You want me to do what? - Bad or Incompetent Boss Stories

[MercenaryChef]

this thread makes me feel like the luckiest guy in the world. 20 years as a cook/chef and almost every single boss i have had has been great.

[Lord of Oop North]

Last summer I was hired by this guy to build a bunch of brick columns that would form a fence around a new Price Chopper grocery store. I found the job listing on craigslist, so my weirdness-radar was on high alert. I show up and this 'mason' is driving a 1980s jaguar that looks like it had been dragged up out of the Hudson River. He has no tools, except a couple of brand new things from Lowes that I have never seen anyone in my profession use.

He had built most of the first two columns, to show me what they were supposed to look like, and it was honestly the worst work I'd seen in my life. I've seen homeowners who have never done this in their life do a job light-years better than this guy. So I'm already kind of assuming this guy isn't what he says he was. I asked him how he got into the business, and he said "Well, I was a pilot in the Air Force for 20 years, and I kind of picked it up along the way from this old guy." Which is of course how everyone learns everything.

He thought that on the print, where it said 1'8", that it meant 18 inches. I swear, it was directly out of Spinal Tap. 99% of all masonry measurements are multiples of 4", because it's modular. You never would make something being mass produced 18".

At this point he asked me to complete the unfinished column "kind of like an audition" to prove that I could do it. So I did. Then I looked at the other one and asked him what happened to it. He said, "oh, that was actually the mason I hired last week, I had to fire him because he was sloppy."

I asked a few more questions and he basically admitted that he had never done anything like this in his life but had somehow got the contract for it, and was in way over his head. I worked for him for two days, after which the general contractor fired him.

When I mentioned to the GC what he said about the first two columns and how some other mason had built them, the GC looked at me crazy and said, "No. He built those himself. It took him an entire week, and when I asked him why they looked so shitty he said 'it was kind of muddy and i was wearing sneakers.' "

The whole thing was just surreal because I'd never seen anyone actually try to stroll into a completely foreign line of work to them and act like they were an expert in it. It would be like me just walking into a hospital and trying my hand at surgery. I kind of picked it up from this old guy.

Other than that I've had some bosses that were jerks, but now I only have to work for someone else for brief periods of time so I don't really mind. As long as they aren't some kind of fighter pilot-charlatan-contractor.

Oh fuck, this is pretty much exactly like this one contractor that I worked for ... they hired me on as a foreman carpenter, and was in the midst of an addition on a house. It was a two man team, one guy was an orthopedic salesman and the other guy was the "builder", who "picked it all up" from his dad or something. I remember showing up on day one, and the guy had basically no tools, and I had to drive back to my place and pick stuff up to work. He also had his idiot son working for him, who was just as bad (blind leading the blind). When I came on, the second floor of the addition was something like 3 - 4 " higher than the second floor of the original house. What a fucking disaster.

So a few weeks go by, and we're now at roof level. Things had been pretty trying at this point. We've re-framed windows and doorways a few times, because of "re-designs". I built all the second floor walls by myself, because neither him nor his son showed up. So anyway, I'm tying in the existing to the new roof, and things are going fine. He comes up one day (at this point he wasn't around all the time) and tells me the client wants to change the design. Ok, whatever. He grabs a sawzall and starts cutting rafters out. He then says that he wants to cut out a ridge beam that we'd set, and modify it to do something that doesn't make any fucking sense to me. I remember getting into a huge argument about this (for the life of me, I can't remember what he wanted to do), packing up all my tools, and walking off the job.

He calls me up a few days later, and he is in full panic mode. So I agree to come back and help him. I drive back over, and things are so unbelievably fucked, that I still have a hard time believing how fucked up it was. He was trying to frame a roof valley between the addition and the existing, and basically nothing worked. He set all his rafters on the wall without notching a birds peak on the bottom to seat it, so everything was at a different pitch than the existing. He couldn't figure out how to cut a splay for a valley rafter, so had cut the jacks square against the valley rafter, and used some cut offs to splice it all together. Holy fuck, what an abortion.

So, we cut it all down, and start anew. After the majority of the work is done, he sort of stops showing up. At this point, I think we were in the midst of sheathing the roof. His partner starts calling me, giving me shit about the job being waaaay behind schedule. I tell him that is his partners problem. My boss shows up sporadically after this, as he apparently has other 'jobs'. A little while later, orthopedic salesman says that he is out of money because they haven't made enough progress to get another draw. Sure enough, he can't pay me. I think at this point it had been like 3 or 4 weeks. End up walking off the job again.

So, a few weeks go by and I decide to take a drive past the place and see what the states of it is. Sure enough, looks pretty much the same. The owner spots me, and we chat for a while. I asked him about all the re-designs, which he didn't have a clue about. Says nothing was re-designed, and in fact, the whole house wasn't built as per the original drawings anyway. He shows me the drawings (this was the first time that I'd seen them), and sure enough, the house looked nothing like them. It was fucking hilarious. Except for how screwed over this guy was, because the city building inspector was freaking out about the deviation.

[TrackerNeil]

Back in 2010 I'd been recently laid off and applied for a temp position at the Census, which I got. Anyway, my job was to do phone interviews for other temp employees, which wasn't too bad because I'm a chatty person and like to talk with strangers. The Census, however, had a zillion rules about when you could come in early, how early, when you could take a break, how long your lunch break had to be after your morning break, etc. It was really suffocating. I remember once speaking to a vet (vets were preferred candidates for hire), and he seemed so happy to be talking to someone that we chatted a bit about what he was watching on TV at the time. ("Gilligan's Island", for those who care.) After the call ended I was told in no uncertain terms that personal chit-chat with the interviewees was prohibited. Yikes.

Anyway, when there were no calls to make they'd set me to work doing whatever, and at one point my supervisor said she wanted me to help her with some paperwork. She then proceeded to explain to me that she had a device she wanted me to use to fasten some of the papers together. She explained that this device took a thin piece of metal, pressed it right through the papers, and then bent it on the other side, clipping the papers together. I looked at her for a long moment and then said, "So you want me to staple them, right?" She was quite pleased that I caught on so quickly.

(In case you're wondering, she was not yanking my chain. She was dead-earnest about explaining to me the wonders of the modern stapler.)

[Larry of the Lawn]

Anyway, when there were no calls to make they'd set me to work doing whatever, and at one point my supervisor said she wanted me to help her with some paperwork. She then proceeded to explain to me that she had a device she wanted me to use to fasten some of the papers together. She explained that this device took a thin piece of metal, pressed it right through the papers, and then bent it on the other side, clipping the papers together. I looked at her for a long moment and then said, "WHAT DEVILISH SORCERY BE THIS!?!?!?"

[Elder Sister]

My favorite boss stories (ex-bosses, thankfully) are as follows:

1. Wildly inappropriate boss who would ask me insane personal questions, try to get me to travel with him when our work did not require it, and occasionally drive by my house at odd hours who was also a raging alcoholic who would have screaming fits out of the blue. He was actually good practice for dealing with my ex-husband. Thanks, man!
   
2. Wildly stinky boss who broke wind constantly and picked his nose, and bodily orifices with no regard for who was around or where he was. He was controller for the company I was working for. I was in charge of inventory control and production scheduling at this facility as well as several others - we were in Florida one time at a restaurant with a plant manager for one of the locations. My boss got drunk, picked a fight with some locals, and some blows/shoves are actually exchanged. I was so over it by this point, I just took my plate and moved to another area of the restaurant and ate my dinner. The plant manager quit not too long after that. I did as well. This boss was later found to have embezzled tons of money from this company.
   
3. Wildly old boss who was stuck in the 50's and yearned for the days when you could slap women in the workplace for getting hysterical. He also mispronounced words constantly. Instead of something 'coming to fruition', he said, 'coming to fruitation'. He also used this phrase constantly: "That's just the criticality of the beast." I don't even know what this means, but his weird mispronunciations and strange phrases made his misogynistic attitudes much easier to take.
   

[Nox Irradiata]

Without getting into the gory details, my current management is horrible. Our organization epitomizes the saying, "Good enough for government work." :ack:

Luckily, I'm starting a new job on Monday! :D Got a pretty sweet transfer within my company. Doing similar work, but in a much nicer facility, and hopefully working for management that's a little more squared away.

[Theda Baratheon]

My favorite boss stories (ex-bosses, thankfully) are as follows:

1. Wildly inappropriate boss who would ask me insane personal questions, try to get me to travel with him when our work did not require it, and occasionally drive by my house at odd hours who was also a raging alcoholic who would have screaming fits out of the blue. He was actually good practice for dealing with my ex-husband. Thanks, man!

Wildly stinky boss who broke wind constantly and picked his nose, and bodily orifices with no regard for who was around or where he was. He was controller for the company I was working for. I was in charge of inventory control and production scheduling at this facility as well as several others - we were in Florida one time at a restaurant with a plant manager for one of the locations. My boss got drunk, picked a fight with some locals, and some blows/shoves are actually exchanged. I was so over it by this point, I just took my plate and moved to another area of the restaurant and ate my dinner. The plant manager quit not too long after that. I did as well. This boss was later found to have embezzled tons of money from this company.

Wildly old boss who was stuck in the 50's and yearned for the days when you could slap women in the workplace for getting hysterical. He also mispronounced words constantly. Instead of something 'coming to fruition', he said, 'coming to fruitation'. He also used this phrase constantly: "That's just the criticality of the beast." I don't even know what this means, but his weird mispronunciations and strange phrases made his misogynistic attitudes much easier to take.

hahahahaha this would proper crack me up

[Tears of Lys]

My favorite boss stories (ex-bosses, thankfully) are as follows:

/snip

Wildly old boss who was stuck in the 50's and yearned for the days when you could slap women in the workplace for getting hysterical. He also mispronounced words constantly. Instead of something 'coming to fruition', he said, 'coming to fruitation'. He also used this phrase constantly: "That's just the criticality of the beast." I don't even know what this means, but his weird mispronunciations and strange phrases made his misogynistic attitudes much easier to take.

I could listen to that stuff all day. I might even let him smack me... lightly... once.

I have a particular fondness for stories about nutso-crazy "builders" - as long as they're not working on my house.

[Elder Sister]

hahahahaha this would proper crack me up

Ahahahaha... I know. It was awesome; like, Dilbert meets The Exorcist.

[Kat]

Ahem. I had a really bad boss, once. He yelled at me for expensing a bagel. Not even any cream cheese - a $3 bagel.

We need another topic about unfairly denied reimbursements. I have the world's most passive-aggressive letter saved that I wrote to the guy who denied one of mine for classroom supplies. (He asked for a "letter of justification" so I gave it to him.)

[Pendergraft]

Worked at a firm before, I was working OT with a junior associate and one of the main partners of the firm asked me to help locating a settlement statement he saved on his laptop. Has a short fuse & gets irritated when it takes me awhile to find the file. Mind you, this partner went to an Ivy League school for undergrad & law school. Graduated in the early 90's but doesn't know how to save or locate a file and types with his pointer finger. Then a week later, I get a designer bag as a "thank you" from his secretary, returned it saying I already have that same bag and I would rather get a raise.