Over the course of my career I’ve been asked to do an array of questionable things. Most were just plain stupid, some were sexist, but none were outright illegal. So what do you do when your job description requires you to report violations but your boss wants you to cover them up? Here’s part one of a true-to-life, really bad boss story submitted by a reader who’s facing this dilemma.

My boss required me to go to compliance training. The compliance training stated that I was required to report violations or else I would be committing a violation myself. The violations I reported were committed by my boss (and she escaped punishment by lying), and now I am on her hit list.

She is currently in the process of isolating me. She is telling everyone that I report every mistake that they make and some refuse to speak to me because of it. (Of course, mistakes and violations of the law are two entirely different things, but this is lost on my boss.) She has had another employee ask me “as a favor” to do something that is violation of privacy policies and I have refused. She assigned me to a task (through the employee who normally performs this function) that would have required I stretch the truth to satisfy the customer (who was a different employee in my department). I did not stretch the truth, then my boss redid the assignment with the truth stretched. This employee was very upset with me and had special favor with my boss for a few days, but, now that she is over her anger, she is no longer my boss’s favorite.

My boss has promoted the office gossip because she knows of sneaky ways to irritate people, including tampering with my phone and computer. I have two people I can confide in at work, one my boss knows about and one she is trying to flush out. The one my boss knows about has told me that the last person who confided in her about my boss got fired, and she does not want that to happen to me, so she is backing away.

Not only is this guy faced with an a** of a boss but one who’s bullying him into breaking the law. Any thoughts on the best way to handle this situation? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Wednesday: Part Two – Finding a bright spot

On Monday I introduced you to the Reprobate. Today you meet another group of incompetent, power hungry blowhards. This group of “managers” insisted on a no-snack policy and used surprise pantyhose checks and clandestine trashcan searches as their WMDs – weapons of morale destruction.

One of my previous employers had a no eating at the desk rule.  Since no one likes to call a business and be greeted with the sounds of a customer service rep polishing off the remains of her barbeque chicken and rib combo, I had no problem with the rule.  It made sense…for the employees whose job it was to answer the phones.    For the rest of us, it felt like just another rule that 1) penalized all employees for the unprofessional behavior of a handful and, 2) reminded us that we were being managed by people who had nothing better to do than spy on the contents of employees’ trashcans.

Each morning and afternoon, managers took turns walking down the cubicle lined aisles, peeking into trashcans for any sign of unauthorized snack consumption. Being a government agency with precise, militarily timed breaks of 15 minutes each, if you happened to be hungry at any other time than 11:15 am and 2:15 pm every day, you were stuck in a snackless hell.  So, as adults who are treated like children often do, we disregarded the rule and with childlike fervor became adept at sneaking snacks into our work areas, masking our defiance and coming to the aid of fellow snack bandits with perfectly orchestrated hand signals and turret like outbursts.

It was in the midst of a particularly harrowing snack sneaking session, in which I had been balancing a bag of potato chips on my knees while tapping out Morse code signals and flashing gang signs to fellow colleagues, that it dawned on me that I was an intelligent, talented adult, and not, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, a five year old. How had it come to this? How had I allowed snack espionage to become the highlight of my day?

Which brings me to my point.  When you routinely treat adults like children, they begin acting like them.  There are managers that will argue that if employees just did what they were supposed to, management wouldn’t need to create silly rules in the first place.  I agree that there are some employees (like the one in our office who tried to eat an entire pizza at her desk) who just don’t get it, and never will.  But we didn’t hire them, you did.

You can read the rest of my snackless hell story here. And if you’ve got a great “I’m so glad you’re no longer my boss” story, email it to denised(@)reallybadboss.com.

This week most Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way, with turkey, football and family, reflecting on the things they’re most grateful for. Here at Reallybadboss.com we’ve got a lot to be thankful for too. Specifically we’re thankful that the jerks in the stories we’ll be sharing this week aren’t our bosses. These stories remind the rest of us that as bad as we have it, it could be worse. I thought I’d ring in the season with a few of my own bad boss stories, starting with my very first really bad boss.

For years I wasted entire Sundays absolutely dreading Monday mornings.   The uneasy feeling would start to creep in on Saturday night, and by Sunday evening, I was a basket case.  For many of us Monday spells the end of the weekend, the start of the work week and a return to a real tool of a boss.  For two years I endured a verbally abusive boss (I fondly refer to him now as the Reprobate) who ran around cursing at the top of his lungs and leering at the women in the office.

The company made beauty aids, including a “bikini bump” soother. Once he asked one of the young women in the office to be the “bikini bump” product model. Of course she knew this meant wearing a bikini to the photo shoot. She didn’t realize it entailed wearing one to the office and having The Reprobate and his spawn ogle her while she “gave them an idea” of what the shoot would look like. She did it. We all were there and none of us protested. We didn’t talk to HR – because there was none. And we certainly didn’t contact the EEOC. We put up with it and we stayed. I stayed because it was my first job out of college and, fresh out of school, I wasn’t aware of my rights. The other women in the office probably felt the same way – afraid of losing their jobs.

So I put up with it.  And while putting up with it, I learned some really valuable lessons. I learned I was stronger and smarter than I had given myself credit for. The Reprobate sent me from city to city to check on products without a plan or clearly defined purpose. He would bark out a command that I go visit a drug chain in some remote city out west, and I’d be gone on literally, a wing and a prayer. In those pre-GPS days, I would get off the plane, rent a car, get a map and sometimes 10 hours later end up back at my hotel room, tired and angry, but done. I told myself every day, “this is the worst job I’ll ever have”, and I meant it. I’ve never again put up with that type of abuse and I’ve turned every bad boss situation I’ve had since then into a learning experience.

Wednesday: Another real-life, really bad boss tale

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• Are the new TSA pat-downs more like rub-downs?

• Need a boss personality type manual? Check this out at The Sydney Morning Herald.

• Does your boss display Jekyll and Hyde tendencies? Yes? Read on.

• My favorite bad boss post title ever in the history of bad boss post titles: Bitchslapping Narcissus: 9 keys to surviving a bad boss. And the post is pretty great too.

• And check out our own real life, really bad boss tale from a reader here.

He also blamed her for misplacing a letter that was in his briefcase the entire time and lectured her about her “weight problem.” It’s real life, it’s really bad, and it’s another really bad boss tale submitted by a reader…

Four and a half months ago I left an ugly and unproductive work environment and even accepted a pay cut in my new position just to get away from an egotistical boss with small man syndrome. Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire! After months of bipolar style ups and downs in our working relationship, my boss fired me last night since I refused to quit. He asked me to finish out the week so I could appropriately hand off all my pending work. This morning when I came in he asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee and proceeded to tell me that he’s willing to overlook the conversation (WHEN HE FIRED ME) yesterday and move on from here.

A bit of background… I am a seasoned professional that actually knows a lot more than my boss about the products he sells. I was previously an account manager but took this assistant position with the understanding that I would eventually be an associate. I also accepted the position based on having health insurance after three months.

Shortly after my employment, the temper tantrums from my 62 year old boss began. He likes to tell me frequently that I should not do things “my way” and that I need to consult him on everything because these are not my clients, they are his. Yet, if I consult him too much he gets grumpy and tells me he hired me for my expertise so he shouldn’t have to answer all my questions. One hissy fit was so bad that I actually teared up a bit. I’m not talking racking sobs, I’m talking eyes welling only. He sent me to the bathroom to calm myself down and waited til the next day to berate me for my “unprofessional demeanor” and for making him look like a meanie to the rest of the office. So far I have managed to successfully avoid so much as the slightest sign of human feelings, even through the lecture about my “weight problem” and how I’m a “beautiful girl” so I shouldn’t let it bring my self esteem down if my “husband doesn’t mind” me the way I am.

I am frequently blamed for things outside my control. On one occasion, he chastised me for losing a letter from a client that he gave to me. He could not tell me when he gave it to me, but insisted that I lost it and that was simply unacceptable. Fast forward two hours of storming around and yelling at me and he discovered the letter was written TWO YEARS before I came to work for him and HE had it in his briefcase ALL ALONG.

So now I sit here debating my sparse options, unable to quit because the economy is rotten and I have a family depending on my paycheck. At least if he’d stuck with his impetuous firing yesterday I would have received unemployment benefits to tide me over until I find a new position. Instead I am being forced to swallow my pride and integrity yet again and accept his offer to “move on”. What I wouldn’t give to be able to tell him off or at the very least, get some of my dignity back by being able to walk away.

If you’ve got any words of wisdom or encouragement for our reader, or if you’ve been in a similar position yourself, share your story in the comment section, or email me at denised(@)reallybadboss.com. (Leave out the parenthesis)

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• Can talking smack about your bad boss on Facebook be grounds for termination? Yup – free speech is not always free.

• Want a great workplace? Try respecting your employees.

• I love discovering new blogs, especially when they’re across the ocean. Why? Because it’s proof bad bosses know how to swim. In Sigh, If Only Toxic Workplaces Came With A Warning, this anonymous Singaporean blogger shares her personal tale of a toxic workplace. Check out this well written piece and become a follower -We need to show solidarity with our fellow bad boss sufferers!

• This would be funny if it wasn’t true – The Micromanager.

• Open mouth, insert fool (not a typo) – my failed communications with a former bad boss.

The absolutely true tales of my efforts to return to the 9-5.

When last we met, I was poised to re-enter the workforce. Armed with positive vibes, great credentials and a clearance COACH bag full of enthusiasm, I began sending off inspired cover letters and resumes tweaked to within an inch of their lives. As of this writing, I’ve been contacted by a former employer who I’m certain was the inspiration for the expression, “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”

I’ve been negotiating with him for over a week now to agree on my rates and the amount of hours his project would require each month. Talking to this man is like talking to a bag of flour – useful if you’re making biscuits but not so much if you want intelligent conversation. We’ll call him Bob.

Bob was supposed to call me on Monday night to finalize my project hours for the week. This was after having a circular conversation with him on Monday which consisted of him asking “So, you can’t come in today?” and me responding “No, Bob, I can’t come in today.” I proceeded to explain in detail that I was working on several other projects and that Bob couldn’t expect me to drop everything at a moment’s notice. At the end of my five minute explanation, Bob says, “So, you can’t come in today?” *Sigh* We ended the conversation with Bob promising to call me Monday when he’d pinned down my schedule and agreed to my rates.

The next time I heard from Bob was at 7:08 this morning (Wednesday). He called and left a message on my cell phone marked “urgent.” Bob was “calling to confirm that you’ll be in the office at 9:00am this morning.”  *Sighs*

God help me.

I’ve decided to communicate with Bob in writing. That way there’s less chance of misunderstandings, right? Right? *Long sigh*