Someone recently mentioned the Southall story, where Charlton staff walked into a boardroom meeting only to find him draped in a barber's cloth and being given a haircut.
What's your worst boss story and what did they do?
Was working for Soc Gen and was out in Bangalore with my boss doing 2 days of intensive interviewing for something like 15 positions for our office out there. We had to do something like 50 interviews in 3 days.
My boss and I were one side of the desk and the candidates on the other.
My boss hated interviewing and I could tell within about 2 hours that he was bored.
After about 3 hours I looked across as he had started typing into the laptop that he had with him and I was surprised as I assumed he was actually taking notes on each candidate. When I looked across he was on Expedia booking his next holiday.
Probably the last Recruitment Agency that I worked for which would have been six years ago now.
She used the one to one sessions as her opportunity to bitch and moan at us for anything outstanding / ongoing, which was always going to be the case due to the nature of the job - Working in compliance meant you were always chasing the next person for evidence of their right to work etc.
Im quite a fast walker, but every morning I'd be almost dragging my feet from the station to the office as just didnt want to be there, didnt even feel like that when I worked for Sainsburys which was a job I hated.
Was good to get out of that company into my current company but for years had an dread for going into one to ones as constantly expected a bollocking for whatever the Manager could think up. Never happened of course and now my current Manager constantly says that its my hour to get any issues / problems off my chest and nothing more, which naturally puts me in a comfortable working enviroment which makes me want to do well.
Even had a case recently where I screwed up with something, turned round straight away and messaged him saying what had happened, and next meeting he was like: "Oh well, we've all probably got a story as to how we've messed up there"
Worst boss I ever had was having an affair with her boss, who was married. Needless to say when anything went well guess who got the credit, and whenever anything went badly guess who got the blame. Luckily my boss' boss got fired, so I only had to endure that for few months.
Irish woman, similar age to me, she was a coke fuelled lesbian with a hatred for straight guys who were "a bit laddish". Constantly bullied by her, continually blaming things on me that weren't my fault, talking down to me, getting me to do all the shit dogsbodies jobs and never praising me for anything. She was the general manager and I was meant to be the bar manager, but she persuaded Head Office that I wasn't up to the job (she was fucking one of them) and I got demoted, and her best friend became the new bar manager. Absolute he'll on earth for about 6 months working under them, but I was a stubborn fucker and refused to quit or transfer to a different bar. When the pandemic hit she fucked off back to Ireland for a bit and when she came back they moved her to a different bar, thank God.
Worst was probably one of my GMs at a certain Brockley pub. Lazy as all fuck, spent all day sat on the computer in the cellar - even when we were slammed on the bar trying to make enough money to keep her in her job.
I started working for the bank I work for straight out of school aged 16 in 1987 - the workplace was of course a very different place then, and the way you were treated, especially as a new joiner / young bears no resemblance to today - I worked in an investment management department, which I had no interest in, and the work was as dull as ditchwater - my boss was aged about 55 and I hated him and he hated me - he would try and belittle me and criticise my work at every opportunity - I once caught him altering some paperwork to make it look like I had made an error, so I made a complaint to his boss, who told me he didn’t believe me - my boss found out, and shouted at me in front of the whole office that I was a ‘pathetic little c*nt’ - so I made another complaint, and given I had witnesses it was ‘upheld’
The bank’s solution was to move me (which I was quite happy with) and I went to a branch, where I was welcomed by a lady, who was my new boss, and one of the best bosses I ever had (sadly she died too young from cancer) - the rest is history, and I have her to thank for where I am today position wise (bank manager)
As for my hated boss, well after he retired I bumped into him years later on the Tube (I was going to Chelsea away in the Prem Years) and I had great pleasure in telling him exactly what I thought of him
My boss when I worked over Bow for a paper recycling firm. I
worked nights, shunting lorries, driving clamp trucks, weighing lorries in and
out on weighbridge etc. On a Friday, the depot manager would go round the pub
at about five and would still be there when we come in to start our shift. His friend
would get dropped off and drive them back to where they lived to continue their
drink, so we'd be constantly looking over at the offices to see if his car was
still there, as he was always likely to come over into the warehouse, pissed,
and start laying into people in front of his friend (never really done it to
me, not sure why). Anyway, this one Friday his car was there for far later than
ever before. It got to about midnight and one of the side doors to the
warehouse slowly opened, we're all expecting pissed up boss to swagger in, but
it was a copper. Me being the unofficially elected foreman, went over to see
what the problem was. She said she'd had a report of a serious assault take
place in our yard. I explained that everyone was fine, and there must've been
some mistake to which she just asked if it was okay to have a look round. I
went back to what I was doing and about half hour later went outside to find two
police cars and an ambulance over by the office, surrounding pissed up boss's
car. I went over to find all the lights on, coppers sniffing round all the
offices and paramedics treating pissed up boss in the front seat of his motor, blood,
and blood covered handtowels absolutely everywhere in the offices with a
massive puddle of blood in the toilets. I went back outside and, by now, pissed
up boss's two sons had turned up wanting to fight everyone. It turned out,
pissed up boss had got a bit mouthy round the pub and someone had stabbed him.
He'd stumbled back to the yard to try and clean himself up, called his wife
and, maybe in a vain attempt to cover the fact he'd been at the pub since five,
he'd told her that he was working late and one of the blokes had done him in the
yard . Not sure if I was his son’s number 1 suspect, but it was a bit touch and
go with me and them until a copper explained to the three of us that pissed up
boss had lied and he was assaulted outside the pub (this was the first that I
knew he’d spun his Mrs a story and it was in fact her who called the police,
rather than send his sons down as he’d asked). He asked if I would tidy the
office up and have an early shoot, all in all a good night in the end. Anyway,
he was a bit of a knob…..
One guy i had who was my engineering manager, one of those guys who could talk the talk but he had a degree in a non engineering topic, just right at our place to be engineering manager.
He was one of those who did monthly performance reviews and give impossible tasks, that were not in your trade discipline. He would give you tasks like working out the load bearing capacity of a concrete ramp that a fire engine would go over.
You would have to learn that discipline to give him the answer, when you did he would give it to someone else to check. He did those sort of things to all his engineers. One of ours got wise and said do nothing unless he asks you twice.
He was a bit of a bully if you showed weakness he would be all over you, so i had to stand up to him and he liked fencing with you so you had to measure it.
he is now head of site engineering so dont have much to do with him now.
He is also a good mate with a friend of mine and socially he is a different animal.
Was working for Soc Gen and was out in Bangalore with my boss doing 2 days of intensive interviewing for something like 15 positions for our office out there. We had to do something like 50 interviews in 3 days.
My boss and I were one side of the desk and the candidates on the other.
My boss hated interviewing and I could tell within about 2 hours that he was bored.
After about 3 hours I looked across as he had started typing into the laptop that he had with him and I was surprised as I assumed he was actually taking notes on each candidate. When I looked across he was on Expedia booking his next holiday.
My first job, you had to sign in every morning when you came in. At 8.30am the boss would take the signing in book into her office and you had to sign it in red in front of her.
He weren't my boss, but when I done work for Cartier in their storage and repair unit, the bloke who run it was an ex-Coldstream Guards officer. You had to go through his office to get in and out of the place, and he'd have his security blokes giving you a pat down and sift through your tool boxes, while he sat at his desk staring at you as they did it. He also had laminated signs throughout the building, with rules on for the staff. Remember one in the canteen went on about filling the kettle back up and boiling it, when you finished making a drink, to prevent the next person standing around waiting to boil from cold. Was a good paragraph long.
Earlier in my career I was working at a small advertising agency and one of the founding partners was this buffoon from a finance background with no agency experience, but he thought he knew it all. He was supposed to handle the clients but he frequently took over the creative side of projects if he felt like he had a 'better idea.'
We did small regional work but one of our clients' global offices had been impressed by something we'd done and commissioned us with a larger project. We wrote a script and made a storyboard that was all approved, but then this guy gets one of his brilliant ideas.
He decides to trash everything we've been working on for weeks, everything the client has approved, and to pursue his 'vision' and present it to the client as a surprise.
So he does. He gathers a small crew, films it all guerilla-style, directing it himself. It is utter trash. And at the presentation, the client is absolutely stunned and fires our agency on the spot.
The guy didn't show up at our office for the next four months. When we asked where he was, we were told he was working off-site. The next time he walked in the building was after the agency had won a pitch that he had co-presented. He wouldn't come back until he could look like the big man again. He swaggered around to every person in the office like: "You hear about this pitch, yeah?"
That's only one of many stories I could tell about this bloke!
Working in recruitment for 8 years at 2 agencies I’ve had a few terrible managers:
The one that stands out is my 2nd Manager. A real bully and got off on knowing that they’d upset you.
One day he stood at the front of the sales floor in front of ~100 people and announced that in his hand he had 12 envelopes. If he called your name you were fired and were to take your belongings and leave. You’d think that was bad enough but he didn’t just call out all the names and let them leave together. He did it one at a time and each time he made the rest of the sales floor watch them pack their things whilst he heckled them and explained why they were fired.
Hated that company with a passion and got out of there a few weeks later.
I came into the office early and found the ops manager running a hoover round the place.
Blimey you're keen I said, or words to that effect. He said why should we pay a cleaner when we could do it ourselves so I helped out. A few months later he was gone with very little explanation. Turns out he was charging petty cash for a cleaner every week and pocketing a couple of hundred a month the greedy twat.
My boss has always treated me alright, a shame I saw him come out of the toilet with our administrator a month ago. Things are a bit strained at the moment due to his antics, whatever they were.
I was fortunate enough to have many really good bosses during my 28 years in the RAF, and hopefully I became a half decent one as well(?).
The only trouble is that since I left in 2013 I've tended to measure the bosses I've had against what I experienced in the RAF, and to be honest, in the main there's just no comparison to a leader/manager in the British military (although one particular boss in the Falklands in 2012 was a real shocker but I had the rank and experience to 'handle' her).
As it happens, my worst boss has been very recently actually, so much so that I ended up leaving a couple of weeks ago. His introduction to me on my first day back in Feb was "I've seen your CV, you're a threat to me" . On the second day he told me that I needed to keep my mouth shut for 4-6 months! (This was after getting employed as an 'experienced' coach/trainer/facilitator). At the end of the first week he tried to give me 'homework' ! That was my lot, so I told him to shove his homework up his a*** and stop being so insecure and regarding me as a threat! Now I've met, dealt with and trained many 'managers', but he was the most controlling, micro-managing, disorganised individual I have ever come across. How I lasted 7 months I'll never know, but I just bided my time and left a couple of weeks ago, leaving them well and truly in the mire! (The 3rd person to leave in 3 months).
The irony of it all? They are a small company that specialise in Management and Leadership training, Behavioural Change, Neuro Linguistic Programming, and Coaching. You couldn't make it up.
My boss has always treated me alright, a shame I saw him come out of the toilet with our administrator a month ago. Things are a bit strained at the moment due to his antics, whatever they were.
Silly of him to get caught out like this - he must have known what your cleaning schedule was? unless you haven’t been writing the times on the back of the door.
When I was doing my A Levels I worked at Lillywhites in Bromley, the glades.
The conditions were probably what you’d describe at 1st world slavery, minimum wage, 33 degrees in the shop all year round, staying behind to tidy up without getting paid or you lose all your hours, getting spoke to like a dog, wearing a diardora polo that you had to pay for yourself and having your boss time your lunches on a stopwatch.
One time one of the floor managers banned “speaking about your future”. Said he heard too much talk on the shop floor by part time students, which made up the bulk of staff, about their plans on further education and potential careers etc. I actually found this hilarious but you can imagine the outrage by some particularly nowadays.
Comfortably the worst job I ever had but it genuinely was a bit character building.
My boss has always treated me alright, a shame I saw him come out of the toilet with our administrator a month ago. Things are a bit strained at the moment due to his antics, whatever they were.
Silly of him to get caught out like this - he must have known what your cleaning schedule was? unless you haven’t been writing the times on the back of the door.
Comments
And they expect us to believe that?
I like autonomy.
My boss and I were one side of the desk and the candidates on the other.
My boss hated interviewing and I could tell within about 2 hours that he was bored.
After about 3 hours I looked across as he had started typing into the laptop that he had with him and I was surprised as I assumed he was actually taking notes on each candidate. When I looked across he was on Expedia booking his next holiday.
She used the one to one sessions as her opportunity to bitch and moan at us for anything outstanding / ongoing, which was always going to be the case due to the nature of the job - Working in compliance meant you were always chasing the next person for evidence of their right to work etc.
Im quite a fast walker, but every morning I'd be almost dragging my feet from the station to the office as just didnt want to be there, didnt even feel like that when I worked for Sainsburys which was a job I hated.
Was good to get out of that company into my current company but for years had an dread for going into one to ones as constantly expected a bollocking for whatever the Manager could think up. Never happened of course and now my current Manager constantly says that its my hour to get any issues / problems off my chest and nothing more, which naturally puts me in a comfortable working enviroment which makes me want to do well.
Even had a case recently where I screwed up with something, turned round straight away and messaged him saying what had happened, and next meeting he was like: "Oh well, we've all probably got a story as to how we've messed up there"
Strange fella, wasn't there long though
Worst was probably one of my GMs at a certain Brockley pub. Lazy as all fuck, spent all day sat on the computer in the cellar - even when we were slammed on the bar trying to make enough money to keep her in her job.
The bank’s solution was to move me (which I was quite happy with) and I went to a branch, where I was welcomed by a lady, who was my new boss, and one of the best bosses I ever had (sadly she died too young from cancer) - the rest is history, and I have her to thank for where I am today position wise (bank manager)
As for my hated boss, well after he retired I bumped into him years later on the Tube (I was going to Chelsea away in the Prem Years) and I had great pleasure in telling him exactly what I thought of him
My boss when I worked over Bow for a paper recycling firm. I worked nights, shunting lorries, driving clamp trucks, weighing lorries in and out on weighbridge etc. On a Friday, the depot manager would go round the pub at about five and would still be there when we come in to start our shift. His friend would get dropped off and drive them back to where they lived to continue their drink, so we'd be constantly looking over at the offices to see if his car was still there, as he was always likely to come over into the warehouse, pissed, and start laying into people in front of his friend (never really done it to me, not sure why). Anyway, this one Friday his car was there for far later than ever before. It got to about midnight and one of the side doors to the warehouse slowly opened, we're all expecting pissed up boss to swagger in, but it was a copper. Me being the unofficially elected foreman, went over to see what the problem was. She said she'd had a report of a serious assault take place in our yard. I explained that everyone was fine, and there must've been some mistake to which she just asked if it was okay to have a look round. I went back to what I was doing and about half hour later went outside to find two police cars and an ambulance over by the office, surrounding pissed up boss's car. I went over to find all the lights on, coppers sniffing round all the offices and paramedics treating pissed up boss in the front seat of his motor, blood, and blood covered handtowels absolutely everywhere in the offices with a massive puddle of blood in the toilets. I went back outside and, by now, pissed up boss's two sons had turned up wanting to fight everyone. It turned out, pissed up boss had got a bit mouthy round the pub and someone had stabbed him. He'd stumbled back to the yard to try and clean himself up, called his wife and, maybe in a vain attempt to cover the fact he'd been at the pub since five, he'd told her that he was working late and one of the blokes had done him in the yard . Not sure if I was his son’s number 1 suspect, but it was a bit touch and go with me and them until a copper explained to the three of us that pissed up boss had lied and he was assaulted outside the pub (this was the first that I knew he’d spun his Mrs a story and it was in fact her who called the police, rather than send his sons down as he’d asked). He asked if I would tidy the office up and have an early shoot, all in all a good night in the end. Anyway, he was a bit of a knob…..
He was one of those who did monthly performance reviews and give impossible tasks, that were not in your trade discipline. He would give you tasks like working out the load bearing capacity of a concrete ramp that a fire engine would go over.
You would have to learn that discipline to give him the answer, when you did he would give it to someone else to check. He did those sort of things to all his engineers. One of ours got wise and said do nothing unless he asks you twice.
He was a bit of a bully if you showed weakness he would be all over you, so i had to stand up to him and he liked fencing with you so you had to measure it.
he is now head of site engineering so dont have much to do with him now.
He is also a good mate with a friend of mine and socially he is a different animal.
We did small regional work but one of our clients' global offices had been impressed by something we'd done and commissioned us with a larger project. We wrote a script and made a storyboard that was all approved, but then this guy gets one of his brilliant ideas.
He decides to trash everything we've been working on for weeks, everything the client has approved, and to pursue his 'vision' and present it to the client as a surprise.
So he does. He gathers a small crew, films it all guerilla-style, directing it himself. It is utter trash. And at the presentation, the client is absolutely stunned and fires our agency on the spot.
The guy didn't show up at our office for the next four months. When we asked where he was, we were told he was working off-site. The next time he walked in the building was after the agency had won a pitch that he had co-presented. He wouldn't come back until he could look like the big man again. He swaggered around to every person in the office like: "You hear about this pitch, yeah?"
That's only one of many stories I could tell about this bloke!
The one that stands out is my 2nd Manager. A real bully and got off on knowing that they’d upset you.
One day he stood at the front of the sales floor in front of ~100 people and announced that in his hand he had 12 envelopes. If he called your name you were fired and were to take your belongings and leave. You’d think that was bad enough but he didn’t just call out all the names and let them leave together. He did it one at a time and each time he made the rest of the sales floor watch them pack their things whilst he heckled them and explained why they were fired.
Hated that company with a passion and got out of there a few weeks later.
Blimey you're keen I said, or words to that effect. He said why should we pay a cleaner when we could do it ourselves so I helped out. A few months later he was gone with very little explanation. Turns out he was charging petty cash for a cleaner every week and pocketing a couple of hundred a month the greedy twat.
Things are a bit strained at the moment due to his antics, whatever they were.
The only trouble is that since I left in 2013 I've tended to measure the bosses I've had against what I experienced in the RAF, and to be honest, in the main there's just no comparison to a leader/manager in the British military (although one particular boss in the Falklands in 2012 was a real shocker but I had the rank and experience to 'handle' her).
As it happens, my worst boss has been very recently actually, so much so that I ended up leaving a couple of weeks ago. His introduction to me on my first day back in Feb was "I've seen your CV, you're a threat to me"
The irony of it all? They are a small company that specialise in Management and Leadership training, Behavioural Change, Neuro Linguistic Programming, and Coaching. You couldn't make it up.
One time one of the floor managers banned “speaking about your future”. Said he heard too much talk on the shop floor by part time students, which made up the bulk of staff, about their plans on further education and potential careers etc. I actually found this hilarious but you can imagine the outrage by some particularly nowadays.
Comfortably the worst job I ever had but it genuinely was a bit character building.