Toxic Bosses

[GoryBlizzard]

I've dealt with many toxic bosses throughout my life. Tomorrow, I am turning in my resignation for my current government agency so I can start at another one--hopefully with a better culture--in a couple of weeks.

My current boss hates it when I take personal calls (one of them was even from my former boss who was excellent and whose birthday was today) yet has no problem yapping to her husband and kids most of the time at work while sitting her retarded ass behind her deputy director's cubicle. I also curse at motherfuckers and myself--again, she has no problems doing it and tries to reprimand me when I do. Notice how I said "tries." That's because she often fails due to being a witless moron.

These sorts of things happen as a consequence of retarded office cliques, capitalism and hierarchy when left unchecked, I'm sad to say. I just started this job in November and I'm already leaving. There are a couple of co-workers I keep close to me to stay sane, but it's not like we text endlessly after punching out. That may change after I'm gone.

Now I don't have a single bad thing to say about most of my fellow co-workers or even my top boss at my division, since she is an empathetic listener, a reservoir of knowledge and genuinely tries to help her underlings grow professionally. My conversations with her are usually deep and memorable and I'm not easy to impress. I'll try to stay in contact with her even after leaving this job.

Who are some of your most toxic bosses, past or present? Was their toxicity largely attributable to the fact that they pushed unrealistic productivity goals, were not approachable, just hypocrites or allowed unhealthy office politics to go unchecked?

[Template88]

one of my first jobs was at 7/11....i had a corporate boss who was your stereotypical boomer white guy who would come in and actively angerly and disrespectfully berate the elderly female workers in front of customers, call them idiots and the like for minor mistakes. one day he did this in front of the wrong customer, a huge construction worker type guy who always came in for his morning coffee. He cornered my boss and bellowed like a bear that if he ever saw him talk like that to those women again he would kick his ass...and my boss just instantly crumpled, i swear he grew puppy dog eyes and mewled out an apology like Zeus himself came down and threated him. He definitely never did it again.

One time I made a mistake and had to call him and tell him, and he literally just started screaming every curse word and insult imaginable as loud as he could over the phone...i literally just put the phone down and started helping customers for like ten minutes and picked up the phone when i heard the tirade was over and was like "you done?"

he was a real piece of work

[TapathyWR]

Worked as a Butcher's Assistant back in 2019-2020. The first Butcher I worked under was an awesome dude, and I think about how he's doing to this day. At the end of 2019 though, he got promoted to go elsewhere, and a new Butcher came in to take his place. This dude was in his late 50's, and it was clear that things were going to happen his way and no other way. The system we had in place was thrown out, replaced with his old school and extremely unsustainable methods. He fired the the other butcher who was a machine with a knife and replaced him with his extremely cocky golfing partner who sold cuts out of his house for a hiked up profit. (To be fair, he wasn't nearly as bad as our boss, and while he could be an asshole he usually owned up to it and apologized.)

Whereas before my job was to assist in all the duties of the Butcher. (Make our display look pretty, do the price tags, manage customer concerns and complaints and clean up what the Butchers couldn't before closing) Suddenly nearly all of the cleanup and packaging duties were put on me. They would cut just enough to make the case look not empty, take 2 hour breaks and leave for me to do everything from mopping the floors to cleaning old meat out of the saw and grinders that would have taken them 5 minutes tops to ensure didn't build up. If I missed a single spot, I was heavily reprimanded and threatened with termination. (Looking back, I realize he wanted an excuse to toss me out so he could hire another one of his buddies.)

To make things worse, once the pandemic hit things got rough. Both of the butchers were of the mind that it was all a lie, and went to great lengths to try and convert me or chastise me for my own beliefs. Oftentimes told I was of lesser intelligence for wanting to implement safety protocols in our shop. Believe what you want, but a pandemic can really hit the meat industry, and safety concerns were a huge thing back when nobody was sure what was going on.

The final straw would come on one morning, when I entered the back of shop to see a mountain of broken down chicken to wrap, a bloody mess on every table in the shop, the meat saw coated in bone debris, and a note saying they'd left early to go golfing. I left right then and there and never went back. No regrets.

I did keep one of my coats though, because I look bitchin' in it.

[PudgieDaFrog]

I hope I don't end up having a toxic boss when I get a job. If I do end up having that issue I'll report it to HR and call it a toxic work environment. Hopefully, that actually works.

[Piss]

i'm lucky that i never really had a bad boss. that being said, i never worked a hard labour job in my life.

[Pingu]

At 2/17/22 08:37 PM, GoryBlizzard wrote: Who are some of your most toxic bosses, past or present? Was their toxicity largely attributable to the fact that they pushed unrealistic productivity goals, were not approachable, just hypocrites or allowed unhealthy office politics to go unchecked?

I've had a bunch who were good or average, a handful of ones who meant well but just were bad at boss making, but one I had last year was just inept and backstabby.

There's no one incident that I can bring up in a fun fashion, it was mostly a death by a thousand paper cuts. He'd promise one thing and then do the opposite against all rational thought once unsupervised. I'm decently versed in my organizations policies, and it was a challenge to deal with him because he thought and was convinced that he was right and it was always an uphill battle to convince him otherwise with the policy printout in hand. Being in a middle management position myself it was usually a fight to protect the underlings, and more often than not I just did the thing the proper way and hoped no ill would result from it as the book was on my side.

I think the straw on the camel for me was taking holiday. I have a full time 9-5 style job, where weekends are generally mine. End of fiscal year comes up and I had a few unused holidays remaining. Taking them in time would mean not meeting a specific task deadline, so I enacted the policy of carrying them over. Doable with some paperwork at HR, but not a big deal and fairly common.

Except it was a big deal to him, he fought it every step and tried to say I should just use them over a weekend (when I was already not at work). I finally did get my way and carried four days of holiday over, but that was the point I stopped caring or engaging with him. I thankfully moved to a different position a month or so after that so I don't have to deal with him anymore, and my current pyramid of bosses is much better. I heard today that the carryover of holiday is perfectly acceptable under him now, so I think he just was two faced with me in particular just to be difficult.

[GoryBlizzard]

At 2/17/22 09:01 PM, PudgieDaFrog wrote: I hope I don't end up having a toxic boss when I get a job. If I do end up having that issue I'll report it to HR and call it a toxic work environment. Hopefully, that actually works.

It's never that easy, even when they say so during orientation. You usually have to make a strong case and usually HR sides with management. Small businesses usually don't have HR departments and most big ones in private industry are a joke.

It's also worth noting that where I work now, Human Resources (HR) is referred to as HC (Human Capital), and while that's not unique here, it says a lot about how most of the top leadership view their workforce.

[PudgieDaFrog]

At 2/17/22 09:17 PM, GoryBlizzard wrote:

At 2/17/22 09:01 PM, PudgieDaFrog wrote: I hope I don't end up having a toxic boss when I get a job. If I do end up having that issue I'll report it to HR and call it a toxic work environment. Hopefully, that actually works.

It's never that easy, even when they say so during orientation. You usually have to make a strong case and usually HR sides with management. Small businesses usually don't have HR departments and most big ones in private industry are a joke.

It's also worth noting that where I work now, Human Resources (HR) is referred to as HC (Human Capital), and while that's not unique here, it says a lot about how most of the top leadership view their workforce.

well as I thought it would be a lot harder than it sounds. Mostly because nothing is simple lots of the time.

[Prinzy2]

At 2/17/22 08:37 PM, GoryBlizzard wrote:
Who are some of your most toxic bosses, past or present? Was their toxicity largely attributable to the fact that they pushed unrealistic productivity goals, were not approachable, just hypocrites or allowed unhealthy office politics to go unchecked?

My most recent former boss was bad. Unapproachable, kept an eye on everything and made mental notes of people who weren't working and punished them later. Had a weird love-hate relationship with my supervisor at the time, he'd trash him during meetings while my supervisor wasn't there, yet saved his job when other owners wanted him fired.

Seriously bi-polar, and with extreme rewards or punishments.