day. She would complain about the wrong people, though, so most of us older girls just left. The rest of them were at least 16 and younger. I really hope she understands why it's a circus, because she can't come in once a week expecting 16 and younger girls to manage the store by themselves. So glad I quit.
47. Gonna Be Hard No
One time, I traveled to LA with my boss. I was drinking with him at the hotel bar relatively early. He gets pretty tipsy quickly and begins engaging in a conversation with a woman who looked like she was at a bar to take a man upstairs and make some money. Here’s where it got weird. See, the only problem was that my boss’s son came to LA to visit him, so he is asleep upstairs in the boss' room.
Solution? Ask me, his employee and 30 years his junior, if he can "use my room”.
48. I’ll Believe It When I See It
One period during my job, my boss thought I was goofing off in the restroom for some reason. His solution? For a few months there, he wouldn't let me flush the toilet until he came in and made sure I actually used it. Like I was a toddler.
49. It’s Payback Time
Back when I was in high school, I worked for my town's parks department. One time, my boss—who was a total sleazeball and hated me mostly for not being female—calls me into his office. While there, he accuses me of taking a $3 check, and then says that I have to be let go. I tell him point-blank that if I was to take from the department, it would be something a lot more than a measly three-dollar check.
I mean, what the heck would I do with that anyway? Later on, I find out from a friend of mine that he found the check underneath his desk, and then a month later someone finally reported him for harassment, and he got fired too. Karma's a witch.
50. Something Smells Fishy Here
I was accused of sticking a note on a fellow employee’s desk that read "your desk smells like onions". Management deemed this serious harassment because the victim said that she felt intimidated by the offense. A handwriting analysis was done (by management) and I was one of two matches. I did not do it and lost a bit of respect for management that day.
51. Home Is Where The Manager Isn’t
My manager had never been that great, but she completely lost it as soon as our company shifted to mostly work from home. She didn’t want to pay us overtime and had the mindset that working from home would always be less productive than in the office. Her entire opinion was based on the fact that because she got a quarter of her own work done when she was at home, the rest of us would too.
Because she was so set on getting back into the office, she volunteered our department as the pilot project to go back in first, even when cases were at an all-time high. Oh, but it gets worse. Everyone goes in, except one person: Her. She's a no show. We couldn't believe it. After that, everyone started looking for other jobs.
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52. Up Close And Personal
I had a boss who would scream in my face so often, I started to strategize how I would handle it when she finally hauled off and hit me. She never did, but she did eventually lose her job after being accused of hurting children.
53. The New McManager
We had a younger manager at McDonald’s for my first 10 months. Then they decided to bring in a second manager from another store. The first week he was fine. Until one day, when one of the girls who usually worked drive-thru was put on the grill for no reason. She got grease on her shirt, and he told her that she looked like a pig.
Then he said to clean up or go home. She left crying. The next day another underage kid asked to just get a drink of water after a 3-hour non-stop rush. The kid looked like he was about to pass out. The manager told him no, so he said he'd drink from the sink in the back. He told him if he did that, he’d send him home.
I lost it when I heard that. I went off at him and then left. I never went back. I heard that he was fired a month later.
54. Nefarious Negativity
I hated my boss. Nobody ever received any positive comments in evaluations. One time in a meeting, someone asked, "Do you think we could hear something nice about somebody just once?" All my boss did was bark, "That's not what we're here for!" That's that kind of person I had to deal with for five long years. It was absolutely brutal.
People who held grudges against me personally rose up to the right positions to put together a case that would get me railroaded out. Fortunately, one of my co-workers clued me in about it, and I was able to interview and get another job before the hammer came down. They would have fired me at 11 in the morning. I got the other job offer at 9.
I pre-emptively turned in a resignation that said nothing more than, "I resign my position effective XX/XX/XXXX." I also refused the exit interview and presented state and federal statutes that showed I was not required to give one. Even though they so badly wanted me gone, they were mad that I got to leave on my own terms, instead of getting fired.
And I got them good. I handed them a post-dated resignation instead knowing they would immediately throw me out of the building, but also that they would have to pay me until the date on my letter. And the timing worked out perfectly. The dates worked out so that I received my annual bonus too. Now, I'm in a job with far fewer hours, making more money, and coworkers who I actually like.
Meanwhile, the old company where I worked laid off ten percent of their employees and slashed the compensation of those who remained by thirty percent. Good. They suck.
55. First Mistake Kit
I had been running the restaurant for weekend nights for three years. These were not easy shifts. They were from 5 PM–3 AM and the restaurant was always packed with drunk college kids. Still, I was a night owl, and it was my pleasure. Or it was, until I took a few days off and went to a hot spring with my wife. On our way back, I noticed that my leg hurt.
Within 2 hours, I was in the hospital for a severe infection. It needed three antibiotics at once to treat. I called in sick three days in advance. My AGM told me to heal up and that they would cover my shift. They did not. For my "first infraction" they gave me a final warning. I was one step from being fired, after all my years of hard work. I put in my notice the next day.
56. Questionable Communication
At my last job at a marketing company, our president and owner went off on an hour long rant to a client basically calling them "stupid ungrateful idiots" along with a bunch of swears. It started because the client, a dentist, presented my boss with some ideas that came from her receptionist. Just standard suggestions.
They were things like bench signs and radio ads that a layperson would know, but it was nothing so bad that someone should ridiculing them.
57. Proper Procedure
I had a boss who tried making every single interaction into an argument or confrontation. I would be at work, going about my business, and he would come around, and our interactions would go something like, “I want you to do it this way,” he’d tell me. I’d say, “that's how I'm doing it, that's how I've always done it.”
He’d answer, “don't argue with me, just do what I'm telling you to do!” If I protested, he’d interrupt me and yell, “if you can’t do it the right way, I’ll find somebody who can!” My only course of action around this guy was to act dumb and make him feel like he was a wise old sage because he had been there for longer.
Sometimes 30 years of experience just means that you've sucked at your job for 30 years. Oh, and during my last review with him, he wanted to know why we weren't better friends.
58. Too Close For Comfort
I was 19 and working my first job. My awful boss criticized my lipstick, saying that the color was ugly and recommending a bright red lipstick to match with my bright red uniform shirt. He also didn’t like my choice of all black shoes. And he didn’t like the way I mopped the floor. He would take the mop from me and show how to “properly” do it.
His condescension was insane. But the day he creepily told one of my coworkers that she couldn’t wear a sports bra under her uniform (because it "flattens" certain things), I knew I couldn't deal with him. I quit a few days later.
59. Set Up To Fail
My efficiency scores all quarter were on track to be amazing, but when the time came for raises, I received an impossible task. When I couldn’t complete it, it was used as the reason for not giving me a raise. This was complete BS. Our company was growing and becoming more and more profitable because we were accepting bigger jobs. But management never hired new workers.
A lot of us would stay late and work overtime, guaranteeing the company profits, but never meaning any of us would see a penny. Eventually, after we didn't get raises for two years, I changed careers.
60. Can’t Do This Anymore
I’m currently trying to leave my job. If I worked any amount under 40 hours, my boss would dock my pay. If I worked over 40, I’d get my salary pay. I worked until Tuesday and then discovered that I’d been around a COVID positive person and developed symptoms. Work sent me home. I got a test. Work kept me home until I got the results: negative.
My paycheck showed up with hundreds of dollars less than normal. Of course, my boss didn’t bother to tell me it would be like that. Luckily, I went to HR who told her she couldn’t do that. She later called to apologize, saying she "didn’t know she had to pay me." This, amongst many other things, is why I’m trying to get out of there.
61. Just Do It
I left Journeys because everyone got sick. I was a new hire, but instead of finding somebody to come work and train me or close the store, they just said I had to do it all alone, so I left. I’m all for being thrown to the wolves if I have the knowledge to handle it, but this was too far. I couldn't even process returns!
62. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
I had missed one day of work in a two-month time span to attend my aunt’s funeral. Then my manager called me into her office to be “coached.” The first thing the manager said was, “I'm so sorry for your loss. I would have done the same thing.” I thought she'd be cool about it, but nope. She proceeded to make me sign paperwork instructing me on how to avoid absenteeism. I guess just...never attend a beloved relative's funeral?
63. Mommy, May I
I work in home care. My “boss” is typically the family I work for. It’s always the families that are the reason I leave, never my clients. Families are the worst. One mom got so mad when I dared to take a week off. I had worked for her for five long years, taking care of her very handicapped child. I did not get paid if I took time off.
So, I planned accordingly. She told me that I needed to make that time up and that she had no idea what she was going to do with her child while I was gone. This was ridiculous. I was one of 3-4 home aides; she had enough help. I told her I did not need to make any time up. I didn’t get paid for not being there, so it wasn’t my problem.
I told her that she would have to take care of her own kid. She didn’t like that answer. I went on my vacation and decided I had had enough of her, so I quit. I felt bad for the kid who wasn’t a bad kid at all. But I could not take that mom anymore.
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64. Can’t Play Favorites
A now-former colleague and I both applied for a more senior position that had become vacant. I had vastly more experience and had held a similar role in the past. I was better qualified and, frankly, a better fit for the job. But none of that mattered. Even before my interview, senior management had already decided to give the job to my colleague.
Unfortunately, nepotism prevailed. My colleague was so smug about his promotion, which was already bad, but then he decided to treat me like an idiot child for the next year, rather than the experienced professional that I am. I chose to leave after like six months and secured a much better job with better pay and working conditions.
I gave my required 90 days’ notice. My new manager was so good at their job that they didn't even advertise my job until it suddenly occurred to them that I was due to leave in two weeks’ time. The manager tried to offload my duties to someone on my team. To my satisfaction, that worker promptly burnt out and resigned due to the impossible workload.
65. Just a Miscall
After working for the same company for 17 years and always getting praise for my work, I finally got a position in a department that I'd always wanted to work in. My manager was excited to have me and continued to praise me. Then one night, while I was on-call, we got an "urgent page," which was sent to my phone. My phone didn't ring.
They called my manager. She texted me a few times. Well, I didn't have my texting alerts set to be very loud, so I didn't hear anything. She was annoyed the next day. I apologized that my phone hadn't worked properly for the call. Besides, my “backup” co-worker got the call and fixed it quickly. But that didn't satisfy her. She would not have it and kept telling me I'd screwed up.
She told me that it better not happen again and suggested I get another phone. I apologized again but said, "Look, what happened could happen to anyone. Mistakes happen. [my backup] got the call and handled it anyways. Besides, it really wasn't that urgent." She wouldn’t let it go. Our relationship went downhill from there. Mind you, I’d been at this job for almost 20 years.
I would get up early and work late to accommodate our customers' schedules, put in time on my days off for big urgent issues, and never got paid overtime. I didn't mind. I liked the job and got paid well. But then, a few months after the text incident, I ended up sitting with an HR rep who tried to mediate a truce between me and my boss.
From the beginning, it was clear that he’d sided with her. They just kept bringing up the very few times I hadn’t performed up to par, missing the context every time. Like, "Boss-Lady says there was this one email where you were a little rude to the customer. Is that true?" I had tried explaining myself, but he’d interrupt me with, “No. Just answer the question. Were you rude?"
I said, "Well, yes, a bit I suppose." HR Rep then moved on to the next accusatory question. After a bit of this, I looked across the table at my boss and said, "Boss, are you willing to meet me halfway here?" She just looked at HR Rep. "Okay, that's what I thought." That was it. I stood up and threw my security badge down.
I grabbed my personal bag, which I had prepared for just such an eventuality, said, "I quit," and walked out. Then the HR Rep followed me out the door calling after me, "Don't quit! We don't want this!" I turned around and said, "Neither do I." I felt so good driving back home. I've got a much better job where I'm much more appreciated now.
66. Changing Ways
I worked in an agency environment with big clients and big expectations, but we had a small staff for all the projects we took. Late nights were expected, and some nights I barely had time to eat before I went to sleep, so I could wake up the next day and restart the cycle.
We tried to ask for structural change to have some breathing room between projects, but upper management and my boss always ignored us. I was tired, frustrated, and felt like I was just a tool for the man. We worked late and never got anything back from the company. So, I sent out applications and found a bigger company with a cool culture. They offered me a gigantic pay raise and offered better benefits.
I went to my boss to hand in my resignation. I gave him two weeks’ notice. This somehow became a thirty-minute conversation telling me how good I had it there and how miserable I'd be at this other company. I hadn't even mentioned the name of the new company, so I knew he was talking straight bull. I went back to work.
But my boss then pulled me back into his office and told me he was going to let me go that day. I did so and never looked back. My new job is great by the way. Better boss, better work, better life.
67. Working Together
The company where I worked rented out office space to self-employed people, entrepreneurs, etc. One of my clients approached me about starting a business together that actually piqued my interest. I didn’t know it was against any rules to work a side hustle, and I was very transparent about the whole thing. My co-workers and supervisors all knew about it.
My boss in particular always knew and never said anything negative about it. Six months later, there was a new sales manager hired for the company who was a bit of a jerk. Within two weeks of her starting, she became aware that I had a side hustle and reported me to HR. I went into work one Friday and saw I had an HR call scheduled.
I felt my stomach drop. That was never a good thing. So, my actual boss and I got on the call, and HR said I’d broken a huge rule. I explained that I did not know and thought it was okay since I had been telling my boss about it for nine months. And yet, HR still gave me the option to quit my side hustle and receive a final written warning from them.
This was despite me not having any other discipline in all of my time with the company. My other option was to quit the company. It made me so furious. But the worst part was that my boss never stepped up and defended me. She didn't even acknowledge that she also had not known about this rule. That's what made me thank them for their time and leave.
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68. Personal Efforts Rewarded
I used to work at Comcast and had aspirations to move up into management. I was pretty green to the corporate world, so I thought that helping my supervisor with her job would help move me up. And by help, I mean my supervisor made me do her whole job. I ran her meetings, did scheduling, and went through her paperwork.
I did all this while working on the phone as she sat at her desk playing Candy Crush on her iPad. I did this for months until I was so stressed that I snapped at a customer. Now, I took full responsibility for what I did, but that wasn't good enough for her. Nope, she had to sit me down and humiliate me in front of the upper management.
For an hour and a half, she made me listen to the recording while pausing it every few minutes to say something like, "How could you?" I was in tears at the end, and she used that to show how bad of an employee I was and how good a boss she was for "helping" me learn from my mistake. She then pushed for a Final Notice.
If I went out of line one more time within a year, I'd lose my job. She wasn’t going to fire me. I would have to do that for her. HR was predictably useless as were my friends in management. Now that I had become a pariah, people didn't care about me at all, except for my supervisor who, of course, still expected me to do her job.
My next few days were filled with a lot of crying. What followed was rage: Endless, white hot rage. I didn't quit. I didn't give up. Instead, I went back to school to finish my degree. After a while, I was offered an internship at 20 hours a week, which I took while fighting an uphill battle at Comcast 40 hours a week.
I was also a full-time student. And I let my supervisor know this. "Sorry, boss," I'd say, "I can't do this report for you. I have a final to study for," or, "Want me to stay late? No can do. My internship is working me hard, so I want to spend my night off at home doing nothing." I kept ignoring her whenever possible.
If she emailed me a question relating to my job, I'd respond, but if she sent out a group email about an incentive plan, I’d put it in the trash. At one point, she pulled me into a meeting, which was just me and her where she antagonized me and repeatedly told me, "You don't know me." The whole thing was really cringey and awkward.
This went on for the year that I was on probation. During that time, I always kept my sales numbers just high enough not to get fired, but good enough so it looked like I was still “trying.” This affected my commission, but it was so worth it. Before my probation was over, I had the option to switch to another supervisor, which I did.
I upped my effort those last few months, and my sales numbers skyrocketed. I had intentionally done this so my old boss would look bad. The upper management saw how my new supervisor succeeded in one month where my older supervisor failed in nine, and it pleased me to no end that I had played the long game and humiliated her like how she humiliated me.
On the one-year anniversary of my probation, I put in my two weeks’ notice. I let them know in my exit interview what I did with my life, omitting the undercutting part, and that had I had spent the last year becoming a better person just to spite Comcast. But even without spelling it out, that exit interview was one of the most satisfying moments of my life.
69. Bad Move
I worked at a small company with less than 40 employees. My boss encouraged us to get into fights with other departments. And when I refused to participate, my team ghosted me. I went to the CEO indirectly a few times, but nothing happened. Then I finally lost my patience, scheduled a 1-on-1 with the CEO, and told him that he was running a circus.
I said that if he didn’t take action fast, the company would fail, and I’d be gone long before. Three weeks later, they walked me out. But I got the last laugh. A year later, they walked the CEO out.
70. No, By The Way
They changed the commission structure mid-month and did not update sales staff on the new goals. I missed my commission of $3,800 by $4. I thought that I had been $500 over my goal, so I let junior sales reps take sales to get them over their goals too. That would qualify our group for the site-wide bonus, which I later learned did not exist anymore.
We lost four reps in a day over $6k in commissions. The company ended up sending most of the senior staff to the clink on tax evasion charges soon after we left.
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71. Half-Baked Training
I worked for a German bakery for a month. The staff was some of the nicest people I had ever met, the job paid better than most places, and it had pretty good benefits. But then there was the manager. She was rough. She was such a colossal monster that if she visited Japan, the emperor would call Godzilla to help protect the country.
On my trial shift, which she scheduled to start at 4:30 AM the night prior, she screamed at me within the first ten minutes because I didn't know exactly the places or names of all the pastries. She would make remarks about construction workers, saying they were always trouble when they came in, as if they’re subhuman.
She constantly screamed at me to do better, and twice, she had the nerve to call me a "dumb idiot" in front of customers. I quit the first chance I could and made sure to tell the regional director everything she did to me and the other staff. Apparently, I was the first person to bring up anything like this since they’d opened.
72. Getting Nothing
I’m a teacher. I worked at a school that was in a very tough neighborhood. We had to know which kids were in which gangs so we wouldn't make them sit near each other. Fights happened pretty regularly. Deals went down on school property. There were definitely some behavioral issues. But there were also a lot of really good kids just trying to go to school.
The principal, though, was bad news. She was on a power trip. She was cruel to kids, teachers, and parents. My first year there, there were four of us that taught fifth grade. By October, one of us was quietly dismissed for inappropriate contact with a student. By early December, another had her skull cracked open on a locker while trying to break up a fight.
That left me and one other teacher with a constant rotation of subs because the principal wouldn’t hire any replacements. The majority of the time, a sub wouldn’t show up, and the students would be split among myself and the other teacher. There were over forty days when I would have 45 plus kids in my classroom. I struggled with no help.
At my year-end evaluation, my principal said I struggled, but that I could have taken more professional development to help. Every faculty meeting was filled with everything we were doing wrong. Never anything positive. And the principal went even further than that. We used to have casual Fridays for both staff and students. The principal stopped that. She stopped pep rallies. She canceled all dances. Anything that was positive to encourage kids, she got rid of.
Eventually, three of my students wrote her a letter. In it, they asked why she took away the 8th-grade dance from everyone and why not just exclude the kids that caused the problems instead of punishing everyone. They asked me to give her the letter because they were afraid of her. She refused to take it from me and said that they, the students, needed to give it to her.
I stuck it out for three years, but by the end of my third year, I had decided that I was leaving. I miss the kids, but I don't miss that horrible principal.
73. Friendly Fire
My best friend and I worked at the same small company for a horrific boss with early-onset dementia. My friend got a new job and gave notice. In an effort to get her to stay, our boss offered her my job. I don't know why she thought my friend would accept. She knew we were friends; we had even booked time off together so we could go on trips with each other.
Of course, my friend said no, and I handed in my notice the very next week. And I let her know why. There were many reasons, but I told her that was the straw that broke the camel's back. She had no idea until then that I knew what she had done. I watched as she tried to figure out a way to deny it. The look on her face was priceless.
74. Bigger Issues
After two years of incredible personal stress with multiple losses, my marriage ending, a car accident, and two weeks after reeling from another unexpected passing of my brother, I was pulled into a meeting where my boss let me know that I was “too distracted at my desk and spending too much time on ‘non-work-related issues.’"
I tried to explain that I was the executor of my brother's estate, but they explained that away by saying that I shouldn't allow it to affect my work. I was also doing the majority of my work unassisted because asking for help usually fell on deaf ears or my boss would tell me, "Just put in more hours.” Those extra hours were unpaid, of course.
There were plenty of other issues, but this broke me. I had a different job in under a month that paid more. I'm still upset about how I was treated.
75. All Planned Out
Our division chief assumed that if he and the other managers weren’t micromanaging us, we wouldn’t do our work. He was very against working from home even though the job could be done 100% remotely. He only started giving us one day a week at home because his supervisor forced him.
We worked in an area with terrible traffic. It’s one of the worst in the nation, so most people usually understood if some employees were a couple minutes late. Not this guy. If we were even a minute late, we’d get a lecture that would frankly take more than the minute we had missed. The worst part was that if we were late or took a longer lunch, we had to put it in the calendars.
There were three different supervisor’s Outlook calendars and our own where we had to plan to make up that time, even if it was just five minutes. It was so patronizing. Once, I emailed all of my supervisors to ask permission to leave four hours early on a Friday because I was flying to a wedding. It was approved. I put it on all the Outlook calendars.
I planned how I was making that time up by coming in 30 minutes early and staying 30 minutes late for four days leading up to the trip. When I stepped on the plane, I got a frantic call from a co-worker saying that a supervisor was looking for me and “had no idea” where I was. I said she should check her dumb calendar. I had already put in my notice by then, so I didn’t care if they got mad.
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76. Dangerous Measures
I was told to take and hold a heavy piece of hand railing over the edge of a platform while my buddy underneath tried to bolt it. We were about 60 feet off the ground, and this thing weighed probably 100 lbs. If my hands slipped and I dropped it, that would be it for my friend and whoever was on the ground when that thing fell down.
Because of this, I said absolutely not and kept it on the crane. That's when my boss cuts in on the crane operator’s radio channel to cuss at me. At that moment, I snapped. I said that he could get his fat little self up here and do it himself. And I got fired for insubordination. If my wife wasn’t about 6 months pregnant, I would have beat him when I got down.
77. Instructions Unclear
I had not one boss but three. Each would tell me how they wanted something done, and each would tell me the others were wrong. I finally got sick of getting chewed out every day for doing what I was told. I found the three of them together talking with the owner, politely interrupted, and pointed out what was going on.
I dropped the mic: "You (1) tell me how to do something, you (2&3) two say it's wrong. You (2) tell me how to do something, you (1&3) two say it's wrong, you (3) tell me how to do something, you (1&2) two say it's wrong. Then all of you chew me out for it. Which of the three of you do I listen to?” They stood there looking at each other.
The owner was looking at the three of them. After waiting a whole minute, I took off my work gloves, handed them to the owner, thanked him for employing me, and quit. I heard from another employee that all three were later demoted, and the owner promoted other people to the positions with clearer defined control areas.
78. Taking Things Over
I was at my workplace for 27 years. In one year, they terminated all the legacy developers and had us hired to an offshore company. After a year, that company started paying us off and replacing us with offshore workers. I was slated to stay because I was a higher-level manager. But my team was shrinking, and so our productivity tanked.
I could not stomach the toxic environment and attitude. I left and now have less responsibility and more pay. Now the original employer wants me back. It's going to cost them if I even entertain the idea, which I don't plan on doing.
79. Career Recircuiting
My boss was a jerk on a massive power trip. He knew nothing about cars, despite managing a big fancy car dealership. I was a trainee mechanic/tech on apprenticeship wages. The worst task I had to do was replacing wiring. We had a Karen who was the boss’s friend harass us apprentices for a non-existent wiring issue. We were told to replace all the wiring! Twice! Free of charge for the customer. It was gruelling, awful work.
And this lady was crazy. She was impossible to deal with, and eventually she called the authorities on us because she convinved herself that we were "holding her car hostage." Even though she was the nut, my boss suspended all of the apprentices. We didn't take it lying down. Instead, we banded together and went to the local media and then HR. We got our jobs back, and the boss was sacked.
80. Fired Up And Ready To Go
I worked in a craft store. The boss went across the line of cashiers and smacked each of us in the back of the head saying, "one for you! And one for you! And one for you!" I assumed he was joking. I was so wrong. He never liked me very much, so as he approached me and said, "And one for you!" he smacked me so hard that my glasses flew off my face.
They were not loose, but they were after that day. I didn't get to quit, though. He fired me at the end of the shift.
81. What’s Mine Is Yours
I had a former boss from Europe who "delegated" most tasks to me and then took credit for them. In meetings, he would constantly interrupt people to note that I would do/fix/resolve/submit whatever. He denied me any interviews for a promotion because he needed me to do half of his job for him. If I applied for a promotion, he accused me of being disloyal.
When I gave notice, I rattled off a list of reasons why, and he just shrugged and said, "okay, if you're going to be that way about it." I wrote him instructions on how to perform certain tasks and run reports, and instead of reading it, he gave it to another employee and told them to call me if they had any questions.
A co-worker who also left was told, "I don't see you being happy or successful at your new job and that saddens me because we will fill your position and you won't be able to come back. But good luck anyway." And as though that's not bad enough, my idiot boss got promoted and sent to China. I swear, the company wants him to mess things up on every continent.
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82. All This For What
I had the pleasure of dealing with a boss who was both a micromanager and a complete idiot. We tried so hard to preempt all the ways he'd screw up the budget. To my surprise, we managed to go from the least productive team to the most productive. But when review time came, my raise was so tiny that our simultaneous change in health insurance benefits meant I actually got lower weekly paychecks for me. That was my last straw. I left.
83. Clean Up Your Act
I used to clean for a gym. One night, a bunch of patrons utterly destroyed the locker room and showers. There was literal poop smeared on the walls of the showers and messes everywhere. It was like an awful poop explosion blew throughout the place.
When we saw what we had to deal with, we immediately grabbed every free person we could to help us deal with the mess. With seven people, it took us three hours to get that locker room clean again. It smelled so strongly of Comet that two people almost passed out. All the while, the manager on duty was strolling around eating his ice cream and using his phone.
The whole crew worked crazy hard to finish as efficiently and thoroughly as we could. By the time we finished, it looked almost perfect as if whoever unleashed their bowels on our facilities had never set foot in the room. The lot of us were very satisfied even though it was an extremely hard night. When we finally finished, we all gathered at the front desk for the closing shift sign-out.
The manager previously mentioned called me and my partner over and began tearing into us saying that the locker room looked like an absolute disaster. He said that we were only getting out now was because it was two and a half hours past when we were supposed to be finished. Then he stood there insulting us for ten minutes holding up everyone from leaving for the night.
As soon as I got home, I typed up a resignation letter effective immediately. The next day, my actual manager called me and gave me attitude for giving one day's notice. I told him what had happened and ended the conversation there. Never went back.
84. Primed For Fighting
I was cleaning up behind the counter at McDonalds, and the manager was cleaning the ice cream machine. He sat the primer at the edge of the ice cream machine. When a customer walked in, I hurried to put the broom at the corner of the wall, so the customer couldn't see it. The broom fell, and it knocked over the primer.
I was the only one on front counter, so he had to grab the mop and bucket and clean it up. He then put another cup of ice cream primer in the same spot and said, "if you knock this over, I'm going to knock you out." I pulled him to the side after making sure there were no customers around to hear me tell him something.
I told him, "If you ever decide to put your hands on me, you can consider it my immediate notice. My mama did not raise me to take being hit or threatened by anyone. She won't even try to lay hands on me." That’s how I left my job at McDonalds after only three months.
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85. So Sick Of You
My evil boss Jerry wouldn't let me go to the emergency room after the heavy vaginal bleeding I had been experiencing suddenly got way worse. I went over his head and got permission. I called my mom and told her to meet me in the ER. The ER nurse said he'd never seen so much blood. I was admitted for badly needed blood transfusions.
My mom called Jerry who then told her that it's just stress and I had to get back to work. By then, 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. They found a large growth. Jerry kept insisting that it couldn't be cancer.
He said that if it was cancer then I would be exhausted and losing weight. I had lost eight pounds in one week and ran to bed the minute I was home. I was still recovering from the procedure when Jerry called me to let me know I was fired for taking too much time off. Then, five days later, I was diagnosed with cancer.
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86. Prepare According To Me
I had a boss who refused to let me take an "unplanned vacation" to see my very sick grandma. I quit on the spot. It was strange because she was usually really cool and laid back. I asked for the weekend off to visit my ailing grandmother, and she snapped and lectured me about how I needed to “plan my vacations” better.
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87. Down To The Last Second
I had a boss who absolutely hated me. After realizing she wasn't qualified for the position, I came to the conclusion that she was a joke and started to just dismiss her. I never paid much attention to her and when she'd randomly show up at my building, I kind of just ignored her. I was busy and didn't have time to play games.
She wrote me up for being late on three separate occasions when I was one minute late, three minutes late, and six minutes late. I lived an hour 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, there's not much you can do as the freeway is backed up.
Each time I got stuck in traffic I would let her know. She still wrote me up in hopes to eventually fire me. So, I started leaving the house crazy early. I went in super early and left early. She hated it. Eventually, her behavior got her fired, and people still remember her and laugh at what a horrible person she was.
88. Cracking It Open
I used to work in high pressure sales. The director would come in once a week, and they brought Monster drinks in to get everyone energized. She'd have them in her office for the sales people to drink. Now I liked the director; she was nice and professional. My manager on the other hand was an absolute piece of garbage.
I got tired of energy drinks and didn’t drink one. My boss said, "you didn't get a Monster. You know Wendy bought these for the entire division?" I said I was aware but I didn't want one. He came up to me and said this, "listen, go into that office and get one right now." I was so stunned that I didn't know what to do.
So, I got up, took one, went to my desk, and just had it sitting there. He came back and asked why I didn't drink it. I told him I didn't drink one because my body didn't do well with so much caffeine. He asked me to walk into his office. Now, I wasn't the best at the job. In fact, I hated it. He had a problem with me.
He told me that “my lack of energy” extremely distracted him and that it showed in my performance. He ended with, "if you keep this up, we may have to let you go." All I said to him was, "okay, well that is unfortunate, but I won’t drink something that takes a toll on my body." Low and behold, I ended up getting fired.
I enjoyed two weeks of unemployment until I got a call back from the same company. They wanted to hire me for a different position not sales with no interview and higher pay. I took it, and I loved it. Now, my ex-boss ended up being terminated for drug use. He actually had the audacity to send me a request on Facebook.
89. Not My Responsibility
I once worked at a company where the CEO sideswiped a woman's car as she pulled into a parking space. The woman in the car got out and stood beside her car to see what damage was done. The CEO got out of her Mercedes and brushed right past without so much as speaking to her. She just completely ignored her and went in.
The woman went to the HR department, and the company cut her a check for damages. So, the actual business paid for it, not the CEO. She got away scot free without ever admitting anything or paying anything.
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90. Nothing Redeeming
My first job out of college was working as an Office Manager/Exec Admin position in a branch office a part of a financial services firm. The office had 6 financial advisers who came in and out throughout the day, two interns, and the branch manager who was my worst boss ever. Nothing was ever said to me in a normal tone.
If it wasn't sarcasm, it was condescending. Nothing I ever did was right; if a Fed-Ex envelope was sealed even the tiniest bit crooked, I got yelled at and scolded for being messy. If it was perfectly straight? I got asked, "Did you use a ruler to get that? What, can't you just close an envelope like a regular person?"
That was too far. Forget me having any conversation with the guy. If I agreed with him, he would sneer and say things like, "that's how you really feel? Yeah, right," or if I asked a question, I got, "figure it out yourself. You're so smart," drawing out the word smart in my face. That still haunts me. He regularly accused me of things.
He would remind at least once a week that he had cameras all over the office and was going to catch me some day. I was working with one of the interns on a project, and we had a column that wasn't reconciling. The manager blew up at me, not the intern, and said that I had to come in over the weekend until I’d fixed it.
And I was not going to be paid for that. I did not know at that time that I was required to be paid for time worked in a situation like that. I was in a bad living situation at that time, and I had grown up in a bad home, so I honestly thought that working unpaid was a punishment for an error was common. I could go on.
Once, he ordered me to pick up his dry cleaning, and I had a panic attack because it looked like his ugly suit was discolored until I ran into his girlfriend and made a subtle hint. She actually confirmed that it was supposed to look that way. I felt bad because I think he treated her poorly too based off her reaction.
She said, "yeah, it's a good thing you notice that sort of stuff. Thomas is really picky and intense. Sometimes too much so." The incident that made me decide to leave was right before Christmas when one of the advisers had given me a small handful of Christmas cards for his clients and asked me to put postage on them.
I asked if Thomas had given his approval, and the adviser said yes. Later that day, Thomas saw the stack of envelopes sitting on my desk and started screaming at me about taking postage again. I explained that those were not mine, they were for Jerry who told me he had Thomas's approval. Thomas stomped into his office fuming with rage.
He called me in half an hour later. He said he spoke to Jerry who denied ever giving me envelopes to stamp. I handed over the envelopes and said to please look at the addresses as these were Jerry's clients and no one I knew personally. It didn't matter. He was still yelling and raving at me for it. I was quite shaken.
I was just trying to not break down completely all the while denying that I never took from him, I never took postage, and if he was so concerned about my apparent habits, maybe he should check the cameras that he had all over the office. At that point, he picked up his metal wastebasket by his desk and threw it at me.
I ducked, and it hit the doorframe. Then he asked me, “did you like that, huh? Are you going to learn a lesson not to back talk?” I didn't say anything and went to my desk, finished out my day, and left my keys behind. I went home and told my boyfriend what happened who yelled at me for quitting without a job lined up.
Never mind that we had plenty of savings, and he had a really good job. I found a new job two weeks later, and until the day we broke up, I had to hear it that I was stupid and lazy and quit a job without finding a new one first.
91. In the Numbers
I was fired from my job as an assistant manager at a convenience store by the district manager who hated me. I was applying for unemployment insurance, and the company said I wasn't eligible because I'd been fired for cause. We showed up for a review, and I was prepared to explain what my direct boss had decided to do.
He put keys to the inner safe in the outer safe area overnight, which had resulted in more than $100 going missing, which was the reason they gave me for firing me. Mind you, this wasn't even my error, but I was the person on duty when it was discovered. Instead, the district manager had a chilling accusation: They tried to say I falsified paperwork.
I settled in to hear her tale of woe. Then she proceeded to show how I'd "padded paperwork" to hide missing money. I showed them that my manager had accidentally put $50 extra into the bank one day, so I made a note of that on the paperwork for the day she made the error and then on the day that showed the $50 missing.
The panel asked the district manager how I should have noted it, and she went off into some incomprehensible way of "subtracting" the amount from the numbers to under-report income. I got out, "but that" when a panel member cut me off and shushed me. They informed her that what she was trying to tell me to do was against the rules.
They told her that they would be informing the local tax office in case they wanted to perform an audit on the company, thanks to the dumb district manager. I was eligible for my unemployment money. Win, win, win! And the look on the district manager's face? Classic. I wish I had a photograph!
92. Color Me Angry
My first boss managed a gas station. He was good in most ways – efficient, fair, disciplined, ran a tight ship but had just one drawback. He was judgmental. I don't mean that he was insufficiently outraged by Dukes of Hazzard re-runs. I mean that he used taboo words and would loudly. He also resurrected other old terms.
The truck driver who delivered our tankers of fuel every week was a Black man, and they almost came to blows over this. His comeuppance finally came when the corporate office hired a new third level supervisor who was a young Black man out of business school. My boss just couldn’t handle taking orders from a Black man.
When he quit, he trashed the office and tore up every floppy disk in the office so we couldn't do our accounting for a few days.
93. In Your Head
The vice president told me I was being disrespectful during a conversation. I asked how, and she told me that I, "knew what I was doing." I asked again, stating that I had asked because I did not actually know how. She told me she didn't have time for me because I "knew what I was doing,” and again had no time for this. She was nuts.
94. Thrown To The Suits
I walked into an off-the-rack suit store, resume in hand, and talked to the store's assistant manager. The guy's a couple of years older than me and looked like the kind of guy that would sell you a time share in Florida with his fake tan and bad hair. He hired me on the spot, though, so he had become my new best friend.
Apparently, the manager of the store was on vacation in his native Jordan, but he'd be back at the end of the week. The job itself was very laid back. We spent a lot of time folding clothes and even more time slacking off behind the till waiting for people to come in and purchase cheap suits. I was great at doing both.
That first week was a breeze. The assistant manager had a camping trip on the weekend, but it'd be cool because the real manager was coming back the day before. Except Jordan revolted, and the first thing the revolutionaries did was take the airfields, so he was stuck. I tried to convince the assistant manager to stay.
I had less than a week of experience and no training. He chose to give me a key and go camping anyway. So, with less than a week of experience, I was now the de facto manager of the shop. On Saturday, the vice president of operations came in from across the country to see how the shop was doing. When he learned what had happened, he was ticked.
The assistant manager was fired. I was given his responsibilities and a very brief rundown of what my new job was while the VP stormed around the store trying to make it presentable barking orders and was very grumpy about stuff. My new day, I was to get in at seven thirty in the morning to prepare to be open by eight.
If we opened five minutes late, we got a $500 fine from the mall. I was the only person on staff able to come in that early. I was also the only person who could reliably close, so I started working 14-hour days, every day, for a little over a month doing a job for which I was unprepared, untrained and under-qualified.
To be fair, the guys at HQ were great. They offered a lot of support that actually took the store through the roughest patches, walking me through payroll management and scheduling, helping me do orders and calmly getting me through merchandising and display making. That month was one of the hardest I have ever worked.
It was not just the long hours but constantly trying to keep up with stuff I was not prepared to do, but the HQ guys made it as easy as they could on me. Then the manager got back from Jordan, and he was mad. Nothing was like how he left it. Displays were a disaster. His assistant manager had been fired in his absence.
The guys from HQ were giving him all sorts of trouble for letting his store get that out-of-whack in the first place. His job was much harder than it would have been if he'd come home on time, and he thought the best way to deal with that was to yell at me. He snapped, and he berated me in front of the other employees.
He made it very clear that the state of the store was my fault and that I had screwed everything up. He complained about me to the HQ guys. For a full week after he was back, I was working the same schedule I'd been working while he was in Jordan, and now, I was getting yelled at the entire time. So, I decided to quit.
The guys from HQ were not happy with that decision and forced the manager call me at home and ask me to come back. So, I went in to discuss the terms of my return, and it was pretty clear the manager wanted nothing to do with me offering exactly nothing above the same entry-level position I'd been hired for originally.
No pay raise. No promotion. No acknowledgement, even. The guy never even thanked me for keeping his store from collapsing. All he offered was just $10 an hour to continue being his monkey butler. I went to work at a comic shop after that.
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95. What’s Your Problem?
I work at a museum. The board president basically cussed me out on the phone before a big seasonal event, saying that she heard from other people that I was not giving 100% dedication to my job and that I needed to get my game up or face some serious consequences. Everyone was stressed due to the event, and I was upset.
I emailed her after that conversation because it had come completely out of left field. I had never had anyone complain about how I did my job – tourists, the executive director, or the president and the rest of the executive board. No one had complained before. So, I asked her to tell me who it was that had a problem.
Her response shocked me. Apparently, no one had said anything. She hadn't "heard" from anyone. She just listed a bunch of her own grievances about what I was doing, which were basically all trivial. I told her that she could just tell me that she was unhappy with things as they happened especially since I was never told not to do these things.
I lost a lot of respect for her that day, but I was still employed. So, I counted my blessings. Also, I found out that the executive director and the president were paying me $1.25 less than they originally agreed. When I first got the job two years prior, they gave me a job description that had the original pay on it.
Naively, I didn't make a copy. When I’d started, my paycheck was much less than I thought it would be, and I was given another job description with the lower pay on it. I didn't make a fuss because I was hard up for money, and I needed the job. Plus, the museum was kind of doing something shady. I also had no backbone.
My boss and the entire executive board stepped down from their positions, and I found my original job description with the original pay. I'm now getting paid what I was supposed to plus back pay. Working here used to be a nightmare. But the new executive board is pretty nice.
96. Profit First, Safety Second
I used to work for a smaller company with about 12 employees. The president/owner of the company was completely out of touch on how to appropriately run a business. All he cared for was just profit. He provided no health insurance and would purposefully keep his number of employees down so that he wouldn't have to pay.
Employees were only given 2 weeks for vacations and no personal or sick time. If you were sick, oh, well, use your vacation or just don't get paid at all. Raises? What is a raise?! Seriously, one employee had been working there for 10 years, he was still making $8 an hour and had never received a raise all those years.
He did not care for employee safety. Dust particulates and small objects flying around? You don't need a mask or safety glasses. Fiberglass particulates in the air from cutting? Nope, you don't need gloves or masks or really anything to protect you from that. Long sleeve shirts and hair not tied back is perfectly fine!
One employee got a hernia from heavy lifting. He asked for work comp for the surgery that he couldn't pay for without any insurance and wasn’t making enough because he hadn't had a raise in years despite performing above expectations. What did the owner do? He refused because, “he could have gotten the hernia at home."
This was despite multiple witnesses watching him double over in pain after lifting the component he was building. Almost a year and a half later, the guy still had a freaking hernia. This guy was just a total jerk. Every 2 months, he’d come in a new car and take employees off the production floor so he could flaunt it.
We’re talking like Porsche GT3's, 2 Tesla Model S Nissan GTR, Audi S8, and the list goes on. When I quit, I just gave him a 5 minute notice and walked out of the door. He tried accusing me of taking sensitive company information, which was untrue. I left everything given to me on my desk and told him to leave me alone.
I told him that if not, I would contact OSHA and tell them what's going on. He backed off, but since then, about four of their most experienced employees have left, and 3 more are still looking for jobs.
97. Overextended Injury
I once worked at a discount sportswear store, and my supervisor was a jerk. I was paid minimum wage with no overtime payment, and he wouldn't let me leave until two hours after my finishing time. His reason? It was because the coat hangers hadn’t been fully extended, which was pretty impossible when you're in the childrenswear department!
98. Man, You’re Mean
I worked at a grocery store for three years. At first, it was great! It was an easy job, lots of hours, and I made money, which was cool since I was living at home saving for a car. But then corporate changes happened and ruined everything. They fired my manager and brought in the GM as a new permanent manager. I would ask him things often.
I wanted to make sure I was doing it right so I wouldn't get in trouble later only for him to hassle me with, “it's common sense. You're not that bright, are you?" Rude, I was just asking for reassurance. So, I had a front end manager who was basically like my second mom. She had been working there for almost 10 years.
She taught me how to drive and brought me to the test and let me vent or cry in the back room about personal things. I love her, but the GM loved to be mean to her to the point where he’d make her cry. A lot. He would only treat the female employees badly because the men, "do it perfectly every time." There were three.
And that was including him. 90% of the store was run by women. So, not only did he berate her, but he yelled at me about how I didn't even deserve a job and I was stupid, incompetent, will be like my dad, etc. So, I cried each time I worked with him. When I quit, he gave me some bull about how he loved working with me.
99. Deserving More Credit
The client let slip how much they were paying for me. I was stunned. In one month, they paid more than my annual salary. I asked my boss for a pay raise and was told there was just no money available. I said I'd give them six weeks to look for it, and she laughed at me as I wasn't, "the type to give ultimatums." That was the last straw.
I secured a better offer from another company and handed in my notice. That was when my boss's boss offered me a 50% raise to stay.
100. My Boss is a Heartbreaker
I had a doctor that constantly ignored patients in serious pain. He thought all of them were faking it to get pain killers. After a senior director at Microsoft died from a heart attack in our ER that he refused to do an EKG on, I went to management and told them what I had seen.
101. The Principle of the Thing
I worked as a database administrator for a community center one summer in university. Basically, I created a database for them to track who was donating to them and how much they were donating, as well a who was volunteering, and for how many hours. Very simple work and despite being the youngest person on staff, I got along well with my co-workers.
Well, except for my immediate boss, who was a total piece of work. The next spring, I was applying for jobs and e-mailed my old boss to ask for a letter of recommendation. Much to my surprise, she told me that she didn't write recommendation letters "out of principle." I was pretty ticked off about it because I was finding it very difficult to find a position.
Not being able to count on my most recent employer for a reference was a definite blemish on my resume. However, in spite of this, I managed to land a decent job. Lo and behold, I got to get revenge on day one of my new job. That 3day, my boss happened to email me about a problem at my old work with the database I had worked on.
She had moved some files around, rendering it impossible for her to access the database. She asked if I would come in. I had the best reply. I e-mailed her back and told her I already had a job and couldn't do it "out of principle." From the center's perspective, it effectively made my entire summer a waste of time. Hey, what can you do?
102. One Problem Too Nanny
As a nanny, it’s weird when your boss is a mom with no actual experience being a boss. I worked for this mom who was my worst boss. She wasn’t that bad when I first started working for her. Over the course of the year, she kept adding more and more things for me to do. Eventually, I wasn’t just taking care of the baby. I became their maid.
If you think I got a pay increase, think again. And then, things got even worse. Eventually, I was basically this woman's personal assistant. She got a taste of power and took advantage of it. As a young 19-year-old, it was hard for me to see how bad it was. But I knew one thing: my boss was a nut job. One day, she got mad and fired me. The very next morning, she called me asking where I was. It was so confusing.
But I was broke and young, so I went back. At that point, I did everything from taking care of the baby to hand washing her delicates. She gave me a “uniform” and reprimanded me if it and my hair and makeup were not well kept. When she got pregnant with baby #2 and suggested I become a "wet nurse" I just flat out said no. So she fired me. Then, a few weeks later, she showed up at my house begging me to come back!
Saying "no way" and slamming the door in her face was so, so satisfying.
103. 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 take 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.
104. My Boss is a Heartbreaker
I had a doctor that constantly ignored patients in serious pain. He thought all of them were faking it to get pain killers. After a senior director at Microsoft died from a heart attack in our ER that he refused to do an EKG on, I went to management and told them what I had seen.
105. Going Out with a Bang
I did not like the overly condescending boss that I had at my last job. One day, while looking over my shoulder at my work as usual, he said: "Can I ask a stupid question?" Since it was my last week at that job anyway, I immediately came back and responded with: "You seem qualified!" I have to say I was pretty proud of myself!
