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Weirdest boss you have had and why? (Bit of fun - let's see how times have changed)

Lisa

Hi everyone

Thought it would be a bit of fun to see if any of you have been unfortunate enough to have a weird/bad boss in the past.

One of mine (yeah, I've had a few) was in the early 90s.  Just after getting the job, I was speaking to the accountant who said to me (and I quote) "You know why he took you on over the others he interviewed?  He said last time he took on the girl with the biggest t**s and it didn't work out so this time he said he picked the one with the biggest smile".

I have to say, I couldn't wait to get out of there.  Thankfully, the decision was taken out of my hands after he had a major scuffle in reception with a director from another company and the following day we went into administration and were made redundant.

Let's hear your bad boss stories

Lisa

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  • Hi Lisa

    I find it quite striking that a thread you started as a bit of fun has elicited a number of replies from women that range from the everyday sexism of senior males expecting junior women to wait on them through to what sounds to me like fairly serious sexual harassment. Some people have made it clear that the behaviour occurred some time ago but it makes me wonder how many working women are still putting up with sexism as part of being at work.

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  • Hi Lisa

    I find it quite striking that a thread you started as a bit of fun has elicited a number of replies from women that range from the everyday sexism of senior males expecting junior women to wait on them through to what sounds to me like fairly serious sexual harassment. Some people have made it clear that the behaviour occurred some time ago but it makes me wonder how many working women are still putting up with sexism as part of being at work.

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  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    Hi Elizabeth

    I agree. I have more tales but they are literally too shocking to post here....and yes, they are recent.

    Lisa
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    I was thinking the same - this has almost become a #MeToo thread!
  • in reply to Lesley
    If it was a MeToo thread, , I wonder whether there would be a reluctance to post?

    I can’t remember the CIPD doing any research on members’ experience of sexual harassment. Perhaps I missed it, but if not, why not? This is real and it’s still happening.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    There was something, as I found myself in print in People Management, however in circumstances I would rather not have been, in talking about a recent incident of harassment. And yes I could have written about many more.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    As an office worker in the late seventies (the decade, not my age!) I was subjected to, quite frankly, appalling sexual harassment on occasions. Like Lisa commented, too shocking to post. I'm sad to say it was the norm then.
  • in reply to Sue Eakin

    I recall once as a youngish HR bod discussing job descriptions / job evaluation with a senior secretary / PA who told me that as PA to a very very senior manager her problem was that he was a (barely) functioning alcoholic and every day when he returned from his mainly liquid long lunch in the exalted senior managers' dining room he was so p*ssed that her main problem and function was to keep him safe and to take all his phone calls and make up appropriate excuses as to why he wasn't available.

    The fellow had burned himself out setting up from nothing and running throughout World War II a major special steelmaking plant without which the British war effort would have been most severely impaired. So even though he by then only functioned in the mornings he was still seriously contributing to managing the place and regarded as a bit of a hero and his 'little problem' was studiously overlooked by everyone.

    Inconceivable now of course, but not then, and it wasn't all that long ago.

    (She commented too that at least he never chased her round his vast office........ - as Shakespeare sagely wrote in a similar but wider context re alcohol: ' it provokes the desire but takes away the performance'.....) -  as in 'the Scottish Play' : Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance; therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery........