Digital illustration created by Midjourney AI
We’ve all experienced the ‘bad boss.’ They can be early in your career or come along periodically. In this article, we’ll look at the history of infamous bully bosses, some memorable stories, and where we are in today’s hybrid work culture.
Famous bad bosses
On Time Magazine’s list of Top 10 Worst Bosses are:
George Pullman—In the mid 1800’s, this railroad tycoon built a town to house his employees just outside Chicago. Sounds nice, but he controlled it with a profit motive. He cut wages 25%, leaving men without enough to feed their families.
George Steinbrenner—Lou Pinella once famously said, “George is a great guy, unless you have to work for him.” Essentially he fired everyone; some multiple times.
Naomi Campbell—Supermodel, super bully: Campbell has been sued nearly 10 times for abusing employees. Most cases were settled out of court. The weapons-of-choice include cell phones and even landlines.
Ellen DeGenerous—She made ‘worst bosses’ lists for firing people for the tiniest mistake like making eye contact with her, and for not protecting staff against sexual harassment.
Bad behavior is not just the stuff of famous people
It happens in nearly every business, large and small. Here are a few memorable stories from the front; contributed by colleagues and friends who, in spite of having a Bosszilla in their past, managed to rise above it and succeed.
The Perv
After working for mid-size agencies and two global giants, I launched my own agency. The timing was right, and I decided to go for it. Upon winning my first account, we were off to the races. One client was a global information technology account. Their CMO insisted that she wanted all services “under one roof.” That meant we had to add PR to the mix. At that time the economy was at full employment; anyone with a resume had a job.
Then one day Dean (not his real name) showed up for an interview. Even though his resume lacked big PR agency experience, I didn’t see this as a problem. Lots of small shops do great work. Something else was bothering me about Dean. I wasn’t able to spark a connection with him. As we talked, I felt like I was trying to wipe clean a fogged up windshield that was obscuring my view. I wanted to catch a glimpse of something familiar …something that would tell me, this guy is a fit. But then the fog would creep back and obscure my view. He was an enigma. But his writing samples were strong, and I was desperate. “Can you start next Monday?” I asked. He agreed.
So Monday arrived, but Dean was a no-show. He called me … crying! He said “My friend was killed in a car accident.” There was a long pause while he choked and sniffled. What’s the protocol in this situation? Over the years, I’d lost two close girlfriends; one to cancer and one to alcoholism. I went to their funerals. I mourned their loss. The next day, I went to work.
He did show up the following week and maintained a downcast “pity me” persona, which I found annoying. We took him to his office, and I said, “We’ll have a kick-off meeting in an hour.” When I walked back to invite him to the conference room, I was taken aback. “Who’s that?” I asked. There, taking up an entire wall of his office, was a gigantic poster. It was a sexy, bra-wearing, midriff baring woman with a microphone. “That’s Selena” he replied, as though a half naked - now dead - pop star adorning the wall was normal.
Dean would go straight to his office every morning. Head down, looking like he was on a mission. He never engaged in morning chit chat with colleagues, but made a beeline to his desk, started his computer and pounded on the keys so hard and fast you would think he was writing the next L. Ron Hubbard missive. Oh, and one more thing: he angled his desk so that no one could see his computer screen. With the exception of the occasional meeting to review projects he was a lone wolf…ready to strike.
Office culture is fueled by gossip, and Dean was everyone’s favorite topic:
“Did you know that Dean doesn’t use the bathroom?”
“I saw that Dean put a big garbage can next to his desk. What’s with that?”
“Where does Dean disappear to at lunch time?”
On the very rare occasion when he ventured to the head, the designers would send out an office-wide email (not cc’ing Dean of course). “ALERT! Dean is visiting the men’s room.” He was a mystery man, but the kind who made people uncomfortable, like the colleague who one day goes postal.
On the upside, the client was pleased with his work. In fact, the demand increased to the point where we hired an assistant for Dean. Tim was a bright, eager young guy with promise. And rather than boss the kid around, Dean mentored him. Things were looking up, but it was an uneasy peace.
The match that lit the fuse was the bursting of the tech bubble. Every startup client we had went belly-up. Some had huge staffs and massive office space. It was all gone in a flash. Our big client — the one Dean worked on — merged with a bigger competitor. You can guess what happened next:the whole marketing team was gone in a matter of weeks, and so were we.
The remaining accounts did not use us for public relations, so what to do with Dean became an immediate question. Layoffs are the unfortunate result of a major market meltdown like the one we were experiencing. And Dean’s assistant Tim was one of the first to go. That’s what finally triggered what had been brewing in Dean all along.
I remember standing in the hallway as he approached, looking pissed — and determined. I was just outside my office. “Can I help you, Dean?” I asked, trying to keep a mild tone. His body language alone was menacing; his hands were tight at his sides and balled into fists. He actually stuck out his chest as he got closer, approaching me like a charging bull. “You screwing with me?” he shouted. I actually tripped over my feet trying to back away as he came toward me. “Shit,” I thought, “he’s going to hit me!”
It ended right there. He turned and walked away and I sought refuge in my partner’s office. She and I talked about firing him, but we were both too afraid. After waiting a week for things to settle, we went into his office and told him his services were no longer needed due to the loss of business.
Shortly after he left, one of his co-workers took a look at the history on Dean’s computer and found 68,000 cookies — all porn sites. We found straight porn, kiddy porn, human/animal porn — even granny porn. I thought about that large trashcan next to his desk and the constant, loud banging on his keyboard. The mental picture was enough to make me question my qualifications for evaluating talent.
Let’s face it, the signs were all there: the weird start with the death of his friend, creating a memorial wall to a dead pop singer, the not-so-hidden rage — and never going to the bathroom!!!
With all the weirdness, porn obsession and rage, it would be easy to say Dean threw me under the bus. But in retrospect, I think it was the reverse. Had I listened to my better angels when I first met him, I would have taken a pass. Sometimes your gut is telling you, “Something’s wrong here.” Listen.
In the case of Dean, I was the boss, but he was the ‘zilla.’ It helps to remember, culture is the boss when you’re not listening to your gut.
Jason’s story
Jason Birk (not his real name) is a talented art director with impressive agency credentials. He was working at a big shop when a new creative director — Jason’s soon-to-be boss — was being given the tour.
Jason was down the hall getting coffee when they came up to his office and the new guy (let’s call him Ed) saw Jason’s name plate. “Jason Birk works here?” he said.
Before anyone could answer, he upped his voice, “Fucking Jason Birk works here!?” he said with a ugly laugh.
Jason didn’t know what to make of it, but he hurried to the group and introduced himself. Ed looked at him and said, “Does your dad work in advertising and do you two have the same name?” Jason replied, “Yes, but my dad is retired now.”
That was our introduction. From there, everything went downhill. Ed would hold meetings and not invite me. He killed all my work. He was one of those guys that management began to notice. They started sitting in on our meetings, which I went to even though I wasn’t invited but my writing partner was. I was moved from his group, but eventually when Ed got confrontational with a client, they let him go. He was only there for 3 months. And my dad? He didn’t even remember Ed.
The moral of the story? Don’t carry resentments. They can take your job.
C-Suite shake down
Mike was a C-suite member at an iconic global agency. The company decided to sell a large portion of its stock value to an entrepreneur (we’ll call him Ted) who had become a tsunami in the agency world, simply by growing and selling his own agency numerous times until he was so rich, he could convince the ad world that he had the magic touch.
Mike said in a recent conversation, “In most global organizations, the new ‘boss’ has a lot of masters, but Ted was too arrogant to think anything could bring him down. He would say inappropriate things to staff, promote people and not tell HR. He had no filter with clients either, kind of the Donald Trump of CEOs,” Mike added.
“One day,” Mike said, “we took Ted to meet a major agency client that was worth around $600 million in billings. The client wanted us to fire another large client due to competitive issues. Ted flatly refused, even though the client making the ask was twice the size of the other client.”
Mike and his team and Ted were invited to a dinner hosted by the larger client. All the key executives from North America and Europe were attending. “We knew these guys,” Mike told me. “They were our friends.” We told Ted not to bring up the issue of dropping our other client. But he did.
All evening, Mike said, the presidents of NA and Europe pulled us over and said ‘WTF?’ Everybody was on pins and needles. They told us, “don’t ever bring that asshole back, and BTW, if you don’t fire that other client, we’ll move our business elsewhere.” So, essentially, Ted had single handedly managed to push the issue to a crisis point. Finally, the leadership of the conglomerate that owned the agency confronted Ted, and he was forced to get rid of the smaller account.
However, life for Mike and his colleagues only got worse. “Ted wouldn’t talk to us after that. The vibe was either he dies or we die, so we left. A year later, the big client took their business elsewhere. The result was a total loss of about $900 million…nearly a billion dollars to appease one man’s ego.”
Post covid office culture
A study reported in Workforce drew these conclusions:
People are less likely to self-censor bullying behavior in online spaces.
The propensity of cyber incivility is heightened in Zoom calls; it’s easier to be mean when you’re hiding behind a screen.
Remote and hybrid work makes it easier to exclude certain individuals.
Because supervisors and managers are having a harder time justifying their roles, it has the tendency to amp up aggression.
So, is Bosszilla a thing of the past? No way. Stay on your toes
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