Readers Respond: What Makes a Bad Boss - Bad?

Want to avoid becoming a bad boss? Afraid that you may already be considered a bad boss? Just want to commiserate with other people who have bad bosses? Here are your thoughts about what makes a bad boss, well - bad. Have more thoughts about bad bosses? Share them here. See what others have said about their bad boss.

Dear Readers: Comments that defame an individual by name and company name will be deleted. We're just looking for the characteristics of a bad boss and your experiences with bad bosses, not names. Thank you for your participation and cooperation. Susan

See More Reader Responses.

The worst boss

I returned to work after being a stay home mom for the last 12 years. I started with a small company for the flexiblity. My boss is so mean, rude, a bully...... ( english is my second lang so my vocabulary is not strong, but fill in the blank). She insults, screams and tells everyone every single day that she is the boss. One time I cc my email to the owner and she can't get over it. She is the one who gave me the schedule and she will say I don't know how you get this schedule I don't have any CONTROL over you! I am like why do you want to control me? She told me I can ask her a Q. anytime and if I ask her she will scream at me and if I don't she will scream because she thinks I am not asking because I know it all. I have been here almost 3 months and so far she fired 3 employees and another 4 left. Most of the days pass by interviewing new employees. When ever she hires one we bet in the office how long they are staying. ......

—badboss

Mood swing boss or Mental Illness

I currently work for a boss who has progressively gotten crazier and is a bully. His mood swings go from really nice to screaming at you about petty things. Currently, over the last year, our department has had an excellent profit margin and we are making LOTS of MONEY. You would think he wouldn't have a lot to complain about. First he created his own job which was to help me, but it more was he would go behind my back and redo things and micromanage my every move. He constantly puts down most of my employees and continually looks for the worst in people. He micromanages your every move, which makes me think he doesn't trust our department. He belittles others, stresses about petty things, sends mean nasty emails and text messages throughout the night and even in the middle of the night. I am very intimidated of him because he has threatened my job and others and I try to smile and bear it. We have had 3 quit in the past 2 months because of him - 1 reported him to HR. I just pray.

—physicaljenn

This one takes the cake

My boss has done shady things. I work in healthcare and take a lot of call (carry pager and get woken up at 2 am all the time). I work in a hospital and many of them have disaster plans where some medical staff is required to stay during a disaster. There was a possible tornado coming and I was the lucky one to be on call. The hospital declared it was ok for me to go home and come to hospital by pager if not called in. My boss however, decided I had to stay over night anyways with no additional pay. Another time I basically was covering the entire department by myself for 48 hours straight. Basically, I work Sat and Sun for about 10 hours then cover the rest with call. One day he walked in and said I was going to stay as long as it takes to complete the 30 patients on line and complete booked out patient schedule with no openings for in patients or ER. He doesn't care that any of us work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as long as he gets his bonus.

—CrappyBosses

Sick Treatment

A client told my boss that on 2 occasions during a night shift I had failed to give her treatment. I had gone home to bed. My boss went to the line manager with her "concerns" and asked my colleagues on days not to tell me about it. They did thank god because otherwise I would be unable to speak up for myself. The client had ALL treatments prescribed for her and my colleague backed me up. Having gone behind my back and encouraged my colleagues and friends to follow suit...wonder if she'll apologize? Either way, she's going to leave this thing with egg on her face. I just don't need the stress of it.

—Guest J

Miss Jab-alot

My boss appears to have very low self-esteem in her personal life and tries to compensate by putting on a show for everyone. She constantly undermines my process, takes credit for my work, belittles my work-related choices, and degrades my age/character/etc. If I stand up for myself, she lashes out, and holds a grudge for weeks at a time for things I am unaware of. She is part of the baby boomers generation and has their non-collaborative approach, but refuses to acknowledge that she never takes direction from anyone else and NEVER allows her employees to utilize their creativity or individual skills to enhance a project. To sum it up, my boss is a bad boss because she is both a narcissist and a hypocrite and lowers the morale in the office with little or no regard for the feelings and unique qualities of each of the employees SHE hired.

—Guest Erin

Bad boss = projecting insecurity on you

My boss is personally a good guy but professionally he is pretty bad. All he gives me is negative feedback even though I've done a lot for the department. There are reasons that he could be upset with me such as being late but that is not what he gets upset with me about. What he does have an attitude about is when I am passionate about getting the work I have done or organizing the department in ways that will help me and my co-workers. Ever since being more aware that the person who was there before me had screwed up in ways he didn't realize or that some work didn't get done (before I was employed there) he has been nasty to me. He didn't really train me and then gets upset when I didn't do exactly what he wanted, but how was I supposed to know in the first place? He jumps to conclusions about me, and doesn't communicate. He also seems to try and set me up for failure, giving me a task that he keeps telling me will be "hard to do" then is surprised when I succeed.

—Guest Lisa

Psycho Boss

My former boss is a liar, bully and quite frankly, she is a snake. She delegated everything to me and took credit for anything I produced that was positive, but would throw me under the bus if something wasn't perfect. I've had a number of great bosses, but this one was absolutely despicable. She asked me to manage a large, very complicated project and I worked many long hours and made sure everything went well while she did absolutely nothing. The outcome was perfect and I was so proud. However, she took all of the credit and received many accolades from the higher-ups. She took all of my work and put her name all over it, and gave me only minimal recognition. It was then that I knew I had to leave. She got a promotion, but I did all of the work. I could have complained, but it would have not done any good. Fortunately I am no longer working for her, and I'm so happy. Hopefully she'll fall hard, and I hope I'm around to see it.

—Guest happilymovedon

Over bad bosses!

I am so depressed because I work with children and my bosses have very bad attitudes. I float from different classes and it is pretty sad when you come in our building and the front desk staff is always so negative. We had someone come and take pictures of the children. When she was leaving she told me she hated coming to our building because my boss and the other front desk staff are always so mean to her. I think that's bad when someone who doesn't work there know how bad my bosses are!!!

—Guest Guest

Legalized Torture

I have worked for a number of managers, some great, mediocre and horrible. However, after 35 years of work, my last manager was vile. She spent her days networking (coffee breaks) and working the system so that senior management believed she was wonderful, her reputation with the right people was unassailable. she was a wretched manager, criticizing everything and never recognizing good work. She lied to me and about me repeatedly - in writing and behind my back. When I tore my rotator cuff, I worked with constant agonizing pain until I was able to have surgery to repair it. I found out from my previous manager that she was telling everybody that she thought I was faking the injury - a strange conclusion given the fact I only took 5 days off for the surgery and recovery. My surgeon had suggested I take disability until I recovered, but I feared she would use it as an excuse to fire me. I confronted her lies, tried to work with her but her goal was to force me out - I left ASAP.

—Guest FREE

My boss sucks

My boss sucks because she never takes responsibility for her actions and is always making excuses. Last straw used something from 2013 on my 2012 review and it is something every one of us collectors do, which is vent from time to time after getting off a call with a rude customer. There are only 3 of us and she has me, of course, right by her cubicle so can hear me over the other two. Also, she's a two faced fake beotch! One day I will tell her how I feel and that will be the day I say goodbye to the company I have worked at for 11 years. She's been here less time and everyone in the company knows she's a fake and a liar!

—Guest Fed Up

Bad Boss Perspective

Given the condition of our world, I can't honestly say that I would celebrate bad behavior in anyone, especially a boss. But I thoroughly agree, Judy: we have much to learn from adversity. Personally, I learned from one bad boss' the critical importance of working for someone who is emotionally stable, rather than being prone to envy and pathological competitiveness. From another I learned the importance [especially to me] of working for someone with integrity. Judy Lindenberger Reply:December 8th, 2010 at 3:45 am. Martha, what a wonderful perspective and insight. Yes, I think it can take years (it did for me) to appreciate the lessons you can learn from bad bosses. And yes, when we do work for someone with integrity, what a difference it makes, not only in our feeling of safety, but also in our productivity.- Judy

—Guest KqBieEVmsIRifgy

Pure evil boss

Our current site director manager is about a year into his position. He has no previous experience with our company. He will lie to your face, tell you that you are not right in the head and then ask other managers if you are safe. This guy is the ultimate mind game sociopath. He will destroy anybody who makes him feel inadequate. It is so sad to see how one person can really ruin a good company with a great COO. It helps that our company headquarters is in another country. Purely amazed how well he can disguise himself.

—Guest J

Lack of communication

A boss that doesn't communicate well with their staff. A boss that assumes that their staff knows everything when it comes to the work. A boss that yells at their staff in front of everyone instead of taking that person aside and talking with them like a civilised human being. One that doesn't lead or encourage but more rather demands employees. One that treats some employees differently to others (for example, yells at one employee for making the same mistake that another employee has made, but the other employee does not get told off for making that mistake.)

—Guest Chook

Speaks harshly - negative tone

I don't know what to say or do to change the way people speak to me, always so unpleasant, so mean Team leader like,"nah sit over there now" yelling. These behaviors are new to me, it freaks me out like this person is crazy. People who can do it to another human being have serious hidden mental illness. Finding ways to gain respect from people is difficult especially when they are naturally negative.

—Guest Barbara

My Manipulative Ex Boss

I had a boss who would praise us constantly, but overwork us. She would be nice about flexible schedules, but we were underpaid. In other words, she gave with one hand and took with the other.

—Guest Bibiana