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Getting the job done isn’t easy. And for leadership positions, the responsibilities can be even harder, so organizations need to make sure that people who ascend to those roles have all the necessary skills. But that’s not always the case.

One Reddit post asked platform users to share the most ridiculous things their bosses have ever said to them, and got hundreds of stories, full of entitled demands and out-of-touch comments. Seems like management courses should put a bigger emphasis on the “think before you speak” module.

#1

Told off by manager for not helping to move the desks to a different room, while I was in hospital.

#2

My old boss in 2007 asked me to come in to the office when it was the heaviest snow in about a decade – we were in an office on a converted farm site 5 miles from the nearest town and the road to the office was notorious for crashes. No other way to get their but with a car.

She gave me a load of verbal over the phone as I was refusing to come in as it was too dangerous to do so.

In the end, she was the only one to attempt to get to the office (even the Directors didn’t) and she wrote off her car on the way there by coming off the road in the snow and flipping it in a ditch.

She still seemed to think I should have attempted coming in and was somehow still angry I never attempted it.

#3

Find their passport which they had mislaid. Except they were in a hotel room, in a hotel several time zones and approx a 13 hour flight away from me – having used said passport to get there in the first place.

#4

Whilst having a severe allergic reaction, boss asks if I could finish up my shift before going to the doctors. I ended up leaving about a week later on medical advice because the thing I was allergic too was served there (bloody peppers of all things). Yeah, working for Subways was not a fantastic experience (I got told off one time for opening 20 minutes late because an old lady collapsed on my way in and I was helping until the ambo came), and almost everything comes in frozen, the lying buggers!

#5

Years ago I quit my part time bar job because I’d landed a full-time job in finance. My contract said I need to give a week’s notice so I popped in on my day off to speak to the manager and give her my week’s notice.

She threw a tantrum and told me that I need to work the following week also because I was “on the rota”. I told her she could rota me in for 2 year’s time if she wants, it doesn’t mean I have to work it, the contract states 1 week.

She banned me from the bar.

#6

Not me but my coworker at a previous job was asked by our boss to go on a date (lunch and a football match) with his 14 year old son because he had a crush on her and boss wanted to help improve his confidence with girls. Coworker (who was in her mid 20s) refused of course but boss continued to passive aggressively giver her a hard time about it. He was such a creep.

#7

Boss: “GreyBeard, what’s the furthest you think you could drive in a day?”

Me: “Umm, what’s the context?”

Boss: “I’m just interested in how far you think you could drive in a day.”

Me: “I don’t know, maybe 10 hours driving, average of 60mph so 600 miles I guess. Why?”

Boss: “Great, so that equates to 300 miles each way. How do you fancy covering one of our stores in the North of England, but you’ll need to drive there each day.”

Me: “Err, firstly no thank you, secondly we’re based on the South Coast.”.

#8

The manager of my part time (10 hrs a week) bakery job told me I should prioritize my job there rather than attend my final year exam. I think the hell not, mate.

#9

I work in front office software for investment banks. Visiting the NY office (always a political fight brewing) I was asked to.. chat … to a challenging senior colleague who was making waves of various sorts.

In his office and chatting for a few minutes, he took a dislike to what I dared say (calling him out slightly on geek stuff) and he took a swipe at me over the desk, a big haymaker of a punch. He was a big guy, me less so, I ducked, he missed, but he started coming round the desk to thump me properly. I moved the other way round to keep the desk between us etc… a few tense minutes of trying to calm him down ensued, me keeping an eye on the door and him.

Got out intact, went to have a word with my UK boss about it, told him what happened, he went off to HR, and senior management, and HR again, and came back 90 minutes later, asked me to repeat the whole story in detail, precisely what was said etc

And then he asked me….

“*If it happens again, would you mind NOT ducking… if he’d made the slightest contact with you we’d have the perfect excuse to sack him immediately, which is what I’ve been trying to get to for 6 months now. So… go see him again, tomorrow maybe, and … well don’t deliberately annoy him, but equally… don’t duck if he takes another swing at you”

UPDATE: for those asking, the lack of witnesses (it happened in his private office) made the story hard to corroborate… even if he didn’t deny it completely he could claim he was making a point forcefully “stood up and shook my finger at him” etc. (this was 20 years ago and CCTV in offices was not a thing). And he was very well connected in the corporate politics.

#10

Blamed me for poor stock rotation during the first 10 minutes of my shift, told me I was the worst assistant manager the store had because of it and was causing massive losses. I was asked to write an action plan on how to improve my management style.

Once he was done shouting I politely reminded him I had been on holiday the last two weeks and this was my first shift back so had no way to influence stock rotation from home.

I went on sick leave two weeks later and never returned. Last I heard all the other assistant managers who had spent a year blaming me had asked to go to different stores because they were getting shouted at for all the things they used to blame on me.

#11

Got a call from someone senior in the company, they said “If the police turn up with a warrant to search our premises this afternoon whatever you do, do not let them in”.

#12

For myself and my colleagues to go a couple of charity shops and buy second hand mattresses to hang on the wall as ‘soundproofing’ as the company was renovating the area next to our office (the company canteen) and it was too loud.

#13

Me “can I have the 24th off annual leave please”

Boss “well… what are you going to do in return?”

Me “what? How do you mean? Are you saying you want me to put down for overtime? Because I already did that”

Boss “no I mean if I’m giving you time off where do you make up for it?”

Me “Erm, you’re not *giving* me time off, I’m asking for it annual leave, not special leave or anything”

Boss “right but”

Me “you know what f* it i’ll keep the day and rush to the airport like a madman after work forget I asked”.

#14

I used to work a really busy section in a large couriers. I could just about clear the workload each day but it didn’t allow for any hold ups or delays. At times my colleagues would have to jump in to help.

I had a 2 week holiday and when I came back, no one had covered my work so not only was there a fortnight’s worth of work but also a fortnight’s worth of complaints.

I walked in at 9am and my manager goes “you gotta get that lot clear today or there’ll be trouble” so I turned around and went back home without saying a word. Never returned to the job despite my managers pleas and I refused to go and train anyone else.

#15

“Delete the NHS app as I don’t want any of you to have to work from home”.

#16

My boss asked me not to claim my travel expenses in order to save the programme money.

#17

He asked me to turn up to this specified location 5 days a week to complete a range of specified tasks. Unbelievable.

#18

Come in early 1 hour early, and stay back an hour later for no pay. I mean, f right off.

I come in 20 minutes early every day. The one day I come 5 minute late, it’s on my record forever and they remind every day.

#19

At work in an estate agency and got a call from my wife, youngest son being rushed to hospital as his throat was swelling shut. We are talking maybe 10 month old child. I was needed to get out of work and collect the older children from nursery while this was dealt with.

Explained to my boss who said “we have viewings booked, what if i dont let you go?”

I said “you misundertood me. I didnt ASK to leave, I TOLD you I am leaving now. Bye.”

I sent my CV to every other agency in a 10 mile radius that night.

#20

Used to work for a popular fast food chain which offered chicken wraps. The chicken came pre cooked and frozen and was thawed the previous day in a chiller then microwaved to heat. Boss found a full pan of chicken in the microwave that a cook had obviously forgotten about and let it cool down to lukewarm temperatures. So just to be clear at this point, this chicken had:

– been initially cooked
– frozen
– thawed
– reheated
– left to cool down

She insisted we heat it back up and still serve it out and threatened anybody who tried to say we shouldn’t. I chucked it in the bin the moment she had left the kitchen.

#21

I was told to drive to Exeter (70 miles) to pick up a toilet seat for the new staff toilet on my first day. I asked the other boss, his wife, if it could be delivered instead or to buy one from B&Q five miles away. She said ‘it would be in your best interests to go and collect it’. I said no. That was my first and last day there.

Utter jerks.

#22

I don’t know if this counts because it was more circumstance than an outright order, but it was ridiculous.

I’m a receptionist. My old MD thought she spotted a bird trapped in the netting on top of a roof of the building over the road. She saw it fluttering in the netting, so it seemed like it was still alive. She somehow decided it was some kind of endangered red parrot and asked me to go to the building reception and tell them about it.

I did, although I felt kind of awkward about it. Security from that building had me follow him onto the roof to try and find out where the bird was. Picture some basic office drone scrambling over duct work on the 10th floor in central London. In a dress and tights, no less. And when we got to where the “parrot” was?

Not a parrot. Passed pigeon caught in the netting, flapping back and forth in the wind. Why was it red? Because it was half eaten and rotted away. The security guy grabbed it just yanked it free.

Had to go and get a coffee after that.

#23

Asked me to climb metal shelving without any safely equipment, I told him to f off and I carried on with what I was doing.

#24

Write a Java widgit that could be embedded into a webpage to stream video content.

For context, my web coding skills at the time were basic HTML that I had used to create a simple static website.

#25

Count every single parking spot in the car park during last winters huge blizzard so I had to use a shovel to count the spots and thankfully the tractor clearing the main points of entrance and exit helped me with some spots. Over 800 car parking spots and 6 inches of snow.

Put it this way the tractor worked for 2 days straight and cars still got stuck in the car park. Employees abandoned there cars days because the full area became impassible.

A month later apparently the spots got counted again because I got it wrong (go figure) because they where wanting to expand the car park. It wasn’t an urgent task.

#26

Context: moderately sized food chain with locations in several cities that you would expect was a much larger operation than it was. I was the only HR person.

Bossman had a couple of drivers walk out and we needed to get deliveries sent all over, including one from HQ in London to our location in Birmingham.

Asked me if I had a driving license. I do. He then asked me to drive a refrigerated Luton van to Birmingham, and to be in work for 4am. I explained that I had not actually driven a car since I passed my test ten years earlier aged 17, let alone a Luton van.

He said “it’ll be fine”. I then mentioned I had scheduled 6 job interviews for the next day and he would need to interview the candidates if I was driving the Luton van to Birmingham and back. So he relented and got one of the customer service phone team to do it instead.

#27

In one job I was moved to a new department for reasons that basically seemed like petty revenge by a shift manager.

My new role saw me in a warehouse with 1 other person, who spoke no English and had complex medical needs that meant she had shaking fits numerous times a day. I had no first aid training and no way to contact anyone if something happened. I asked a shift what was wrong with her and what do I do if they got worse and she needed medical attention, they just shrugged and that was that.

Basically making me look after someone when I had no idea what was even wrong with them was a step too far.

#28

I worked for a recruitment firm. I interviewed to take over from the Team Manager who was being promoted. I didn’t hear anything for two weeks, and for a special project my manager linked our emails so I had access to the information whilst he was on annual leave. I had nothing to hide. Foolishly the managers recruiting were openly emailing about me. I saw an email chain saying that they wanted to give me the job and were impressed with my work ethic, but didn’t want to change my job title, or promote me, or even inform me I wasn’t getting the job formally. They had a 3 month plan to slowly transition me into the Team Manager role by slowly replacing my duties as I ‘covered’ the role. They actually thought I wouldn’t notice, so the next time the managers were in I printed off the email chain and had saved a copy. I called a meeting and turned over the pages of paper one by one and watched them all d*e inside as I roasted them, rather loudly, for their conduct.

I finished the meeting by telling them I had emailed the head of our division with the email chain, and every other Manager in the small office, and also to my team, informing them I won’t be taking the position. I then went sick, claiming stress, claimed all my holiday, and then found another job. I never went back into the office. I was later told the recruiting manager was let go as the ice was already too thin with him.

Sometimes it is what they covertly get you to do.

#29

I was told to run a gravity fed drain UP and over a doorway and along a wall before draining into a sump across the room, instead of a sump right next to the main I was coming off. Despite my explanation on how stupid that was, the foreman insisted, and I relented and obliged. It was 12 hours Sat and Sunday, (double time).
It was ripped out Monday and ran into the sump I said originally.

#30

McDonalds first aid training, approx 20 miles from store. Boss organised lifts for everybody but me then asked me to get the bus there on my own because there wasn’t room for me.

I got the hint.

#31

I work in a press office and I had got some good coverage in a reasonably important publication for us. Nice interview with the chief exec, interesting contributions from others in our field, just the right level of gentle criticism of our work to be credible (and actually it was a reasonable point that we took on board in our wider work). Overall I was pleased.

Chief exec was grumpy that they had written “chief executive” instead of “Chief Executive”, even though title case was our house style and not theirs. My boss made me ring up and ask them to change it.

I was early in my career and honestly I wouldn’t do that now but my god. Wood for trees.

I also had to investigate how to get him nominated for the honours list at his request. Which to be fair isn’t the worst way for a comms team to get some publicity and headlines but he wasnt remotely cool about it. Ten years later I believe he’s still plain old Mr X.

#32

Technically he was my ex-boss but it was still ridiculous what he asked.

I had worked for this pub for 3 years, working up from waitress to bar staff with responsibilities for cashing up, opening up etc. Essentially trusted enough to have the safe keys and run the place in his absence.

Finally handed in my notice as I had secured a new job with 9-5 hours and better pay. Worked my two weeks notice and everything was fine until he announced on my last day that I was now banned from ever coming back in the pub, because it might be ‘bad for business.’

Well, that’s fine. It was bad for business… but only because it meant he lost 50% of his regular bookings because they were friends of the family who used the function rooms for their bi-weekly event, and I wasn’t able to go so they found somewhere new. He called me to ask them to rebook, just not have me attend.

I just hung up. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

#33

During a meeting about various processes that needed streamlining the boss said “that’s a top priority” about a number of different things. I questioned how it’s possible for multiple things can to be a top priority and he replied “everything is a top priority”.

#34

I had annual leave left pending for my birthday for two months only for my boss to decline it, take those days off himself, and then proceed to come into the office anyway.

Banned our team from participating in a flexible working trial (only dept in the company not doing it) and the same day onwards he left an hour early.

Said I couldn’t work from home after 3 days of doing it and after I returned back to the office, starting loading his equipment into his car.

Yeah, handing in my notice last week was pretty sweet.

#35

When I worked in a hotel, the ops manager asked me to remember that the clocks would be going back and to take this into account when closing the bar.

On New Years Eve.

#36

I used to work in a dental lab. About 8 of us worked there. One day the boss comes over “quick… everyone in the basement.

We literally had to hide down there quietly because debt collectors were banging on the door.

Don’t miss that dump.

Ps. don’t go privately for dentures if you need them. It’s a massive con. We would make £3k dentures in the same batch as NHS dentures that cost like £250 quid. Slightly prettier teeth and acrylic… that’s it. It wasn’t just our place either. Every tech I spoke to said the same. Spread the word and stop predatory dentists selling this trash to our parents and grandparents.

#37

Did a stint at my local flying club on the front desk, got told to remember to turn the wind sock off at the end of the day.

#38

Abandon my shopping in the middle of the supermarket and come in on my annual leave to fix some server problem.

It was the day of my son’s birthday party and I was buying food for the party that afternoon.

He’d paid me a £1000 bonus a few weeks earlier for months of overtime and tried to lord it over me, saying I owed him. Told him I’d bank transfer the bonus right back so he could shove it up his hole.

He fixed the server himself.

#39

A mate of mine at the same company as me coded a screen on a web app which met the requirements exactly as described.

During testing, our manager said there were two form fields and database columns missing. There was no way he could’ve known about these fields as they were undocumented everywhere.

The response was, “You should’ve asked.”

Should’ve asked what?! Was genuinely being asked to be psychic.

Anyway, most of us left this company sharpish as it had a pretty bad management culture.

#40

Going to post twice but:

I worked at a toy shop. One day a person comes into the store in costume (can’t remember as what) for some promo.

I didn’t know if it was a member of our staff or someone internal.

I ask a colleague “who is in the costume”

Despite me not being anywhere near a young child, my jobsworth manager snapped and tried to tell me off for ruining the illusion.

His response?

“How would you like it if I said somebody was inside you!”

Had to stifle my laughter.

#41

Park my company car on a red route in London and look for a postbox / use a mobile phone handheld whilst driving (car kit had been badly installed and broke). Same manager both times.

#42

I worked in a small convenience store that was down the road from a brand new co-op, they were better than us in every way and had all the custom. Some new owners took over our store and had absolutely no idea what they were doing to the point where they didn’t have any pricings for any of the items for sale. They literally said to just guesstimate how much things costs and put it through the till (I sold some decent bottles of wine for very cheap to some lucky customers!)…

Finally, after a week of retail hell and endless pissed off customers, my boss sent me down the road to the co-op with an A4 notebook to write down the prices they have for as many things as possible. It was so humiliating and I have never seen such incompetence from a manager!

Thankfully I’m in a much better job nowadays, it felt do darn good to quit that place.

#43

I was shafted big time at my last place of work. I was one of 5 workers on site. I was only on 30 hours a week but was on the most hours so responsible for the most work. Always stayed back for them and ran through hoops to get the work done.

Then I get my hours cut from 30, down to 10. Boss comes in expecting my to do the same work. Psyche ina bit. Left the same day I got the letter to cut my hours.

#44

My girlfriend has an old story of her having completely lost her voice, so getting her mum to call up the bar she was working at to say she couldn’t come in as she couldn’t talk to customers.

Her mum got asked to put my girlfriend on the phone by the bar manager … At which point she pointed out that wouldn’t really accomplish much, with the whole not being able to talk.

Apparently the same bar also later rang her up about her increased shifts. The thing was she had always told them she was going to uni out of town so the job was temporary, and those extra shifts were when she was at uni.

Apparently they made a pitch to try and keep her out of uni. She was going to study maths at a top ten uni, so I’m not sure what this chain bar thought it could offer in response.

When I worked in retail, a colleague of mine came out the bathroom and told our manager she had just thrown up blood. I happened to be right by them when this happened

He responded she was probably fine.

#45

I know the fire alarm is going off and it is so loud we can’t hear each other and is possibly damaging hearing, but stay at your desks and take calls.

#46

I got a call at 2AM on Christmas morning from my boss saying one of our servers was down and could I find the issue and release a fix. I actually did it because I love the guy (and I was really drunk), he wouldn’t have been able to enjoy Christmas knowing our website and app weren’t fully functional during a busy period and we were a tiny start up.

Work at a big bank now. We have an on call rota and I once got a call out when I wasn’t on the rota. Was about to tell them to leave it but remembered I’d get an extra £500 for what would be a couple minute’s work. Logged in, rolled back that day’s code change, and went back to bed.

#47

Give them the top I was wearing. For context, I worked in a hydrotherapy centre for dogs. I was excused from going into the pools for the day as I was unwell and instead had to clean the entire centre from top to bottom so I had to change into the centre shirts to showed that I still worked there. While I was cleaning my boss approached me and said I need that top and I was confused thinking they meant another top but nope literally the top on my back. So because I couldn’t exactly say no because she needed it to get in the pool with one of our more challenging/high maintenance clients, I had to change and throw on my hoodie so that I wasn’t walking around half naked. Needless to say I didn’t spend much longer working there.

#48

At one place I worked people on leave were forbidden to reply to or check their emails or log on to the works computers in any way. If they had a laptop they had to surrender it to the IT department for the duration of their leave. This caused some stress to the more control freaky managers we had, but the rule was strictly enforced.

#49

I was a contractor working in mortgage backed securities for a major US investment bank, based in the UK.

As part of what would now be called a “second line of defence” team, I and my team made noises in 2005 about (ahem) issues with the UK housing market.

I was called into my bosses bosses bosses office and threatened with being fired if I didn’t reword my briefing note.

I had previously used pretty tactful wording, and I was feeling pretty bloody minded given what to me looked like an obvious issue with the UK housing market based on the data I had access to. I therefore rewrote it to say what I intended to say but without tact.

Suffice to say, I got fired.

As it turned out, my prediction was slightly out; I had predicted a worse outcome than happened but my timing was only about six weeks out.

#50

I once worked three days a week at a disability charity, and when I returned the following week, I was told I had left the coshh cupboard unlocked which was an instant written warning. I said I had no recollection of the event and as we were all in and out of there I asked how they knew it was me. Turns out they had a bit of round Robin debate where everybody said “it wasn’t me” and so in my absence decided it must have been me. I mean what the hell. They never even asked. I took it to upper management and they were so worried they offered to shred the written warning. But I told them I was keeping it 😂.

#51

Create an entire curriculum for 5 year groups of school kids in 3 days.

As in, design and create content for teaching English for 10 hours a week – 10 months of lessons, for 5 years of kids. So he wanted me to crate over 2,000 lesson plans, that were guided, annotated, structured had print outs and resources and activities.

#52

The boss of the small (~12 employees) software company where I worked in the 2000s was constantly paranoid about his competitors spying on him/us. In one memorable meeting at a client site, while we were alone in the room he asked my colleague to stand on a chair and sweep the ceiling tiles for hidden bugs!

We had to do most of our work on client sites, and he insisted that we had to be seated with our backs to a wall so nobody could see our screens. Couldn’t sit with your back to a window in case a competitor was in an adjacent building with a telescope! Luckily he didn’t travel to clients himself much so we mostly just sat where we liked.

They threw out a load of computer kit once when they were moving offices, and we had to destroy all the hard drives by drilling holes through them. That’s actually a standard security practice. What is less standard is that they also got us to smash the monitor screens with hammers, in case they had snippets of our source code burned into the screen!

It was all absolutely ludicrous, we made retail planogramming software and only had a couple of small competitors to speak of.

#53

My boss once told gave me 20 quid before I was about to head out for lunch and told me to pick up aftershave from Poundland. Yep 20 bottles of aftershave. This turned into a routine every 3/4 months.

#54

Was told should be at my desk and logged in at 9:30. I pointed out was in at 9 in canteen and speaking to a partner of the firm for an hour about work, as he questioned me. Was told I should have said excuse me, come down to my desk logged in, then gone back to speak to him.

#55

Asked to travel to another one of our offices in a city 1-2 hours train ride away to collect a few laptops, I had no car and other people who had cars could’ve made the same journey in less than half the time minutes at most.

Still off I went and actually made a day of it, grabbed the train expensive seats, went into the office had a good waffle and made sure to head out with the team over there for lunch, then got back to the office at around 4-5PM. Funnily enough my manager didn’t even care and approved my days expenses :D.

#56

My manager told me that It shouldn’t take me more than 2 minutes to go to the toilet, as some people in the same job can do it in less than one minute.

It didn’t matter to her whether I suffer from IBS or not.

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