rSlash - r/Askreddit Do Bosses Like Michael Scott Actually Exist? What's Your Story?

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

r/Askreddit Have you ever wondered if there are bosses out there who act just like Michael Scott? Well, it turns out that terrible bosses are much more common than you might think. Reddit users share their stories of some of the weirdest, craziest, and cringiest boss stories you've ever heard. If you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast for more Reddit content! 🔔 Subscribe: https://bit.ly/2E3A8i6 💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/VD6eYD3 🎧 Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/rslash ⚓ Send me a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rslash 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rslashyt/ ♪ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rslash0 🛒 Merch: http://bit.ly/rSlashMerch 🎁 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/rslash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where we'd the best post from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash-AskReddit. Do bosses like Michael Scott actually exist? And if you work for one, what's your craziest story?

Our first replies from homeschool prom queen. I worked with a genuine Michael Scott, i.e. a nice, well-meaning person who just did some absurd things. We had kidnapping drills one day where we learned how to not be kidnapped. Notably, this was a regular boring office and a regular boring suburb. There's no reason why kidnapping would be on anybody's radar. He and several of the guys randomly broke out into a push-up contest. Again, this is a white collar office with middle-aged dudes and khakis. He couldn't remember the nationality of our Hispanic colleague. He tried to learn Spanish to make her feel special when she returned from maternity leave. But first of all, what he learned was not Spanish

and second of all, she was from Portugal. She knew like five words of Spanish. He disappeared for four days, no call, no email. He wouldn't respond to any of our attempts to reach him. Finally, someone drove out to his house to make sure he was alive. He was. He just forgotten to tell us he was taking the week off and then lost his phone in a lake. There were many, many moments like these. He was a great boss. He genuinely cared about everyone in the company. He had occasional moments of brilliance where he really got things done, but OMG so many moments of ridiculousness. Our next reply is from Happy Dactyl. I used Michael Scott as a reference point for an old

boss of mine from the moment I started working there. He made Chubaka noises on a regular basis because one of my co-workers named sort of vaguely sounded like Chubaka. It didn't. He used voice to text extremely loudly in his office for no reason to send really personal messages. He got really excited and wore a specific vest anytime we had afterwork outing scheduled. He shouted the same like seven references to old movies and extremely awkward hip-hop song quotes a hundred times a day, and insisted on greeting all of our international co-workers very loudly in their language. They all speak perfect English, of course. Then he would look

around for approval afterwards, and then fully giggling at everyone's fringe accents on conference calls. He also told me a lot about an improv show he did for a full year after it happened. That said, he had all the good parts too. He never hesitated to go to the mat for any of us whether we deserved it or not. He gave really sage business advice and great examples of how to face challenges out of absolutely nowhere, and he came to every community play I did in the four years that I worked for him, and told everyone else in the office how good I was in the play the following month and chastised them for not coming.

When things really got serious or bad in my life, he couldn't have been more kind, helpful, and supportive. Honestly, probably the best boss I'll ever have. Our next reply is from Big Shoots. We had an anonymous feedback program at work, and our boss was livid with the results, particularly with several comments that he frequently lost his temper in meetings and would yell at us. The more he talked about how incorrect and unfair

and hurtful these comments were, the ritter and angry he got, until he finally pounded the table and shouted, I do not frame a meeting, okay? Our next reply is from 2 for Joy. I had a boss like this, and these are just a few quick stories. He asked me how much I weighed during my interview. One time, he was considering selling the company to a Japanese company, and while walking

them around the building he was heard saying, We really bombed the hell out of you, huh? He got on the intercom and interrupted everyone by yelling for someone to bring him the football team schedule. I have a video of him telling a really cringy joke during a sales meeting. You could see at least one person covering their face and embarrassment. One time he told me to call his assistant and have her bring him a bag of coffee and his 5 pound dumbbell.

He had a secret facelift. He was mysteriously gone for three weeks and came back with a beard. I ended up with a box of pictures from the 70s with an exotic dancer giving him a lap dance. In the conference room, with the same furniture. One time, I watched his business partner go down the potluck line, tasting everything with the same fork. At the end of the line, he stuck his used fork into the cake. I haven't eaten at a work buffet since. Honestly, these are just the ones I immediately remember. It was five years of this.

Our next reply is from lemons of life. He wanted a pomegranate for lunch and they were out of season, but that didn't stop him from sending me on a quest to every grocery store in town in search of a pomegranate. Multiple produce guys laughed at me, but that was the easiest $13 an hour I've ever made. And then OP adds in an edit. No, I didn't find the pomegranate, and when I came back, he was eating subway and he seemed to have forgotten that he'd sent me. Our next reply is from Lala.

He held a meeting with our whole team, without one person to discuss that person being gay. We all knew for well over a year and never made a deal out of it. So yeah, they're out there and this is why the show is so funny to me. I can relate. Then Parahueji asks, did he try to kiss him? Our next replies from Represent represent. I worked for a woman as our personal assistant and cat sitter. She was super rich and off the deep end nuts. She had me order a mannequin online and then paid me to take one of the mannequin legs to Nordstrom to try and see what suitcase I could buy that would fit the dismembered mannequin's body.

Because she wanted to fly with the mannequin to Pittsburgh to display the mannequin as her daughter, dressing her daughter's clothes at the daughter's graduation celebration. Buying the mannequin was a whole thing too. She kept trying to get me to order it from an adult doll website because she just didn't get it, LMAO. And then Billy the Kid says the exact same thing that I was thinking. I have a feeling you might have been an accessory to murder slash just memberment and not even realize it. And then LoveDraft says, I'm 70% sure this is Carol Baskins. Ready to get your money working harder?

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He asked me to come in after lunch, where he showed me a handmade graph. He then proceeded to explain that this was a chart of all the intercourse he had ever had in his life. See, here it's blank until I joined the army. Then I went to a hooker here. Then they sent me to Vietnam where hookers only charged like $2 per time. That's where you see the big jump. I was on two tours, but they got shot in the face. I came back home, and you see now, it just drops to almost nothing. I was astounded. What a coincidence.

After OP's boss went home, I'm sure all those prostitutes also started getting shot in the face less. Our next reply is from P.A. Zoo. I literally had a boss who would stop us in the middle of our work and hold company-wide meetings to talk about his crazy conspiracy theories. Mind you, we were a furniture making company. He would get so caught up in his conspiracy theories that he forgot to order wood to make furniture one month.

Our next reply is from in large tuna fish. I've never worked for one myself, but my dad told me a story about his boss who was giving out awards to everyone in honor of how long they've worked there, and he would give speeches for each person. A woman employee received her award, and he gave a speech about the story of how she came to work there. And he said, at first, I didn't want to hire her because she was so hot. My dad's not working there anymore, but I love that story because I will never not picture

Michael Scott giving Pam a dundee and saying that about her. Edit, for all those asking, I'm Big Tuna's distant cousin in large tuna fish. Our next reply from Super Secret Secretary. My boss used to carry around a backpack full of hammers, and if you fell asleep at your desk, he started banging a hammer on your desk until you woke up, and then he would autograph the hammer and give it to you as a gift. Then down in the comments, La La asks, to be fair to your boss, is falling asleep common at work?

Then someone else replies, I do it once for a free hammer, or next reply from Holman. My terrible boss insisted that his daughters be flower girls in my wedding. I declined. At the reception, he told me I was spending too much time talking to one person and I need to work the room more. O.P, was that other person you were spending too much time talking to your spouse? Our next reply is from Out of Print Love. My boss is certainly Michael Scott-esque. When I first started, I was essentially paying him as well since I was both receptionist and his assistant to some extent.

My favorite story was back when we were prepping for a conference. For some context, he's terrible with the English language in general and will mangle phrases and descriptions to no end. So on a group call, he kept talking about winning a gold and hamster ball to do giveaways with. He was raving about how great it would be spinning around while people walked by, all the while, everyone on the call was just sitting in confused silence. However, by that point, I had become so good at decoding his nonsense that I knew he was

referring to a gold raffle cage and sent him an image privately asking if that's what he was thinking. To this day, he still talks about the fact that I can read his mind and must be psychic, and he still refers to it as a hamster ball. All in all, he's a pretty nice guy and a solid boss. He hired me based on a gut feeling and he's been decent to me ever since. I think I knew would be a good fit when during the interview he tried to tell me about the four pillars of the company and forgot one. He told me later it was

knowledge. Our next reply is from deleted. I had a manager at my previous job that really, really tried his best to be everyone's BFF. He loved giving pep talks, and thought he could raise our abysmal morale by being Mr. positivity. Note, the morale was low because we were always buried in work and were paid next to nothing. He cracked jokes, randomly burst into song, and sneaked up behind you and yell, you're doing a great job! Unfortunately, he was also super incompetent at his job.

He relied heavily on a junior colleague for help with technical stuff. They practically did his whole job for him and spent days working on paperwork that should really only take an hour to. If you had a problem, his answer was usually either to stay or blankly at you until you left or say,

think positive and it'll work itself out. The things he did that I hated the most. Whenever people would apply to work at the company, he'd print out the stack of resumes, sit at his desk and read aloud all the parts that he found funny. He'd laugh at people for working at McDonald's or other fast food places. He loved finding grammar mistakes and making fun of them. If someone had a cringy objective statement, he'd gaffaw over that too. This was all done loudly, and it was an open office, so you couldn't

avoid hearing it. That definitely lowered morale, too. Our next reply is from Downloaded Pizza. My brother had two bosses at his first job that I think fits this. It was an old married couple that owned the Jimicrosses Street from us. They were probably in their 70s when he started working there. The wife was from Germany and super strict, and the husband was clearly losing it. Some notable mentions are, for context here, you should never ever combine bleach and ammonia because it creates a literally lethal gas when the husband combined bleach and ammonia to clean the hot tub in sauna room. Tear gas in my brother in the process. The wife insisted the street piece to have once a week,

and this was my brother's task. Almost every single time, the husband would come out halfway through with a leaf blower and destroy any progress my brother had made. The husband would regularly sit in the sauna for way too long and have to be rescued by my brother and his coworkers. My brother opened every Saturday. They never gave him a key, so he would have to hop the fence to get in. Our next reply is from Paul from Atlanta.

Long ago, my 80 year old boss pulled me into his office. OP, I noticed that your shirts come untucked and that looks unprofessional. I'm sorry about that, Joel. I want you to start tucking your shirts come untucked and that looks unprofessional. I'm sorry about that Joel. I want you to start tucking your shirts into your underwear. Uh, go ahead and try it now. Joel, you know I have 15 women who report to me. I can't undo my pants in the office.

Sure you can, and he drops his pants. He's 80, and he's wearing Spider-Man underrues. Beneath that, Nicholas says he clearly just wanted to show off his Spider-Man underrues. And cheesecoats adds, this feels more creed than Michael. That was our slash ask for edit and if you liked this podcast then be sure to follow me because I put out new Reddit podcasts every single day. I put our new Reddit podcast every single day.