The truth is some managers or bosses of yours will be great, while others will make you scratch your head wondering how they got their job in the first place.
I'm always curious to hear about people's experiences with the latter — so I turned to the BuzzFeed Community and asked for people to share some of the most embarrassing, cringeworthy things their higher ups have said or done. Here are some of the responses.
1. "On a Friday during my first year teaching at a new private school, my head-of-school knocked on my door (I had a room full of kids), and in his hand he had a bottle of margarita mix and tequila. When I opened my door, he exclaims 'happy Friday!' I just looked embarrassed and tried to motion with my eyes that I had a class. I awkwardly smiled and said thanks. Once I shut the door, I awkwardly walked to my desk and tucked the drinks away while my entire class watched."
2. "I had a boss who HATED females. She would tell clients and customers on the phone how not to deal with me because I was 'too emotional.' She also pulled me outside in the dead of winter one year and asked why I hated her...out of nowhere. I've never seen someone in charge use their authority to instill such fear."
3. "I was about halfway through a pregnancy when the head of my municipal department looked me up and down and said 'You finally look like you're pregnant.' I've been overweight for as long as she's known me, but seriously? I'll never forgive her for that."
4. "My boss asked me if I was on my period. Like in the way that that must be the reason I had said whatever she didn’t like."
5. "When I worked at The Gap, the manager (a fortysomething-year-old man) would always 'Welcome us to the day' in a singsong-y voice. He also claimed to have gotten tipsy off of rum cake."
6. "A former boss would scream at us for petty reasons, mess up orders but blame it on others, and flirt very awkwardly with the lady customers."
7. "I had a manager who would follow me to the bathroom and would pick the stall next to mine and then give me orders while I was trying to pee. I'm having me time...could you not wait three minutes?!"
8. I worked in a salon for about 10 years. My boss was a woman my mother's age, which was not awkward itself. What *was* awkward was when the AC wasn't working for about a week one summer and she came up to me to say, 'I hate sweating unless I'm working out or having sex.' When I gave her a weird look, she repeated it."
9. "I worked at a cosmetics counter for a major retailer as a counter manager. The store manager approached another employee at the counter one day and informed her that she wasn’t allowed to come in with wet hair. Her hair wasn’t wet. It was so greasy because she had poor hygiene. I had to explain this to him and he literally refused to understand what I was saying."
10. "My old boss (a lawyer at a wealth management firm) came up to me at my desk to tell me he didn't want his son to come with him on a trip to Texas to show him college campuses because he wanted to have lots of sex with his wife. GAG."
11. "An HR manager came to tell me all about another coworker's recent medical procedure. The coworker got Botox and the HR manager was making fun of her and telling everyone. Not cool! I also confided in her that I had a recent traumatic event and she told me she wouldn’t tell anyone and that it was my information to share. A coworker came up to me later that day and asked if I was OK, stating that my boss told her what I had been through."
12. "My old VP of sales used to always ask the women that reported to him if they were a 'bad girl' over the weekend. When we reported him, it was brushed off as, 'Oh yeah, he does that — just try to avoid him.'"
13. "I used to work for a very popular Italian restaurant. I did to-go orders for a while and if you were the closer, you would close alone with the manager in their office to do all the money stuff (like bank bag counts)."
14. "I worked for a director who would eat any food that was left in the communal refrigerator. He literally did not care that someone else had brought it and that was their only food for the day. He once ate leftover lobster that someone had brought in from a super-fancy dinner. He would always say, 'If they didn't want me to eat it, they shouldn't have put it in the refrigerator.'"
15. "I had a supervisor a couple years ago who was an absolute nightmare. She was nearly 10 years younger than me, had no sense of boundaries with the people she supervised, and was basically trying to force us all to be friends with her. She’d come into our work area and just shove her phone in our faces — showing us photos of her son — and would stand there for an hour chatting while we were all trying to get work done. No leadership abilities whatsoever, six employees transferred out of her supervision in two years."
16. "My father had been transferred to hospice after a serious illness and was in the final stages of dying. My boss asked me if it was 'really necessary for me to be there because if he was unconscious he probably wouldn't even know that I was there.' Somehow, she STILL has a job and is unfortunately STILL my boss."
—Anonymous
17. "My boss told me I looked like his favorite porn star. 🤮"
18. "I once had a boss who would sit at his desk in our very open office and pick his nose. And then proceed to EAT it. There were multiple times that, not only did our team members notice, but also colleagues from other departments. It was mortifying."
—Anonymous
19. "I had a boss who multiple times said that I didn’t dress well enough (it was a license bureau and I always wore a nice shirt and some dress pants). The next week, she gave me hand-me-downs from her closet and said 'I think you should wear these.'"
20. "Boss once walked in and said, 'My dad got ANOTHER ticket. I’ll buy you lunch if you take his driving school online for him.'"
—Anonymous
21. "My boss was generally a good manager, but he was an incorrigible over-sharer. Like, he'd walk in on Monday morning and tell me about the horrible diarrhea he had over the weekend."
22. "When I found out I was pregnant (over 25 years ago), I went into my then-boss's office to give him the news. When I told him, he sat back in his chair, smirked, and said, 'Your tits are gonna get so big.' Needless to say, I was speechless."
—Anonynous
23. "During my annual review, we got to the question 'Where do I want to be in five years with the company?' I gave my answer and he told me I was wrong and then he told me what I wanted."
24. "He accidentally let out a huge fart (and I mean huge) with a bunch of us sitting nearby during an office party. He was pretty mortified though and I felt bad for him, he was a pretty cool boss overall and he probably thought it would be a silent one."
25. "My female boss bought me lingerie for my birthday."
26. "My ex-best friend hired me to be on her team, which was a big mistake. Immediately once I began working for her, she became super condescending about my work, appearance, and personal relationships. One day, I walked past her office with a cookie I had picked up in the break room. She asked if I had brought one for her too and when I told her 'No,' she immediately began oinking at me. Literally oinking!"
—Anonymous
27. "I was warned by multiple people that I had to give my bosses (and their children!!!) Christmas gifts or it would be held against me."
28. "We once had a manager who liked to think he was really hip. I was stacking shelves at the time in a supermarket overnight. As there were no customers, we used to chat among ourselves as we worked."
"One night, he came to the end of our aisle and said, ‘Hey! A little less conversation, a little more action please’ complete with the Elvis lip curl and the ‘Thank you very much’ in a very, VERY bad Elvis voice. I’m sure he didn’t mistake the looks of disgust he got from us all."
29. "My boss is my stepdad, who likes to talk about my personal business to my coworkers. His ass literally gossips about me behind my back. But the pay is good and the job is mostly stress-free, so I deal with it."
30. "My boss is a nice guy but tries to be a 'cool boss' all the time. We have a meeting each morning just to discuss the day and plan our workload and for some reason he insists on using this time to tell us if he 'got lucky' with his wife the night before. We all know and like his wife, and she would be mortified if she had any clue of the details he goes into about their sex life. It's so cringe but he thinks it makes him cool and relatable to younger staff."
—Anonymous