'Good luck finding any other work': 10+ nightmare bosses and the employees who stood up to them

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 31, 2023 4:00 PM EDT

Whether we like to remember them or not, we have all been in toxic work environments. Perhaps you were at the start of your professional life and you were concerned that all workplace environments and dynamics were like this. Perhaps you were working under a new boss who spent far more energy enforcing ridiculous rules and disparaging the work of their employees than fostering a strong working atmosphere. Perhaps you didn't say anything to your boss before you left the company and you desperately wish that you stood up to them. Or perhaps you did stand up to them, and it was an experience you'll never forget for either good or bad reasons. Regardless, there is some level of experience you have with a toxic boss. 

 

Thankfully, you're not alone, and you are joining the company of these brave employees, who shared their stories of working under their nightmare bosses via this r/AskReddit thread. Some of these stories include a boss who screamed at their employee for not working after they showed up early, a boss who had their kid stalk employees to check if they were always working or not, and even a boss who forced his retired parents to work under him. 

 

Keep scrolling below for these anecdotes, and hopefully, they will inspire you to stand up for yourself in the workplace if you haven't already. Heck, you might be working under a horrible boss as we speak. 

 

For more stories like these ones, take a look at these top tales from your server this week.

Advertisement
  • 01
    Product - "What made your boss 'the horrible boss?""
    via Hunters Race
  • 02
    Font - BadManDeego. Had to take 4 weeks off with a collapsed lung then 4 months later, 2 months for a scheduled surgery(pleurodesis). Came back after to a disciplinary hearing, HR couldn't even believe it. "It's not why you missed the time but just the fact that you missed the time. We can't have that." What a my notice 2 months later. Back in college now, love it... I handed in retail.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 03
    Font - CheekyJack He screamed at me for not doing work when I was 15 minutes early and no one else had gotten into the office yet
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 04
    Font - yayhotdogs. We never get promotions or raises. Every person holds multiple positions. Nobody gets paid overtime. If we go over the 40 hours a week (and almost everyone does), we don't get paid for the rest, yet we are expected to work overtime to finish the work. If you don't finish, the boss will belittle you. Boss constantly shorts people money, so you need to constantly have a record of your hours. Sometimes your paycheck will be several days late.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 05
    Font - No calling in sick unless you can find a cover, but we don't ever have coverage because everyone works too much. The restaurant might be out of a crucial ingredient. In that case, you will have to buy it yourself so that customers won't complain. You will not be compensated.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 06
    Font - Where is the boss through all of this? He's going on vacations. He's putting his children through private schools. He's buying new cars. He's virtually M.I.A. until he wants someone to cook him a meal.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 07
    Font - Business-Socks . Took off three months for her wedding during TWO of our biggest cases, you know what I can let that go, but then she came back and was HUGE about having everyone catch her up on what happened. "Why didn't you do it this way! Where's the documentation!"
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 08
    Font - "We were understaffed, we did the best with what you left us! If you'd have been here you'd know that!" Plus if you check my timesheet, I have hours on my wedding day because she HAD to talk to me about budget. What. A.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 09
    Font - agentfantabulous Had her 8 year old daughter wander around the office and report who was not working. I was fired because said daughter either lied or had no sense of time, and told mama that I had spent 30 minutes chatting with a friend. I actually just paused by his desk to say "Hi" on my way to the bathroom. That was only one of many many many many horrible things.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 10
    Font - Speedy_Cheese My boss at the art gallery I worked for, a family business. It was awful. He would make appointments with clients, forget about it, and I would end up staying extra after work to see to the client and make sure business was taken care of.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 11
    Font - He also had his RETIRED parents working for him, treating them like and yelling at them. I once heard him screaming "I YOU DAD" at his senior father while I was dealing with two little old ladies out front. They were so appalled that they left. His parents had no idea how to use the computer systems either so I would have to fix all of their entries at the end of the day.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 12
    Font - Sometimes he just plain didn't show up for work and I would get stranded there at the gallery. The last straw was when he was a week and a half late in paying me and my landlord was on my for rent. He came in and I told him I needed my pay so that I could get rent to my landlord and he lost it. He started yelling at me telling me that I don't haul my weight around there and that I take how well he treats me for granted.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 13
    Font - He then angrily wrote up my cheque and threw it in my face, calling me a . O_O He then told me to do him a favour and not come to work the next day, that I was fired. I was completely floored and mortified, it was like being in the twilight zone. What the had just happened? I had never been terminated from a job in my life.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 14
    Font - Went to my sisters house screeching because I was reeling about having lost my job so close to Christmas. I actually had to keep her from going out the door because she was ready to drive down there... and my sister is NOT a woman you want to get in a fight with.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 15
    Font - Anyway, two days later he calls me telling me he was totally inappropriate, that he was under a lot of stress lately and that he needed me to come back to work the next day as he was so overwhelmed by all the Christmas orders (I also cut frames, glass for frames, mattes for pictures etc. and put them together for clients for him). Needless to say, I politely declined. - - Every boss I have had since seems like solid gold after that guy.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 16
    Font - TLDR: Had a deadbeat boss who used to not show up/bully his senior parents into working for him/ditch on meetings with clients. Was late paying me, when I asked for pay he threw my cheque in my face, called me a ll and fired me.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 17
    Font - BabiesOnQuack. He's always wasting time with meetings and saying "that's what she said." Also, he left and moved to Colorado and it was just never the same.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 18
    Font - scoobylove Boasting about being the school bully in highschool
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 19
    Font - notflue We found out she fired all high school workers after 3 months because you are required by law to pay them minimum wage after that time period. You can pay them a bit less during the first 90 days. She was a
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 20
    Font - D DungPuncher She was a power hungry monster. She hated the idea that staff have a second on shift without doing something, even if there is literally nothing to do. One day, after we had spent 2 hours cleaning the shelf (the last job), she came down and told us to clean it again. Even though we protested that we had just done it she said we shouldn't get paid if we weren't doing anything. There was nothing to do! I had to re- clean a perfectly clean shelf. At least I now get paid three t
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 21
    Font - GUTTERBOY001. He employed me as a 1099 contractor instead of a real employee. I adjusted my hours in the office to match my current workload; at one point when things were slow, I was generally showing up around 11 or so.
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 22
    Font - One day, I was on the way in and he called me all freaked out. He had tried to update the logo on a site I did and fucked the whole thing up. I told him I'd be there in five minutes, and he calmed down a bit. I arrived and fixed his stupid f five minutes, then I swung by his office to let him know. in about
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 23
    Font - He proceeded to give me about being "late" without letting him know, at which point I reminded him that this was the exact time I'd been showing up for the past two weeks or so, so I hardly thought he had grounds to say I was "late."
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 24
    Font - About a week later, he called a meeting and declared that everyone (all four of us) needed to be in by 9:30 every day at the very latest. I responded to this by asking him if he was going to pay me for the time I was there even if I didn't have billable work to do. He didn't like that very much, and gave me a bunch of that essentially boiled down to "good luck finding any other work in this economy."
    via u/EDS-1275
  • 25
    Organism - Two weeks later I had a job offer for an actual salaried position. Delivering that news to him gave me great joy.
    via u/EDS-1275

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

boss fired toxic-workplace job work i quit askreddit toxic-boss workplace Horrible Bosses reddit thread Reddit toxic-work-environment
Scroll Down For The Next Article