The SINGLE WORST BOSS of my ENTIRE CAREER died of pancreatic cancer on November 8, 2011.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

There's a "worst job you ever had" thread in the Lounge.

I was PREPARING to respond with something about "ANY job is a PIECE OF CAKE unless your boss is a PAIN IN THE ASS."

So I Googled the name of the WORST boss I ever had, and found out that she had died last year.

I go to great lengths to avoid being a hypocrite. And like every other human being on this planet, sometimes I succeed with that...sometimes I fail. But I'm not going to sing my boss's praises simply because she died. Rather, I'm going to tell you her story.

I don't have to spend a lot of time selecting the worst boss I ever had.

And she was the worst BECAUSE she was a GOOD PERSON. She regularly had us over to her home for company meetings. She could be funny, she could be warm, and she was smart as a whip.

My company changed presidents.

She assumed that she was going to be promoted from Director to Vice President.

She WASN'T. Instead, her new boss became the guy who was in charge of FACILITIES, and she fucking went off the DEEP END. She HATED this guy. Her ego was like the USS Cole after Al Qaeda drove a boatload of explosives through its center. She died in 2011, but the good in her died THAT DAY.

I was working my way through college an inch at a time...at night, working a full-time job in the day, as her administrative assistant.

In the blink of an eye, when she didn;t get that VP promotion, she went from one of the sweetest women you'd ever want to know to one of the most vindictive, sour, bitter, toxic people on the planet.

It wasn't just me. She alienated people she'd known for DECADES.

In the end, I could have taken her to court.

She gave me a "verbal warning."

That's supposed to be followed by a "written warning."

And one day, her boss...the guy from Facilities...wanted to talk to her, and I went into her office, which I wasn't supposed to do. You see, she said "Don't speak to me during the first hour I come in."

But you see, she fucked up. BIG. And I broke her rule to cover her ass. And her response was "I want you OUT of here."

And by this point, I'd had enough. I said "WHEN?"

She said "30 days."

And that's where she broke the law, because she couldn;t say that to me without a written warning.

So she went to H.R. and broke the law AGAIN, and tried to BACK-DATE a written warning. It doesn't get more illegal than that, folks.

I'd had it with her, I wanted out of there, I found a better gig and a better boss and was gone before 20 days were up.

But she broke my heart, because underneath it all, she was a good person, MUCH better than her current behavior would indicate, and I now just wanted to wash my hands of her.

On November 8, 2011, her 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer came to an end.

I didn't know that until today. He rlife ended with me believing she was the worst boss I'd had in my entire career, adn she was. Cancer didn't change that.

She had MANY accomplishments, but along the way, she lost track of the fact that the lowest person on the rung of her ladder is just as important as the ececutive sitting at the top of her organization of the moment.

I'm heartbroken by this.

Did she ever havea monent of clarity in which she understood the damage she'd done, how many people she'd hurt?

Maybe not.

Tonight, she's wherever you believe we go when we die.

She was the best, and she was the worst.

R.I.P. Rhoda.

[dana_b]

1. beautifully honest

and well written. I hope Rhoda had some peace before she left and realized that treating people like that was not worth it.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. I tried, I really did, and thank you for saying so.

Life is NEVER black and white.

Rhoda was in the gray zone, and upon learning of her passing, I wanted to share her life with DU.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. Sad story. I tell you I had a boss that no one in our office like. Mean and nasty.

We would beg the Sergeant Major to take him golfing everyday. He would come in late. Before he came in we would all be happy and at ease. As soon as we could see him coming everyone tensed up and it was quiet you could hear a pin drop. He drank pepsi like it was coffee. When it was on sale he ask me to go to the commissary and buy him 5 cases. I did and bring it back to the office. He didn't even help me carry it in. He was a real prick. Before he got transferred I finally told him what I thought of him. I told him that when he goes on a helicopter and jumps out I hope his chute didn't open. He laughed because his own mother told him the same thing. He was such a jerk. He made people feel small. I remember him treating an E5 terrible and the E5 asked him if he could speak frankly and he told him that there was nothing to pleasing him. The day he left was a happy day. A few months later he called from Korea and I said damn you didn't jump out of that plane yet. He laughed. I was serious. It was funny.

I have had many bosses from hell. I lived all over the world bad boss are the same everywhere.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. How sad that the American workplace lends itself so perfectly to this bullshit nt

[Kath1]

11. I couldn't agree with you more!

I hate the job I have right now. Hate it! Insurance company. You are so right to call bullshit as bullshit. It is what it is is. That the American workplace lends itself so perfectly to this means that major change is needed.

I love that you used that word - bullshit. That is what this is!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. I'm a former teacher who became a corporate paralegal, then moved to a smaller town...

As a result, I couldn't find a job as a corporate paralegal. That was the best thing that happened to me. I now fight insurance companies tooth and nail. (Sorry lol - though I have a suspicion you're probably glad that I do). I'm very nice to adjusters, because they don't run the business, but I'll do whatever I have to do to give insurance companies a run for their money.

The American workplace is (in my opinion) the worst of all the advanced nations. It's monstrously evil to employees, it's thievery at its best, and it's tailor-made to make the already-unfairly-rich even richer at the expense of the rest.

[Kath1]

18. I love your reply!

I am not at all offended that you go up against insurance companies. I commend you on that. Actually, I love you for that! At 53, my options are kind of limited career-wise, although I would love to put what I know to work against these greed-heads and their management goons who, at every turn, try to screw everyone they owe as well as their own employees.

Your description of the "American workplace" is about as right on as it could possibly be. Unfair and brutal.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

19. Thanks, Kath! And that's another thing. 53 is o young, in my view.

The American workplace has little or nothing to offer the worker.

[Kath1]

22. Young? LOL

Thanks. I agree. For the average worker, corporate America simply sucks.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

32. You bet 53 is young! nt

[Kath1]

33. Thanks!

You made my day! Feel younger already!

[pipoman]

5. Anger at herself

for not being able to do what she knew she should have done....quit. Some people simply can't bring themselves to leave the security of a dead end job. Some get bitter, some shoot up their work place, some fill their lives outside of work with happiness, everybody will cope with the realization they are at a dead end in some way.

[hlthe2b]

6. "She was the best, and she was the worst"... she was human.

Somewhere I hope there are more like you, who can remember her in her good times as well as the bad. Few among us are singularly "good" and manage to live their lives without making major mistakes and alienating some people. One can hope she made some amends, even if not with you, prior to her death. But, she had some good in her that you were able to attest. That makes her flawed, but imminently human.

I'm glad that you took time to remember her, both good and bad. That speaks well of you.

[tularetom]

7. Worst boss I ever had was completely neutered by fear of HIS bosses

He could not make a decision because he was afraid of alienating one of his five board members.

The worst part of this is that you were always on your own when it came to taking any responsibility for decisions. The more risk averse among us adopted the same philosophy as the boss but a few of us actually tried to get him to earn the inflated salary he was getting paid by standing for something.

Didn't work of course. He was a survivor and he was quick to see us as threats and make sure we were marginalized. I outlasted the rest of the "subversives" but in the end I was forced out by sheer boredom, having been more or less exiled to Siberia and put in charge of stringing paper clips together.

I took a pay cut to leave but landed on my feet and worked in my new position until I retired in 2001. My old boss? His paranoia eventually got the better of him and he was caught altering records to cover up a poor decision that he was unable to blame on one of his underlings. Wish I could say he ended up living in a van down by the river, but his wife was a highly paid school administrator and she has supported him since his forced retirement.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. My dear Amerigo Vespucci...

You have written this so vividly, so beautifully, that I can see it happening.

It could be her eulogy.

I hope her demons are exorcised now...yours too.

[roguevalley]

9. i never had a good one but my worst had alzheimers for years

and no one did anything about it. She was beyond the pale.

But she and yours had one real duty to themselves and their job. They were and are ALL OF US required to leave our shit at the door. Too bad. I hear you.

[BlueIris]

10. Yikes.

That is an awful story. I don't know how people can get so caught up in their egos that they forget the rest of the world exists.

[Permanut]

12. I'm not going to argue that my example is the worst....

I've heard much worse stories, but this one was pretty bad. Thing is, several years after I left that office, I got a call from someone still there, who was sad to inform me that this person had died of cancer. I truly am a compassionate person, but I was surprised that I had virually no reaction.

[cbrer]

13. Many good life's lessons here

1. You never know what the future holds...

2. Life is NOT fair.

3. Everyone who helps you is not your friend/Everyone who shits on you is not your enemy.

Prolly many more...

I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out the deep humanity of your post. Thanks!

[malaise]

14. Wow

beautifully stated

[aquart]

15. That was quite wonderful.

Especially that you still always saw what was good in her.

I once worked for a kind, caring woman who occasionally seemed to go insane. I have no idea what deep dysfunction or anxiety brought on those episodes, but I handled them badly. Of my fellow co-workers, those from true dictatorships had the least and even zero difficulties with her. No matter how unreasonable or unworkable her demands, those from Romania and mainland China had a thousand well-practiced mechanisms for keeping her happy and the office functional. Madness at the heart of bureaucracy was already their accepted norm.

[cali]

20. wtf? YOU didn't know her. The OP did. and your comment

that she got exactly what she deserved is just so repulsive. I'm rarely shocked by what people write here, but that's so nasty that it shocked me.

[cali]

21. Beautifully expressed.

I had fun with the worst boss I ever had. I was in cahoots with a friend and we mostly just giggled our asses off about how awful he was. And since we were both far smarter than that smarmy little guy, we ran rings around him.

[hfojvt]

23. I don't think any job is a piece of cake

some jobs will beat the hell out of you, just because of the physical demands. Physical demands not necessarily created by your direct supervisor. Some jobs are just disgusting. If somebody pukes all over a bathroom or craps all over a bathroom, somebody has to clean it up, and it's not really a lot of fun to do so, no matter who your boss is.

I also do not understand how somebody who really was a nice person (as opposed to somebody who was pretending to be nice) would go off the deep end like that. That's hard for me to wrap my head around, and also very sad.

It sorta reminds me of this one substitute teacher. On her first day, she was all friendly and loving and happy. But then I saw some of the mean kids picking on her, and a few months later she was all snarly and surly and snappy. I was sad to see that she apparently got broken. The world can do that.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

24. She had ambitions...

...and they weren't easily met.

Obviously, I "shortened up" the story quite a bit, but when she didn't get the VP position, she ended up going to the company's division in Singapore as a VP. Her local replacement? Hired on as a VP, not a director. This kind of stuff chapped her hide to no end and resulted in the change, over time, but without my going all "new age" or "Psych 101," it really all does rest with us. The reason we don;t get Vice Presidential positions is that we are not viewed by those in a position to promote us as being "Vice Presidential." That's when we need to take stock and do something else, or do whatever we need to do to BECOME "Vice PResidential," if we want it bad enough. Rhoda didn;t see it that way. She just made everybody under her...including a couple of managers who had been with her for decades...miserable. That's why I framed my post in the concept of her being a good person. She was. If she was a pain in the ass from day one, no one would care...including me. She was a woman with the capacity for great love, great joy, and she was in fact a leader. Then she didn't get what she wanted and it all fell apart.

[hfojvt]

25. I don't think it all rests with us

I was passed over four times for a frigging entry level position. What does that mean, that the people in charge decided I was not "entry levelable"? It's not like they are necessarily making decisions logically. I got pased over - twice for a promotion from part time to full time, in favor of outside hires. People who looked good on paper, but actually were not. It seems to me that it rests more on the people who make those decisions than it does on us.

But maybe I did the same thing she did. I took stock and then I took revenge. But nobody got hurt, except for whatever damage losing $10,000 would cause.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/12

[Amerigo Vespucci]

27. No, please let me clarify...

...what I meant was "it all rests with us" to walk in with our qualifications and apply for positions we believe we are qualified to fill, and if we get fair treatment, we might get the job...but if we don't, we have to decide if we're going to walk away and seek greener pastures where we might get treatment that IS fair.

Walking away from a situation that isn;t right for us ALWAYS rests with us.

In the company Rhoda and I worked for, it was 100% "good old boys network." There was NO WAY UNDER THE SUN that a woman was going to be promoted to VP. Her replacement, who was hired on as a VP, was a man.

None of this is "fair." It wasn't my intention to present it as "fair."

The main point, I'd say, was that this company was not going to give her what she wanted. She could have walked away and chased her dream elsewhere. She did, actually. Maybe she didn;t have to go as far as Sinapore to get a VP title, but that's what she decided to do. Unfortunately, from the time she thought she had the promotion in the bag till the time she headed to Singapore, that was about a year of just fucking over every subordinate she could. The overwhelming majority of men and women who would have been rooting for her...who WERE wooting for her in the beginning stages...got to the point where they just wanted her to get on the plane and GO AWAY.

So she did.

Then she came back.

Now she's gone.

A sad end to a sad life. I don;t think she ever really got what she wanted at all. It wasn't the VP title, it was the qualities she assigned to having the title. She got the title, but I don't think she ever got the fulfillement she was convinced would come with it.

[tooeyeten]

30. been there

passed over several times in the recent past while people with a more advanced degree were given authority, while I have 25 years tried and true experience over them, by a boss that is a friend. I'm biding my time, making my record, keeping track of theirs, not sabotaging. Not sure if I'll come out on top, but I'll have the success on my record and resume, but they won't. It will be a "I told you so" moment. Live well, be a sucess, is the best revenge. Don't get me wrong, I have to work harder, put in more time, which takes it's toll, but I hope in the end, I win, for me.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

31. If we're honest, "I hope in the end, I win, for me" is what we're all thinking.

And that's not a "bad" thing. We're conditioned by society to think that being altruistic is best, that we only take what we give, and so on. And that may be true in a number of ways, but really, if we are going to give any credence at all to Abraham Maslow's "Hierarch of Needs," "I hope in the end, I win, for me" is at the top of the list.

It's the body count along the way that matters. Rhoda racked up a depressingly high body count. She hurt a lot of people, and it was completely unnecessary. Might have been necessary in her mind, but in the big scheme of things, there were other ways, none of which matter now.

[tooeyeten]

34. I'll bet, even spectulate

that a lot of people hurt Rhonda, rolled over her, and maybe at the time she reached her tipping point, her life intersected with her. Honestly, no one(except for a sociopath) intends to means to hurt others just for the sake of it, sometimes it's the fall out of so many preceding events. But even having said that the hardest thing to do is forgiving people who don't get they hurt me, it's a challenge to say the least. Someone once told me "acceptance is the key." All I can say, I'm working on it. Thanks very much for sharing your story.

[tooeyeten]

29. great story

and kudos to you for telling your truth and surviving, and learning your own lessons.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. k&r We all die in end. I wonder why people spend this fragile short life making others miserable

[Amerigo Vespucci]

28. I think she got tunnel vision

Once again, there's this tragic disconnect between the wonderful, kind, funny, thoughtful person I knew on many occasions and the one who started putting everyone on her shit list.

She knew, I didn't, I won't disrespect her by second-guessing her intentions and motivation, but my gut tells me that she just got obsessed with career advancement and lost her peripheral vision. She no longer saw the people who stood by her side, she only saw the obstacles she believed were in her way, then her vision became blurred, so that everyone in her path...friend or foe...became "collateral damage."