Have you ever come across a toxic boss? If not, count yourself lucky. Many people who are in employment suffer in silence because of toxic and mean bosses, and some end up quitting for the sake of their mental health.
Securing a new job is one of the best things. But many only realize it’s not all rosy when they discover they are in a toxic environment. That’s when anxiety and stress kicks in, and many choose their peace of mind over money.
These employees shared their worst stories on Reddit of working for toxic bosses. Some who couldn’t stand them and got fired; others simply quit! Let’s check out what they had to say.
Comments have been edited for grammar and clarity.
1. I Walked Away with a Better Job
u/invisible_23:
Halfway through my two weeks’ notice, I got the flu and tried to call in. The guy told me he would fire me if I didn’t go to work. So I showed up, and he told me I wasn’t being “cheerful enough” for the customers.
So I looked at him, said nothing, grabbed my bag, and walked out the door. At this point, he followed me and threatened to call my new job and tell them I was a terrible employee. I called my new job to give them a heads-up. They said, We don’t care, you’re hired. Feel better, we’ll see you Monday.”
2. Declining a Promotion Led to a Workplace Nightmare
u/norcat: Back in the day, when I was still a retail employee at university, I worked in a gift shop that the owner and a manager ran. The owner was more hands-off and came in occasionally to take care of cash and paperwork, while the manager dealt more with the operation/staff side of things.
The owner loved me because I was young, quick to learn, and only talked back if something was wrong. The manager who hired me loved me, too, because even though she’d see me waste time occasionally, I still got things done in less time than other employees.
Anyway, the manager who hired me left, and the owner asked me if I wanted to take on the position. I declined because I was going to school and wouldn’t make a career out of retail. So, the owner hired another manager. I think a coworker must have told her I was asked to fill the position before she got hired, so my existence threatened her.
Even after all the talk about how I had no desire to be the manager, she would do little nitpicky things to get me to look bad. It was no skin off my back. I did as told and ignored her when she berated me in front of customers, coworkers, etc.
The only time she wasn’t annoying was when the owner was around. Then, she developed some inferiority complex about her lack of post-secondary education and started making snide remarks about how spoiled, entitled, and ignorant university students were.
Still no skin off my back until one day, she scheduled me for a shift when I’d booked it off for exams. I didn’t show up, and she called (in the middle of my exam) to let me know I was fired for a no-show.
The owner tried to fix it and asked me to come back, and I told her that since summer was coming up anyway, it’d be best if I explored other opportunities related to my degree.
3. From an Unsupportive Workplace to a Better Paycheck
u/ArrenPawk:
I asked my bosses if it was possible for me to work from home two days out of the week. I was a copywriter; I could work as long as I had a computer.
They said no and offered no other alternative, assuming that letting me work from home would set a bad precedent for the rest of the company.
The graphic designer on our team worked from home full-time. And if that wasn’t enough, one of the employees in sales had recently moved across the country to Wisconsin and was allowed to work remotely from there.
I quit and ended up with a job that pays $10K more, has full, paid benefits, and, more importantly, a boss who knows what she’s doing.
4. My Toxic Boss Prioritized Work over My Health
u/CrabFarts: My boss repeatedly screamed at me for over an hour. He wanted me to gather information, some online, but we had dial-up, and I wasn’t allowed to tie up the only phone line.
Also, I couldn’t work from home (where we had regular internet access) because the company didn’t trust employees to work from home.
On my last day (though I didn’t know it when I walked in that day), I had a doctor’s appointment, which I had emailed him about, but he claimed never to have gotten it. He’d emailed me about having a meeting the same morning, which I never got.
So when I got there after my appointment, I could tell he was pissed, which is usually a good sign to stay out of his way. Finally, we had one last all-out argument when he apparently couldn’t contain himself any longer. At the end of the argument, he fired me. I’ve never been happier than at my current job.
5. The Violent Boss
u/eyesdown:
It cut its tail open badly once, and rather than call the emergency vet, he brushed white paint over the wound to stop the bleeding. He never walked or gave it any training or toys to play with.
He aggressively backed my little sister up against the wall while working there as a waitress to shout at her for giving too generous cheese portions on a cheese board he had refused to show her how to assemble.
He was in a relationship with the cook and used to be violent towards her, once breaking her wrist in a fight in the kitchen and stealing her handbag so she couldn’t get home. She ultimately got back her bag and drove away with one hand, running his foot over as he tried to stop her.
6. This One Took Advantage of Young Girls
u/calepto: I worked in retail under an awful supervisor a few years back. He would constantly hit on the young girls and treat the young guys like absolute crap when he saw them as a threat to his “game.”
I remember walking back to a project from the bathroom and stopping for only two minutes to chat with a girl I was friends with. As I walked up, he shouted, “Is this the bathroom? No? I didn’t think so.” He proceeded to stare at me until I walked away.
7. Surviving Unfair Treatment
u/kotaacub: First, I’d like to preface this by saying I work for a small yet well-known after-school care program. We have nine staff members total, and everyone is relaxed.
I got hired at 16, and my boss seemed super chill, except for the fact that I have autism and a seizure disorder, and I didn’t like to be in places where a lot of screaming happens.
I’d worked there for two and a half years without an issue, other than this guy telling me repeatedly that I was not suited for this job and should find another one, constantly favoring his male coworkers over the females.
(There was another member of staff who had Tourette syndrome. He got to take breaks whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted, where I had to fight for a five-minute break after I’d had a seizure)
Anyway, I got hired on for the summer to work in the lunchroom, and the guy started coming in with a megaphone and yelling into it to get the kids to scream, knowing I could not handle loud noises.
I was also required to move equipment myself; even our stronger members could only move with assistance. I got written up when I had a meltdown or asked for help moving the equipment.
Also, after he quit suddenly and we got our great new boss, we found out he refused to let someone leave. When she had come to him to hand in her two weeks’ notice, he wouldn’t take it and told her he would bad mouth her to everyone who called him if she left.
8. She Acted Friendly to Others and Mean to Me
u/sowhatsoplenty: A few years ago, I got a job as a bartender for a restaurant. I started my first day and met a new guy who was also hired. I got there and was sent upstairs to be a waitress.
I’ve never waitressed before; I applied to be a bartender. The new guy has never worked behind a bar and has waiting experience but is told to go behind the bar.
There are two managers; the one who hired me wasn’t there, so I asked the other. She tells me that the girls work as waitresses and the guys as bartenders.
I was a bit annoyed but figured the other manager would fix it when he was there (he didn’t)! Anyway, I learned waitressing was not for me.
I’m terrible at it! The female manager was getting so frustrated with me, making me more flustered and worse at my job because she constantly shouted at me over my shoulder.
Meanwhile, the guy at the bar who’s never poured a pint before is left alone and making mistakes, and she’s also shouting at him. One night, he was left alone, and a group came in and asked for mojitos. He wasn’t taught how to make them and had no drink guides, so I jumped on the bar and helped him.
As I’m helping him, the manager spots me behind the bar, loses the plot, and starts screaming at me in front of everyone; it is degrading.
What made it worse was that everybody else working there loved her, and she’d invite everyone to parties in front of me and be nicey nicey to everyone. I was fired by the manager, whom I’d never seen, because of the feedback from the female manager.
9. The worst boss ever
Deleted user: My coworker Mary always worked an extra 15-30 hours a month, making everyone’s life easier. She’s the kindest soul, a real angel. Her drive? Supporting her three kids after her husband left her.
Yesterday, for the first time in years, she was late to work… by a whole two hours! Her eyes were red, she looked shattered (clearly cried all night). Our entire office was comforting her, and then our boss, John, walks in.
John: “HOW COULD YOU BE TWO HOURS LATE?! I’M ISSUING YOU A WARNING! ONE MORE TIME AND YOU’RE FIRED!” The whole office was in shock! Such unfairness!
But then,Mary stands up and says to John, “HOW DARE YOU, YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL I WAS LATE BECAUSE YOU left me and our children and offer no help.
I have to take them to school, do the laundry, clean, and cook all by myself! I’m forced to work more just to make ends meet.(We were all shocked. Nobody had any idea that John was her ex-husband who had abandoned her.)
10. The Confused and Unfit Boss
u/[deleted]: I had a boss who constantly gave wildly conflicting instructions. We’d all do something the first way; then, she would get angry and tell us to do it differently.
She’d insist we ask questions if we had any, and then she would get angry when we did ask questions. Then, we would get instructions from managers above her on how to do something new, and she would instruct us to do the exact opposite.
That lasted until her managers would tell her to tell us we were doing it wrong, so she’d yell at us for messing up and ask us to do it the original way again.
Then, every Friday, she would give us an hour-long speech about what a horrible job we were all doing, and then she’d keep firing people until she found the team she wanted.
She would follow that up with how much she loved and respected us. The following Monday, we’d find that she fired ten people over the weekend.
This lasted for two months before she was removed from the project by her superiors, who realized she was not suitable for the position.
11. Unsympathetic Supervisor
u/[deleted]: One of many was when I informed my supervisor that I had received news that my grandfather passed away that morning. For months, I had told my supervisor of my grandfather’s health conditions.
So, news of him passing away shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise. I asked for the next few days off to help with arrangements and to be with my family. My supervisor says, “Why? They’re not burying him tomorrow. ”
I responded, “It doesn’t matter if he is buried tomorrow or not; my family needs me.” Thankfully, I’m no longer at that job. I’ve had other terrible supervisors from various jobs, but that still sticks out.
12. Battling Bias with a Hostile Boss
u/[deleted]: I worked at a Scout Camp a few years back, and I had a director who, from day one, had it out for me. The first day, he told me to put my stuff in a cabin that didn’t exist, then yelled at me when I wasn’t unpacked an hour later.
Then, later in the summer, he decided that he was unsatisfied with my ability to run, so he woke me up before the crack of dawn, sent me out to the mile-long parking lot, and told me to start running laps and only stop when he told me to.
He stuck around for about twenty minutes, told me that if I stopped while he was gone, I would get a write-up, and then left for breakfast.
I kept struggling up and down that hill for three hours and was only relieved of my dangerous punishment after one of my other directors pulled up in his truck and asked why I wasn’t at my program area.
Then, later in the summer, he wrote me up for being groggy and unenthusiastic at breakfast, then wrote me up again a week later for “leaving the camp without signing out” even though I had been in my cabin all night.
And then, at the end of summer, he decided that he never wanted to see my face ever again and tried to blacklist me for allegedly smoking pot on the reservation, even though I had spent my entire night in my cabin reading a book.
When they sent him to direct another camp, and my blacklisting mysteriously was reneged. The guy never got a word of reprimand for it, and I swear that if I ever see him out in public, I will punch him in the back of the head.
13. Karma Hits Back
Deleted user: So, I’m 66 and have been with this company for 30 years. Then, I got seriously sick. Boss: “Prove you’re sick.” I send him my diagnosis and doctor’s note.
Boss: “YOU’RE LYING! Get to the office now.” Me: “Can’t, doc advised rest and staying home.” Boss: “Then you’re fired. Come in later to sign your termination papers.”
Me: “But I’m just 5 months away from retirement, don’t do this!” Boss: “Don’t care, you’re fired. Come and sign the termination letter.”
Me: “Hmm.. Okay.. Wait for it.. Be ready..” 5 days later, I wake up to 30 missed calls from my boss. I call back.Boss (panicked): “TAKE IT BACK, OUR COMPANY NEVER DID THAT!!!I laughed and said, “Oops… looks like someone anonymously sent a letter to the police with all the evidence of your shady dealings…”
Boss: “TAKE IT BACK! IMMEDIATELY!!!” Me: “No way! Should’ve thought twice before treating me like that!” Ten days later, the boss got fired, I was reinstated, and all my colleagues kept their jobs. KARMA HITS BACK!
BONUS. The Perfectionist Boss
u/speechlesspoetry: I worked as a receptionist for a couple of months, and if one thing was out of place in the entire lobby, my boss would yell at me.
She would do this repeatedly, and I never understood why. Sometimes, when things were out of place in the lobby, I didn’t have the energy to get up and fix it, and she kept saying I was wasting money.
One week, I grabbed chairs and purposely messed them up, tip over trash cans with small amounts of garbage, and so on. That week, I got paid $80 less.
I checked all my checks and realized that the more the lobby was messed up, the less I got paid. Once I confronted her about it and she gave me the money back. She was so petty and rude.
Irrespective of our ranks, every human needs to be treated with respect. Plus, treating someone badly doesn’t make you feel any better. In any case, a toxic work environment only lowers employees’ productivity and performance, which equates to low revenue for the company. But a healthy workplace means a happy employee, a satisfied customer, and better business.
