Sorry for the book, but I had two extreme cases where I believe the people shouldn't of been allowed to be managers of other people as they were horrible with people.
And one time, and lead me to leave the company without anything set up for the future because they totally didn't care, and the other time, it lead me to seek other opportunities and lead me to a promotion within the same company and to a spot that was a much better fit for me.
Yes I've had two bosses like that, where everything that goes right is only because of them, and everything that goes wrong is because other people.
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One of them, I got a long with pretty well, mainly because she hated me least, and she was absolutely determined to get some of the other women that she was feuding with fired.
But that women, quite literally went M.I.A. in two of the four busiest months of the year... and she was the one that set the schedules for all of us, and she couldn't find the time to simply come to work, put her password in, and take the large amount of money to the bank.
We the employees did an amazing job without a manager, and she took all the credit... despite being M.I.A. and she got a bonus and raise while some of the rest of us either had our salaries stay out or demoted.
I attempted to talk with her boss, and her boss clearly did not give the slightest care... the numbers were good, so whatever she says goes... she got the numbers, that's all he cared about, she could of been Out of the country the entire year, as long as they got their numbers that all they cared about.
Which pissed me off, and I made up mine that I was gone.
In short, that office was one single employee short of having 100% turnover the following year, because we all left, as we weren't dealing with her as fake manager or the culture she provided any longer.
Ironically, the employee that she most wanted to fire, was the one that stayed around.
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The other case, a woman took a manager job because she thought that was the only way she could get a promotion at that time, and she wanted a promotion, and then to take a lateral, to a non-manager role, but she had absolutely no interest in being manager. But supposedly she specialized in training, and was the best trainer we had in the area.
I don't know what she was, but me and her never got along... as I noticed that went she introduced herself and talked about her family, including kids and grandkids, she did not say one single positive thing about any of them, you could tell she loved them based on how she lit up, but not one positive word came out of her mouth when talking about her kids and grandkids.
All in the first 4 months under her, all she ever did was say that everything we did was wrong... but then we'd ask her to explain and her responses contradicted herself and would lead to more questions as we attempted to understand, and she would just get so frustrated and try to move the meeting along to the next item that we were doing wrong, but she just stated that she would email has more details and examples later as we had to keep the meeting going.
Note: She NEVER would follow through and email additional details. So I would email her reminders, as I wanted to do the job "right", but apparently that's considered causing trouble.
We also had one on one meetings with her, which 90% of the time, she was trash talking someone that wasn't in the room, when she was supposed to be giving us a review.
Also, she had no respect for other people opinions, not even her boss's opinion.
So to get out of trouble, I learned to keep my head down, and not ask any questions, despite her telling us everything we were doing was wrong.
Which worked, until she decided she wanted to start writing some of us up, and taking away privileges, such as getting to work from home when there was no meeting or client to deal with, and signaling that she was going the route of getting us fired.
After that, I literally started applying for any other job in the company that I thought I might have the slightest chance of getting. Even demotions... as I was just trying to get out of there and to a good boss. But I was using the "shotgun" method of applying, where you just apply for anything and everything.
I went to her boss, to talk and try to figure some things out, he was 100% behind her... but through our conversations, he also learned that she wasn't doing her job. As she, as the "expert" trainer was supposed to be training us, and she wasn't giving us any feedback other than what we were doing was wrong.
Her boss clearly talked with her, as she started to change and started to do her job... and actually training us.
But as that was happened, I didn't care anymore, as my shock gun method of applying actually worked, as a high sought out area basically had an emergency, and needed people now, so they had a two week opening, which was shortly before Christmas, and I don't think many people applied, which to many people surprise (including my own) let me get an interview.
And I was shockingly and extremely lucky, in that my strengths and skill set PERFECTLY matched the skill set that they were having an emergency with and needed to fill. So not only did I get to leave that crazy manager, I also got a promotion out of it, and a much better commute out of it, basically 1/3rd the commuting time. So even if I had to go in the office daily, I wouldn't mind.
