I have had good bosses and crazy bosses, about 50/50. The crazy boss stories could fill a book, but one is so over the top that I can't help but share.
She was a small business owner in a medium size town, I was a college student working part time. She cheated anyone she could to make an extra buck. She instructed her employees on how to lie to the inspectors that visited every so often, or how to lie to the insurance company's claims adjuster when they came around after a robbery, and so on. After a few weeks I knew enough to quit, and in hindsight I wish I'd also called the inspectors and adjuster too.
A few months later the business burned to the ground. Arson. A few months after that she was arrested for insurance fraud. Sadly, she hadn't turned off the gas supply, and the resulting explosion also destroyed three or four adjoining businesses. Fortunately it was after hours and nobody was hurt. She was jailed for at least a few years if memory serves. I sometimes wonder if she told her employees to lie to the police, too.
Okay, one more. How about the guy who liked to schedule meetings for 7:00AM and threw a fit if anyone was even a few minutes late? I can't remember a meeting where everyone was on time and yet he would never yield and move it to "normal working hours." This is the same guy who said we couldn't use email at our desks because "hackers might get in." Some of us installed secret modems, others had to go to another building where a special, isolated, company-sanctioned computer had a network connection. He feared what he didn't understand, which was anything technical, making him a wonderful choice to be manager of engineering.
Or how about the other one that insisted a bunch of us work all weekend, every weekend, to "set an example" for the more junior employees, even if we were caught up on our work? "Go surf the web, just be here," he said. As a matter of fact, I spent those weekends reading financial sites and planning my escape!
A good boss, and good co-workers, are a real joy. A toxic boss pollutes the entire organization.
I had forgotten (maybe repressed is a better word) some of these stories, and now the specter of needing to get a j*b until my portfolio recovers is weighing heavily on my mind...
SIGH....