It’s Boss Day y’all, and you know what that means? Time to celebrate those who make us listen to boring stories, fill out endless paperwork, and fetch them coffee that’s precisely 130° F (not at all talking about you, Janet!).
Your boss might be an overpaid adult baby, but let’s rejoice in the fact that they’re probably not as bad as anyone on this list. What list, you ask? Oh, just our list of some of the worst real — and fictional! — bad bosses of all time.
Read on and then get me a full report by five or it’s back to unpaid intern life for you!
7 Bad Bosses We’re Lucky Not to Have
- Scott Rudin
Notorious for: That Sony email scandal where he dissed Angelina Jolie and made racially charged comments about President Obama.
This Hollywood producer is also famous for (allegedly) throwing phones at his staff, forcing them to work insane hours, pushing assistants out of moving vehicles, firing people for bringing the wrong muffins to meetings (though in all fairness, bran is terrible) and, according to a former assistant, “You couldn’t take the subway, because he needed to reach you at all times. He only slept three hours a night. It’s a boot camp.” The G train never looked so good.
- Miss Trunchbull from Matilda
Notorious for: Being the tyrannical monster/Headmistress of the fictional Crunchem Hall Primary School in Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
Remember when Trunchbrull swung sweet little Amanda around by her pigtails? I have PTSD from this. She’d use public displays of violence and outbursts to intimidate teachers and students alike, and lock them in the Chokey (an iron maiden-esque narrow cupboard filled with broken glass and nails) when they really pissed her off.
But I’ll be honest, I wish my principal forced me to eat an entire chocolate cake. All I got in elementary school was half of Becky’s dumb Nutri-Grain bar.
- Paula Deen
Notorious for: Shutting down her restaurant without telling any of the employees.
Okay Paula, you win for Most Pointless Way to Be a Huge Asshole. You couldn’t send a text, an email, or slide into their DMs? Oh wait, she did post it to Facebook the day of… which left the employees to collect their severance in the parking lot. Wait, is this not normally where people get their paychecks?
- Bill Lumbergh from Office Space
Notorious for: His painful catchphrases.
Lumbergh isn’t evil, but he is the quintessential upper-management, smug d-bag type. He’s the boss that demands you come in on Saturdays and Sundays but doesn’t even dot his own I’s. I’m just gonna need us all to collectively agree to never end a sentence with “that’d be great.” Did you get a copy of the memo about that?
- Naomi Campbell
Notorious for: Being the most beautiful, fashionable, abusive monster in the modeling industry. Or at least one of them.
Though several other allegations have been settled out of court, Campbell was found guilty of assaulting her maid. Her weapon of choice? Her cellphone. How slippery are those things?
- Charles Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons
Notorious for: The sinister owner of the Springfield Power Plant is greedy, can never remember his employee’s names, and his desk features a button to literally release the hounds. Lucky for us, they happen to be husky puppies. Excellent.
- Frank Underwood from House of Cards
Notorious for: Underwood’s a cutthroat, devious, and manipulative politician who plays on the fear of ordinary Americans to get ahead. He’ll stop at nothing to achieve the highest power, even sabotaging his own country. Thank God this show is fictional!
Chelsea has traveled to over 50 countries and has had every major third-world disease (but like, in a hot way). Follow her on Instagram and Twitter!
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