When you're working in a job with limited growth, hard hours, or a difficult clientele, a good boss can turn it all around and make showing up worthwhile. Similarly, even if you're paid generously and offered nice health insurance, a bad boss has the power to make every day feel like a never-ending and incredibly draining nightmare.

Recently, Redditor SethmAR15 wanted to know how far these tyrants are willing to go, so they asked other users: "What's the most unethical thing a boss has ever asked you to do?" Turns out, pretty far. Their post went viral and currently has nearly 2,000 comments, many of which prove that gaining power over someone can really mess with your head.

#1

My old boss at dollar tree would make me drive her to the bank in my car every night. And she would have me park like 10 feet back from the ATM while she walked up to it. She told me that if someone ever tried to run up on her while she was depositing the money I had to run them over. She said if they were too close to her to just hit her as well. She was incredibly adamant that I absolutely HAD to do this and very serious.

Image credits: durkinbrowns

#2

Keep people at work when there was a chemical leak from the car painting shop next door, and people were getting sick.

The boss wasn't on site (almost never was), I tried calling him and got no answer, and I was the most senior worker on site so I sent everyone home.

When I was almost home (1h+ commute) he called me back. He had gotten my voicemail where I explained the situation and he was not happy. Apparently we should have waited it out or I should have arranged for everyone to work from home (not possible).

The guy was a dickhead but this one still makes me angry when I think about it.

Image credits: ipakookapi

#3

First job after I graduated college, boss called me into his office and had me sit next to his daughter while she took an online exam, told me to make sure she passed it.

She definitely wouldn’t have passed if I wasn’t in the room.

Image credits: AllGarbage

#4

I worked for the largest property management in San Francisco and frequently the Manager would ask us to shred checks that came to us so they could file for eviction on tenants. I quit immediately.

Image credits: 47-Rambaldi

#5

When I was 16 I worked at Spencer's in the mall. The store manager was a middle aged female who found out she was being demoted. She made the decision to instead quit. Her last day I happened to be closing the store with her. Nothing wierd, we had done it many times before. After everything was closed and locked up we were punching out in the back room. I went to open the door that led back into the store and she physically put her hand over it and closed it like a scene from a movie. Then she said "you know I make schedules right" I said "yea I understand that". She said "Do you think it's a coincidence that you and I are closing my last day? This is your opportunity to do anything that you want with me me." I was so Uncomfortable and I didn't know what to do, so I gave her a hug and she said really that's it.. All the while her husband and 2 kids were waiting in the car outside the mall to pick her up to pick her up.

Image credits: cheesekernd

#6

Branch Manager (Banking) asked me to pose in a picture, showing a lot of cleavage, to use on his construction loan website for his builders. He wanted them to ‘see’ who they would be working with in a daily basis so he could get more business.

Image credits: Hchel25

#7

Many, many years ago I was working as a part-time mechanic for a guy selling "restored cars". He called me in for an emergency brake repair on a TR-4. One of the rear wheel cylinders had failed and he needed it fixed ASAP. He had a buyer lined up with cash.

Instead of having me hone and rebuild the cylinder properly (I had the tools and the kit to do so) he wanted me to cut the pipe to the rear brakes and just crimp it over onto itself, enough to stop the leak. He was in a hurry and wanted it fixed before the customer saw anything.

I fixed it properly anyway, so that no one would die, and then rolled my toolbox out of there that very night.

Image credits: limeycars

#8

I was fresh out of high school and working at Blockbuster while the DC snipers were out killing people at random locations. For those not familiar, it was a period of I think a few weeks where these two guys were driving around shooting people while they pumped their gas, mowed lawns, went about their general business and so on. Some places were putting up tarps to keep customers safe, but they shot anyone who was convenient, really. It was a terrifying time to live in the area.

I was scheduled to go in the morning a child was shot at the school down the street from my house. My manager, in an absolute panic because we were so close by, refused to open the store.

I got a call from the district manager telling me that I still had to go in, and no, my neighborhood being on lockdown was not an excuse to miss work. As soon as I could leave, I was expected to show up. I assume she was trying to get the manager to come in as well.

I got to the store and my manager still wasn't there, so the DM said she would send me to another store. It didn't really occur to me at that point that she was doing it purely because she could, and that there was absolutely no reason since the store I actually worked at wasn't opening.

But what made it especially s***ty was that she sent me to a nearby store that was on the highway, with these tall, wide glass windows all around the length of the store. Exactly the kind of place that the snipers liked to hit, since they could shoot someone and then drive off down the highway. And the manager at that store proceeded to make me stand on a ladder and clean the windows out front.

In hindsight, I wonder if I wasn't just a sacrificial offering so they wouldn't get shot if that location was targeted.

Image credits: ManyConclusion

#9

Not me but my dad’s story. 1980’s. My dad worked at a small mid-western bank as an executive. One day a fellow executive comes in with several loan applications and says he needs them all approved. My dad looks over them quickly and immediately realizes none of the applicants qualified. If they approved them the loans would go into default within three months and these people would lose their farms. My dad said it wasn’t possible. The other exec says “well if you just fudge the numbers it is.” My father tells him that’s impossible because other exec never walked into his office and they never had this conversation. The other exec nods and takes the papers back. Six months later the FBI raids the bank. My father was the only exec who didn’t go to prison for fraud.

Image credits: BlackStarCorona

#10

Also at Dollar Tree, most of my cashiers were teenagers or dips**ts that never showed up for work so this older Korean woman kept getting called in to work the register. She was pretty much getting 40+ hours every week and open season for benefits was getting ready to start. My district manager called me and told me I had to convince her to not get any benefits or else. I told him that else better be him doing that s**t himself because I'm not about to do his dirty work.

Image credits: Sol-Blackguy

#11

When I was a teenager, I worked at a doctor's office after school and during the summers. The doctor was a total as***le, but for whatever reasons he liked me and was nice to me and the pay was really good.

Because he was an as***le, there was a lot of turnover in the office. This was 30 years ago now, so it was when you'd put ads in the paper to hire people. So, he would put ads in the paper to hire office staff and he had a separate phone number that he'd list in the ad for people to call.

He told me that only I should answer the line and when I took down the applicant's name and number I should mark candidates that "sounded black" with an asterisk as he "didn't want to hire blacks." Ummm, this was in 1989, not 1949. He'd done a lot of very questionable things during my time there, but this one took the cake. I didn't say a word though. I got tons of calls for the ad the first day it ran and didn't mark an asterisk next to any names at all, just wrote down the names and numbers.

At the end of the day, he asks if we got any calls and I said, "Yes, quite a few. Here's the list." He looks it over and goes "You didn't mark any of these." I just looked at him coyly and said, "Gee, I didn't really know what you meant by 'sounded black', and it's just really hard to tell that over a phone call, so I just took the names and numbers." I could tell he was piissseeeedddddd but didn't say a word.

Ironically, he ended up hiring a black woman for one of the office positions and she ended up working there for several years. Weird.

Image credits: SuchLovelyLilacs

#12

I had a boss ask to me take a bunch of stock from the warehouse to his personal storage unit, and not to ask any questions …

Image credits: TJDigital_

#13

I worked as a personal trainer years ago and the owner of the gym i worked in told me to have my clients get results slower so they would buy more training

Image credits: Difficult-Benefit947

#14

I was working at a Dollar Tree in Tennessee as a second job for some extra money and I was a key holder, big whoop, as my daughter was soon to be born.

It was the big day, I was at the hospital and the store manager wanted me to come to work and cover her so she could cheat on her husband with her boyfriend.

I obviously refused to leave the hospital, when I returned to work my next scheduled shift I was fired for insubordination.

Image credits: SoloG

#15

Told me to revoke the instruction for employees to take weekly covid tests as too many were testing positive.

Image credits: Teapigs1984

#16

Our boss asked the whole staff on Thursday if anyone wanted to “work overtime over the weekend”, hoping to complete an extra 500 orders. And if we completed said 500 orders, everyone would get a $500 bonus. I asked her “what happens if we don’t complete the 500 orders?”, she then said “no one gets paid”. So I said “so, in theory, we could complete 499 orders and we wouldn’t get a dime?” She said “correct”.

I promptly turned their offer down and realized I was working for idiots.

Image credits: Promesapoetic

#17

Asked me via text if I (33m) would give him (60ish m) a massage, and that he only wears a towel.

Image credits: Archercat88

#18

Put people's emails in a newsletter without their knowledge or permission. This was before the "protection data laws" came into place, but I always thought it was shady.

#19

Ah i have a good one. Old boss asked me to find out his ex business partners families addresses so he could buy their homes they rented for whatever price necessary and evict them out of spite.

Image credits: Apart-Cartoonist-834

#20

A boss I worked with asked me to help another manager in the financial department to do a homework he had to do as part of a master degree. The manager was doing a master in computer science management and took a dev class.

I’m an IT engineer. He wanted to pay me to code the work he had to do: a basic calculator program in Java.

I refused, for ethical reason.

#21

Former boss had me sign his wife’s name on tax documents. They were divorcing. I knew it was wrong but was too young and meek to say anything.

He did a lot of shady s**t, in hindsight. I reeeeally should have scored a better severance package.

#22

Terminate a person for attendance when they were in the hospital. I worked for a tech support company based out of California who "Supports" different fortune 500 companies. I had a team of about 25 people who reported to me (all done online and we all worked remotely). This individual had excessive attendance issues and had followed all protocol in getting doctors notes and such. They ended up hospitalized, and I was told to call and fire them and let HR worry about the rest. I argued and argued.. and was told if I didn't I wouldn't have a job anymore either. So I did it. I told her I didnt have a choice, and I was sorry. I think she understood my position and didn't seem upset at me. Still haunts me to think I had to do that to a person going through something like htat.

FYI I dont work there anymore.. f**k that place.

#23

I worked at an Italian butcher shop in high-school. The owner would tell me if I ever encountered mold on the meat; to just wipe it off with some olive oil on a paper towel and put it back on display....

#24

Sleep with a girl (with him) that he had just spiked with drugs.

Was a bouncer at a club & the other guy was head of security. I went straight down to the police, they didn’t seem interested, so I went back, watched him, worked out who the girl was before the drugs had taken effect, and got her friend to take her home before she f**ked out. Watched him the rest of the night to make sure he couldn’t do anything and reported him that next day to his bosses.

#25

At Dunkin I was asked to go take product from our store to another one 15 minutes away. This was during my shift. She demanded I clocked out so that if I got in an accident, the company wouldn’t get booked.

I quit not too long after that.

#26

Keeping two sets of books. The real one and the one for the income tax office.

#27

I had a manager that tried to get me to falsify reports to the feds (financial stuff). I flat out refused. Soon after I had to leave the company for I would have been fired for made-up bulls**t on his part. To this day I will never regret standing my ground.

Image credits: _Volly

#28

This was during the Honduran caravan that was coming up to the US. A 19 year old girl from Guatemala fell off the wall and broke her leg. I was pulled off duty (Border Patrol) to take her to the hospital. Since they had to put a cast on, obviously her jeans couldn’t go back on and they put her in one of the hospital gowns, which as you can imagine, doesn’t insulate very well.

Driving back to the station, the supervisor calls me to let me know that her paperwork was done, and since at that time we were sending single adults back to Mexico with no court date, he said to bring her back to the POE (port of entry) and walk her across the bridge. Now, even though you might think it stays warm on the border, around December at midnight it gets f**king cold. Not Montana cold, but still around or just under freezing. So I asked the supervisor if we were going to at least let her stay in the detention facility so she could be returned in the morning when things had warmed up a little. After all, this was a 19 year old girl with a broken leg who had never been to Mexico, had no money, and now no pants.

“Nope. Just drop her at the POE and walk her back.”

Well, f**k.

Stopped by an ATM, pulled out $50, called one of my buddies who was from Mexico and asked him where a cheap motel was near the bridge. Gave her my WhatsApp info and walked her across, put the $50 in her pocket and told her where to go and to call me the next day.

Two days later me and the same buddy went into Mexico and put her on a bus to a different city (in Mexico) closer to where her aunt lived (on the U.S side). Not sure if she made it. She texted me when she got to the city in Mexico, so I have hopes she at least made contact with her aunt, but I don’t know if she made it into the U.S.

So yeah. Was ordered by a supervisor to drop a freezing girl with a broken leg in a foreign country at midnight.

Image credits: Whosagoodboyyyyyy

#29

While working at a fast food restaurant we were preparing for a corporate inspection and my job was to clean the walk-in cooler and freezer. My boss told me to wet mop both. When I mentioned to him that wet mopping the freezer would cause it to turn into an ice rink he told me to put a cap full of antifreeze in the water. I told him this is the freezer where we keep beef, chicken, and french fries and I was not going to do it. He threatened to write me up but I still refused. He did not last long as the manager.

I will not name the fast food restaurant because this happened almost 25 years ago.

Image credits: some_guy_76

#30

Not me, but a supervisor overextended on a reno to his home, so he tried to get a special needs employee to take out a loan for him..really sleazy..

#31

I worked at a Carryout for a few months as a manager, the owner was in while I was making breakfast sandwiches. One of the buns had mold and he told me to cut the mold off and serve it anyway because we were almost out of bread. I told him that was disgusting but he didn’t care. When he went to the bathroom I hid the moldy bun in the trash can and got a fresh one

#32

I used to be a behavioral therapist for kids on the autism spectrum disorder & was a shadow aide at school for one of my clients. One day my kiddo’s classmate comes up to me and tells me how he has seen his dad hit his mom multiple times.. I end up calling my supervisor to inform him of what happened (I was 18 and had no idea of how mandated reporting worked). He told me next time to “mind my business” when I asked him the process for calling Child Protective Services … of course I called CPS and had the emergency hotline social worker walk me through the process.

Unethical & illegal.

#33

I’m a tattoo apprentice and I got fired from my old shop because I didn’t come in to clean other peoples stations and do my duties because I had a horrible flu and couldn’t stop myself from vomiting every 20 min. You’d think a place that makes you get a certificate in blood-borne pathogens would understand but apparently that just gets you fired and told ‘You’re not committed enough’.

#34

Lie on an engineering analysis report that showed a major design flaw with many units in the field.

#35

My boss offered me money to follow another coworker/her ex gf after work

#36

Scratching off the expiration date from candy

#37

I had to help my boss work at another store when I was working at Aeropostale. After we left the store, we stopped at some guy's house. She asked me to wait in the car and text her if anyone pulled up. I found out later she was having an affair with this married guy. This happened a bunch of times. I just thought it was a friend or something. She was going in there and having sex with this guy while I was the lookout!!

#38

I am a speech therapist who works in nursing homes. The director of nursing at a home one time told me to recommend a feeding tube for a patient because they just didn’t have the time that it took to feed her.

#39

Lie about / edit the feedback from an employee survey

#40

This was years ago, at my first job, at a very well known sandwich chain. During my first week there, my supervisor made me scrape the gum off of the sidewalks in front of the store with a dough scraper and said something along the lines of “this is initiation” or something like that. I thought they were joking at first but they were dead serious. I just remember customers passing me on their way in and out while I was on the ground scraping away, then having my supervisor come out and point out the spots I missed or didn’t get well enough. Felt super embarrassed and a little humiliated during and after, they thought it was funny.

#41

Asked me to encourage employees to work unpaid overtime.

#42

Doesn’t 100% answer the question but my boss used the social media that I ran and monitored to cheat on his wife. Then fired me when he realized I knew.

#43

Back in a butcher shop portion of a grocery store I worked at. The supervisor asked me to change the date on some burger that wasn’t selling. The day she asked me to do this was the sell by date. I even asked her if that was safe/legal. She just tapped her name tag that said supervisor on it and said that was the only thing I needed to worry about. I put new tags on all of the packages while she was there but I didn’t put them on the shelves. After she left for the night I found the store manager and showed him. I showed him the old tags, which were just under the new tags so it was easy to pull them back and prove it. He had me toss the burger down the trash chute and my supervisor was gone from the store by the end of the week.

#44

My boss called me one evening at work, she was throwing a party and was running out of alcohol and ordered me to close up and leave work, go buy her multiple bottles of wine and under no circumstance ring the main door bell, I was to enter via the side door where no one could see me. Next time I saw her she didn't even acknowledge anything. ? Also just to add I was reimbursed for the wine but seriously... The entitlement

#45

Purposely doubled the weekly expense reports in order to show that one manager was overspending in order to get her fired for it. My boss was a cruel woman.

Note: I told my boss I would not do that and she made someone else do it. I still kept my job until the pandemic killed it.

#46

Clean out the closet in my apartment

Due to the nature of the work, my apartment was on company premises and the closet was an old storage area that I never opened as it was still insulated with asbestos. Boss said it should be fine as long as I didn't sweep too fast.

I left before I cleaned my closet.

#47

Stand guard as he allowed an inmate’s wife (and co-defendant) to come into the secure jail facility to change bandages on the inmate’s back as our medical staff didn’t want to do it and the sgt. didn’t want to lose an officer to transport the guy to a wound clinic.

You do not allow family members into the secure area of the jail facility, and you especially do not allow a wife to have direct contact with her husband. Especially when both are charged with fentanyl distribution and looking at 20 years or more in prison. That’s how armed escape attempts and dead corrections officers happen.

#48

The final line in our employee handbook read "Refusal of special assignment by your manager is grounds for termination." My manager would routinely direct me to meet him at the bowling alley or sometimes bar.

#49

I worked as a temp in a production factory in between permanent jobs.

I was on permanent 12hour night shifts making plastic fuel cans, they also made chemical bottles too for bleach and other things.

I had been on-site for about 2 weeks when I went out for a cigarette break the guys in the unit next door were part of the same company and as I was standing there I saw a guy hit the emergency stop button and open the safety gate to clear a blockage from the machine he was using. He cleared the blockage and the machine that shouldn't move once isolated decided to finish it's cycle which crushed the operator in the chest. I ran in managed to free him from the machine hit the emergency button to let the night manager know there was a problem. The supervisor came in first and panicked and ran for the manager.

When he came in I asked if they had called an ambulance, they looked at me like I was an alien and said we aren't allowed to call an ambulance because that could trigger a HSE visit (OSHA for you American folks).

I told them I'd call one myself and get the HSE involved, the old guy who'd got hurt was in agony and having a lot of pain when breathing. And these as***les didn't want to get him medical treatment.

I called the ambulance myself and as a qualified first responder I gave them the details of what I'd seen and also told the paramedic about them not wanting to call the ambulance because of the HSE (health and safety executive for anyone wondering),

The old guy had 3 broken ribs and a flail which is where a piece of rib is loose inside the chest cavity and potentially fatal.

I gave the old guy my contact information in case he wanted to make a claim against the as***les he worked for and went home.

I got a call the following day from the agency saying that the company didn't want me back on site, she asked me what had happened for them to say that, so I explained that an older guy had been crushed in a machine and they didn't want to call an ambulance for him and I had to treat him because they had nobody qualified on-site.

She asked if she could call me back, she rang me a couple of hours later to tell me that they had pulled all of the agency staff out of there and she had ring the HSE herself, which was totally unexpected for an agency.

The good news is that the old guy came through it ok. The company got a massive fine for the multiple breaches of HSE guidelines and shut down for 4 months while the safety gear was brought up to an acceptable level.

#50

My first job lowered my hours from 40 hours a week down to 8 to 12 per week and when I confronted them about it she couldn’t give me an answer and when I did not receive my final check in the mail after I quit they tried to tell me that I was trying to rob them of money. Even though all she had to do was check her bank account to see if anything was deposited. Dumb ass

#51

When I worked as an in home career I was told to ignore health and safety and use a type of hoist I had never even seen before let alone been trained on by my self. Neither myself or the client I was working with were happy with that, I quit that day.

#52

I was a new higher and immediately suspected and heard rumors that the boss had “spies” in the building. Could never prove it or get first hand information but she knew things going on, in and outside the building. After being there for 3 years I was going through a divorce and having a bad year. She threatened to fire me if I didn’t report back to her and rat on my colleagues.

#53

Worked for a restaurant and one night the manager was partying with the owners son after hours, as I was leaving. The next morning I saw the manager a block away from the restaurant as I was coming in for my shift and he asked me for a ride to his aunt's house. I told him I would be late if I did, but he told me not to worry about it.

Walked into my shift about 30 minutes late, just as the cops were leaving. The cook told me that my manager had gotten wasted the night before, trashed the walk in freezer and stolen some money. As I was setting up the bar, the owner walked up and asked why I was late. I told him what happened and he asked me where I dropped the manager off. Something felt sketchy so I was very vague about exactly where that was and he walked off with his "assistant".

Come to find out a few months later that the restaurant was actually a front for a Mexican cartel, and the owner's assistant was a hit man. Was super glad I didnt tell them exactly where I dropped off my manager.

Don't know which is worse... my manager asking me to help him get away from a crime scene, or the owner for asking me to rat on the manager so he could kill him.

#54

Not me, but a coworker. Had him leave on company time and pay my boss's "friend" (obviously a prostitute) some money he got from the cash register.

#55

A very senior manager tried to encourage me to break Russian sanctions for a £1m order. Given what the order was for I'd have made probably £50 comission for it.

"But we'll miss out on much more"

Yes, like prison.

#56

Leave my wife at the hospital during her miscarriage.

#57

I ran a report at work, it supported an initiative he was opposed to. So he set up a meeting and asked me to run a “what if” scenario that would make it look like his initiative was better—I told him I could however I’d have to let our department VP and the other department VP know it wasn’t a “real” report, just a made up one, so they wouldn’t make decisions based off of the analysis (which they were going to do which is why I was running the report to begin with).

He chewed me out for 30 minutes saying he decided what was real or not. Literally laid into me, called me every name in the book. So I sent two reports, both conflicting each other, and the two VPs held a meeting to ask WTF??? And we get in there and my boss starts it off by saying to me “Why did you send conflicting reports this makes no sense?” Completely threw me under the bus

#58

I used to work in the bakery department of Sainsbury's as my first job when I turned 16. At first it was just stacking shelves, but eventually they wanted me to work in the bakery itself. They emphasised several times that under no circumstance was into use the bread slicer as I was not old enough.

This lasted about a week until I was on the closing shift in the bakery on my own. The shift manager came in and started shouting at me about why I hadn't sliced all of the bread. I told him exactly what I had been told by my supervisor and another manager. He told me he doesn't care and that I couldn't finish work until it was done. This being my first job I just agreed to do it.

About 3 months later the machine developed a fault and it ended up lightly electrocuting me. I raised the issue and put it into the accident book. When It was investigated I was blamed by the manager as I shouldn't have been using the machine to begin with. When I reminded him that he was the one who told me to use it he denied it and gave me a written warning. Once the machine had been fixed he still expected me to use it. When I refused he sent me home and didn't add me to the rota for another 3 weeks.

#59

Had a vehicle that was damaged by company owned property. Notified manager, and he basically said well if they don't notice then neither did we. Very obvious damage and very obvious it was new damage. Got a call an hour later from an extremely irate customer that we didn't bring this to their attention when they picked up their vehicle. Cost around $2000 to fix. Luckily I was not the one operating the equipment, but I was the one that brought it to managements attention. Seemed very shady and unethical.

#60

When I was in college 30 years ago I worked in an area director’s office for social security. I was a clerk/typist so I handled the mail. There was an employee in the office that they wanted to keep but the position became official so the standard process for job openings was to send the job posting to every office in the area (half a state). All applicants would send their applications/resumes to a National office and they would rank the candidates. The manager of the position could then pick from any of the top 10 applicants. Since the director really wanted one person, but they were afraid they wouldn’t end up in the top 10, I was instructed to “forget” to put the job posting in the mail to most of the branch offices (yes, I’m old — it was all snail mail then… there was no email, at least not generally). Sure enough, there were only 6 applicants (5 of which were significantly more qualified than the person she had already hand-picked) so got her pick of any of them. Guess who got the job? I was young and afraid for my job, so I went along with it. I wouldn’t do that now.

#61

"RUN it till it breaks."

Me standing there running a $11.5 million machine that uses liquid gold and computer parts for cars, telling bosses and technicians that it's making horrible rattling sounds.

It broke and cost them $8700 and three days down time, instead of $90 and one day's maintenance.

#62

No me but my brother was a quality control engineer for a major airline. He discovered that most of the seats were bolted down with bolts that were too small. Seats could potentially break loose if the plane had a hard landing. Boss told him to sign off on it anyway. Because it would cost millions to go back and fix it. My brother told him to sign it and quit on the spot.

#63

To boil a lot of technobabble down to three words, "cook the books". I told him to go to hell. He told me "you're fired". I told him, "saved me the trouble of quitting."

Was plenty glad to go work somewhere else after that.

#64

My boss had the thursday afternoon off but kept texting me. He had obviously been drinking as it was getting more persistent and inappropriate. I was trying to ignore it, but then he started asking why I wasn't answering him.

I replied 'I'm working.'

His response was 'well stop, lol'

Honestly 4 hours of nonsense like this along with innuendo, inappropriate gifs etc.

It would have been bad enough but I was trying to get everything done as I had the next day (Friday) off.

Friday morning I wake up to another text message (not email, which is the only form of communication we should be using). The text is a detailed description of a huge proposal I have to do for him in time for a presentation he has to deliver Monday.

I was fuming. Why not ask yesterday, when I was actually working?!

I remind him that I have the day off today, his reply is that I can just do it over the weekend.

Wtf

I cannot believe that he actively prevented me from working properly on a work day and then throws this as me once he's sobered up and wants to sabotage my weekend with it.

#65

When I was a jr network engineer at a datacenter the owner asked how interested I'd be in sabatoging the competition.

Think I was around 20 at the time (poor) and if he had offered more I might have.

#66

I used to work as an assistant manager for a certain fast food chain while I saved up money to go to college. The store's labor to sales percentage and breakdown was displayed on a large screen at the front of the store and the store manager would download the data and monitor it often. The manager of the store would give hours and raises to his assistant managers based on how well we ran labor during our shifts. He would very often "encourage" us to work off the clock for a few hours and to have us ask some of the other employees to work during their breaks to drive labor costs down. This is FAR from the most unethical and crazy thing that happened there, but its the most unethical thing that my boss asked ME to do while I was there.

#67

Loaded unknown chemicals into the nose of tractor trailers for out of state transport. I'm sure it was all illegally dumped. Just out of HS I had no idea the scope of what was happening.

Nothing was labeled, containers, trailers and manifests all claimed empty containers.

#68

Leave faux TripAdvisor reviews for their s***ty business. Tl;dr: I said no and found a much better job, their business is now failing. They blame covid, I blame the fact they were (among other things) too dimwitted to make sure the rent on their location was paid before leaving for a vacation (and when they got back they blowed up my phone trying to blame me before they remembered they’d had one of their dumbass friends do it).

#69

An old boss of mine made me write fake reviews of her business to boost the search results and literally had me set up a fake email address to use to scope out the competition.

There were so many red flags with that job but I was a senior in college at the time and was terrified of looking like a job hopper

#70

I used to work over night as a department store stocker.

Not at all uncommon for me to have to work 12 to 15 hour days because they refused to hire more than a skeleton crew.

So it was equally not uncommon that I'd hit my 40 hours well before the work week was completed. At least once a month my boss would ask me to clock out at 40 hours and keep working with the promise they would provide paid days off to even the balance once the work load was lighter.

I absolutely refused and was met with the usual "You're not being a team player." nonsense.

#71

Look the other way while he embezzled millions of dollars. I did not.

#72

I was a satellite installer in the early 2000’s, directv specifically, but I worked for a authorized retailer. We had a older lady ask for a lot of work, hi def tvs hung in every room, surround sound, the works. The company made at least 15k off of this lady. She was very sweet to us installers. But the boss hadn’t reordered any of the hi def dishes, and had me install a standard def dish, “temporarily”. This poor woman called in regularly and requested me each time to come and “fix” her hi def. After the 3rd time, I told my boss that if he didn’t give me a hi def dish for her, I’d tell her he was f**king her around. He sold the company about a month later, so I called her and told her what he had done, and my complicity. I managed to scrounge up a dish out of leftover parts for her and went and installed it as an apology. I kept in touch with her for years until her passing. After that, if I felt it was wrong, I simply refused any unethical requests from whichever boss I’ve had since, fortunately not many tho

#73

I was a custodian 4 years then Covid hit people quit or just never show up I’m on 3rd shift so I was asked to do 36 hours of work in one night. So my job was to clean surgery at night I asked him what about surgery? He with a straight face says “half ass surgery.” During a pandemic

#74

Was in the USN based in San Diego, CA. The ship I was on had the lowest morale of any work place I have ever experienced.

One day a shipmate of mine checked themselves into the mental hospital because ships medical couldn't give a f**k less about anyones mental health.

Next day our Chief held us at muster absolutely infuriated that this one person checked themselves into the MH. He then told us as a whole that if anyone can't handle the job to stop wasting his time and to jump off the Coronado bridge and kill themselves. (This is just one of many many many things he had said to us).

Hands down the absolute biggest piece of s**t I have ever met. I hope he offs himself, it would Genuinely make the world a better place.

#75

I used to work for the 2nd largest manufacturer of frozen breakfast food in north America. I ended up as a production lead at one point. I was put over line 9 wich made french toast of various kinds sticks, slices, cinnamon swirl etc. Anyway the spiral freezer after the oven became compromised due to a mechanical failure. Long story short the freezer chain was shaving off tiny pieces of some plastic guard rails and was getting on the bread. We raised more than a little concern, amd were promptly shut down. They had maintenance "look into it" several times. More than a few times i shut the line down as the products we were making were served in school cafeterias. I then got my ass chewed. This went back and forth for several months, until one of our leads "accidentally" sent an email about freezer 9 to [all of the company/quality] rather than [our plant/quality] it literally came down to a 70,000 dollar freezer chain when we produced 35,000-40,000 a day in f**kin bread.

Tldr-dont work for corporations

#76

Wasn't me but the people before me.

The company gained a massive contract with a mining firm to check all their samples. For technical reasons we had to put 0.002 of a gram of a particular chemical (this was 30 years ago, I can't remember the chemical) with each sample, no more and no less.The company started falling behind so the middle manager who ran the tests told everyone to only put 0.02 of a gram with the sample, basically quadrupling the speed as it takes a looong time to get 0.002 of a gram of anything!

So the sample results go back to the mining company which shows they hit a rich seam of copper; mining company invests $30m to mine it but there is a problem - the samples were out so there was not that much copper and the mining company sued.

Instead of taking the blame the middle manager sacked 90% of the staff that worked under him, the only ones who survived were introverts who would never speak out against him.Suddenly there were all the jobs available and I took one of them; BUT I ONLY LASTED A WEEK!! Prick sacked me as I wasn't an introvert :(

#77

late 1990's when I got my first job at a movie theater. I got the job on recommendation of my friend who also worked there. My friend is Jewish and this will come into play in this retelling momentarily. Our boss had decided to tell me, after being frustrated by not just me, but my friend as well (for not doing the job of the older kids decided not to do) to quote "tell that stupid wandering Jew to do his f**king job". If that doesn't count as unethical then I do not know what does. I did not, infact, tell my friend (the aforementioned "wandering Jew") to do his job. I walked back down and told him "we actually need to quit. Trust me".

#78

I have one. Worked in a recovery residence (a step up from a halfway house but less intense than a full on rehab). Had this client come in after someone at another facility spent weeks advocating for her and helping her get everything in order and raise the funds to come into the program. She was super dedicated to it, too.

About a week in, staff (other staff, I wasn't there) observe her nodding out a couple times. They conclude she had snuck drugs in somehow and was still using. Client says, no, what she thinks it is is that she had run out of a certain medication and was having trouble getting more, thought that could be causing it. My boss tells me to kick her out. She has nowhere to go, no money. Boss says, well, if she thinks shea withdrawing from her meds, she needs to go to the emergency room. I say what's that gonna do for her? She essentially says well there's nowhere else we can dump her and not look like assholes. I take her to emergency room and leave. Emergency room pretty much just takes one look and kicks her out thinking she's just a drug addict medication seeking.

A few weeks later we find out that she actually had a f**king BRAIN BLEED from when she fell on a concrete parking barrier a little before all this. It was discovered after her advocate got her into an inpatient detox program.

It's so convoluted and dumb. I was so f**king disgusted by all this it made me quit the industry all together. A bunch of f**king narcissists who prefer to use their own, emotional, biased judgement to make decisions that deeply affect people's lives, rather than actual evidence. F**king despicable.

#79

A boss was studying his high finance's master and he ordered me to do all his papers, had not too much of a choice (I was young and naive) he always told me "you've got B+ (or A)* Honestly, the guy got the credits for that subject because of me, I even did his study guides. It was not too bad, I think, I got the chance to get some up to date knowledge from the syllabus of a very expensive university.

In marketing, the agency where I worked had hired some super fancy and expensive prediction tool. They paid it only for a while and then when they no longer paid for it they tasked me to photoshop the reports to adequate them to each new client needs.

Also in another agency the boss asked me to do her google tests for her so she could get the certification.

Marketing agencies tend to be very... Shady

#80

No proper PPE. "Just work around the asbestos."

Also, was encouraged to trash personal belongings of people when doing insurance payout jobs (fire and flood restoration) because insurance jobs didn't pay out as well and therefore weren't worth the extra time it took on the clock to try and save anything.

#81

Use the corporate credit card for unauthorized purchases. I had already been told by corporate that no. Next time I would be in "big trouble" if it happened again. No matter how many times I told these people what was prohibited, they ignored me.

I can talk about this now since my former boss died. But I reconciled her credit card every month. She went on leave. Her daughter took the credit card out of the country and used it in Atlantic City

#82

I worked in a convenience store the summer between graduating high school and starting college. The assistant manager who was in charge of the night shift (when I usually worked), would regularly have friends come in and get a cart full of snacks for late night parties after the store closed.

She'd have whoever was on the register step aside, and then ring everything up like it was only a few cents. They'd walk out of the store with over $100 of snacks and pay $2 or $3. She also showed everyone where there we blind spots on the security cameras and encouraged everyone to take advantage of that knowledge.

I left for college in the fall, and heard the whole staff got fired a few months later. I applied at a different location the next summer. When they saw I had worked at that other store, but that my name was not on their corporate "do not hire" list, I was offered a job on the spot.

#83

I wasn't asked, but it was suggested that I could watch the training videos at home (off the clock) and it would be good for me. When I first started.

Note this was a well-paid tech job and I wanted to advance quickly so I didn't make waves. I don't remember what I said, but it amounted to "No".