I used to work at a small construction company. Our old boss’ nephew (who was forty-eight years old) worked with us and generally made everyone’s lives miserable.

He complained about EVERYTHING constantly. Always angry. The kind of guy who would pull a gun on someone getting a frisbee from his property. He had been in the military and constantly talked about what a bad-a** he was. Really sad s***, honestly.

He was such an entitled a**hole, and he treated everyone with such disdain because his uncle owned the place. 

At some point, I lost my job, and I suspect it’s because he’s been talking s*** to his uncle about me. The way they fired me was weird and sudden, a “this just isn’t working out” type of thing.

So, I go across the street and get a job at the competition. Better pay, better position. 

A year later, I hear he’s been fired from his job by his uncle. He was trying to get another coworker fired and called OSHA on them, but ended up getting the whole company in trouble and fined.

I’m sitting at my desk one day, and my boss comes to me and says:

Boss: “Hey, you used to work at [Old Company], right? You remember this guy? He’s applying for a job here.”

I take one look at the application, stare at my boss dead in the eyes, and say:

Me: “If you hire this guy, it will be the worst mistake you ever made.”

Boss: *Nods.* “Yikes. Glad we spoke. Thanks.”

F*** that turd.

Our office hasn’t been spared from some nepotism, as evidenced by the company owner appointing his son to a senior position straight out of college. The problem is, this kid keeps on f***ing up and costing the company money. 

The owner’s son storms into his dad’s office, which has glass walls, so while we can’t hear anything, we can see that they’re having a heated argument, likely due to the son being taken off of a big project for fear he’s going to f*** up again.

Suddenly, the owner’s son walks out of the office, swinging open the door, shouting at his dad as he storms back into the office.

Owner’s Son: “You mother-f***er!”

Owner: *Storming to the door and shouting at his son, for the entire office to hear.* “You better be f****** glad that I am!”

CONTENT WARNING: Injury/Blood
I am a union member of my workplace, which is very fortunate for me. My boss is one of those people who is always right, even when very, very wrong. His “I’m right because I’m louder” mentality was already well-known, and I can only assume some nepotism was involved.

One day, close to a major holiday, I passed out on the train platform on my way to work. I smacked my head on the concrete, gained a nosebleed, and started seizing. 

I woke up two days later in the hospital with a diagnosis of heart problems and a concussion. The nurse told me my phone kept ringing after they brought me in, and a family member had told my boss that I was currently hospitalized and would not be in to work.

Well, I got a whole bunch of increasingly abusive recorded voicemails that can be summed up with:

Boss: “If you’re going to get someone to lie, make it more believable! Get your a** in here right now!”

This was followed by multiple contacts demanding that I attend a disciplinary meeting for several days of no-call/no-show.

I contacted my union representative, and when I was released from the hospital, I asked the train station for the footage. They let me record it to show my workplace the proof, and I sent the video to my union rep, as well. 

The union rep hit the roof at the disciplinary meeting. He pointed out that this case was a medical situation, and that they had no right to punish me for it. He demanded that this be scrubbed from my record. 

My boss refused, claiming that it was simply too convenient that I had a “medical episode” (finger quotes and all) so close to what was a major national holiday and how convenient it was that I got a few extra days off with my little stunt.

Everyone had seen the security video of me seizing on the concrete, surrounded by a lot of blood from a head wound from hitting the ground. Everyone had been privy to the recorded messages my boss had left me.

My boss was convinced I had a bag of fake Halloween blood. His mental gymnastics were impressive in finding ways to show I faked it, that I had forged medical paperwork, that the paramedics who came to get me were wearing costumes, etc. He finally straight-up looked my union rep in the eyes and said:

Boss: “…and I’m OVERRIDING YOU and telling you to your face that YOU’RE WRONG AND THIS IS FAKED!”

The HR Rep was not pleased at all with the boss and tried several times to say that this disciplinary meeting was unnecessary. My boss cut them off repeatedly and said that it WAS necessary and he WAS pushing through the disciplinary, and if HR wanted to argue, my boss would get the HR Rep fired, as well.

HR Rep: “You do not have the power or the authority to fire me.”

Boss: “Watch me.” *He turns to the Union Rep.* “Now, as I was telling you…”

Union Rep: “If you proceed with this Disciplinary, you won’t just have [My Name] off, you’ll have the entire union membership on strike. Is that what you want?”

Boss: “If I have to go to their homes and drive them to work, they will do what I tell them, or be fired.”

Union Rep: “[Boss], it seems that you do not understand how unions work. If you fire them, the lawsuit that results would destroy this company financially.”

Boss: “And you don’t seem to realize that my word is the law around here, and the courts obey the law.”

My eyes had been ping-ponging back and forth, with an increasing urge to either pop some popcorn or call the happy men in the white coats to take [Boss] away in a straight jacket. As [Boss] said that last line, I burst out in laughter, the Union Rep snorted, and HR finally got a word in edgewise when [Boss] turned to glare at me for daring to laugh.

HR Rep: “[Boss’s First And Last Name], shut up and sit down, NOW!”

My boss was so gob-smacked that he did.

The HR Rep flatly said that my case was going to be thrown out, with no marks on my employment record. I was given some additional days of paid time off, promising that it would also be retroactive to my hospital stay.

My boss never returned to work. For a very mysterious and unknown reason that is completely unrelated to his disappearance, productivity and morale have skyrocketed.

The company I work for is pretty hard to get into, even if you have an impressive resume or an awesome reference. Unfortunately, we had a new client. In one quarter, his business would keep our lights on for about ten years. He asked if his cousin or “little nephew” could have an entry-level position at our company, and we reluctantly said yes.

[Nephew] surfed the web all day looking at cars to buy. Whenever we’d ask him if he had completed a task, he’d either lie to us and say he had or say he didn’t know how to do it and didn’t want to bother any of us for help. Then, [Nephew] brought all of his gaming systems into the conference room, saying that clients could play them while they waited. That would have been nice, but [Nephew] played games in the conference room all day.

So, it came to a point where we gave him the least amount of work to do — ordering paper, delivering lunch, etc.

Two years later, the client came to us.

Client: “I’m going to have [Nephew] handle the work I was giving you. It’s to help him start his own consulting firm.”

Apparently, the kid had lied like no other, making his uncle believe that he was helping run our company.

Three months later, the client came back to us for our business.

Client: “That a** tried hiring a consulting firm to the side to do his work so he could play Sonic The Hedgehog all day!”

The procurement manager at our small company abruptly had to accelerate his retirement by a few years due to health concerns. At the same time, his assistant, who had been training to be his replacement, had to move across the country to help out family, seeking out a new job out west at the same time.

We were left scrambling a bit to find a new procurement manager. Some of our other employees knew enough to keep things running in the short-term, but everyone who knew the system was either already in a vital role and didn’t really have the bandwidth to take on more responsibilities, or was happy where they were and declined a shift into the new role. So, we posted the job on some outside job boards.

I was thus rather surprised when one of the receptionists from our front office applied for the position. Looking at her CV, her only jobs had been working as a receptionist and a tutor, with nothing in procurement or supply chain management. But, after consulting with my boss, we decided to give her an interview anyway. Everyone has to start somewhere, and maybe she would end up being a good fit for the role that we could promote internally.

The very moment that I walked into the room for our interview, before I even had a chance to approach my chair, [Receptionist] launched into a rapid-fire description of an idea she had for a marketing campaign for our product. A, that is not what the procurement manager position covers, and B, that is not something I, as part of Human Resources, would cover. I tried to get a word in edgewise as I sat down, to try and clarify what position she was interviewing for, but she just talked right over me, meandering her way through this marketing campaign idea, through an idea for renovations we should make to our office, to pitching the idea of issuing everyone company credit cards. None of these things were related at all to the procurement manager position.

Finally, she wound down enough that I was able to explain that the position was for a procurement manager, with the responsibilities of evaluating the quality and pricing of the various parts we needed, timing our restocks, and trying to source new suppliers if needed. Three times during this explanation, [Receptionist] broke in with, “Oh, but I think I should…” and then circled back to her marketing idea or talked about how employee morale was something she would focus on.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of getting absolutely nowhere, I gave her the typical ending pleasantries. I thanked her for her time and told her that I didn’t feel she would be a good fit for this role but that she should keep her eye out for other postings. Meanwhile, I was making a mental note to talk to our customer service manager to find out if [Receptionist] was steamrolling people who tried to call us the way she had been steamrolling me. (She wasn’t, as it turns out, at least not before this.)

To my slight surprise, she gave me a big smile and a cheery “Okay!” and bounced out of my office.

It turns out, she had apparently completely tuned me out when I told her she wasn’t a good fit for the role, and she started telling everyone about how she was a shoo-in for the job. Thus, when our actual new procurement manager was hired, she threw a massive fit, storming into my boss’s office to scream about how I had “promised” her the job, how this hire was nepotism (the new procurement manager’s name rhymed with the name of our Chief Finance Officer, which was apparently enough for [Receptionist] to determine that they were related), and how she was going to stage a walk-out if we didn’t give her the role.

She had two back-to-back no-shows when we didn’t give in to her demands, and she ended up being let go after she came in and proceeded to scream at the first customer who called in about how she was being mistreated.