by Martha Leonard

Created on: August 05, 2006   Last Updated: September 03, 2009

For the most part of my working life, I had good bosses. I have a lot of respect and sympathy for people who are supervisors. There are a lot of headaches that come with the job. There are probably more bad employees than bosses. A bad boss, however, can sour employees for the company and even for working. I had a few of those.

The absolute worst boss I ever had was the "Know it all." The trouble was, he didn't. Maybe he felt he had to be that way because he was the boss, but it sure drove me nuts. I actually had much more experience than him in several specified areas. He came to our office from another area and was in the process of learnimg our particular specialties. He would never admit that he didn't know something and would not listen when I would try to explain something. He insisted on doing things his way. I guess he could have been a control freak, too. I never did learn how to work with him, so I have no advice on how to handle that kind of person. The one thing I would say is never go over that boss' head. That is unforgivable. On one occasion I knew he was about to make a mistake that would result in major problems. Since he wouldn't listen to me, I consulted with our main office. I confirmed my information and advised them to call our office and offer some suggestions. I did not mention any names. They called, he listened and the mistake was avoided.

He knew what I had done when he got the phone call. After that he made life miserable for me. He gave me the worst assignments, went over all my work with a fine tooth comb, actually yelled at me when he found mistakes, listened in on my phone calls and put me down in front of my coworkers whenever possible. Prior to his arrival, I had won several performance awards for my work. I endured him for almost a year, but finally had to quit for my own sanity. I heard later he was fired because he made so many mistakes (in the area we had our differences over!) By the way, I was not the only one that ticked him off. He filed an EEO complaint against his boss!

The weirdest boss I ever had was a nice guy, but he wanted me to read his mind. He talked to himself constantly. That would have been okay, but he must have thought he was talking to me. He would start talking to me in the middle of his conversation, incorrectly assuming I knew the conversation from the beginning. Sometimes he would ask me when I would finish certain assignments he had never given me or start discussing solutions to problems I wasn't

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