When I was 16 and in high school I worked for a fast food restaurant.
One day about 10 minutes before my shift ended, I was ringing up an
order and someone came running in yelling at me, then slid over the
counter, put a gun to my head, and demanded I open the register for
him. An assistant manager and I were the only ones up front and she
came over and opened it for him, with him now pointing the gun at
both of us. After banging me in the head with the gun, he grabbed a
handful of money and ran out. The next day the manager called a
meeting to discuss with everyone what happened. This asshole said in
front of everyone that it should have been handled better
because I didn’t ask him if he wanted anything with it!? Like fries
or a drink…what?? Why would I do that and what would that
accomplish?! He doesn’t say anything about the gun to my head and the
fact that I didn’t panic and no one was hurt. Jerk!

The upside was the moron who robbed us did it in broad daylight and
was follwed by a customer, who witnessed the whole thing, to an
apartment complex next door where he lived. He ended up getting
arrested for robbery AND assault for hitting me in the head. Ha!
Crime doesn’t pay and neither does working for stupid people.

The summer between my Jr. and Sr. year of high school, I took a job
working as a desk clerk in a local hotel. My boss was the manager,
and her husband was the maintenance man. These people also had 6
foster children living with them. Imagine my horror when I realized
they were bringing the kids in to clean rooms and fold laundry! Only
ONE of them was old enough to have a job, and none of them were on
the payroll. This wasn’t a “family run” business, this was a national
hotel chain. The reward at the end of the day was getting to swim in
the hotel pool. I’m all for kids learning responsibility and working,
but these were little kids putting in a full day’s work for a swim!
After realizing this “foster home” was just a cover for child slave
labor, I made an anonymous phone call to children’s services, then
gave my notice.

Our group was fairly informal in setting and dress, but always very
professional in demeanor. I was surprised then when during a status
meeting with me, my boss announced that she would be out for a week
because she was having breast reduction surgery.

I’m a pretty laid back guy, so I rolled with it and tried to steer
the conversation back to our business at hand. She persisted,
however, sharing details of the surgery including how it would be
done and – this is the best part – DREW WHERE THE INCISIONS WOULD BE
MADE ON HER BREASTS. In my office. With the door open.

I’m pretty sure she had borderline personality disorder and was
unmedicated. Working for her was like working in a really mean, scary
fun house.

When I was 16, I worked in a fast food pizza buffet place during the
summer. I didn’t really have massive issues with my boss for the most
part except for his continuing stares at me. One day, I was feeling
really ill so I arranged for my best friend to take over my shift and
to come in the next day. The boss agreed and I left. The next day I
was feeling slightly better so I went into work thinking that at the
most I was just not going to feel well. About two hours into my shift,
I begged my manager to let me go home. He refused. So, in front of a
restaurant full of people eating, an hour later, I start running to
the bathroom but end up vomiting into a trash can. I handle their
food. A lot of people left when they realized that my boss still
wouldn’t let me go home. How gross is that! I was really glad when I
never had to go into that place again.

Years ago I was working in a dog grooming shop. That boss was a nice
enough person except she had some unrealistic expectations! Being a
small business owner, she wanted as much profit as she could take in.
Each day after a shift of washing dogs and cutting their hair, things
needed to be cleaned up. I always worked as fast and hard as I could,
but it’s hard to do several hours worth of work when you are only
allowed 30 minutes to do it, as proven one particular weekend.

I came in to work after the weekend, and to me she said “I’m sorry to
do this, but I’m going to have to let you go. I was here for 6 hours
this weekend cleaning!”. Lets see.. I worked 4 days per week, we ONLY
allowed 30 minutes for cleaning and not a minute more because she
didn’t want to give me an additional $6/hr or whatever low wage it
was to do the detailed job things required, but was upset with me? I
guess my superhuman powers failed me when I could not do in 2 hours
time (total for the week) in what she claimed took her 6.

To my own credit, several years later she asked for me to come back.
Here is where more crazy comes in – she called my (new)boss and
begged for me back! It was a few years later that “crazy boss”
realized what she had lost after turning over many employees, none of
who ever lasted as long as myself. “Crazy boss” was disappointed when
new boss refused to give me up. “New boss” and I had some good laughs
about that one, especially since I had disclosed the truth about why I
was no longer working for crazy boss.

Now, over a decade later, ironically, we are all now friends. “Crazy
boss” is actually great as a person, was just horrible and not
capable of being a good employer/boss as described above.

I was a manager of a tanning salon and one afternoon myself and my
coworkers noticed a horrible smell coming from one of the back rooms.
I assumed someone had just farted. So we got the air freshener and
sprayed the hallways. About 20 minutes later one of my employees came
up to me and said “You need to see this.”

I went into one of the rooms and this woman had pooped ALL over the
tanning bed, the floor, peed on the rug and wiped with the
complimentary towel and thrown it behind the bed. No one could enter
the room without gagging. We spent 30 minutes cleaning up shit with
garbage bags and gloves and sterilizing with bleach.

I called my district manager and told her about the incident and
that I had banned this lady from the salon and she basically scolded
me, said I was being dramatic and said “Now that’s taking
it to the extreme.”