The Horrible Bosses Who Inspired Horrible Bosses

Michael Markowitz’s most horrific interaction with a boss was summed up on a Post-it note. Having missed nary a shift over the course of two years as a personal assistant, Markowitz thought it was time for a personal day. But when he returned the following morning, the contents of his desk were stacked Jenga-like atop his workstation. There was also a terse note from his boss on a little yellow sticky: “No personal items in desks.”

Markowitz realized then that something was deeply amiss. “I thought she might gun down everyone else in the office,” he says. “If someone’s capable of taking a half hour out of her day to stack the contents of an employee’s desk, there’s no limit to what they could do. You look at that person differently. Not ‘I hope I don’t disappoint her with my performance,’ but ‘I hope that when she snaps, I’m out sick!’ ”