vote for the worst boss of 2022: round 2

by Alison Green on December 14, 2022

It’s round 2 of the Worst Boss of 2022 voting. In the first round we narrowed the pool from eight nominees to four (see results here). The four winners from round one are paired off in two match-ups below, as we move closer to declaring a winner.

Voting is now closed. The results in this round were:

1. A Distressing Dyad
• the CEO is obsessed with me and wants me to be his emotional support — 65.47%% (7,261 votes)
• my boss only wants to hire attractive young women — 34.53% (3,829 votes)

2. Repulsive Rivals
• I work at Twitter — 62.5% (8,022 votes)
• my employer recorded audio and video while I was in bed — 37.5% (4,814 votes)

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{ 141 comments }

{ 141 comments… read them below }

  1. Cyndi*

    The bosses recording employees’ bedrooms (I hate that I have to make that plural) are always an automatic Worst for me. Just unbelievably horrifying.

    1. Person from the Resume*

      I maintain you don’t know that actually happened.

      #1, LW brought her laptop in her bedroom and kept it open when not working. If the laptop hadn’t been in her bedroom or opened while she wasn’t working then this would be a different letter.

      #2, LW thinks it was recording b/c of what she found on her wifi and laptop which she thought was asleep. There’s no evidence it was the boss or company doing it on purpose.

      1. Katniss E.*

        Agreed. I didn’t think that one was so bad. It didn’t sound like it was intentional. The headline makes it sound worse than it is, IMO

        1. Beth*

          Yes, this is why I didn’t vote for that one in either round. It’s feasible that it was a mistake that could be corrected. The sexist creepy a-hole boss will never be corrected.

          1. Betty*

            Yes, agree. it definitely seemed like there was a non-malicious explanation, unlike the others. I’d feel differently if there was an update where the LW had discussed the issue and they said either “we know, deal with it” or “enh, don’t worry about it/ we’ll fix it” and then it wasn’t fixed.

          2. Kyrielle*

            Yes, this. Having their work laptop record in their bedroom is a pretty awful thing to have happen. But there are all sorts of ways it could have happened other than malicious intent, let alone ongoing malicious intent. Mr. I-hire-cute-young-women on the other hand, appears to be a clear ongoing and fairly conscious choice.

            That said, I’d rather interview with him and not get the job, than be recorded in my bedroom by work. The latter is clearly a worse *event*. But not necessarily a worse boss/company, depending on how and why it happened.

      2. Annony*

        The situation wasn’t great but seems more like someone messed up some settings accidentally than the boss being bad. The boss probably wasn’t even involved. And this isn’t one of those cases where I can say that the boss should have at least caught the mistake.

          2. Into the Light*

            Yeah, some of these are worst IT and some of these are worst HR… which for me are all different than worst boss.

        2. ecnaseener*

          The fact that the boss might not have even been involved is what clinches it for me — if we knew that the boss was in any way responsible, you could argue that it was horrible whether intentional or not. But the boss could’ve literally had zero to do with the situation.

      3. Michelle Smith*

        As someone living in a studio apartment #1 means nothing to me. My office is my bedroom. I should be able to trust that when my computer is asleep, I’m not being recorded. In fact, even when it’s on and I’m working it shouldn’t be recording! The fact that she found out when she was in bed just compounds the horror for me.

      4. Cyndi*

        Sorry to say “I was recorded without my knowledge or consent when I wasn’t dressed” is a hard unqualified Nope for me regardless of whether it was intentional, or whose idea it might have been, or whether it’s fair to LW’s boss to find it distressing.

        1. Cyndi*

          Okay, having typed that–the situation is distressing and I was reading a lot of people’s replies to me as minimizing the distress of it overall. But I do admit this is the “worst boss” poll so it actually is pertinent whether her boss was at fault or not–sorry for getting away from myself there!

          1. MCMonkeyBean*

            I was just about to respond to you saying something similar lol. If we were voting on “worst situation” I think that one would be a good contender. But for “worst boss” it just doesn’t seem like that one fits because we never even found out if their boss even knew about the situation, let alone was in any way responsible for it. Maybe I’m giving too much benefit of the doubt, but based on the information given I think it’s more likely than not to be an error that the boss had no idea about.

            A followup on how the boss handled the situation once informed could totally change how I feel about it, but for now I don’t think that one fits with the others in this particular contest.

      5. Sorry but no*

        I agree, but I’m still voting for that one because I don’t appreciate the rigged contest this year (or the reason for the contest being held at all).

          1. Curious*

            I would have said it was because the Chief Twit was the hands-down unquestionable “winner” (for horrible values of that term) but it appears that more than a third of current voters disagree.

            1. Cate*

              Because El*n isn’t the LW’s boss, he’s the company owner. I haven’t voted for that one because it isn’t necessarily a bad boss, it’s crazy company leadership. I was surprised it even made it into the voting rounds to begin with.

        4. Fluffy Fish*

          Are you new here? This is exactly how the worst boss contest is done every year.

          It’s neither rigged nor new.

          1. Phony Genius*

            I guess it could be “rigged” when the deciding how to pair up the nominees for each round. But ultimately, the worst should still get to the finals and win. (It does not necessarily mean the loser of the final vote was the second worst, though.)

        5. RishaBree*

          Scratching my head at the thought process that led to, “the reason for the contest being held at all”. The extremely popular contest that has been held every year for at least several years?

            1. Ask a Manager* Post author

              It was held last year but no winner was crowned due and I removed the posts due to a mistake on my end (which was including a letter-writer, which is against my own rules, and I caught it after the contest had already started). But it’s been an annual site tradition since 2013.

              1. Princesss Sparklepony*

                If that was the manager who wouldn’t allow the employee to go to their own graduation, that should be an exception. That was definitely a Worst Boss situation.

      6. Cat*

        Yeah I was surprised to see this one on the list because it didn’t really seem like the boss was involved at all. If the letter had included something like “our boss makes us use a creepy tracking program that records us all the time and I thought it was off, but it wasn’t” then I would have a different opinion, but as is I don’t think it had enough details to judge.

        It’s unclear as to the exact circumstances of the recording and that would make a big difference in my opinion. Based on the letter it’s not clear that the recording was even intentional. For example, zoom is capable of recording and I’ve launched it accidentally before. However, if the recording was intentionally set up by the boss/company then I agree this is a strong worst boss candidate

      7. Over Analyst*

        Yeah I really don’t get how this one got to the second round. It’s all a lot of wild assumptions.

    2. BradC*

      Definitely bad, but without a clarifying follow up, this strikes me as equally likely to be an example of a very badly written app or even a rogue IT guy as it is a management directive of “we will spy on all our employees”.

      1. Sorrischian*

        Yeah – it’s a nightmare situation, but the poll is for Worst Boss, not Worst Thing That Happened To A LW.

    2. Wilbur*

      Twitter is apparently considering forcing users to share their data so they can sell it to advertisers. Elon Musk is a true jack of all trades when it comes to bad bosses, not even content to excel in one area he strives to be the best (worst?) in every category. He honestly shouldn’t even be in the poll, everyone else should be competing for the “Elon Musk Bad Bosses Cup”. It’s like Michael Jordan playing the JV high school team.
      https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-plans-to-force-users-to-share-data-with-advertisers-2022-12

      He’s also considering not giving out severance, or hasn’t processed peoples terminations properly. I’m assuming that prevents them from getting unemployment if they need it. I know there’s a lot of people who make a ton of money at twitter, but I’m sure there’s a lot scraping by that might need that money.

      https://www.seattletimes.com/business/musk-shakes-up-twitters-legal-team-as-he-looks-to-cut-more-costs/

      1. cuddleshark*

        Agreed! Elon is blowing it out of the water this year by the sheer scale of his worse-boss-ness. It’s like that year in the 2000s where there were some really great movies but Return of the King took home nearly every single Oscar.

    1. Bluebell*

      It’s like the commercials where Charles Barkley is picked for a b-ball team (I remember the commercial but have blanked on the product!)

      1. Be Gneiss*

        Capital One?
        And yeah, I said the other day it was like bringing Ken Jennings to your local trivia night.

        1. L.H. Puttgrass*

          After a LW was included in the voting and “won” a year or two ago (the Covid years all run together for me now), Alison took down the polls and said that she was considering no longer having the Worse Boss of the Year “award.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason she’s doing it this year is that it’s almost certainly going to be Musk.

          1. Ask a Manager* Post author

            Nope — if anything, Musk was an additional reason I considered not doing it this year. But so many people requested it that I decided to continue it, at least for now.

            For what it’s worth, this is intended to be a light-hearted thing we do annually to celebrate the end of the year. It’s not anything serious enough that anyone should be worrying it’s “rigged” or unfair to anyone in real life (to who?!). It’s just a silly end-of-year thing we do for fun.

            1. em*

              +1

              Thank you for saying this, that was my sense of it too and I’ve been surprised by some of the hand wringing I see people doing about their votes.

            2. L.H. Puttgrass*

              I didn’t mean to imply that the contest was rigged or that you had a vested interested in who won! Just that I could imagine the contest not happening this year if it didn’t have such a notorious entrant.

              Alas, there are enough famous bad bosses like Musk that there could be a Celebrity Worst Boss category…

      3. Feral Humanist*

        Sorry but no. With the exception of 2021 (when Allison canceled it because a LW accidentally ended up in the mix), this competition is held every year. It was not designed specifically around Elon’s abominable behavior.

      5. MCMonkeyBean*

        Lol, aside from that being objectively wrong it doesn’t even make any sense. One extreme outlier would be more of a reason *not* to have a contest. Why would anyone invent a contest that would be no contest at all because one option clearly stands out above the rest…

    3. Fluffy Fish*

      I tend to agree. Yes he’s awful, yes what he’s doing is crap management, but what he’s doing isn’t (sadly) anything particularly uncommon when someone takes over a company.

      It just doesn’t feel the same as things like the boss obsessed with his employee.

      1. Fieldpoppy*

        I think the magnitude and blatant disregard for human needs/ legal requirements is uncommon. Not to mention the whole enabling hate speech thing.

        1. Fluffy Fish*

          Yes because Twitter is a large well known public facing company. Mass layoffs, trying to get out of financial obligations, in general running the company into the ground – unfortunately it happens. Companies fail all the time. New bosses come in and want to throw out the old and do things their way. Again, I’m not saying he’s not a pos and a bad manager, he is all those things and more.

          But it’s just different than a manager targeting specific employees. Amazon is terrible. Starbucks has been accused of harassing and firing those who attempt to unionize. Rail companies have their panties in a wad over providing sick days. There’s no end to terrible people running companies in crappy ways.

          Obviously people feel differently. I’m not here to convince anyone. I’m merely explaining why I personally do not feel like that letter should be in the running.

          1. Mr. Shark*

            Yes. I agree with some of this. It seems like everything that Musk is doing at Twitter is being made out like it’s the worst thing ever, when some of it is simply pretty common when a company is taken over or changes ownerships.
            The hype that a woman who is 8 months pregnant got laid off, when the 8 months pregnant had nothing to do with the layoff, is one example. Or that people were locked out of their access before they were notified of their layoff.
            Sure, it sucks, and I’m not Musk fan, but it’s overexaggerated to make it worse than any other takeover/layoff.
            I voted against Musk here simply because I think the contest is more interesting if you’re not talking about how Elon is now running Twitter, and there are more nefarious, more personal horrible bosses that we’ve seen in AAM this year than Elon’s impersonal, non-emotional, bad boss moves.

            1. nnn*

              those aren’t the big complaints people have about what he’s doing there. the big complaints are things like him knowingly trying to skirt the law protecting people’s severance, ding things that have led to death threats against former employees (one has had to flee his house for his safety this past weekend), requiring people to make major decisions about their jobs with less than 48 hours notice, telling people they have to work such long hours they should be sleeping at the office (and building bedrooms there), promoting and protecting racists, and on and on. It’s not about doing layoffs.

              1. Mockingjay*

                +1.

                The problems with Twitter are en masse examples of issues we discuss in this blog every day. What’s different is that Twitter itself is advertising its own/Musk’s colossal missteps and problematic actions. Yes, the same thing is happening at Meta and other social media giants. But the Twitter debacles have caught the world’s attention in a way the others haven’t. My hope is that governments, including the politically deadlocked US, wake up and realize that in order for the world economy to function at all levels, companies need to treat employees with dignity and invest in them, not shareholders. (It’s probably a vain hope, but still…)

    4. MuseumChick*

      I said this in a comment on the first round of polling. This is like the 2016 Tony Awards. There are so many GREAT options but y’all up against Hamilton.

    5. FrivYeti*

      Honestly, I predict that the final vote is going to be a close one. Melon Husk is definitely worse in a broad-base way, but his flailing devastation lacks the home-grown atrocity of Emotional Support Boss.

      1. Princesss Sparklepony*

        Yes, it’s like they are two categories. 1. ruining an entire company 2. emotionally harassing an employee to the extent that she needs a restraining order.

        It’s like macro and micro or something like that.

  4. Slow Gin Lizz*

    Unpopular opinion: OK, I know Elon is terrible, but I really want the creepy obsessed boss to win the prize because that one was so unbelievably horrible. At least Elon is getting publicly shamed everywhere so I don’t feel bad about him losing out on this one prize.

    2. Two Dog Night*

      I agree. Elon is horrible, but creepy boss is horrible on a much more personal level. So glad the LW got away from him.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Me too!!! I hope she is still NC with him and that she’s still getting the support she needs are her new job.

    4. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      100% here. But I also agree up above that putting Elon Musk in here is basically making the competition pointless.

    5. Kes*

      Yeah, it’s a hard choice. Elon is literally destroying the company he’s “running”, but on a personal level I think the actual harm to the creepy CEO victim is probably worse. Or to put it another way, if I had to go through one of these situations, as awful as the Twitter meltdown is, I would take that over dealing with creepy obsessed CEO any day.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Excellent point. I mean, the creepy boss picked a fight and started yelling at his employee in public because she did a quick personal (and seemingly necessary) errand before getting on a plane. Seems like he’s just like Elon only without the funds to buy a whole company to treat that way.

        1. Nea*

          Agreed – creepy boss is Musk without the budget. They both demand obsessive 24/7 devotion and lash out at any sign of their employee expressing independence (or even human needs).

      2. Syzygy*

        Disagree. Twitter’s former head of Trust & Safety is in hiding because of multiple death threats, because Musk sicced his fans on him.

        1. Nea*

          How is Musk planning on summoning his minions once he’s driven Twitter into oblivion is what I want to know.

      3. Ferret*

        I guess it depends on if we are only going on what is in the letter. There is enough horrifying conduct being either carried out or enabled by Musk that I think he is the equal of any of the others if taken into account – e.g. his sexual harassment of employees, horrifying racist abuse and covid practices at Tesla factories, the treatment of all the laid off workers but especially the more vulnerable staff inc cleaners, the massive increase in abuse and risks to safety and exploitative content on twitter…

      4. Worldwalker*

        True. The Twitter situation is just bad management on an epic scale. Musk is being a terrible manager (and, apparently, a cheapskate in remarkable ways — not paying the rent on their offices? auctioning off the espresso machines?) but it’s more a matter of scale than overall awfulness. “Some guy buys out a company, fires a bunch of people, wrecks their primary product, and eventually craters the company” happens all the time with 50-person businesses; some of those stories end up here. The creepy obsessed guy is awful in a truly remarkable way; I’ve seen plenty of people who wrecked their companies like Musk is doing (and even worked for one) — I’ve never known one like the creepy guy. Thank all the gods from Ares to Zeus!

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          I read a truly disturbing book that I cannot really recommend because it was total mind-bleepery, but My Dark Vanessa was a novel about a girl at a boarding school whose English teacher coerced her into sleeping with him. The grooming in the book was soooooo gross and awful that I now have visceral reactions to any grooming happening anywhere. But now I also see it everywhere too, which disturbs me a lot. I’m glad my eyes are now open to seeing it, and also eternally grateful that I never had anything like that happen to me. So so so glad OP is out of there.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            I realize I sort of contradicted myself in this comment, but I can be both disturbed and glad about a thing at the same time, I guess.

    7. Velociraptor Attack*

      I’m with you on this. It also doesn’t feel as in line with the others because (to me) there’s a difference between “my direct boss did something awful and “I work for a company run by someone awful but who is several levels above me”.

    8. squeakrad*

      I actually agree with you. I think there’s so much press about mask that I don’t think he needs to be included in this pole. I think people should be more centered on they types of bad bosses that they might actually encounter. Focusing on one highly publicized narcissist seems not the point of the porch.

    9. rayray*

      People like creepy boss are why I will absolutely never, ever work in any kind of admin/executive assistant role ever again. Never. My boss wasn’t creepy but she was overbearing, controlling, and micromanaging to the point I frequently had breakdowns.

      I have so much empathy for anyone in that kind of role. Too often the boss thinks they literally own you and it’s so awful being the singular person going through it. People in these roles are mistreated far too often. Just search things like “I hate being an executive assistant” and you will find endless stories.

    10. Irish Teacher*

      I was actually just thinking that if those two end up in the final (as seems likely), I think I’m going to vote for “creepy obsessed boss.” Elon is awful but I think that guy might be even worse, well, allowing for the power differential. I don’t even want to imagine that guy as a billionaire.

    11. Ace Of Dragons*

      I think we all knew/know (pretty much) that it’s going to come down to those two. Muskrat is awful on a widespread level, but mostly because the entire situation has played out so publicly. Stalker-boss is so much worse *on a personal level*, especially because of the very real potential danger there, that he will probably get my final vote.

    12. the frost tells me it's cold*

      The creepy boss is one of the few times I was worried about a LW’s safety. “Write back to us” not so much to tell us how it worked out so much as ‘write back to us to let us know you’re not trapped in a dungeon somewhere.’ That dude was scary.

    15. Princesss Sparklepony*

      Yes, totally agree. It’s the personal level of the emotionally obsessed boss that is super creepy.

  5. Essentially Cheesy*

    Honestly I don’t think the Twitter situation is the worst. These are all pretty universally horrible.

    1. Aggretsuko*

      On a related note, anyone hear about how Elon doesn’t want to pay the promised severance pay and is trying to renege on that offer? I feel for the OP on that one :/

      Seriously, Elon keeps upping it so bad that he’s making it the worst every day.

        1. rayray*

          Probably read from the boss who was appalled when their employee complained when they didn’t get paid, and then that same boss was mad that HR compensated them with extra gift cards for gas and groceries.

          I think they won this contest last year.

      2. Nea*

        I can’t figure out what Elon is doing (aside from melting down like butter in the sun.) Declaring bankruptcy won’t magically erase the stock option and severance lawsuits; in some jurisdictions he, personally, will be on the hook. So it won’t make his money problems disappear.

        And if he destroys Twitter entirely he also destroys his own dopamine machine. He’s not going to be able to troll the world from Discord or Mastadon.

        1. Jojo*

          Nea – I don’t think Musk has the self control to stop himself from sinking his own company. I don’t think he’s thinking about things all that deeply. I think he is just expressing the poor coping strategies that he’s always had, but have never been on display like this before.

          1. Jojo*

            Just to clarify, I’m not saying this to excuse Musk’s behavior. He’s terrible. I just don’t think Musk has a well thought out plan and that things like not paying rent on Twitter’s building are part of a huge strategic plan of his. He’s just a spoiled baby who always gets what he wants, and then cries when he gets scratched by the cat that his parents told him to leave alone.

            1. Princesss Sparklepony*

              Yes, exactly that.

              People thought he was a genius. Maybe he is with some things but it doesn’t translate to managing people or a social media company. He’s out of his depth and is throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks. He’s going to be a world of lawsuits soon.

        2. Worldwalker*

          According to the news, he’s not only refusing to pay the promised severance, he’s also not paying the rent on at least one of their offices. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

        3. hbc*

          He’s a spoiled brat who has “succeeded” thus far by convincing other people that he’s as smart as he thinks he is and throwing around enough money that intelligent people are willing to put up with his nonsense. He is doing what he’s always done–running with whatever half-baked idea comes into his head and assuming it will come out roses. Money can insulate you from the consequences of that for a long time, but not forever.

  6. I need a new name...*

    I think Emotional Support CEO should win overall.

    Don’t get me wrong, the Twitter stuff is bad. And bad in a much more far-reaching kind of way. But. Emotional Support CEO is *terrifying*

    2. ThursdaysGeek*

      Yes, but only hiring attractive young woman, so you can use them for bait to grab skeezy customers, when they think they’re being hired because of their competence — that’s pretty bad too.

      1. Kes*

        It is bad but it is also, unfortunately, a more typical kind of bad – see all the restaurants based on this kind of premise, or “booth babes” – obviously this is worse because it’s in a more professional position where people expect to be hired for ability, but sadly I don’t think this is unknown in sales.
        Nobody would expect the CEO they’re assisting to become creepily obsessed with them, stalk their social media, force them to accompany them all the time, etc.

        1. Kitryan*

          Yeah, that was my logic too – ‘only hires attractive young women’ boss is being terrible and discriminatory, and per the letter, not even very effective at improving the business with that strategy, but it’s not that unusual a type of terrible boss activity and he’s not himself being a creepy stalker of those employees.

      2. Becca*

        Yeah, I’d pick either of the bracket one bosses over Musk TBH. Attractive ladies boss was already failing to protect a current employee from customers, as I recall, so it wasn’t just a hypothetical badness either.
        But I picked emotional support boss over those two.

  7. AnonInCanada*

    And that’ll be like taking a slingshot to a gun fight. It would be entertaining to watch the hole Elon’s digging himself into more and more over on his $44B baby, but all the employees, and families of those employees, he’s devastated during this slash and burn is beyond heartbreaking.

  8. L.H. Puttgrass*

    Before I voted, the first was Loyalty Oath vs. Obsessed CEO. But when I saw the results, it changed to Obsessed CEO vs. “my boss only wants to hire attractive young women.” Is something glitchy with the poll?

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      A glitch that is now fixed! The choices there are correct. I cleared out the votes that came in while the choices were wrong; they were up for about half an hour.

      1. Season of Joy (TM)*

        This makes my decision so much harder. I really hate “attractive women only” guy but that obsessed boss was legit terrifying.

  10. EPLawyer*

    I can’t believe Youngkin didn’t make the first cut.

    The only reason I don’t think the recording on the laptop is so bad is because we have NO idea if this was just an IT failure or a creepy boss.

    1. Brain the Brian*

      Virginian here. I, too, am surprised that my idiot Governor did not make the first cut. His management of the state leaves much to be desired.

      1. Sally*

        If it’s any comfort, I voted for that one – for all of the reasons mentioned by Brian the Brain and EPLawyer.

  11. Sunny days are better*

    All four of these are equally awful and in a class of their own.

    I feel like Elon Musk is in a different group than this, because the whole world can see what he’s doing and anyone from Twitter trying to find a new job with a reasonable company will completely understand why they want to leave.

    As for the other three, they are various levels of insidious, and some employees in these circumstances might be so gaslighted that they question: “Is this REALLY so bad?” when it is so obvious to us on the outside that OMG – YES!

    That makes the other three a whole new level of WOW for me.

    1. The Person from the Resume*

      I agree. Because of news reporting, we know all kinds of more terrible management than we normally do. Often a LW focus in on one issue, among many. Twitter is imploding and the world knows a lot about it.

      To be fair as a person who doesn’t have a Twitter account, I didn’t care much, wasn’t following the news about it, I do mostly know about it from the AAM letters which are epic. Because even I kind of think that Elon Musk is trying to run the company into the ground. It’s epically bad management from the very top with no one seeming able to stop it.

      1. Keeley Jones, The Independent Woman*

        If we just focus on the workplace impacts of Elon’s gambit, he’s maybe not the worst.

        However, his unchecked spread of misinformation had far greater consequences than just what happens to Twitter and its employees. Even if you don’t use Twitter, that disinformation spreads, and is becoming a dog whistle to white supremacists. Nothing good is going to come from Elon owning Twitter.

    2. Wilbur*

      The latest is that he’s considering withholding severance from laid off employees to reduce cost, and that Twitter hasn’t provided termination paperwork to people that have been laid off. I’m assuming that will impact former employees ability to get unemployment, and based on the sheer quantity I’m guessing not all of them are well paid software engineers. This could genuinely hurt people.

      There’s also reports that he pressured employees to proceed with animal trials on neural implants that weren’t ready (Neuralink), leading to the death of 1500 animals.

      A short list of his offenses over the years:
      -Flouting covid restrictions
      -Union busting
      -Quid pro quo sexual harassments
      -Inappropriate relations with employees
      -Ignoring hostile/racist work environments
      -Ignoring unsafe working conditions at Tesla factories
      -Fast tracking animal testing of neural implants leading to a significant amount of animal deaths
      -Spontaneously firing people in the hall
      -Everything he’s done at Twitter
      -Amplify conspiracy theories

      I’m sure I’m missing a few things, but no other boss on the list has shown they can do it all the way Elon has.

  12. Deanna*

    I voted for the Obsessed CEO because it’s rare that I read a letter on this site and be concerned for the LW’s life. Thank god they got out!

    1. Season of Joy (TM)*

      PYT. Alison commented upthread that she wiped out the first 30 minutes of voting after it was fixed.

  15. Exploding Tesla Space X*

    Noel Skum is in a whole other stratosphere in bad bosses. Anyone else is merely runner up. Space Karen is now not paying rent on twitter locations and is bailing on severance pay; you simply cant compete with that level.

    1. Mailer Daemon Targaryen*

      Noel Skum sounds like a cross between a Star Wars character and a Christmas movie villain.

  16. I'm just here for the cats!*

    Oh SHOOT! I forgot to vote last time. I saw it but didn’t have time at the moment to choose and then I got sick and completely forgot! Oh well, they are all great options for worst boss.

  17. TeapotNinja*

    I think this year’s candidates weren’t trying hard enough. Where’re the bosses demanding blood, tears and livers!?

  18. Jessica Fletcher*

    I bet Elongated Muskrat is forcing employees to vote for him here so he can get another headline

  19. I should really pick a name*

    1 was tricky, but I ultimately decided that the CEO hiring attractive women could harass multiple women at a time, while the one with the assistant could only harass one assistant at a time.

  20. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    If I could vote All of the Above in every category, I would. This year brought out some real prizewinners.

  22. NateTheGreat*

    I voted for Elon in the second one, both because he’s an utterly terrible boss (made worse by the fact that he’s got thousands of employees and is a public figure), and because tbh I feel like with the recording one we don’t necessarily know the whole story.

  23. Rika*

    The first one was a toughie. You’ve got one boss who is absolutely horrible and manipulative towards one employee, and one boss who is disgusting in a less aggressive and personal way but across the board. Eventually went with the sexist one, because more people are affected, but it might as well be tied.
    At least the second choice was easier. On the one hand the recording thing could have been an accident and on the other hand, well, Twitter.

  24. Weckar*

    I personally feel “I work at Twitter” should be taken out of contention.
    Bad as they are, the worst boss of the year should be somewhat anonymous and this very much isn’t (and because of that will have people vote/view differently).

  25. Caroline9*

    Elon Musk deserves to win (lose?) this year, even up against sexist scumbags and boundary-crossing creeps, because he destroyed the jobs, healthcare, and well-being of thousands of Twitter employees in a handful of weeks, for absolutely no reason except his own ego and vast wealth. Plus, the whole multi-billion-dollar company is already crashing and burning, when it could have probably coasted for years without any CEO at all. Rarely can a boss do so much harm to so many people in so little time.

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