Herwith, the tale of one of the worst bosses I have ever worked for. The title of "worst" is a toss-up between this guy and the despot I used to have to call general merchandise manager, but this guy stands out more because he is more recent.
BTW, I work for a major retailer with stores in many states.
And now, a list of this guy's faults. I will refer to him as "C".
1. C was over-promoted. He came to us from one of our stores in Nebraska. There, he had been a receiving specialist. His job had been sitting in the backroom and checking in vendors. It's not a managerial job with managerial responsibilities or supervisory duties. Supposedly, C had not been getting along with the store manager and was looking to transfer to a different store. He noticed my store was looking for an assistant manager, applied, and got the job. Our general merchandise manager, and C's direct supervisor, didn't get to meet C or interview him before he was hired.
2. C could never prioritize properly. He'd pull everybody off the sales floor to help out with tasks in the backroom, like backstocking freight. One night when he did this, he left one person to help customers--a lady who had worked as a price changer for many years and was ill-suited to helping customers. She couldn't take the strain and broke down sobbing.
When the PS3 launched last November, we had several people camping outside our store waiting to buy a console. C was supposed to go to the service desk and get customers' PS3s out of the cash office for them; instead he holed up in the receiving office and forced somebody else to get the PS3s--somebody who was not supposed to be in the cash office. More on the hiding out in the receiving office later...
2. C was hilariously disengaged. He never seemed to know or care what was going on in the store, or what needed to be done. You'd come into work and ask C what your tasks were for the day, and C would spend several minutes muttering and fumbling through a stack of messily-handwritten notes before finally giving you some job to do. While he was doing this you could drop trou in front of him and he'd never notice. You'd ask C a question and he'd give you an answer--but not necessarily an answer to the question you asked.
One night, when trying to fill out an accident report for an employee who hurt himself while unloading a truck, C asked repeatedly whether the accident happened outside, even though the employee told him several times that he had been inside unloading the truck when it happened. This lack of awareness of what was going around him can be attributed to the next fault....
3. C was a hard-core alcoholic. He often came into work late; sometimes he would call ahead to say he'd be an hour or two late and never show up at all. When he would show up he'd be reeking of alcohol and have bloodshot eyes. He'd use eye drops and breath mints to cover up his drunken state, but his slurred speech would give him away.
Some time after C left my store, we found out he had been holing up in the recieving office and drinking cough syrup. Whether he was bringing the cough syrup from home or stealing it from our stock is unknown. He would often hide out in the recieving office so he wouldn't have to deal with customers or make sure the employees were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing. One normally meek employee got so angry with C being AWOL she told me "He's lucky he isn't dead."
4. C chewed tobacco--while in the store. He would hide little cups full of tobacco juice around the store. I found one in the backroom behind the baler. The price change supervisor found one stashed in her desk and just about puked right there. Sometimes C would walk just outside the entrance and spit into the parking lot. The store manager told C not to chew his tobacco while working, and later found C's stash of tabacco squirreled away in his office. Sometimes C would swallow a little too much juice and have to go home sick, leaving the other manager to pick up his slack.
THE BIG FINISH:
C was fired on Black Friday last year. He had been the closing manager Thanksgiving night, and left at the end of the night without locking the doors and turning the alarms on. We had thousands of dollars in TVs, DVD players and portable DVD players lined up in the main aisles for the next day's sales, and thieves could have come in and stolen them all in minutes with nobody knowing. The store manager got a call from the alarm company later that night, wondering why we hadn't turned our alarms on. He told us the next morning "If I had a gun I would've shot him."
C came in for his closing shift at 1:00 on Black Friday, and was escorted out the door minutes later by corporate.
And that's the story of one of the worst manager I ever had.
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