What's the worst or most offensive thing a boss/supervisor has ever done/said to you?

I was a young seaman in the Navy who worked in a shop of pretty rough guys. They masked it behind just joking around, but they would call people names and physically assault people in a rough/playful manner. Sometimes it hurt, though.

No one said anything because no one wanted to be a snitch. One time I was working below the ship painting the bottom (I was in a small boat in the water next to the ship). My supervisors above me on the ship made a noose and tried to lower it onto my head from above. I was just blown away that they did that.

I ran a frame shop in a glass company many years ago. The owner was an alcoholic. He would throw pieces of 2×4 at us if he had a problem with you (or was just in a mood). I got a hit a few times. We had more than a few screaming matches. Also, the shop I was in had no windows or ventilation. Easily got past 100 degrees in the Summer. I foolishly, stayed there for two years as I was saving to get married.

I was told by co-workers my boss, the owner of the company, had a little thing he’d say to people when he was working with them and they didn’t get what he told them the first time. I heard him use the phrase said directly to co-workers and they didn’t bat an eye. I was young and a very hardworking, enthusiastic, new employee. He called me into his office one day and asked me how things were going and how I liked working there. I took advantage of the situation and told him I didn’t like him cussing around me and I understood that it wasn’t offensive to everyone, but it was offensive when it was directed at me in a conversation.

He reared back and smiled trying to cover his anger and shock that he’d be talked to like I was talking to him and asked if there was anything else. I said that I’d heard him throw around a pretty racist remark that would get him in real trouble with me if I heard it again. He told me he was busy and thanks for the talk. Within a week, he had to ask me how I had done part of my job. He couldn’t follow what I was saying and had to ask me a few more times. Stopping my work for the last time to answer him, I yelled across the room, “Mr. Rasnick, listen and listen closely. I’m going to explain it until a third grader can understand it.” He looked at me and smiled and said he got the point.

I had turned his horrible catch phrase, “I’ll explain it so a third grade (racial epithet) can understand it,” around. He never used it in front of me again. He was an evil vile man. I worked for a few other despicable people. I’m so mad just thinking about Mr. Rasnick…I could spit.

I once had a boss tell me that I had gone as far as I could go in the company because the “real” business was done in the men’s room, and I couldn’t go in there.

Wow at all of these. :/

Oh lord, I worked in a large import/export co. for 3 years once with a psycho chinese boss.
This woman was truly a nut. Very savvy biz. woman but a personal nightmare to work for.
Her classic mind fuck games would be giving me projects, collection accounts, ( I handled the accounts receivable, net 30 accts. and all the international customer service for the company) telling me what she wanted done, and then, often, within the same hour she would come by my desk and ask me what I was doing and then proceed to say ” No, no, no, you should be doing this!” WTF!

It was like she had no recollection of what she had JUST put me on task for!!!
The final straw was when she brought her son into the company and they fought like cats and dogs, I literally had to RUN and HIDE from their outbursts when I was on the phone with a customer!
I don’t know HOW I stuck it out for 3 years, I really, genuinely LOVED my customers, and they me, infact, at one point she brought in a new customer service rep and lot of our clients refused to deal with her and wanted me.

When I told many of our clients I would be leaving, many said they would not be buying from the company any more, they loved our products but could not stand dealing with the owner. I’m sure she lost a goodly amount of biz. when I threw in the towel.

I worked for an arrogant manager who had little respect for his employees… myself included. I was his boss’s Admin. Asst.

We had to compose our own portion of our performance reviews and unfortunately, I had to turn mine in to him since my boss was out of town.

When I met with him about it .. he said my review was “Surprisingly good!”.

Talk about a back handed compliment.

Looked like he expected me to do a bad job… not a very empowering way for a manager to act.

He asked if I wanted to go out to lunch to discuss it. I told him “No thanks!” You should have seen his face… lol

I had a boss who used to call me “fag” in front of customers and other employees. He would scream at me and threaten to fire me pretty much every day, usually in front of customers as well. He wrote me up once for the register being off by a single penny and chewed my little 17 year old ass out in his office for it telling me he’d make sure that every employer I ever approached would know “what a fag fuckup” I am. I was the only employee he ever did this to.

After I quit work to go to college, someone pointed out to me that he only hired boys my age instead of more qualified adults or girls and women. He then allegedly stole $5000 worth of merchandise from the company and fled to another state to live with a 19 year old man who was his lover all along. Someone was obviously insecure with himself.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard

Seriously? OMG! Yep, nothing like abusive bosses, that is just unbelievable!

@Coloma yep. He was a real douchecanoe.

To this day I often parrot my old bosses words and her chinese accent…her classic phrase was to say ” Understan? Purdy simple!” Still makes me laugh, I also can never know a woman named ” Vicki” one of my co-workers without wanting to call them “WICKI.” lol

“Wicki” and I are still friends.

I had a male boss in an accounting firm(when I was 12 till 17 years old, and I’m a guy) who would grab my ass and tell me to “bend over, sweetheart” when ever people just got out of sight. He constantly told me that I am not as stupid as I look. He would also joke about raping me to my face. He even did all of them at once in front of my family, at a Christmas party, and they didn’t belive me (or didn’t care)... I had no where to turn until I turned 18 (and finished my high school) and moved in with my mother in another city and took minimum wage jobs. The man was my father. The family later explained that they were trying to toughen me up. I haven’t spoken to him (or the family in the room at the time) in a decade and never will ever again.

I had a boss who sexually harrassed me. He sent me “blonde jokes” about women’s boobs. And he’d email me from his office to ask me if the person waiting to see him was “hot.”

Then he made a couple of advances at me, and started a rumor that we’d slept together (eww, ick, NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS!). I was married at the time, and it lead to a pretty ugly confrontation at work. I was horribly stressed – not eating or sleeping and crying at night.

After that he decided to restructure my job, pretty much doubling my work load.

I gave my two week notice and left. I did not use him as a reference, either.

You mean like my famous boss from hell, who tried to get me fired, tried to run me off the road, threatened to kill me, pulled a knife on me, and did everything he could to make my life bad after he raped the coworker, took pictures of himself doing it, and showed the pictures to the crew?
Is that the kind of thing you’re asking about?

A CO who said “Goddamn it Josie, you are the kind of guy that if somebody says the burner on the stove is hot, you have to go put your fucking hand on it!” I felt sort of bad about that at the time. But the truth is, it’s true.

I was having a go with one particular employee who was being abusive as hell to me and I complained to my super after it had gotten far enough. Because of political considerations there was not much the Co. was prepared to do, so….the guy (super) just told me to “watch my ass” out there. WTF? Basically I was on my own with this guy. There is not enough money to make it worth working like that.

I worked at a screenprinting shop for a few months. Mostly my job was folding and packing shirts when they were finished. I asked the boss at one point where this one particular box was to go. He says, if you don’t understand, then fuck off.

It’s precisely what I did lol.

I would have slapped that fucker.

My bitch of a boss fired me the day after I told her I was pregnant, and she came up with some bullshit excuse about why she was firing me. But we all knew it was because I was pregnant.

In my first job after leaving school my boss was an utter twat. Once, in a temper (not with me, just generally) he through a big accounting calculator at the wall and it only just missed my head. He had serious issues and I was shit scared of him.

I’m too late to edit it now but that meant to say threw the calculator at the wall.