c/bosses-from-hell

miab16•8d ago

That spreadsheet my boss made for tracking our hours has a formula error that's been underpaying 4 of us by about $150 a month since February.

Caught it yesterday when I added up my pay stubs against my handwritten log, and now I'm wondering if I should go to HR or just confront him directly because he's the kind of guy who takes stuff like this personally.

2 comments

abby_carr57•8d ago

Spent 3 hours fighting with our payroll system to fix a $47 error from January

After my manager told me 'just submit a ticket and it'll be quick,' I found out the real fix involved tracking down 6 different approvals and a call with a support person in a different time zone, and it took 5 business days total - has anyone else had a simple payroll fix turn into a nightmare like this?

2 comments

masontorres•9d ago

My boss posted my performance review in the group chat by accident last Friday

I work at a small marketing agency in Austin and our manager sent a message to the whole team Slack channel that was clearly meant for HR - it had all my ratings and comments about my 'attitude issues' in it. She deleted it after 3 minutes but everyone in the office saw it first, now half the team is side-eyeing me and the other half is asking what I did wrong. How do you even bring this up without making things worse?

2 comments

emmap16•10d ago

I used to think micromanagers were just control freaks until my 3 month stint under Donna at the main post office

Back in February I got transferred to a bigger station with a supervisor who checked every single scan I did before I even left the building. I was ready to quit after two weeks because I thought she didn't trust me at all. Then one day she pulled me aside and showed me how my route had been mis-sorted by the morning crew for months and I was losing 45 minutes every day fixing it. Her checking my work wasn't about controlling me, it was about catching the system failures that were making my life harder. After she helped me build a new loop order I was finishing my route by 2pm instead of 4pm. Now I actually ask her to double check my new routes before I run them. Has anyone else had a boss who seemed awful at first but was actually saving you from a bigger mess?

2 comments

adam_butler38•11d ago

Back when I worked at a call center in 2018 my manager would time our bathroom breaks with a stopwatch.

Now I run my own pest control crew and I just tell the guys to handle their business whenever they need to because I realized treating adults like children only makes them resent you and slack off even more, has anyone else seen how micromanaging just backfires in the long run?

2 comments

hill.barbara•11d ago

That time my manager blamed me for her own mistake on a client call

I was on a Zoom call with a big client in Chicago last month when my boss cut me off and said the numbers I shared were wrong - turns out she had sent me the wrong spreadsheet. She apologized to the client but then pulled me aside after and told me I should have double-checked her work before presenting. Has anyone else had a boss throw you under the bus for their own slip up?

2 comments

wesleybutler•11d ago

Overheard my boss laughing about making us work through Labor Day weekend

I was grabbing coffee by the break room last Thursday and heard my manager talking to the district guy about scheduling a 'mandatory push' for Labor Day weekend. He said something like 'they'll grumble but no one actually follows through with HR complaints.' That told me right there he knows it's not allowed but thinks we're too scared to do anything about it. Has anyone else had a boss openly admit they're breaking policy but counting on you not to report it?

2 comments

ward.fiona•12d ago

PSA: My old boss made us clock out for bathroom breaks

I worked at a call center in Cleveland for 2 years and our manager, Carol, timer-tracked our bathroom breaks. One day she emailed me saying I spent 47 minutes in the restroom that week and docked my pay. I started keeping a log of my breaks and found out she was rounding up every trip. When I complained to HR, they said it was policy. I quit 3 weeks later. Has anyone else dealt with micromanaging over stuff like this?

2 comments

dylan_rodriguez•13d ago

My manager made me sign a 'no bathroom breaks' policy for peak season

I work at an Amazon warehouse in Phoenix. During Prime Week, our shift lead handed out a paper saying we could only use the restroom during our 30 minute lunch. I told him that's illegal in Arizona. He said I could quit. I walked out and filed a complaint with OSHA the next day. Has anyone else dealt with a company trying to skip basic labor laws?

2 comments

masontorres•13d ago

Spent $600 on a fancy scheduling app that my boss never let me use

Back when I was working at that warehouse in Phoenix, I thought I was being smart by buying a scheduling software out of my own pocket to fix our constant double booking mess. My manager said he'd reimburse me after I "proved it worked" which should have been my first red flag. I spent a whole weekend setting it up, even watched all their tutorial videos, and had it running smooth by Monday morning. Then my boss sent out a company wide email saying we had to use his nephew's Excel spreadsheet system instead. That was two years ago and I never saw a dime of that money back, and the spreadsheet crashes every other Tuesday. Has anyone else had a boss sabotage your attempt to make things run better just because it wasn't their idea?

2 comments

johnb95•13d ago

Six months of 60 hour weeks and my boss still complains I'm slow

I've been grinding at a logistics company in Memphis since last June and my manager Karen keeps calling me into her office to tell me my numbers are below average. I'm processing 40 shipping invoices a day and she wants 60. Last week I found out she hired her nephew for the same role and he only does 25 a day with zero pushback. Anyone else dealt with a boss who plays favorites like this and how did you handle it?

2 comments

jake_chen•16d ago

Spent $300 on a 'leadership training' my boss forced me to take, total garbage

My manager made the whole team sign up for this online leadership course last quarter. I told her I'm not a manager and don't want to be one, but she said it would 'build initiative'. Cost me $300 out of pocket since she said the budget was tight and we had to pay upfront then get reimbursed. I still haven't seen a dime back 6 months later. The course was just a bunch of motivational quotes and a guy talking about his yacht. Has anyone else had their boss push useless paid training on you and then ghost on the reimbursement?

3 comments

the_sandra•16d ago

PSA: That "open door policy" my boss in Dallas bragged about for 2 years was actually just an excuse to watch us from his glass office.

I found this out last month when I walked in to ask for a day off and he spent 45 minutes grilling me about why I wasn't hitting my numbers instead, has anyone else had a manager use policy talk to cover up micro-managing?

2 comments

oscarmurphy•17d ago

Just found out my boss billed 60 hours to a client for a job I did in 3 hours

Was looking through QuickBooks last night cause I'm the one who actually does the work, and saw he logged a whole day and a half on a retaining wall I poured and finished in under 4 hours. How do you guys even confront someone about this without getting fired for going through the books?

2 comments

the_lucas•18d ago

My manager told me to "fake it till I make it" when I asked for training on the new POS system

She literally said that in front of customers at our coffee shop in Austin last Tuesday, then got mad when I rang up a latte wrong and blamed me for the shortage. Anyone else have a boss who refused to train you and then punished you for mistakes?

2 comments

reese_garcia•21d ago

I finally stopped ignoring my manager's feedback about my reports

My boss kept saying my weekly status reports were too detailed and no one read them. I got defensive at first because I thought more info was better. After she showed me that only 3 out of 8 team leads even opened the full document, I switched to a one-page summary with bullet points. Now I spend 20 minutes instead of 2 hours on each report. Has anyone else had to simplify their work after realizing nobody actually reads the long version?

2 comments

oscarmurphy•22d ago

TIL my old boss timed bathroom breaks with a stopwatch

Back when I worked at a cabinet shop in Tucson, the owner kept a literal stopwatch by the time clock. One day I came back from a 7 minute bathroom run and he said '3 minutes over, docked from your check.' I told him I had a stomach issue and he just shrugged. That was the moment I realized he saw us as machines, not people. Walked out that Friday and started my own flooring gig. Has anyone else had a boss try to police stuff like that down to the minute?

2 comments

sethr11•24d ago

My brother's 2 week factory job taught me more about bad bosses than 5 years of my own

Had dinner with my brother last night and he told me about his summer job at a packaging plant in Gary. He said the supervisor would scream at people for missing quota by like 3 boxes out of 200. One guy got written up for using the bathroom during a 10 hour shift. My brother quit after 12 days. It hit different hearing him describe that because I've been complaining about my micromanaging boss for years. But at least my boss never screamed at me for blinking. Has anyone here worked a job that made you realize your current boss was not that bad?

3 comments

alice121•25d ago

Rant: The week my boss gave me 4 projects with the same due date

I had this one week in June where my manager dropped 4 big assignments on me all due on a Friday. He said "just prioritize" but didn't tell me which mattered most. I ended up working until 10pm three nights just to finish. Has anyone else had a boss pile on work without any clear plan?

2 comments

mia592•25d ago

Shoutout to the regional manager who micro-managed us into a 40% turnover rate

Went to a team lunch at a diner near our warehouse in Akron last month. Two guys quit right there at the table because our boss texted them during their burgers. He wanted a count of how many boxes we packed that morning. The owner of the diner saw the whole thing and asked if we needed help finding new jobs. Has anyone else had a boss kill morale at a public place like that?

2 comments

verac40•26d ago

Vent: Dropped $300 on ergonomic office stuff and my boss acted like I was lazy

I bought a proper chair cushion and a footrest after my back was killing me from sitting 10 hours a day. Cost me around $300 out of pocket. My manager saw the box and said "Must be nice to have time for shopping instead of meeting deadlines." Made me feel like I was doing something wrong for trying to not wreck my body. Anyone else get shamed for spending your own money to make their crappy setup livable?

2 comments

betty_barnes•26d ago

My boss expected us to work through lunch for 3 weeks straight

Last month at the accounting firm downtown, our manager told us we couldn't leave our desks for lunch until a big project was done. It went on for 3 weeks, and I was eating granola bars in front of my computer every day. When I asked about comp time, she just said it was part of the job. Has anyone else had a boss treat lunch breaks like they're optional?

2 comments

rosel83•29d ago

My old boss at the data center in Boise made us track every minute of our day on a spreadsheet.

It felt like being watched all the time and killed any real focus. After I left that job, my new manager just asks for a simple weekly update email with our three main tasks. The change happened about six months ago, and my stress level is way down. Has anyone else had a boss who tracked time in a way that just made work harder?

2 comments

joseph529•29d ago

My boss at the sorting center in Tacoma told me to 'just walk faster' when I asked for help with a double route.

It was a Tuesday in December, and I had 12 hours of packages for two regular routes. When I told him I couldn't finish it safely alone, he just pointed at the door and said that line. I had to deliver in the dark until almost 10 PM. Has anyone else had a manager who just refused to listen to a basic safety concern?

2 comments

lily_schmidt53•1mo ago

My boss started tracking our bathroom breaks with a spreadsheet last quarter

Morale has completely tanked since then, and three people on my team have already quit. Has anyone else's manager tried this kind of micromanaging?

2 comments