My bad boss

One bad boss and a near impossible project schedule drove one coworker I worked with years ago to take a long lunch and when he got back to the office to up and quit on the spot. Another boss drove a coworker to cry — okay, it isn’t what you’re expecting. The coworker broke out into tears because the manager praised and encouraged her and she wasn’t used to the positive reinforcement. She thought she “had died and gone to Heaven.”

Bosses can leave a variety of first impressions.

Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.

The mentor early in my career who I loved the most gave me the worst first impression. Oh, he was fine, but I hated the idea of working for him. The first week I worked for him he sent me home each day sore and exhausted.

On top of that, I hated working for him at first, because I wanted a more prestigious job. I thought the job working for him would hold me back. I wanted a job that would lead to bigger and better things.

Oh, how wrong I was. In fact, he taught me that it was okay to dream.

I write more about the mentor in my story, Learning to Dream, on the Heart of the matter. What has the worst boss you ever had done. What’s the best?

Related Story:

Learning to Dream

On the Heart of the Matter

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27 thoughts on “My bad boss”

  2. My very first full time boss was very kind and extremely patient. I was hired for the job of secretary in an Ad agency during the 1960s. I got the job because I was able to take dictation with shorthand. I’m not sure that process is even used today. The first letter I took was OK, but it soon became apparent that I couldn’t always read my shorthand scribbles. He finally decided to use a dictaphone machine so I could better decipher is dictation. With all the new technology today, I might do a lot better.

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  4. I think I told you this story before, but I had a boss who drank martinis at lunch. One of the stories I wrote for a newsletter was a human interest story and a little different from a straight press release. I turned it in after the lunch hour and It came back to me “This sucks!” written across the top in red ink.

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  7. My first boss ever was Greek, he paid me $100 a month while I was still in college. I thought it was a lot of money in Kyiv in 2005. He would hire and fire almost daily. Such a moody guy, after my first paycheck he said, you can stay, I will pay you $50 a month from now on. So I left because I was still a full time student, I took the job at the expense of my classes. My teachers were excited to see me back, a freshly experienced office worker.

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  10. This post forces me to look back and consider the impact all those bosses from the past had on me. My first boss was a lady, I was fourteen, working as a waitress for a catering service. I dropped an entire tray of wine on a customer, REMEMBER I WAS 14, and my boss swooped in, took the wine soaked jacket to the cleaners across the street and had it back to the customer before the nights end. This is so good Brian. Hugs, C

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    1. Oh my goodness Cheryl . . . I can only imagine what you were thinking when the wine incident happened. The boss sounds like she was a quick thinker. I hope the boss was kind too. Ha, ha. The farmer I mentioned in the companion piece on the Heart of the Matter was kind like that. He let me fail without making me a failure!!!

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  11. Great post, Brian! The worst was one who chose her favorites and undermined my answer to a customer (she gave in to the customer). There’s more, but I don’t care to evoke those memories. 🙂 In my current job, she’s really gone to bat for me regarding raises and vacation time. I’ve been there for 15 years, and I have flexibility which is worth its weight in gold. So, I’ve never had to ask for anything because she went to the big boss first, which meant those good things fell in my lap. I plan to retire late next year. 🙂

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    1. I have a few years until retirement become a “real thing,” but a good boss means so much now. I don’t have the patience anymore for the games. I always joke with my wife that I’m either going to go all in on a entrepreneurial type job, where I’m own boss, or slow down in a job that might not have the highs, but will be without the stress. Yea, kind of schizophrenic of me.

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  12. Great post Brian! Talk about bad bosses? 🤔 How much time do you have? But some of my most challenging managers have taught me a lot, even if was not to act like them. 😱😝😂

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