c/bosses-from-hell

3

sandra916•2d ago

Picked email over Slack for documentation and it worked out better

Last year I had a manager who kept giving instructions in Slack DMs then changing his mind. I had to choose between saving everything in Slack threads or forwarding to email where I could track changes. I went with email and created a folder for each project. After 6 months I had a clear record of 14 different scope changes he tried to deny. The HR mediation went way faster because I could pull up the original emails. Anyone else have a better system for keeping your boss accountable?

12

davis.diana•3d ago

My boss scheduled a mandatory meeting at 6pm and then got mad no one showed up

Tbh this happened last Wednesday. My manager sent out a calendar invite for a "team building session" at 6pm. No heads up, no asking if it works. I have kids and a life, so I didn't go. Next day she called me into her office and said I was "not committed to the team." I asked if it was paid overtime and she just stared at me. Has anyone else dealt with a boss who thinks after-hours is fair game?

19

rowanc29•4d ago

Debate: Did that $200 ergonomic chair actually fix your back or just save you from quitting your job?

I dropped $200 on a mesh chair after my old one had me icing my lower back every night. Some folks swear spending that much saves their spine, but my coworker says it's a waste and you just need better stretches. Anyone here feel like it's a legit investment or just a band-aid for a toxic desk setup?

25

ward.fiona•6d ago

Hit my 50th absurd meeting note from my boss and had to share (Seattle)

I just realized I've saved 50 separate meeting notes where my manager, Karen, said something completely backwards like telling us to 'be more efficient' while scheduling 4 hours of status updates per week. The kicker is she printed out a 12-page agenda for a 30-minute standup last Tuesday. Has anyone else started keeping a weird tally of their boss's contradictions?

22

ward.fiona•7d ago

Tried documenting everything after my boss gaslit me over a project deadline - game changer

Honestly, I had this manager at a marketing firm in Austin who kept moving goalposts on a campaign launch. After he swore I missed a meeting that never happened, I started saving every Slack message and email into a folder by date. Next time he tried to blame me for a late deliverable, I pulled up three screenshots showing his approval timestamp. He shut up fast. Ngl, it felt petty at first but now I do this for all my projects. Anyone else got a system for dealing with gaslighting bosses?

22

lily_schmidt53•7d ago

Finally stood up to my boss after 2 years of being walked on

I had this supervisor who would dump last minute projects on me every Friday at 4:30pm. For 2 years I just said yes every time and stayed late. Last month I finally told him "I can't take this on today, it needs to be on Monday's list." He looked shocked but didn't argue. Since then he's only done it once more and I reminded him of my boundary. Has anyone else had that moment where saying no actually worked out better than you expected?

21

gray_patel•9d ago

Stuck between running my own crew or taking a cushy foreman job 8 years ago

Back around 2016 I had to choose between starting my painting company or taking a foreman gig with a big outfit paying $28 an hour steady. I went with my own crew because I hated the idea of answering to some pencil pusher who never picked up a brush. First year I barely broke even lost about $3,000 on a bad bid for a condo complex in Trenton. Took me nearly 3 years to get consistent but now I don't have to kiss anyone's ring to take a Friday off. Anyone else pick the riskier path and just grind it out?

6

the_charlie•16d ago

Visited a temp agency in Memphis and noticed the boss treating temps like disposable parts on a machine

Walked into a temp agency to pick up a check and saw the manager snapping at people for being 3 minutes late, then bragging about how many he'd fired that week. Did he really think that kind of attitude builds any loyalty or decent work out of people?

21

davis.dakota•17d ago

Vent: That moment I realized I was automating the wrong stuff for my manager

For almost 8 months I was writing scripts to speed up our ticket responses, thinking I was helping the team. My boss kept praising the efficiency, but I noticed she was reassigning my tickets to other people. Then last Tuesday a coworker told me she was taking credit for my automation in her weekly reports. Has anyone else had a manager steal your shortcuts and pass them off as their own work?

-1

blairm35•18d ago

My boss tried to blame me for a server crash I warned him about

Last Tuesday our main server went down for 5 hours costing us about $12k in lost sales. I'd emailed him twice the week before saying the cooling unit was failing. He just wrote back asking if I could prove liability was on him.

0

logan_thomas87•20d ago

Dropped $350 on a standing desk after my back gave out from sitting 9 hours a day

Caught my manager taking a nap in the conference room while I was loading spreadsheets, and that's when I realized I was the only one getting messed up by these chairs. Did your boss ever demand something that physically wrecked you too?

29

jakef66•21d ago

Found out my old boss was charging $150 an hour for my labor while paying me $18

I was cleaning out a filing cabinet at the shop and found an invoice from 2019 showing our rate to a client. Suddenly that whole 'we're all in this together' speech he gave at Christmas felt a lot less warm. Has anyone else accidentally stumbled on something that made you realize how much you were getting screwed?

24

cole_walker26•22d ago

I finally see why my old boss's micromanaging killed our productivity

I used to think my manager at a print shop in Denver was just being thorough when she checked every single order before it went out. I figured she was protecting us from mistakes. But then last Tuesday a rush job for a local restaurant got delayed by 2 hours because she wanted to approve the font size on their menu inserts. The customer called furious and I had to explain the holdup. That's when it hit me: her constant hovering cost us way more time than any error she caught. She left last month and our output actually went up by 15 percent. Has anyone else noticed their team does better once the boss backs off?

12

emmag40•24d ago

Should I report my manager for taking credit or just let it go? Here's what happened last month...

Last month at a marketing firm in Dallas, my boss presented my full campaign idea at a meeting and didn't mention my name once. Then two weeks ago she got praised by the VP for the same idea, and she just smiled and said thanks. Three years ago I had another manager who did the same thing and I stayed quiet, nothing changed. Now I'm wondering if I should go to HR about this or if that just makes things worse for me. Has anyone actually reported a boss for this and not regretted it?

27

henderson.mason•24d ago

My boss made me clock out for a 3 hour safety meeting last Tuesday

Last Tuesday in Phoenix my boss called a mandatory safety meeting at 9 AM. We all sat in the break room for almost 3 hours watching old training videos. Then he told us to clock out for that time because "it wasn't production work." I lost 3 hours of pay that day. The shop foreman said it happens every quarter but nobody fights it. Has anyone else dealt with a boss pulling this kind of time theft move?

10

sethr11•25d ago

Found a sneaky way to document my boss's bad calls without getting caught

My manager at the warehouse would constantly change his mind about orders and then blame me when stuff went wrong. I started keeping a small notepad in my back pocket (the kind that fits in a moving apron) and jotting down the date and time of every directive he gave. Last month he tried to throw me under the bus for a $2,000 shipping error, but I pulled out that notepad with his exact words from three weeks prior. Has anyone else used a physical record like this to cover themselves when their boss tries to rewrite history?

31

derek_coleman•26d ago

My old boss said I was too slow for not taking shortcuts

He told me to skip safety checks on the assembly line to hit numbers. Four people got hurt before corporate caught on and fired him last month. Has anyone else had a manager push unsafe stuff just to meet a quota?

7

nora_chen•27d ago

Unpopular opinion: "open door policies" are just traps for honest employees

I swear every boss I've had who brags about their "open door policy" uses it to collect ammo against you later. My last manager at a retail chain in Cleveland said it with a smile, but when I brought up a safety issue in the break room, she wrote me up for "negative attitude" three days later. The policy only works if you never actually say anything critical. Has anyone else seen this backfire when they tried to use it honestly?

3

jordanm19•29d ago

Had a manager who kept scheduling mandatory team building events during our busiest hours

My boss at the warehouse thought a 2 hour trust fall session every Wednesday at 10am was a great idea, even though that was when we processed 80% of the daily shipments. After three weeks of falling behind and getting complaints from clients, I finally snapped and showed him the numbers on how much we were losing per session. Has anyone else dealt with a boss who ignored basic scheduling logic?

21

miab16•1mo 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.

11

abby_carr57•1mo 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?

23

masontorres•1mo 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?

3

emmap16•1mo 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?

29

adam_butler38•1mo 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?

9

hill.barbara•1mo 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?