“I work for three bosses. One of them was having an argument with his wife over the phone. After a while, he ends the call and tells me, ‘If she calls you, just tell her I already left.’ She called, and I did as I was told. I then received an absolutely out of control screaming death threat from her, calling me names because she realized I was lying on his behalf. Apologies were never made regarding it.”

A weird order by u/aliantSerpant whose boss put them on someone else’s trash duty:

“‘Grab a bag and go clean up that sh*t in the parking lot.’ He was talking about the garbage in the parking lot of the restaurant that is completely separate from ours.”

Shared by u/BECKYISHERE:

“When she couldn’t be bothered to speak to me, she wrote her request on a Post-it note and slapped it on the back of my hand. After having worked for her for 18 months, she still couldn’t remember my name, so she addressed me as ‘Whatever-your-name-is.'”

u/Wyndii needed a drink after this one:

“On my second day as a bartender at this bar/restaurant that was newly opened, I was pulled off to the side by the owner and told to dress sexier and to remember that other girls had also applied for my position. Obviously I completely ignored it. Apparently talking this way to his staff was not unusual, either, because many girls carried a voice recorder on them. That bar has long since been closed. I can only hope someone finally nailed his nasty *ss.”

u/extraNOpickle broke free:

“My worst boss ever made me ask permission to leave my desk to use the restroom. Even when she was on business trips. I was supposed to call/email her and ask. She would randomly call my desk when she was away to see if I would answer… She asked me to microwave her lunch for her, make her son’s graduation announcements for her, and to color – with crayons – a briefing for the Commanding General because the color printer was broken… The day I left there felt like leaving a prison sentence.

Oh, and she sent me an email telling me to bring my own toilet paper to work…”

u/shArkh drove his point home:

“After three days of jetlag and delayed flights, I was supposed to have two days to recoup before my time-off ended. I got zero, then the manager threatened to sack me if I didn’t go into work. I was a delivery driver at the time. Told him that I’d like it in writing that he was coercing me to drive under dangerous conditions. We even got into an argument with him telling me he came in to work with no sleep plenty of times. I told him people don’t get hurt if you drive a desk whilst tired.”

He very begrudgingly dropped it.”

u/takenorinvalid:

“I was the only male working at a clothing store. My manager handed me a nail and a suit jacket and said, “Put this up on display on the wall.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s the hammer?”

“She rolled her eyes, sighed in an ‘I am surrounded by idiots’ way, and said, ‘God! Just punch it in with your fists!’ Then she stormed off, grumbling, ‘This is why we need to hire a MAN!'”

u/Smash523 dropped an F bomb:

“I worked at a clothing store that sold ‘going out to the club’ clothes. The creepy manager claimed that I was required to take pictures in the clothing for the company’s website. I was 18 and fell for it at first. I later saw his laptop with the photo albums of different women he had saved. SUPER CREEPY!”

“He later attempted to make me do a ‘photoshoot’ again, claiming the owner said we had to. That time I told him to F off and that I wasn’t doing it, and if the owner had a problem he could talk to me. The owner never mentioned anything.”

u/Googunk:

“I witnessed a car collision on my way into work, so I stayed around to make sure everyone was healthy, ambulance/police were called, and to serve as a witness in the police report.

“It made me 15 minutes late for work, so my boss instructed me to ignore people in distress in the future. When I informed him that would be a crime, he instructed me not to get caught.”

u/Artsy215:

“I had a boss we will call Mike. I was his secretary. He was a drinker. He liked to play really stupid jokes on me.”

“One day, he kept asking me for a Post-It from the cabinet behind me. I offered him several sizes and colors from my desk stash, but he wanted cabinet Post-Its. Whatever, drunky boss. So I get up and open the cabinet. He yells, ‘Surprise!’ so loud, I nearly p*ss myself. That was a surprise, but I was not surprised in the least by the cartoony-looking stuffed iguana sitting in the cabinet.”

Good one, Mike. You really got me. He was quite pleased with himself. Oh, my God – I hated that man.”

From a former Redditor:

“I worked at a hardware store once… They were remodeling, and they basically forced us, the staff, to do the construction work. Boss rented tools for us to not only remove the old siding, but put up new ones, including an expensive new sign for the front of the store. He ordered cranes and scissor lifts for us to install them. He also loaded his personal truck with all the demo scrap, and took us off-site where he made us unload it at the dump.”

We did all of this on the clock when the store was slow.

We were definitely not contractors, and I’m sure we had a lot of code and safety violations, like standing on two ladders to reach things, etc. I didn’t know better being 18 years old, so I just went with it. Doing all that stuff on minimum wage sucked.”

u/squirmdragon needs an upgrade:

“My car was broken into. I called my boss to tell her I would be a little late to work. Her response? ‘Just handle that after work.’

Sure. I’ll drive my car with the busted window and dashboard, empty radio frame dangling, to work my super important minimum wage job.”

u/MagicJasoni is not Sisyphus:

“I was working the meat counter in a grocery store and noticed that one of the coffin freezers was leaking onto the floor. This was in the evening, and I was the only one in charge in that department. Still a good number of customers, though. So, I got a mop, mopped it up, and put up the caution sign.

Manager shows up, asks me why there is a sign there. I say, ‘Because there’s a leak.’ ‘Why didn’t you mop it up?’ ‘I did, it’s already spilling out more.’ ‘Why don’t you mop it up again?’ ‘Because there’s a customer standing right here.’

He continues, ‘Well, when you’re done, you need to stand there and mop it up as it comes out.’ ‘Do you want me to run the counter, or do you want me to mop the floor all night? You could just call someone to come out to fix it.’ (They had a group of tradespeople who were on call to fix lights, plumbing, etc., at all hours.) ‘No, you just need to mop it up.’ ‘But it keeps leaking.’ ‘Mop it up. Stand there, and mop the water as it comes out of the case.’

‘Okay,’ I finally said. ‘I’ll mop it up, but someone’s gonna have to help customers.’

‘…Go home, you’re being lippy.’

So, I took off my apron and punched out. I enjoyed walking past the meat counter – which now had about a half a dozen customers – and seeing the manager trying to understand how to work the scales and the stickers.”

u/FFalldayerryday was the sacrificial lamb:

“I had a boss (manager) ask me to lie to our regional manager and say I f***ed up and that my boss reprimanded me and saved the day. He actually wanted me to risk losing my job just so he could look good in front of his boss… and he asked me to do it in seriousness, with nothing in return for me.”

u/Bolognanipple stood for what’s right and lost a job:

“I was a fry cook at a popular Charleston, SC tourist trap restaurant… The refrigeration unit for the fry station lost power, and the shrimp turned foul. I informed the manager, and he told me to rinse the spoiled shrimp in lemon juice to disguise the off flavor, then serve them anyway. I refused, threw the shrimp out, and was promptly fired for it.”

Sassy u/Pibbles4Lyfe shared:

“A new manager demanded that I make a spreadsheet to log what I was doing every 15 minutes. I was well-respected at my job, and my metrics spoke for themselves, so every single line said, ‘Interrupting meaningful work for this entry.’ I CC’d her boss when I sent it to her, too. I can put up with a lot, but not micromanagement.”

From another former Redditor:

“I worked for a store/pharmacy for about a year. The manager was making the stock guys come into work a couple hours earlier than the start of their actual shifts, without allowing them to clock in, in order for them to unload the truck deliveries. He threatened them with termination and made sure they “would never find another job” if they refused or reported him.

Most of the stock guys were young kids between 18-20 and just did what they were told. Ironically, the same day I heard the word of this going on, the manager had privately called me into the office and asked me to ‘make sure the stock guys hadn’t clocked in’ before they began unloading the truck delivery. I reported him to HR, and they found months’ worth of camera footage showing the stock guys working off the clock. He was fired.”

More from another former Redditor:

“One day, our boss called everyone into the largest meeting room. He explained that his antique watch, which he had told us the entire history of, had gone missing from his desk.

He demanded that everyone, men and women, strip down so he could check pockets. And by strip, he made it clear he meant everything. People started refusing, and he responded by firing them.

The police were summoned. The watch was found under his desk. He was sued by eight people.”

u/DomesticatedGlamazon shouldn’t have bugged her boss:

“Tell a coworker she had head lice. I was a teenager working in a restaurant and noticed a ton of bugs on a coworker’s head. I told the store manager. She flipped the script on me and made me tell her.”

/u/bitchymalewhite‘s boss asked him to:

“Walk his dog to take a shit. It’s the cutest dog I have ever seen and the most annoying dog I have ever encountered. Barks at every single person it sees. I tell him constantly leave your dog at home, its fucking annoying. Here you go /u/bitchymalewhite, take it out to shit. Anytime that dog screeches I want to blow my f*cking brains out!”