No, your boss isn’t always right. But you probably knew that already! According to the Peter Principle, employees tend to get promoted until they reach a point where they are incompetent. And some folks simply aren’t cut out to manage other people. It’s natural to feel frustrated by some of their awful decisions and toxic behavior. Sometimes, those feelings begin to boil over.

Today, we’re featuring some of the most interesting employee-manager conflicts from all over the internet that might make you feel cathartic about your own job. These workers opened up about how they finally snapped and called out their bosses. Keep scrolling to find out what happened and what the fallout was like.

#1

D**k of a professor; snapped told him to shut up, was kicked out of class as I deserved, but once I found out the things he started saying *after* I got kicked out–I had had enough and reported his unethical a*s.

Image credits: punkpixzsticks

#2

I once told a professor to “Fail me and be damned!” He did.

Image credits: anon

#3

Yes. I worked for a middle eastern bank back in NYC and during my first week one of the VP’s in IT appeared at my desk and started yelling at me for no apparent reason. I’ve been there literally 2 days. So me being a NYer started yelling back. Just defending myself really. He called me into his office later on and apologized and said I better get used to the yelling it’s just how they talk. I said I’m Italian it’s how we talk too shake? He never yelled at me after that.

Image credits: Delta31_Heavy

There’s a certain balance you want to find at work. On the one hand, you want to stand up for your interests, protect your boundaries, and demand to be treated with the respect that any human being deserves. On the other hand, you want to be professional, polite, diplomatic, friendly, and cordial. If you lean too much into either approach, you can end up harming your career.

For instance, if you’re overly belligerent and aggressive, nobody will want to work with you. Sure, you might be a super-skilled and talented worker, but if you’re a jerk to everyone, you probably won’t get that promotion or raise you’ve been angling for. You need to be emotionally intelligent and sincerely empathetic to get ahead in life. If you constantly yell at your superiors (even if they deserve it), you’re going to have a very hard life.

On the other hand, if you’re overly friendly and flexible, always saying ‘yes’ to more work, and way too eager to please your superiors, it’s also a drawback. You’ll probably end up with extra work, which will lead to burnout, which is awful for your physical, mental, and emotional health. Not to mention it’s bad for your work results. And if you’re unwilling to stand up for yourself when the situation calls for it, your boss will know they can walk all over you.

#4

Told one boss he was a “Tory C**t”. Apparently he had more respect for me after. Same guy that threatened to fire the support staff and replace them with robots, he was one of those …

Image credits: antihippy

#5

I have this teacher who hates me, I don’t really know why. Anyway, a few weeks ago we had to present a subject in front of the class. Each group was made of 3-4 students(ours had 3). My group had worked fairly hard for weeks and our presentation was going very well. Anyway, after 5 minute of starting the teacher started explaining things before we even had the time. I politely told her we were getting to that part. Then she suddenly started shouting at me about not having any respect and not being raised well. The whole class was quiet while she was just there shouting me.
After at least 3 minutes of standing there listening to her shout I told her to stop humiliating herself and left.

Image credits: Davundu

#6

I once talked back to my dad, which was a shocker since we don’t really talk and we’re not that close and also he scared me a bit. Biggest adrenaline rush I’ve ever had probably.

Image credits: anon

Forbes suggests that if you plan on talking with your boss about a difficult topic, you should:

Organize your thoughts by writing them out first, before the meetingFocus on the problem, instead of making things personalStay calm, cool, collected, and composed. Stick to the agenda and be respectfulPrepare ahead by scheduling a meeting, actively listening, focusing on solutions, and following up after your talkValue your boss’s time and be as direct and specific as possibleEmploy the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method by discussing the situation, describing your role and how you’re affected, coming up with recommendations, and sharing expected resultsStick to the facts, avoid blaming others, and don’t get defensive or overly emotional. You can broach a sensitive topic without being hostileAdmit that you’re uncomfortable, nervous, or angry if you feel this way, so that your boss sees you as an actual living, breathing human being

#7

I had a s****y s****y part time maintenance job in college, just for a little spending money for the weekends. The worst part of the job was this manager named Dale. I always got all of my work done and did a pretty good job (an acceptable job, not alway great but certainly never bad). There was a very high turnover rate for employees at this job, and I was reliable for 2yrs, so I felt like I was a pretty good employee. Dale was CONSTANTLY on my case, everything I did he would have done differently and better. He came in one Monday with a terrible, I mean TERRIBLE, sunburn on his little bald head. (which he got because he forgot to bring a hat to a NASCAR race he attended over the weekend) I could tell he was irritable, so I did my best to avoid him. About halfway through my shift, while I was mopping the back lobby, he found me and confronted me about some windows I had cleaned or something. He was like (shouting in front of customers) “you have to do them over they look like s**t, and the mop smells musty, they must not have washed it last night, I can’t believe you’re using that. After you clean the windows again you need to mop both lobbies again with a towel” I looked at him, handed him the mop, and told him to do it his f*****g self. Then, I tipped the soap bucket over and walked out. Felt unbelievable, 10/10 would do again.

TL;DR… told off a grumpy manager while working a s****y job in college. Felt great, I think everyone should do it once.

Image credits: your_bff

#8

My Senior Manager wanted me to do the reviews of my co-workers (his job) I said I didn’t feel comfortable reviewing my equals. He said something to the effect of “You don’t do anything all day, you have plenty of time.” I snapped back, “What do YOU do all day?!”.

Nothing happened, he backed down and said I don’t have to do the reviews. We had a 2 minute discussion with his equal about respect and I still got a promotion 2 months later.

Image credits: machzel08

#9

Haha yes!!

The year before I went to University, sixth form for the UK, we had an abnoxious t**t of a design teacher. constantly changing dates for deadlines and messing us around like that. Also the odd bit of favouitism and being a bit of a d**k.

I am normally the quiet student that gets on with work, meets deadlines and has a couple of friends, not popular but not the opposite. I was also new to the sixth form/college so none of the teachers knew me very well.

the anoying d**k of a teacher pissed me off one last time and i snapped, the conversation went something like this:

Teacher: “I have decided to change this deadline to next week so I expect you to all be done” (giving us 3 weeks less time)

class: “you cant do that etc etc etc (uproar)”

Teacher: “I need you all to shut up and get on with the work!”

class: -silence-

me: “I need you to be a teacher”

class explodes in laughter and “ooooo’s”

I feel epic.

Result, I’m hailed as some sort of rebel. no detention, not in trouble… I still go back there when I need to use there equiptment as I am now studying Industrial Design and top of my class.

Image credits: Methylene_Chloride

A good rule of thumb to remember when your boss wants to pile more work on you is that you always have a choice of how to react. If you have free time, have the headspace to take on more tasks, have no prior responsibilities, and you’re given overtime, by all means, say ‘yes’ to that new project. However, if you’re stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread, explain the situation to your boss. Tell them that you can’t do it. Or you can ask them what they’d like you to stop working on so you can prioritize their new task. Be realistic instead of eager-to-please.

Meanwhile, if your boss’s behavior is bothering you or is outright unacceptable, talk to them about it. Be professional but direct. You can always get HR involved to mediate the conflict. And you can always reach out to your union representative or lawyer for advice on how to best handle delicate work situations. If you document your superior’s egregious behavior and have some colleagues to back you up, it’s far easier than going it alone.

Obviously, if your boss is doing something illegal or that goes against your rights, get the authorities involved. It’s scary to stand up for what’s right, but it’s something you have to do.

#10

I take really long s***s. 10-15 minutes at a time, usually once a day. I try to avoid doing it at school but hey, s**t happens. It was in study hall last week and I knew a bad one was coming. I asked my teacher, a 60 year old woman who is rumored to have been in p**n and everyone hates, if I could use the bathroom. I came back 12 minutes later, and she loudly called me out across the room in front of my entire class asking what I had been doing. I told her I was in the bathroom. She went from accusing me of lying, to saying that without a doctors note I would never be able to use the bathroom at school again. She did all of this in a sneering tone, I’m front of everyone. After class was over, I approached her desk and told her what she had done was not only unprofessional, but also incredibly rude. I told her I understood why she would be suspicious, but if she wanted to talk to me she should have done it privately. The way she handled the situation was disrespectful, and there was going to be an issue if she pulled something like that again. Surprisingly, she apologized and has kept to herself since then.

Image credits: anon

#11

I was working in another country as a SCUBA instructor. At the time I was the most experienced diver so I pretty much worked every day. One afternoon the boss told me I could have the next morning off. That night I went out and and really cut loose and had a bit of a drinking binge. That night a storm rolled in and the net morning I got a frantic call from a coworker telling me I was needed at work. I was super hung over so it took me about 30 minutes to get down to the dock. Our dive shop had a rather large Y shaped dock. The top planks of the dock were 2×6 that were put together in three board sections. These sections were just placed on the dock frame (so they could easily be removed if a storm came.) The large waves from the storm were rolling in and knocking these boards off into the ocean. Only one of the other instructors had bothered to come into work, so when i arrived my boss was VIVID. He saw me walking in and immediately started to yell at me, calling me lazy and basically any other thing he could think of. Being that I was really hung over and not even supposed to be in at work i just told him to Shut up. He kept yelling at me and I kept telling him to shut up. After my third time of telling him to shut up he screamed and then grabbed my neck and tried to strangle me. I also then began to try to strangle him and we both got tripped up and fell down. We were not willing to throw punches at each other so we just proceeded to roll around on the dock with waves crashing all around while banging each others heads on the dock. After a couple of minutes my boss gave up and stood up and said “I am sorry I just need help to get these planks out of the water and save the rest of the dock.” I got up and said “No problem I will get in the water and try to save what is left.” We saved the dock and my boss did apologize later in the day. In the end my buddy the only other instructor there said it was the funniest thing to see us wrestling with the dock crumbling around us.

Image credits: dangersurfer

#12

In high school i told a teacher to go f**k herself after she refused to admit she’d run my Calc midterm through the wrong like, scantron thing or whatever…think, my test was test A, she graded it as B, i got a 35 out of a hundred instead of like, a 90 or something. this was a big deal.

in college i told a professor that he should quit his job because he obviously didn’t give a s**t about teaching and i was tired of basically paying him to be a pretentious a*****e who couldn’t care less about actually teaching or the essence of what he taught. (philosophy teacher).

i told off another prof who made advances on my girlfriend (who had at this point asked me for help) by emailing him on his work email telling him to stop. he didn’t, i forwarded every single message of theres, to him and the department head, including a small paragraph in which i outlined my favorite moments including “your nubile breasts”. ya i guess when you’re an “academic elitist” you become the most corny human being in the world. lol, nubile breasts.

yesterday i told a kid who walks into my spanish class half an hour late every day then talks the whole time, after he’d finished complaining that he doesn’t learn anything, that he doesn’t learn anything because he comes in half an hour late every day and talks the whole time and that he is “annoying as s**t”, in front of my TA and then walked out of the elevator we were all in, after class, like a baller, putting my headphones on. ONE SENTENCE WIN.

Image credits: anon

Have you ever snapped and called your boss out for something before at work, dear Pandas? What happened next?

Who is the very worst manager you’ve worked under? What, for you personally, are the hallmarks of a truly awesome boss?

Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this post.

#13

I used to be a Mormon.

In High School, we had early-morning Seminary. This was like a bible study at 5:30 AM at the church building.

Anyway, the normal instructor was gone and this c**t was subbing.

Now, said c**t was really old fashioned. When we walked in, she would be standing in the front of the room by the chalkboard. Usually, we’ll stand around and chat while we wait for everyone else to get there.

Not today. It was about 20 minutes before class started and 5 out of 20 students were there. She yelled ‘SIT DOWN’ and scared the living p**s out of all of us.

She does this about 3 more times until everyone is there. Once everyone was there, she asked how many of us had cell phones and iPods with us.

I raised my hand because I had my cell phone. 15 or so other students also raised their hands. She came around asking us to hand our devices to her. Once she had all of our devices, she walked up to the front and DROPPED them into a bucket, which I later learned broke my phone.

At this time in my life, I was starting to doubt the truth of the church. It happened that that day we were talking about sins. We talked about all the normal sins and then the topic of homosexuality came up.

At this time, I had fairly long hair and a necklace. Mind you, I was, and still am, completely straight.

Anyway, Miss C**t decided to make an example of me. She points me out, and says

“#name#, you look gay. Your hair is too long and you should not be wearing jewelry.”

I lose my s**t. I stood up calmly, grabbed the desk and tipped it over, then walked to the front of the room to the cell phone tub. I picked up my cell phone and realized that the top was separated from the bottom (flip-phone). I throw my phone at her with a fair amount of force and it barely missed her head, slamming into the wall behind her.

I call her a f*****g b***h and try to walk out but she gets in my way. I throw her to the side kind of forcefully and walk out of the building. I didn’t come back for 3 weeks.

It felt really d**n good. I have adrenaline pumping as I typed this. The satisfaction was amazing and I wish I could do it over again, this time pegging her square in the face with the phone.

Image credits: WNCaptain

#14

When I was 16 I was the lighting and sound engineer for a school musical. The director had hated me for years for reasons I still do not know, and had been riding me particularly hard on this show. He criticized my every move when he knew next to nothing about theater tech. Lets just say that if I followed his advise, I would not be here right now.
On the last practice before curtain he came over to give me a hard time. I said something along the lines of “well you can go f**k yourself sir” then continued my work. He kinda just stood there, dazed, as if no one had ever challenged him before. I have worked on a few of his shows sense and he has never said another word to me.

Image credits: SirChucklez

#15

Worked at a home depot type place in a cargo bay. We would load large or heavy items into customers cars after they purchased them. I was in high-school at the time, and had worked there for 4 summers in a row. There were 5 managers, and each one would tell us to do things differently, and get pissed when we would follow other managers orders. It got old. My last day, I showed up at 7am, rolled up the doors and took a deep breath of fresh air. I then rolled both doors down and locked them with padlocks I took from the store. Flipped off the surveillance camera, threw the keys over the fence
into a vacant lot, and locked the door behind me.

I drove across the street. Parked. And watched one of my managers flip his s**t, then load about 300 cinder blocks into a truck while wearing a suit. No regrets.

Image credits: onionsman

#16

>Have you guys ever talked back to your boss which made you have better work relationship with them?

He’d respect us less if we *didn’t* talk back to him. We’re expected to shoot down bad ideas – and help rebuild them as a workable solution.

#17

Yep. Previous manager, couple decades older than me, both were in the military and we both did pretty much the same job. Kept speaking down to me like a child, and eventually one day I snapped and said something to the effect of “You’re not my father and I’m not your son, so stop *f*****g* speaking to me like that.” He got the message.

Working relationship improved after that. He saw me as an employee from then on, and things improved at the office. Moral of the story: set personal boundaries.

#18

Had a new Director once who was very hands-on with her new role. She got a bit too involved with my usual vendor processes, to the point where she was unintentionally gumming up the works. I asked her to back off, politely, and she did. We had a good rapport after that and she no longer interfered.

#19

Hehe. Yeah more than once. My favorite line was: “ I DON’T THINK I’LL BE LETTING YOU FIRE ME TODAY.” One boss had gotten too close to my face yelling and screaming spraying spit. I told him: “You need to back off before you get seriously hurt.” He backed off and I went back to work. About 30 min later I was called back to the office. I was thinking okay here goes, he’s had time to think about it and I’m history. He apologized for his behavior and asked me if we were good. I grinned and said: “Yeah, we’re good.”

#20

Oh yeah i have. and i probably do it way too much. i have what is known as an “authority problem”

the most recent one was about a year ago. the cops in my town are super d***s. after 11 pm they just assume you are intoxicated and will pull you over on the smallest most b******t of charges for an attempt at a DUI or catching you with some d***s. so i get done working at the bar, it’s about 145 am, and head to my ex’s house to pick up some of my stuff left on her porch. it was the shittiest night i had had in a long time. and i am turning right at a light and this cop follows me for two blocks and hits his lights just as i am signaling to get into the left turn lane. so i swerve to the right across the 3 empty lanes and slam on my brakes and get out of the car and ask the cop what the f**k he thinks he is doing. he tells me that i turned into the wrong lane. i explained to him that the road where i turned has no lanes for about 150 ft after the place where i turned onto it. and then i proceeded to yell at him for about 10 minutes about how i was sick of being pulled over every two weeks because i happened to be leaving a bar, which i work at, and it happens to be late at night. and that i just had a really bad night and his desire to get his numbers up for tickets or arrests or whatever was doing nothing more than making a bad night worse. and that given that i get pulled over about twice monthly for b******t in the hopes that the officer there at the time will get a DUI arrest means that i don’t go near a car even if i had a single beer with dinner two hours ago. i expounded on all of the issues i had with the local police department’s actions and policies.

when all was said and done, the officer that night never asked for my id or registration. never asked for proof of insurance. he never even asked my name. he just handed me his card and said, “look, i’m sorry that the police in this town have cause you this much stress and anxiety. i’m not trying to mess with you, i’m just trying to do my job. i understand your point of view and while it wasn’t me who has harassed you so many time i’d like to apologize for my fellow officers actions. if there is anything i can do for you give me a call. oh, also, next time you get pulled over it might be better if you didn’t swerve across three lanes and hop the curb in your effort to comply. other officers may not be as willing to hear you out as i have been. have a good night, drive safe.”

and then he got into his car and drove away. i haven’t really had any issues with the police in my town since then, but i still get pulled over regularly for leaving the bar late at night.

#21

I walked out on my first job after telling my boss to shove my performance review up her fat a*s.

I was due for a big raise because I had taken a management position (more responsibility) in a store farther from home (more gas and travel) with a .25 cent raise. Gas was cheaper then but still, every other manager was making 2-3 dollars more an hour. She said I would be getting that when my probation was over and it was time for my review.

I got my review and she basically got every employee to rat me out for a ten or fifteen cent raise. Most of the s**t was made up, didn’t happen on my shift, or in some cases, no one even told me about it. There were a few issues that I was absolutely guilty of.

Long story short, they said I was going to get a 50 cent raise instead of the 2-3 dollar raise I was offered. She said it with such a smirk on her face that I just flipped out. I called her a f*****g liar and to shove it up her a*s.

Edit: How it turned out? I was out of a job for a few weeks. I got another job that paid less but I got tips that made up for it.

TL;DR: My boss was a b***h who tried to f**k me over.

#22

I was working for a hotel as the front desk supervisor. I had a mustache, which was allowed by corporate. The GM didn’t like it, he thought it looked unprofessional. I talked to HR, she said that as long as corporate was ok with it they had to be, just make sure to keep it neat. A week or so later I’m checking a bunch of people in and the GM walks up and interrupts. He asks me to step out from the desk. I do, he says “I want you to be the doorman now”. I laugh and tell him he has a good sense of humor. He looks at me and tells me that he’s not kidding. A bus load of people are checking in, I’m the only one there and he wants me to be the doorman. I tell him, ok, show me how you want me to be the doorman. We walk to the door, he opens it, looks at me and says “was this too hard?”. I ask him what I’m supposed to say. He gets pissed and says “Having a nice evening”. I say “thanks” then I keep on walking. I turn and tell him to f**k off before giving him the bird. That was my last hospitality job.

#23

MOTHER.EFFING.BREAD.COMPANY

When I was 19 I worked at a St. Louis Bread Company (Panera in some areas). I had been working there since I was 16, I knew all of the managers pretty well, and got along with most of them swimmingly. Except one. Let’s call him Jim.

Jim was the GM, and was notorious for being a huge drama queen. In the 3 years I worked with Jim, we had countless heated disagreements. Keep in mind, this is a 40+ year old man arguing with a teenage girl, and more often than not these arguments were started by him and rarely carried out in a professional manner.

He was big on trying to embarass people and make them look small, and most of the employees had put in complaints against him to district because of his unprofessional attitude. He would get mad at you, and then just go after who were as a person.

He even once told me that if he was my dad, he would be the most disappointed dad ever.
He would use the whole “I’m gonna give you one more chance, so you better kiss my a*s for it” approach.

It’s not what he said that would get to me, it was that he got away with the way he treated his employees and always expected people to just go with it with a smile on their face.
Well, I went with it for 3 years before I finally snapped.
One afternoon one of the baristas called in, and they day shift manager had called me an hour before the scheduled shift to see if I would come in. I agree’d, but told him I would probably be 10 minutes late because I was chrismas shopping with my sister and would have to go all they way back home for my uniform. He said that was fine, to just get there as soon as I could. So I get home, get changed, and as predicted, I didn’t get there until 10 after.

The shift manager never relayed the message that I would be late, and before I could even clock in, Jim was on me like stink on s**t, calling me everything but a white woman.

Told me he should have known better to trust me, that I was no good to the company, that I’ve been nothing but a s****y employee for the 3 years I worked there….Just absolutely TORE into me.

Once he was done with his tirade and saw that I was just blankly staring at him waiting to finish, he started to realize that he probably went to far.
While he was chewing me out, he had grabbed a write-up sheet for me to sign, but hadn’t handed it to me yet as he was waiting for my response.

Boy did he get it.
I went off. Three years of pent of aggression and legitimate hate flew out of my mouth like a bat out of hell.

I went on for a good minute or two while his face took on about 7 different expressions and his jaw finally coming to rest agape. I snatched the write up sheet out of his hand, wrote “kiss my a*s”, stomped on my bread co. hat, and walked out that joint.

I’m 22 now, and no part of me regrets it, and Jim ended up getting fired for being too “touchy” with the male workers.

TLDR; a*****e manger finally brought out the devil in me after 3 years of working there.

***edit: spelling.

#24

I work in catering and our catering manager is a nut. He has always been out of touch with employees and routinely condescends us. One night after an event. One of our employees with a coconut allergy accidentally ate one of the desserts with coconut in it. She started to have difficulty breathing, ran outside coughing. She happened to run past the aforementioned manager, while she passed him he shot in a quip “that’s why you don’t smoke.” After I attended to the girl, and saw that she had plenty of help from our fellow employees I went straight up to him and chewed him out, calling him out on all of his s**t. Watching the color drain from his face was awesome. He became legitimately concerned for the girl and after the incident became a much more bearable boss. I have since left that position and he has been a huge help in getting me set up as a manager at another restaurant. So yeah, if someone deserves to be called out on their s**t. Do it.

#25

Yes, but not at an IT job. 

I was much younger, early 20s, and a new guy got hired on as a boss at this home warranty company I worked at. He was in his mid 40s. He didn’t like me. At all. He would make snarky comments at just about anything I said and on occasion would tell me “no one cares” when I’d bring up an internal issue that could be fixed.

So one day I learned over and opened one of his desk drawers and he was like “what are you doing?!” I said “just looking to see if you packed your metamucil today.” He shut the drawer and said “don’t go in there, you might find my d***o.”

From then on we had one of the greatest working relationships I’ve ever had. He became a mentor to me and I’ll never forget Jerry. .

#26

Yes. Company brought me in because they thought their outside IT was doing a poor job. I was told to improve things.

About 6 months in I had implemented AD so we could move on some priorities. My boss at the time is yelling and screaming because I don’t know someone’s password. I let him yell for about two minutes staying calm then I’m your boss you do what I say!

I say:

Bill I don’t need to know their password because I can change it whenever I want, I can give you access to their files, I can lock them out. You’re screaming at me because you want to do something wrong, but you brought me in because you trusted me to do it right. So either you trust me and this never happens again or you can fire me right now and I’ll have a nice stack of the same kind of people toy had before on your desk by the end of the day. Which one?

I worked there another two and a half years. Bill ended up loving AD and had shortcuts to all his favorite shared folders on his desktop.

#27

I have always said my piece and never sugar-coated things in “business politically correct” ways. It’s been something I’ve done ever since my first job. We don’t have a “challenge with this new strategy”. We have a “problem with people who won’t do their d**n job properly, and here’s three examples for you.”

Surprisingly, it’s been received well throughout my career with several bosses specifically calling it out as something they like.

There’s an art to it though. You can’t just let loose from the hip.

#28

The first day of my current job, the owner sat me down and said:

>>From time to time I’m going to yell at you. Don’t be a b*tch: if I’m wrong, you yell back. Just make sure you’re not wrong.

Sort of tough love if you will, but it was an effective way of letting me know that I had some sway when needed.

He’s mellowed over the years, and I’ve never actually yelled at him. I have challenged him on a lot of things over the years for the better. I’m not sure I would have without that day 1 speech.

#29

Not sure about a better relationship as not much changed in the relationship. Once was the boss gathering the team to say they were implementing on-call with no compensation. I immediately came back with saying ‘you implement that, and any reasonable person is going to work just hard enough not to get fired while they look for a new job’. They did come back with a compensation term though, however I did coincidentally not get a COL raise that year.

Another time I had a boss who constantly would talk over me, even if I was mid sentence. Could be team meetings, one on one, didn’t matter. One day when he did it during a Dept meeting, I told him “Mrboss, I don’t interrupt you when you’re talking, do me the courtesy of doing the same” and kept talking on my point. Not sure if the director talked to him, but he didn’t do it again. At least to me.

#30

The President of the company I worked had a banquet for the employees. There had been a movement of the employees to form a union. The president and the banquet told us that if we would form a union that he would give us an raise every six months and told us how much it would be.

Over two years we got the raise. When we received the next check no raise. I ask the boss where was the raise, he said he would ask the boss. The came back in a few minutes and told me the superintendent had forgot to turn it in, and that it would be on the next check recto active.

When we got the next check I told the boss he was a lying SOB.

The next night around mid night The superintendent came in around midnight. He sit in the office two hours before my boss came to me and said the superintendent wanted to talk to me.

He proceeded to start chewing me out I keep quiet and waited for him to finish. And then I told him that I didn’t mean to be disrespectful to him and apologized if I was being disrespectful and to please forgive me, but I thought he was a Lying SOB. And told him why I felt this way.

We set there for two hours while my boss ran the my bun divider machine.

I left the office with a raise, than what the president and promised.

#31

Yes but let me explain why. I have a difficult relationship with boss since she found out I have not only an anxiety disorder but also essential tremors. After finding out about that and some problems at home such as my mom having Parkinsons and my grandma dying of lung cancer things suddenly changed at work and I began being watched and wrote up for my anxiety and everytime my hands shook. She claims my anxiety makes the patients nervous because I shake. Well after being wrote up for the second damn time she then bombarded me and the only nurse with all these admissions. The nurse started freaking out because that would make us seven patients in total and back to back admissions. My boss flat out told her to relax and that I being the nurses aide needed to start tending to the rest of the patients well I had been doing that for the past several hours while the nurse kept having anxiety attacks of her own I was making sure our patients were ok and taken care of but here was my boss telling me I wasn’t doing a good enough job so I snapped at her that yes I was. My patients came first and I had been constantly on my feet checking on them but that the nurse who was new needed help looking in the system to find the info on the new patients. My boss just told me to stop being so defensive but I was pissed. I am still looking for a different job because I can’t stand being watched like a hawk because of my disability and being told I am not good enough.

#32

Yes mostly because he snapped at me. I had a boss that was notorious for trying to intimidate employees by yelling at them in front of the entire office. But one thing I do not tolerate from anyone is disrespect. I don’t care who you are I will not accept disrespect. So he came out of his office while I was talking to other staff members and started yelling at me. I turned around and yelled back at him and told him don’t ever come out of his office talking to me like that again. I reminded him that I have parents and they don’t even disrespect me like that. He quickly calmed down and then said “ok, ok let’s not get upset” and I said then don’t speak to me that way ever again. He stopped doing it to me but he would still do it to others that didn’t speak up for themselves.

#33

Thsi is my band teachers first year teaching at a high school. We as tradition play a homecoming song while the candidates walk around the track during the homecoming football game. Our song we were playing didnt have a repeat, which has happened in the past, and he asked if we play it once. I raised my hand an explained that we usually put a repeat in and play it as a loop so it sounds like one long continuous song. He looks at me and ask me to come into his office, i was assuming he was going to as about the past. Instead he tells me i should never speak up in his class ever again.

-A little back story, he is notorious for not listening to students-

So I go off, explaining how he never takes the advice of anyone and that we waste our time doing stupid things (working on pre-game longer then half time show) and he says that’s why our pre-game is so good. I then informed him no one gives a c**p about pre-game. I storm off. My dad got a text and him and I had a laugh about it.

Band teacher is still an a*s.

#34

When I was working as a host in a restaurant, I screamed at my manager in front a slew of customers because wanted me to host, clean off tables, and deliver drinks to tables at the same time. She fired me the next shift.

BEST PART: The GM of my restaurant was my best friend’s dad. He ended up being the one to fire me. Made visiting my friend’s house pretty awkward.

#35

Not an IT experience…

I lost my composure once and yelled back at my boss who had yelled at me in front of everybody because he did not like the way I made copies.

I was a young, wet-behind-the-ears temp, joining his team of all-female admin workers. They were always on pins and needles because he would just straight up berate them for the tiniest of things.

Well, after I yelled back at him (and stepped a bit closer to him, just to hear what he had to say to me in response 😉) he walked away. And guess what? There was no more yelling, moaning, b******g, or complaining to either the ladies nor to me for the remainder of my assignment! Wow, imagine that…

There was Peace and quiet in the Kingdom, productivity went up, assignments were submitted on-time, the ladies were no longer dreading to come to work, at least not for those last 11 days. In one sense, things did get “better” around there…

Mistake: losing my composure; I’ve dressed down 3 other teammates in life, but never yelled–it’s counterproductive
Lesson: match assertiveness with level of disrespect; ooh, I’m a big believer in that. It may take me a few months to get my courage up, but when I go there, I GO THERE!
Outcome: Respect gained, but one way or another, I wouldn’t have lasted long. I just don’t do bullies well…

#36

Not my boss, but the director of our product engineering team. I actually did a lot more than talked back and blew up at him and went on a 5 minute cussing tirade in the middle of the office. We actually became decent colleagues after.

Story Time:

Due to a bad code release on his team’s part late afternoon before the IIS servers now had a memory leak and were crashing every 30-60 minutes. Of course none of his team could be found to help troubleshoot so I spent from 7 pm to 4 am having rolled back the product code and then was running manual reversion on nearly 3000 customer databases, having to identify and start with our high priority customers.

The next day he needed a report that only my team could generate, and since I was the interface between hosting and product, it was me. As I didn’t get it down the day before because all s**t was blowing up I came in at 10 so I could have the report by 11. He saw me before I could generate the report and started chewing me out talking about “how I worked for him”. Note, “somehow” even at 10 am he hadn’t read his email enough to know what I’d gone through the night before.

As he railed in to me I blew my top and just launched in to a tirade of cussing that would have made my drill sergeant from when I was younger so proud. After about 5ish minutes of telling him off and telling him that I did not in fact work for him, but was in a total different department and team, and it took going up to the CTO and then back down the org chart to connect us, I turned away, generated the report, emailed it to him, and then sent my actual boss a slack message of what happened.

My boss told me to get my a*s out of the office and go get some rest, as I’d worked nearly 20 hours straight with minimal breaks. The next day after I’d gotten some rest when I came in I apologized to the product engineering manager, very specifically for how I said things, but not for what was said and that he needed to treat me with respect. I’d never missed a deliverable and wasn’t about to start then.

I think between the apology, him finally realizing what I’d done the night before, completely solo, and the a*s reaming he got from my boss over it, we actually had a decent working relationship until I moved jobs.

#37

Yes, and the room went silent after I lost my lid and aired grievances with my boss for keeping everyone late on a weekend because one person and one area’s work was not restocked and straightened for the following day. I was upset because I was running late for a movie I had pre-purchased and made time for based on my work schedule, which had a posted time instead of being marked as ‘close’. I was pissed so I said something.

Her jaw dropped—and if a pin did, you’d hear it. She was very apologetic. While counting cash, it was simply easier for her assume any remaining work would be finished if all hands were on deck.

I was a teenager, so, this movie I had a ticket to see was important!

#38

I was in the warehouse when my boss confronted me. He pulled me over to a mirror that was laying against the wall and berated me about it. He claimed it was a hazard and dangerous and it would cause a lawsuit against the company, and himself. He then transitioned to every problem, big and small; contained within the warehouse. He was putting all the blame on me and never once, offered a solution. After some time, fuming; I finally snapped at him and began to yell at him. I blew up because he was blaming me for problems that weren’t under my control, as I wasn’t the manager. He saw me as one and this irked me. I told him I wanted the promotion but he refused to give it to me. I yelled this at him and we got into a heated back and forth.

A few weeks later, I ended up getting that promotion, but by that time; I was done with the company and left soon thereafter.

#39

No, but as boss, I have had subordinates snap at me. Usually it wasn’t because I did something wrong or even questionable. In fact, it was something someone else had done. As boss, my concern was less about being yelled at by a frustrated but otherwise exceptional employee, and more about fixing the work environment so the task gets done. So we worked on the process, fixed the problem and went back to work. My subordinate apologized, and the yelling part forgotten.

#40

Yes. My old manager used to bully me, shout, humiliate me, he creeped me out. I can only take so much grief then I have to have my say. I just shouted at him ‘STOP BULLYING ME!!’ lol, he replied angrily ‘Come to my office, NOW!!’ I followed him, still angry, went to his office, he was like a lamb to the slaughter, asked me what my problem was, told him he picked on me etc etc, anyway, came to a resolution, walked quietly back to my work. At lunchtime everyone wanted to know what happened in the office.

He still bullied me, but indirectly, his reputation spread, tons of people resigned, we had to cover the resigned employees work as well as our own, for no extra pay, I dug my heels in, I wanted him out. Told Head Office everything..he ended up resigning himself (I feel he had no choice).

Unfortunately, our current boss used to work with our old boss at another company….