Chris Holmes was an immigration officer at Stansted airport in the U.K.  Was. Yesterday Chris resigned in the sweetest possible way, and promoted his new cake baking business to boot…

Source: The Guardian

Source: Buckle Up Bitch

I know the job market’s tough, but “stalking” isn’t considered a great skill. Especially when you’re stalking the company you want to work for. Source: Happyplace.com

Bad bosses aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, BUT, even the dumbest boss could have seen right through this misdirected attempt at a sick day. Source: happyplace.com

Editor’s Note: It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a submission with such detailed accounts of the antics of a megalomaniac boss. And then Jonathan sent me this. This post’s title is just one of many condescending comments she made to her employees – and below is just a small sample of some of the things she did. Thankfully, after just four months (which must have seemed more like four years to her employees) this non-manager was demoted.

This is an account of a rude, condescending, commanding manager, with the social skills of a child, and the leadership skills of someone raised in the wild. I don’t want to say I’m a better person than her, but being a bit older and being college educated while she is not definitely did not help my attitude towards her when she started casting out commands.

I began working a second job at a family owned t-shirt store in the city. With-in my first month the owners decided to open another smaller kiosk inside of the public market. I agreed to transfer over to the new shop and begin working under the newly promoted manager, who was being transferred from the shipping department at the warehouse.

Tensions were high amongst the owners, managers and employees the first couple days working in the kiosk. The stress of the deadline to open, arranging the product and deciding where things should go, how things should be presented, etc., had tempers boiling over. I met my new manager and after a friendly first hour of her telling me what her expectations and hopes for the store would be, she slowly began turning into a monster. She began to pick at the way I stood, the order in which I laid out product, the direction tags of shirts should be. Although I found this to be a bit picky, I didn’t see much harm in it, she just had a certain way she wanted things, and most of her abruptness I chalked up to being under stress from the owners to get things underway and start making sales and having a tidy professional-looking workplace. I knew this was her first time ever being in charge or being in any position of power so I let most things slide off my back when she would snip about something small.

After things had settled down with the store and we had gotten into the swing of things, she did not follow suit. In fact she got progressively worse.

Here are a list of dialogues and run-ins we had over the first six weeks:

• I show up my first day on my own. Knowing she had been stressed, I parked at a meter just outside the building to make sure I was there early enough to help her set up. After an hour of arranging, I tell her that I now needed to go park my car in the lot, which was about 1/2 mile away.  She responds “You can’t do this when you start here by yourself you know. You’re lucky I’m here.”  To which I respond: “Yes I’m aware of that, I just wanted to help you because I know you’ve been stressing about this whole thing.”

Her reply: “Just so we’re clear, I was helping YOU…Do you understand?”

• “Is that how I told you I wanted those arranged?” “You need to smile more even when there aren’t customers present. If you smile and talk to them more, they’ll give you more money, and that’s really all we care about.” “You need to face this direction, don’t ever turn your back, even if you need to get something behind you.” “Those glasses aren’t arranged right, make them look happier.” “What would you do if I wasn’t here to save you? (Because I asked how to open the new receipt machine)” “I thought I talked to you about this, I don’t want more than 50 singles in the drawer.

 

• Her: “Do you have any questions before I leave?”  Me: “I don’t think so…..OH wait, yes, when we get the new shipment where should I display them?” Her: “Okay, when I ask you if you have any questions, that’s what I meant. You need to ask me right away. (Because I had to think about it)

 

• Her: (barely audible noise facing away from me which I didn’t really hear and assumed she wasn’t talking to me) Her again: “HEY. I’M TALKING TO YOU. YOU NEED TO ANSWER ME AND NOT IGNORE ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU. LOOK AT ME. ARE YOU JUST GOING TO IGNORE ME? IS THAT HOW IT’S GOING TO BE?”

 

• “Say yes if you understand me.”

After 4 months she FINALLY got demoted from manager, in what was called “a huge mistake in judgement putting her in charge.” She then had the nerve to come in to work and tell everyone that she had actually “stepped down”, even though we were all aware of what actually happened.

Got your own personal megalomaniac boss? Share your story in the comment section, or email denised (@) reallybadboss (dot) com.

If only I had her lyrical stylings…