I never met a Satanist who wasn't a wanker.

[davywavy]

Back in the dim and distant mists of time I worked for someone who was convinced I was a Satanist. She reached this entirely logical conclusion after I got the DJ at our work Christmas do to play Temple of Love thus demonstrating that I listened to 'devil worship music'. An exceptionally stupid woman, I used her wildly allegations to wind her up by drawing pentagrams on my notebooks and spending the better part of three months filling a 100 sheet notebook with 'All work and no play makes David a dull boy', and then telling her that it was all my client notes when I left the company.
These days, I suppose having a go at me for worshipping the devil would be counted as religious discrimination and I'd be able to sue, which would have been even funnier. If I actually did worship Beelzebub I'd've put a hex on her, but mocking her ruthlessly was lots more fun.
She was undoubtedly my worst boss ever. Stupid, venal, grasping, selfish and utterly self-righteous.

So that's my question for today - who was your worst boss ever, and what was so bad about them?

Comments

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

Of course the DJ must have had 'Temple of Love' in his collection - just in case he was doing a Satanists' Christmas party!

Worst boss, hmm, I got fired once for being too ill to go to work for a week. Oh and another 'forgot' to tell me that my position had been made redundant until I turned up wor work.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I brought my own copy, as hired DJ's tend to have fairly crap selections.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure saying things about worse bosses is a good idea without either screening or locking the post...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Just because you lot are afraid of getting fired... :p
Generalisations are surely safe though?

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

My first full-time job after finishing college was as a desk top publisher for a non-profit certified public accountants' association. My boss once took me to task for breathing wrong. "I can tell you don't like the changes by the way you're breathing." "I see. So you'd like me to . . . " "Stop doing that." "Breathing?" "Yes!" I failed to meet this directive, but I kinda wanted to see how she'd write it up for my performance review anyway. Sadly, I was out of there before the next review period.

Another time I stayed late a few evenings to finish a project I'd been told was important. So naturally my boss upbraided me because I made the rest of the communications team look bad in comparison.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Well the worse manager I ever had bought a piece of £38,000 worth of software (DOORS: allegedly Document management, never EVER buy it) and then made me write a change management system using it. They ignored a co-worker going steadily mad and virtually never turning up, holding loud hour long phone calls to his bank and eventually phoning in a death threat to me. Eventually they left the company, ho-bloody-rah.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Death threats from a co-worker? I reckon that counts as a win!

[razornet.livejournal.com]

Theres quite a selection. As my direct superior goes it would have to be the last, an incompetent wanker of the first water. He believed that he could talk his way out of anything, that manage-o-speak would see him through any situation. It might of if he wasn't so obviously crap. I, having once been asked by HO via him to lie outright to customers about certain products, pointed out that this "team effort" was in fact me and the other shop monkeys to do the shoe work of cleaning up HO's mess. He reckoned he'd be "supporting" us. The only thing he supported was the front counter with his fat arse. He was noisy, blustering and clearly didn't actually know what he was doing with regards to some important bits of administrative work. He actually made us miss the old manager. Later, upon my getting a real job, after failing to acquire my p45 in a timely manner and not calling me back he claimed it was my fault and that I had said I would ring him. Total berk.

On the other hand the regional manager at the start of my employ there was a higher order of tosspot. Possibly the most useless individual I've encountered. He's a different story though.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Yep; he'd taken about 4 out of five days off for the last two months (with no notes or reasons or complaints from said manager) then phones me up out of the blue and accuses me of stealing his work and therefore I had to die!

Not the best day of work I ever had.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

was that the whistler or another madman?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Ah no, the whistler moved to another department, thank goodness.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I think that has to go to the one who falsely accused me of gross misconduct, giving me a mental breakdown that meant I had to resign because I was psychologically incapable of defending myself against such ridiculous tosh.

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

There would be a couple... number one would be on one of first proper jobs.

There was a husband & wife partnership running a fencing company. The husband, who was a very good fencer himself, and wife decided to start the company when their son was born, because they didn't want him to be inthe position of not having a job. They figured he would always have the fencing company to employ him, and in time, he could inherit it.

Which was all well and good...

20+ years later, son is a doctor and working in the Bahamas ;-)

However, fencing company was good success, had grown to include woodmill & supplying fencing materials to DIYers, and employed 30+ people.

Husband did the technical stuff, wife ran the business... and after so many years, decided needed an office assistant to help the wife & do computer stuff (on which she wasn't to great).

The issue was that she saw me as a threat to her position. SHE looked after the business. Anything I did right was a threat, anything I got wrong was a reason why she didn't need me...

Finally went off with stress following getting screamed at for closing a curtain.

(I was innocent of curtain-closing, btw!)

When my dad took in the sick-line from GP he was told that I was fired.

I had another fairly incompetant boss, who wouldn't make it onto the list if it wasn't for the last thing he did.

this was at Scottish Power. I had been assigned to a brand-new team & helped set it up from scratch. After a couple of months, I got the promotion I was wanting, and so was moving on. (The promotion was to team coach/assistant manager to one of best managers in company, in area I knew inside out).

He tried to delay my leaving for as long as possible, being nice about it. Which irritated, but could kind of see it as a compliment.

Then he arranged a goodbye lunch for me, for the whole team, company paying. He told us about it about 3 weeks in advance, and said what date he through would be good.

I looked at date, realised it was Good Friday, and asked immediately if it would be possible to re-arrange for the day before? (Note, at this time nothing had been booked).

He refused to change it.

I pointed out that Good Friday was a day of fasting & abstinance for me, and I wouldn't be able to eat anything.

He refused to change it.

So I ended up missing my own farewell lunch! (I decided against going along & not eating as thought that would make everyone else a little uncomfortable).

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

Reading everyone else's comments, I don't think I've ever had a horrible boss... One I thought was going to be bad, but I got out of there too quick to be sure.

I've complaints with the way things are run here, but it's mostly because there's too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, and none of them want to follow procedure.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that the latest one, threatening to creep into my bedroom and hide a tape-recorder there (accompanied by a jocular twinkle and a wink) has made me come as close to getting up and hitting the fellow in the face with a shoe as I have ever been.

H

[applez.livejournal.com]

My current boss - so no comment. ;-)

Really, if your ex-boss was so stupid, you should've drawn hexagrams and got her on anti-semitism. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Probably the guy who did absolutely nothing but spout management drivel. When I finally quit I offered to saty if he was 'beheaded, and his head placed on a spike at the main entrance as a warning to others'