7 responses to “What’s the worst boss you ever had?”
My worst boss was a psycho dude who had a company in Germany and clients from there too. He would show up in the office a few days every month (since he was based in Germany) and would “prove” that he is the boss, by throwing stuff from peoples desks saying that they are messy and would not take that. That’s the least crazy thing he did. The craziest was not allowing the designers and programmers actually know what needs to be done. We had a very vague idea of what needed to be designed, or programed. The designers would create hundreds of designs non of which would get approval. We learned afterwards that he didnt even see any of the designs. He just disapproved them to keep the designers busy. As for the programmers, we had to guess what needed to be done, and do it. We were however provided with a 500 page reference defined by the client defining EVERYTHING that needed to be done. The dude kept this to him self. Why? Beats me, ask him… If he hadn’t kept that hidden, we would have had a chance to meet the deadlines. Crazy man…
I actually don’t blame MY crazy boss. I may have made him that way… I called in sick one day and he turned on the television and saw me performing in my band live right on the set (it was Carnival time). I came in the next day and he had removed my time card. Of course I asked him what happened to it and he said he sent it over to my band since I work for them instead of him. He then proceeded to tear me a new one (as he was throwing me and my junk out of the building) in front of all 62 of my coworkers. What could I say or do? One can’t be “wrong and strong” as Gramma used to say.
I think my boss beats all others hands down.
Heres a pic of the git chastising one of the till girls because she forgot to water the flowers:
I’ve been pretty lucky with bosses in general, no outright nightmares, but there was that one woman who threw me to the wolves during layoffs because I have a penis (I was the only guy in the publications department). For all intents and purposes I was fired for that reason alone; the so-called layoffs were 4 people. It went something like this: “Who can we get rid of to we can fire this troublemaker in the proposals department and make it look like a layoff because she is litigious and will sue us?”
I had a short term job with a boss that needed a reality check. We worked an 8 hour day, and no breaks or lunch was allowed. He like to think of himself as generous though, because he bought us lunch on the sixth workday of every week. Let me do the math, 48 hour work week, 30 minutes for lunch a week… The really insane part was that despite hiring a series of graphic designers, and verbally abusing all of us for not knowing our job, he really didn’t want a graphic designer. Can you say interior design? Amazing how none of the graphic designers he hired knew interior design.
I worked for this evil tyrant named Chris at Tornado Design and…. Okay, just kidding. Actually I long for the days at Tornado sometimes. Those where simpler days. Hoh hum.
I worked for this pushy, earth monther, cruchy granola, new age-y dingbat at a publishing company. She would come into my office to discuss a design I had created for a cover and would insist that we remain quiet for 5 minutes before we start talking. This would ‘clear our fields’ for ‘honest communication’ which translates to ‘just do what I say and stop trying to be better than me’. She wanted to be addressed by her ‘spirit name’ and asked the company to begin a ‘no shoes’ work environment.
After 3 months I decided that one of my job responsibilities was to drive her insane.
7 responses to “What’s the worst boss you ever had?”
My worst boss was a psycho dude who had a company in Germany and clients from there too. He would show up in the office a few days every month (since he was based in Germany) and would “prove” that he is the boss, by throwing stuff from peoples desks saying that they are messy and would not take that. That’s the least crazy thing he did. The craziest was not allowing the designers and programmers actually know what needs to be done. We had a very vague idea of what needed to be designed, or programed. The designers would create hundreds of designs non of which would get approval. We learned afterwards that he didnt even see any of the designs. He just disapproved them to keep the designers busy. As for the programmers, we had to guess what needed to be done, and do it. We were however provided with a 500 page reference defined by the client defining EVERYTHING that needed to be done. The dude kept this to him self. Why? Beats me, ask him… If he hadn’t kept that hidden, we would have had a chance to meet the deadlines. Crazy man…
I actually don’t blame MY crazy boss. I may have made him that way… I called in sick one day and he turned on the television and saw me performing in my band live right on the set (it was Carnival time). I came in the next day and he had removed my time card. Of course I asked him what happened to it and he said he sent it over to my band since I work for them instead of him. He then proceeded to tear me a new one (as he was throwing me and my junk out of the building) in front of all 62 of my coworkers. What could I say or do? One can’t be “wrong and strong” as Gramma used to say.
I think my boss beats all others hands down.
Heres a pic of the git chastising one of the till girls because she forgot to water the flowers:
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20070525/chadvader_540x359.jpg
I’ve been pretty lucky with bosses in general, no outright nightmares, but there was that one woman who threw me to the wolves during layoffs because I have a penis (I was the only guy in the publications department). For all intents and purposes I was fired for that reason alone; the so-called layoffs were 4 people. It went something like this: “Who can we get rid of to we can fire this troublemaker in the proposals department and make it look like a layoff because she is litigious and will sue us?”
I had a short term job with a boss that needed a reality check. We worked an 8 hour day, and no breaks or lunch was allowed. He like to think of himself as generous though, because he bought us lunch on the sixth workday of every week. Let me do the math, 48 hour work week, 30 minutes for lunch a week… The really insane part was that despite hiring a series of graphic designers, and verbally abusing all of us for not knowing our job, he really didn’t want a graphic designer. Can you say interior design? Amazing how none of the graphic designers he hired knew interior design.
I worked for this evil tyrant named Chris at Tornado Design and…. Okay, just kidding. Actually I long for the days at Tornado sometimes. Those where simpler days. Hoh hum.
I worked for this pushy, earth monther, cruchy granola, new age-y dingbat at a publishing company. She would come into my office to discuss a design I had created for a cover and would insist that we remain quiet for 5 minutes before we start talking. This would ‘clear our fields’ for ‘honest communication’ which translates to ‘just do what I say and stop trying to be better than me’. She wanted to be addressed by her ‘spirit name’ and asked the company to begin a ‘no shoes’ work environment.
After 3 months I decided that one of my job responsibilities was to drive her insane.