I once had a boss who totally believed any urban legend was true... like KFC chickens didn't have feet or beaks or whatever. We did a study once for people with STDs... she rented chairs for the occasion and hid all of ours so they couldn't sit in them (all study participants were fully clothed the entire time, btw). She was hysterically out of control but made up for it by taking the entire month of August off, leaving us staffers to "run" the office and have fun.

HAHA! She needs a sex education class!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goes through our trash/recycling bins to see what we've thrown out.

OMG- I had a boss who did this. We had to hide stuff and ditch it after she left for the day.

Ugh- worst job ever

The fix for this is to put used tampons in your work trash.

Anonymous wrote:Hang in there OP!
My last boss was hooked on pain pills, along with a pain patch, was a drunk, and would flirt with any man that had any power over her. She would make nonsense calls and emails, wouldn't Rememeber 90% of our conversations, and almost never made sense
Boy was it humiliating!
Oh yeah, and if anyone had any type of non-American name she would not only butcher the name, but would mention the butchered name at least 5 times in every sentence (each time with a different butchered pronunciation...)
Good times!

So I'm not the only one with a boss like this? Geesh its embarrassing to be around her.

Once had a boss who couldn't for the live of her figure out how to add attachments to emails. Nor could she figure out how to make a pdf. She was always coming to me asking me to create a pdf, attach it to an email, email her the attachment so she could forward it to whomever needed it. You don't know how many times and ways I showed her how to do this and still - she never got it. That was among many things she "couldn't" do. At first thought she didn't want to but she was just not interested or willing to try it. Imagine what it was like when I took a vacation? I would have many, many attachments needed when I got back.

I am up for a promotion. Immediate boss, his boss, and his boss have all reviewed and said, YES you totally deserve this. But we are not going to do it until this arbitrary thing is finished, without which you would still meet all the qualifications anyway. nanner nanner boo boo.
I have one boss who continually sleeps through meetings. Like snores. Then misses everything and claims that we "didn't include him in the process" he has slept through several people's ANNUAL REVIEWS. Yup, just him, #2 boss, and the staffer. Snoring.
I have a boss who compares everything to "what I did in my house." "When I redid my kitchen, we did XYZ. So that totally translates to this 20 million dollar electronics facility we are building. Why does it cost more than $4,000? Bc that's what my kitchen cost."
I am told to work more hours (salaried, so unpaid overtime) because there is a backlog of work. I kick ass, take names, get like 80 hours out of the backlog in 3 days (mostly weeding out the junk). I go to boss, say "More work, please!" He looks at me like I've just asked for a kidney - "I don't have more to give you." Ummmm. Excuse me? Okay, I am going home. Then uber-boss wants to know why I am not putting in more time. "Can't DH pick up the kids, we really need you here!" Umm, no, clearly I am not needed here any longer. I'll see you in the AM.

My bosses continually forward me emails, saying FYI... which is nice, except they are forwarding me an email THAT I SENT THEM.

I once had a boss who totally believed any urban legend was true... like KFC chickens didn't have feet or beaks or whatever. We did a study once for people with STDs... she rented chairs for the occasion and hid all of ours so they couldn't sit in them (all study participants were fully clothed the entire time, btw). She was hysterically out of control but made up for it by taking the entire month of August off, leaving us staffers to "run" the office and have fun.

I love that I was fully prepared to answer the question and still she is completely annoyed. Now, if I had said 100 had come in, she might have been mollified, but it just doesn't work like that! Once the early registration deadline passes, they trickle in. It works that way EVERY year, and she's been president here for more than 10 years!

Anonymous wrote:Small nonprofit. Conference registration # for our annual conference is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to my boss.

9:10am Monday morning, Boss: "I see that the number hasn't moved in DAYS. Doesn't anyone enter registrations anymore?"

me: "well, it's true, it hasn't moved since 5:00pm on Friday. Do you want me to arrange to have staff paid to work on the weekend to enter conference registrations?"

Boss: [deep sigh]

3:00pm Monday afternoon, Boss: "NOTHING is happening. Is ANYONE working?"

me: "well, xxx is out with the flu and yyy has been in training today. I understand that 8 registrations came in over the weekend and they will be entered first thing tomorrow, along with any others that come in this evening."

Boss: [Gigantic sigh]

I love that its 8 registrations.

Small nonprofit. Conference registration # for our annual conference is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to my boss.

9:10am Monday morning, Boss: "I see that the number hasn't moved in DAYS. Doesn't anyone enter registrations anymore?"

me: "well, it's true, it hasn't moved since 5:00pm on Friday. Do you want me to arrange to have staff paid to work on the weekend to enter conference registrations?"

Boss: [deep sigh]

3:00pm Monday afternoon, Boss: "NOTHING is happening. Is ANYONE working?"

me: "well, xxx is out with the flu and yyy has been in training today. I understand that 8 registrations came in over the weekend and they will be entered first thing tomorrow, along with any others that come in this evening."

Boss: [Gigantic sigh]

Hang in there OP!
My last boss was hooked on pain pills, along with a pain patch, was a drunk, and would flirt with any man that had any power over her. She would make nonsense calls and emails, wouldn't Rememeber 90% of our conversations, and almost never made sense
Boy was it humiliating!
Oh yeah, and if anyone had any type of non-American name she would not only butcher the name, but would mention the butchered name at least 5 times in every sentence (each time with a different butchered pronunciation...)
Good times!

OP here - she's at it again. "Can you please create this data in an excel spreadsheet in this particular format because I can't bother reading/analyzing the reports you already send on a regular basis?" I mean really. She clearly spent MAJOR time putting this excel sheet together into a format that makes sense only to her. I can't even read or understand the damn thing. And now I have to ask my assistant to enter data into it that already exists in another report. As if I don't have better and more productive things for her to do. Not to mention that I can't even think of a practical application for the analysis she seems to want. WTF? It's like an age/rank/control thing. It reminds me of when teachers would give you busy work at school b/c they couldn't be bothered to do their job. Just. . . .GRRR.

I had a supervisor who regularly fell asleep in meetings - including in meetings that were set up solely to brief him.

One of my bosses (yes, I have several) has a very low IQ and she is also a total bitch. Bad combo.

Her emails read like the ramblings of a crazy/drunk person. I usually have to re-read them several times to understand what the fuck she is talking about because she can't express herself properly. (English is her first language.)

Every email I send to her must be re-sent at least once or twice because she can't find the original.

She doesn't read things and makes embarrassing and stupid mistakes for that reason.

She insists on giving me extensive and rambling/unclear edits to documents over the phone while she is driving rather than doing tracked changes like normal people.

She leaves 3 minute voice mails when the same info could be conveyed in a 5 line email.

She always spells "calendar" as "calender" and has a Master's Degree supposedly.

Basically, all of her stupidity creates twice the amount of work for me, and if she was fired I could easily do her job and mine with no sweat.

It's not just me. Everyone who works with her finds her insufferable. Sigh. At least I have a job.

My boss would insert spelling and grammatical errors into my reports and papers.
I would send them back with spelling and grammatical errors corrected.
She then told me I seemed to have a problem with authority.
No, dude, I have a problem with my name being attached to a report with spelling and grammatical errors!

My friend's boss had a complete screaming meltdown in a high level meeting. A few hours later he sent out an e-mail with the subject "I've taken a tranquilizer" and recapping his points.

I worked for a law firm partner who would occasionally lose his mind. he always lost his mind when it was least convenient, like the time my grandmother was dying in the hospital and he was CONVINCED I was wrong about a legal research question.

He "remembered" it differently from God knows what. He called me away from her deathbed and screamed at me on the phone for an hour. finally I just said that maybe he should look at the cases I was citing. He refused to read the cases my memo discussed, which clearly were not consistent with his "memory" of what he wanted the law to be.

Dude, I can't change the law for you. I need to get back to my dying grandma.

He would still bring up that incident years later as a time when *I* made a mistake.

I later moved in-house and have since discovered that clients love him because of his, shall I say, "overly optimistic" views of the law. My company will probably be dealing with the fallout from some of that advice for decades.

oh and once had a boss who would stomp his feet and turn purple when he got mad. Always wanted to tell him 'use your words'