Awful Bosses

January 31 2007

A bad boss, at one point or another most of us have had to endure a few months or maybe even a number of years taking orders from a superior who just doesn’t seem to care. For those of us that have been spared the “bad boss” experience, some insight has been provided by Working America, a community affiliate of the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO.)

Last year the organization held a contest and collected some of the worst boss stories out there. We have touched on a number of these below.

One story tells of a part time employee who had scheduled her work so that she had every Friday off, leaving her with three day weekends to care for her terminally ill mother. When her co-worker resigned, her supervisor was adamant that she do the extra work, meaning she would have to come in on Fridays. Reluctantly, and after much pleading, her supervisor relented. When the employee’s mother passed away not a single card or flower was passed her way.

Another tells of a dentist who cut $100 out of each staff person’s pay when the majority of his patients cancelled on September 11, 2001.

The last story we’ll mention has to do with a company whose employee’s pay is commission based. When expenses like parking, overhead and supplies came into the finance department each employee’s commission checks were docked, even if they didn’t benefit from the overhead. At the same company, flowers were sent to the family of an employee whose father died, that employee’s next commission check was docked $200 for the flowers.