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

[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.