Article created by: Denis Tymulis
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
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
#2
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
#3
Told me to revoke the instruction for employees to take weekly covid tests as too many were testing positive.
Image credits: Teapigs1984
#4
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.
Image credits: Own_Pen_7797
#5
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.
Image credits: Nerdfatha
#6
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
#7
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
#8
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
#9
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
#10
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
#11
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
#12
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’.#13
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.
Image credits: ghostdeinithegreat
#14
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.
#15
"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.
Image credits: FarWoods
#16
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
#17
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.#18
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.
#19
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
#20
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
#21
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.
#22
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 …
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