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.

What we have here is a failure to.....

What it comes down to that the boss/employee relationship is turning into Cool Hand Luke. Paul Newman in that movie says a quote like, "you're just another man making more rules for other men". Now notice he had to die just to be free! The more he stood up, the more they beat him down even to the point of death. That prison supervisor wanted to put him in his place and that is exactly what the American workplace is like. Bosses want to dictate every bit of your life and it makes them feel good to be in control. They don't care about your family, health, financial issues NO JUST THE BOTTOM LINE!!! Apparently none of them ever read Animal Farm. What total pigs.

—Guest jay

Meat Plant Boss

Worked at a meat plant in 28 degree freezer making $8 an hour while the boss complained because everyone was leaving left and right. He actually called the temp agency looking for illegal workers. He pushed us and asked us if we were working AFTER we unloaded 3 trucks. Guy is an animal.

—Guest jay

Bad Choices

Had the pleasure of being laid off while the boss kept a crack user and his ex-gang member son. ONLY IN AMERICA!

—Guest jay

Worst bosses ever

Get trained two days to make salads, get crucified when I don't have it down in two days, then I'm told I need to do fry station as well but with no previous training. By the time 2 months had gone by they were making me daily take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, mop entire restaurant, sweep entire parking lot, food prep, dishes, AND SALAD! I was making $8.50. I get called on my day off because he let fry guy go home early. End up leaving at 1:15 that night. I quit and then the other manager calls me and tells me how much so and so misses me and thought I was a good employee. OF COURSE WHEN IM DOING EVERYTHING IM A GOOD EMPLOYEE! Work 12 hours and my boss goes to the bathroom for 30 minutes to text his girlfriend. I do his job and don't get a raise. Get nitpicked and yelled at. The company makes $254 million a year and pays me f*ing $9 an hour. I quit when a boss came up to me on the 11th hour and yelled at me for signing my name in empty space instead of in between the lines on the inventory ledger. Worked my ass off at a restaurant and was asked by the boss to stay 3 hours extra helping the daily pothead dishwasher catch up on tons of dishes. He washes real slowly and I was forced to dry so I'm waiting on him. sure enough I get this manager coming at me saying, "I HAVE TWO DISHWASHERS. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR ANYTHING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!

—Guest jay

How to avoid being a bad boss

Managing others takes particular facets of personality, presentation and experience to do well. Sometimes, it is instructive simply knowing what not to do. Here are a few of the most typical mistakes managers make, wringing every drop of malaise and agony from what should be a dynamic, collaborative workplace - as well as some recommendations for making things right. You can get a payday loan to pay the bills whiel waiting on your check.

—janemurphy01

Bad Boss: She just doesn't listen.

Have been working under her administrative control for a year now. I am planning my way out already. Her main problem is that she just does not listen to anybody. The whole team has made bad habits social norms. These are not speaking out, not bringing out mistakes and problem/patterns, and simply shutting down during her monologue, disturbingly long, blame sessions - "meetings" where no work actually gets done. The worst is the results. We are not a team. We are a bunch of arms executing her awesomeness and all the greatness that comes from her mind. It is a truly bad spot to be in and everybody is feeling the same.

—Guest Alex.

Don't speak

Anyone ever had a boss that does not allow you to talk to co-op workers for 2 minutes tops? I have been with the same company for almost 9 years and I'm afraid to leave cause I don't know if the grass will be greener. I'm not sure what to do to change the dictator.

—Guest yikes

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