15+ Terrible Bosses You Wouldn’t Want to Work For

Most of us have a boss horror story. Whether it’s micromanagement, unfair treatment, or just plain disrespectful behavior, we’ve all experienced the frustration of working for a bad boss. In this article, we’ll be sharing stories from real people who have dealt with the challenges of working for a difficult manager. Read on to find out what they went through and what are the red flags in a working environment.

• I had a boss who fired a coworker who misspelled “sincerely” in an internal email six months after the fact. © jesspretend / Twitter

• I had a miscarriage. My boss was pissed I had to take the day off to go to the dr. I had to go in the next day, standing & lifting things for 8 hours. Oh, my boss was my father. © JeannieM28 / Twitter
  

• I was a dishwasher and if you haven’t been a dishwasher before it’s a lot tougher physically than it looks. My boss would moan about me not doing my job which I took as the biggest insult because when I’m at work I’m always 100%. I’m a diabetic, so I once stepped aside to check my blood sugar and when I came back he was very angrily telling me to always be working. So I quit on the spot. © Philcollinsforehead / Reddit

• My boss was beyond upset and yelled at me one day for showing up at the exact time I was scheduled. I got there exactly at 11 a.m. (the time I was supposed to be there) and she wasn’t happy about it and told me that if I valued my job, I’d come a little earlier. © Mortuary_Angel / Reddit

• My manager called me and said:
  — We have news for you. You’ll have to do this and this. If you can’t manage to do it during your working hours, you will have to do it from home at night. If anything, I’ll give you a day off on the following day.
  — Will you pay me extra for this?
  — No, you’ll get a day off.
  I had to work until 5 a.m. the other night. At 8 a.m. I received a phone call:
  — Where are you? We’ve been waiting for you, we have a meeting in an hour, and you’ll have to write an explanatory report for being late. © hskk / Pikabu
• I had a boss who would keep a bunch of resumes under her desk and whenever people asked for a raise or days off she would show the resumes saying, “These people are all eager to work if you’re not happy with your job I can get someone else here tomorrow.” © jupitcall / Reddit

• 5 minutes to close, the owner would bring his buddies to his restaurant and make us fire up the kitchen. He did this often. © eldude6035 / Reddit
• We had to work a lot and were very tired. Our manager decided to give us some moral support, strengthen our team spirit, and so on. He got us all together and gave us an inspirational speech about how we all should wait a bit, tense up, mobilize our inner resources, and all this nonsense. Among other things, he said that we should be like marathon runners: agile, fit, and resistant. I caught a moment when he took a pause and noted that the first marathon runner died of exhaustion after his mission had been completed. That summer I was laid off. © SandyBoy / Pikabu
• My mom told me that she had a boss everyone would bring very important reports to. At the same time, he was into skydiving. One day he just quit and became a skydiver. All these reports were found in his office untouched and stacked in a cabinet. He’s my role model. © purpolly / Twitter

• I have 4 bosses. This week, I went to one manager and said I had too much work and couldn’t do it alone, so I needed some help. My manager is a thoughtful person, he looked into my problem, scratched his head, wrinkled his forehead, and said that he’d find a solution. Today, they appointed a fifth boss for me. © Dubas11 / Pikabu
• Today I was talking to my boss. I suggested different options for the implementation of a project I was working on, and he swept all of them aside. This lasted for 40 minutes. Eventually, my boss exclaimed:
  Boss: But why? Why do you always try to make everything simpler?
  Me: And what is wrong with that? You tell me what I should do then!
  Boss: I have no idea! But surely it shouldn’t be as simple as you say! © ZhoraLiberman / Pikabu
• I’m so sick and tired of my boss. I’ve been working in this company for a short time and was hired after a rigorous selection process. During the first month, she gossiped that I was the Managing Director’s protégé. When she found out that I was no one’s appointee, she changed her tactics for psychological pressure. Yesterday they explained to me that she wanted to hire her good friend for this position. © Podslushano / Ideer

• Once my ex-boss called me and began to berate me for not preparing some papers and materials. I figured he’d dialed a wrong number, and said, “I quit 2 months ago, you’ve dialed a wrong number.” And I was really amazed at his reply, “I know but when you left you didn’t say you wouldn’t be doing this.” I guess my resignation wasn’t explanatory enough. © Podlushano / Ideer
• My boss set me up. Of course, I was fired. On the corporate website, I found a phone number that you could allegedly call if you had problems at work. I called and explained my situation. Their first question was, “Do you realize that you won’t be able to work here any longer?” I guess this phone number was intended to remove “untrustworthy” employees. It seems that the boss is always right. © Podlushano / Ideer

• My boss used to make me hold up her ranch dip for her nuggets while she drove. © jenilane29 / Twitter
• One time my boss ate all of the breading off of 3 pieces of leftover fried chicken I brought to work for lunch and then put the naked chicken back into the breakroom fridge like nothing happened. © RyanLostinTX / Twitter