vote for the worst boss of 2024: round 2

by Alison Green on December 11, 2024

It’s round 2 of the Worst Boss of 2024 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. Repulsive Rivals – The Nominees:

my mother-in-law manages my sister-in-law and covers up her drunk driving – 62.59% (6,895 votes)

employer made us take fake lie detector tests to trap a stealing receptionist – 37.41% (4,122 votes)

2. A Loathsome Line-up – The Nominees:

our boss is a jerk about bereavement leave for miscarriages – 50.02% (5,563 votes)

my boss lets my coworker stab office furniture with a knife – 48.98% (5,558 votes)

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  2. Artemesia*

    all awful. But I guess I am using ‘most risk to life and limb’ as the decider. I’d be terrified to work around someone who stabbed furniture and that was tolerated. And driving drunk is an innocent death waiting to happen.

    2. Chirpy*

      Same. Plus, I did actually have a former coworker who “graduated” from brandishing knives at work to actually making death threats before management decided to finally fire him, and he did then come back to threaten the manager/everyone (luckily just vandalism) so I know how that can escalate. So I definitely feel for that LW.

    3. Observer*

      Yes.

      Also, the MIL has shown that she is willing to use her position for the benefit of the people she likes, even at the cost of a real risk to others. So that’s another level of bad management.

    4. epicdemiologist*

      Same! “Could get an employee killed” and “Could get one or more random members of the public killed” are orders of magnitude worse than “makes work a hellscape.”

    5. Late Bloomer*

      Same, but it also doesn’t escape my attention that the “risk to life and limb” ones that we’re voting for are more outlier-ish, whereas the ones that aren’t rising to the top are insidiously more common and the kinds of things that threaten to kill your soul rather than your actual body.

    6. AnonInCanada*

      They’re all horrible. I chose the drunk-driving tolerant MIL as well, but picked the jerk boss who didn’t allow bereavement for miscarriages. That second one was a tough one (and by the looks of the votes so far it’s split down the middle).

    7. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      I used that reasoning for the first one. Sure strapping your employees to a lie detector test rather than dealing with the known thief is bad, but the potential to kill someone is just too much.

      But the second one I went with bereavement leave boss because that’s just insensitive. The knife thing can be handled in some way, but insensitivity can’t really be fixed.

    9. Stipes*

      For me, to emphasize the “boss” half of “worst boss”, I’m judging things based on “how much would it improve the world if this person was moved to a role where they aren’t managing anyone?” So the sorts of harms that a person is likely to be able to continue even without supervisory powers, like enabling drunk driving, get slightly less weight.

      1. Observer*

        So the sorts of harms that a person is likely to be able to continue even without supervisory powers, like enabling drunk driving, get slightly less weight.

        Except that in this case, if she were not the supervisor, the drunk driver would be pulled up short because she’s *showing up to work drunk*. The supervisor is protecting her job.

    10. All het up about it*

      I went with the stabbing furniture one, because at least the “no sympathy for miscarriage” boss relented after the Director meeting. I imagine Charlie is still out there stabbing things.

    13. Hobonichi*

      That’s my reasoning for choosing the drunk driver letter too, but I’ve also seen a shockingly large contingent of readers *vehemently* defend a letter writer’s defense that they had “no choice” but to participate in a *camera-on* zoom call while driving for *an hour*. Even when studies have shown that distracted driving (a la texting/making phone calls/being on zoom/etc) can be as dangerous as drunk driving in terms of driver incapacitation. So it seems like a larger-than-expected number of readers maybe don’t actually GAF about road safety (unless it applies specifically to them getting pulled over and then how very dare).

  3. Frank Doyle*

    I feel like the drunk driving one is going to take this because people are always going to think that possibly killing people is worse than anything else. (Which it probably technically is, but isn’t as “fun/interesting” to get upset about, imo.)

    1. Devo Forevo*

      That’s arguably a family problem that’s spilling into the workplace, though. I’m more inclined to vote for people behaving badly toward colleagues they otherwise wouldn’t know.

      1. House On The Rock*

        This was my thought process as well. It feels like without the family angle this boss probably wouldn’t be protecting a drunk driver, but the employer who engineered a fake lie detector test just up and did that for who the hell knows what reason.

        1. LunaLena*

          I would go so far as to say (especially considering the nature of their work) that the SIL was hired because her mother knew she could “protect” her and she wasn’t very hireable anywhere else. Which makes this more of a family issue to me than a simple case of a bad boss.

          The fake lie detector test was more egregious to me because it demonstrated such an astounding lack of consideration and out-of-touchness-with-being-a-functioning-human-being, that I readily believe that this incident is but the tip of the iceberg.

      2. Observer*

        But the MIL *is* also behaving badly to others in the workplace. She’s not doing anything about the alcoholic showing up drunk to work and driving other people while drunk.

      3. Jenesis*

        See, I’m the opposite. All other things being equal, I am more inclined to vote for a bad boss with family members in their direct chain of command, because it seems to me like either encouraging nepotism or purposely managing people who they feel will be easier to manipulate.

      4. Carmina*

        Yes I feel this manager is acting as a mom first. Her enabling is pretty bad as a mom too, but feels a bit beyond the usual scope of what makes an awful manager specifically?

    2. CityMouse*

      I’d also hazard that a lot of people know at least one person killed by someone who was driving drunk or high.

  4. Carmina*

    So hard!
    For the second, I think the stabbing is the more egregious behavior (no matter how apparently cheerful the guy is?), but the manager is basically not featured in the story at all. Dying for an update on this one…
    I think it’s not that weird that miscarriages don’t count for bereavement leave – they don’t in my country, but they do qualify as medical leave, and everyone has 30 days per year. The title buried the lede a bit on how awful this manager actually is!

    1. Karriegrace*

      I feel that because the bereavement leave one included a positive update it didn’t seem as bad. People complained and the policy was changed. Honestly the terrifying your employees with a fake lie detector seems the worst to me,

    2. Observer*

      I think it’s not that weird that miscarriages don’t count for bereavement leav

      The problem is not so much that it’s not included, but the fact of the kind of organization it is. And even more, the excuses, “questions” and veiled threats that the ED is making around the issue.

    3. Nonsense*

      Yeah, the manager really just isn’t present at all in that letter. Which, like, points to them being a bad manager because they’re so clearly so detached from the group that they aren’t doing anything about this, but still.

      1. Chocolate salt*

        Yeah, they’re obviously a weak manager, but we know so little about them (and why that is) that including them in the vote is just weird. Doesn’t feel like we have nearly enough to go on to judge them against the others. I still cannot fathom why they made the final cut.

        1. Observer*

          but we know so little about them (and why that is) that including them in the vote is just weird.

          Why? The reason for the boss allowing this to go on do not matter. This comes up all the time. People mention the “reason” why their boss “can’t” do something or other to take care of a major problem. And Alison’s response is consistently that this *is* a manager problem. If a manager cannot or will not take care of a serious problem, then they are abad manager. Even if they are a “nice” or “good” person. And a manager that is *unaware* of terrible behavior that is so damaging and so pervasive? Totally not doing their job. Again, just a terrible manager. I cannot think of a single piece of information that would change that.

          <II still cannot fathom why they made the final cut

          Because they are a terrible manager. They are either *allowing* terrible, damaging and frankly dangerous behavior to continue, and it does not matter WHY that is, or they are SOOO checked out of the very basics of the job of managing that they might as well have quit.

          1. Carmina*

            Yes but it’s a bit harder to compare them with the others when we don’t know the specifics of the badness. Is it some sort of remote situation, where the manager is responsible for several offices? Or has he been a full witness to this the whole time? Has he brushed off past complaints? (the LW had not complained yet!) Has he been actively hostile to complaints? That would change the levels of awful significantly…

    4. Ann O'Nemity*

      It’s not just that the boss doesn’t think miscarriages should count for bereavement leave; it’s also problematic that employees only get 12 total days for sick and vacation. I bet employees wouldn’t have pushed so hard to get miscarriages included in bereavement if that had better sick leave to start with.

    2. Socks*

      I’m enjoying the difference in vote counts between the first and second polls. 15 people who voted in the first one but just couldn’t decide for the second.

  6. MuseumChick*

    It says something that is year the question I ask as I’m deciding which terrible boss to vote for is “Which of these is most likely to result in someone dying?”

  7. Buffalo*

    Obviously drunk driving is worse than e.g. the property damage from the guy stabbing furniture, but I would hate to see the drunk driving letter win, just because it’s so brief and to the point. Like, who’s a worse boss, the guy who will confront you by Tuesday of next week, or this guy I just made up:

    “Dear Alison,
    My boss eats babies.”

    Obviously the latter But the latter isn’t a very interesting story / letter.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      Well, it’s not vote for the most interesting story. It’s vote for the worst boss.
      The question in that tier is which is worse: possibly killing one or more people with a car or possibly killing one or more people with a knife?

      1. Buffalo*

        Come on, fhqwhgads. (Sorry, I had to.)

        For me, I’ve always felt like “worst boss” is just the name of the thing, and that the spirit of the vote is really meant to be “most interesting letter of the year” – just like a “hall of fame” is often about quality and not just about fame, or how the award for “best actor” is about the best performance, not about who’s best at acting in general. Maybe I’m wrong. But there’s a reason this competition is usually won by interesting, memorable letters.

        There’s no question who’s “worst” here – the guy in the knife story doesn’t seem like he intends to kill people. But I work in the justice system. I hear stories like the drunk-driving letter twenty times a day. That doesn’t make them any less abhorrent, but it absolutely makes them less interesting to me. Whereas a guy – an otherwise cheerful guy! – stabbing furniture with a knife…well, that’s unique.

  8. OneAngryAvacado*

    It’s very difficult to vote for anyone over the drunk driver enabler – this year I feel like we don’t have someone so ludicrously, over-the-top Dick-Dastardly awful to their underlings that can top the ‘literally enabling someone to potentially cause a six car pile-up’!

    1. Buffalo*

      This is a reasonable point – it’s a pretty weak field. For me, the drunk driving letter is so to the point that it’s not a particularly colorful read (and despite the name of the contest, I consider this to be at least partly a “best/most memorable letter of the year” vote), but it’s also true that none of its competitors are *that* colorful either.

      1. Cynan*

        Well, the one with the employee stabbing everything in the office with a knife is pretty colorful, but it’s also not really about the boss – I don’t think the manager is even mentioned once. Clearly bad management to not do anything about it, but not really a traditional “bad boss” letter.

        The funny (?) thing about the drunk driving letter is that it’s easy to imagine this is just the (extremely dangerous) tip of the iceberg. MIL may also be covering for SIL in less immediately dangerous but more interesting ways.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          It’s interesting that we’re ending up contrasting two different kinds of bad passive management. The manager of the stabber is definitely not managing hands on enough, but apart from that doesn’t appear – vs the MIL who is actively ignoring all the problems she’s causing.

          I wonder if our answers would change if we had more details on Stabby’s manager vs them being a nonentity!

          1. STAT!*

            That’s a really good point about active versus passive bad management. I guess which is the worse approach will depend on the overall situation being mismanaged.

        2. JustaTech*

          I think that the chair-stabbing employee one kind of buries the lead in that 1) the boss is never mentioned (which means they are either totally ignorant of the stabbing or fine with the stabbing, either of which is terrible management) but also 2) the thing about the whole team ostracizing someone for reporting another team mate who *threw chairs*!

          That second bit of information says the whole organization has TERRIBLE management, and is OK with a level of physical violence that isn’t acceptable anywhere, but should be extra not acceptable in a lab, because most labs have way more hazardous stuff than the average office (chemicals, biologicals, lasers, robots).

          And all of that is what makes them a terrible boss.

        3. Observer*

          MIL may also be covering for SIL in less immediately dangerous but more interesting ways.

          That’s one of the reasons why I voted for her. Keep in mind that MIL is already covering some directly work related misbehavior that one simply cannot in any way disconnect from work – she is bringing alcohol to work and showing up to work drunk, so this cannot be winked away with “That’s on her time”.

  9. Can't Sit Still*

    This was tricky, especially the first one. I used the standard of “illegal activity doesn’t count because criminals are inherently terrible people” from another, similar contest about horrible people, but certainly understand using different standards for judging!

    All of these people are awful humans, so whoever “wins” will deserve the honor.

    1. Isben Takes Tea*

      I ended up going with the rubric of “which one of these results in a worse WORKPLACE because of the unique role the position has a boss” as opposed to “which one is worse behavior AS A PERSON who happens to be a boss”, but I totally get people having different rubrics.

      None of this behavior is okay.

      1. Quill*

        Yeah, it does seem to come down to the decision between most potential harm and worst workplace every year.

  10. Snubble*

    The manager covering for her sister is bad, but it feels like a normal kind of bad to me. Lots of people probably cover for their family at work, even on things like drinking problems. She shouldn’t do it, but I understand why she would.
    The whole elaborate internal espionage process to fake lie detector tests? That is disordered thinking at a corporate scale. That is a disconnect from all custom and reason, leading to absurd behaviours in the service of goals that don’t make sense and didn’t need to be pursued in the first place. From multiple cooperating people, each of whom is presumably mostly sane!

    1. Feral Humanist*

      This was exactly why I ended up voting for the fake lie detector boss. It was the widespread conspiracy, the corporate groupthink, and the fact that it terrified SO MANY PEOPLE.

    3. Ann O'Nemity*

      The lie detector boss harmed multiple people.
      The drunk driving boss failed to prevent harm, but no one has been hurt yet.

  12. Ann O'Nemity*

    The drunk driving one is terrible, and a great example of why family shouldn’t manage each other!

    Talk about a conflict of interest! Should I protect my daughter, or the company we work for – and everyone one the road? Guess I’ll pick my daughter.

    1. Zona the Great*

      Which is ironic considering the action! I can see my mom calling the cops on me for driving drunk.

  13. Forest Hag*

    I’m mystified at how the furniture-stabber is allowed to just…do his thing. I’ve been in jobs where people got away with A LOT, but damage to company property was certainly not one of the things tolerated – probably because that cost hard dollars to repair/replace whereas the emotional damage to someone from bullying or burnout just meant the victim would quit (and that saves money!). However, I have mostly worked for state agencies, so that probably goes into it.

    I have certainly had my fair share of workplaces where someone who is terrible is kept on because “it would be too difficult to replace them”, but you can bet they would be gone in a heartbeat if they damaged precious company property.

      1. DramaQ*

        What blew me away was the comments and how many people justified his behavior as “just being neurodivergent” and that they need to be more understanding.

        Since when is vandalizing work property and terrifying your coworkers considered an acceptable behavior because he *might* be neurodivergent? If he cannot control his actions and not stab things/throw chairs then maybe he needs a higher level of care and why is it his coworkers responsibility to cater to him?

        We learn in elementary school not to damage other people’s stuff on purpose and don’t throw chairs. I really don’t like people using neurodivergence as justification for people being like the coworker and shaming people for being rightly scared/worried about the behavior.

        I’m neurodivergent myself and can safely say even being surrounded by sharp objects in my job I have never once felt the need to take one and start stabbing company property with it. I learned to manage my emotions without violence.

  17. BridgeofFire*

    First one was really tough for me. On the one hand, drunk driving is obviously terrible, and covering up for it is even worse, because of the risk of life and injury. I ended up holding my nose and voting for the lie detector, however, for one reason. You could argue that covering up the drunk driving one basically snowballed from a really bad decision, one made emotionally. Very obviously not-good, mind you, but there was quite possibly an element of Hanlon’s Razor in that one, with the addendum that any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

    The lie detector faking? That was planned out carefully, and executed in an extremely manipulative way. There is no Hanlon’s Razor there, no “epically bad decision that spiraled”. It was pure conniving.

  18. Cat eating bacon*

    I agree that drunk driving is the bigger risk to the world at large, but the lie detector is such a bizarre decision tree disaster that I have to keep voting for it. It’s not worse in the grand scheme of things, but it is genuinely harder for me to understand *why* they did what they did. Gosh, I feel like I need a grading rubric for this.

  19. yourewelcome*

    I don’t understand the knife one being so popular…is no one reading it? He stabbed a chair sure, but it mostly sounds like him chipping an whittling away at things. Still absolutely nuts…but not remotely as off putting as the others. Especially because that one is a whole office problem and not just a boss. Last year had a much higher quality crop of awful…which i guess is a good thing.

  20. Eryn*

    “What could be worse than the bereavement leave boss!?” I said, before reading the knife one, innocent & clueless as to the potential depths of weirdness in the world.

    I CAN NOT stand when the edges of desks where my wrists sit being cut up & jagged. What is this, my rural underfunded high school? I just have to work where everything looks like it’s been chewed by rodents? While a guy stabs things with a knife & plays with lighters? We get it dude, you’re very manly, thanks for not practicing your hatchet throwing during client time.

    “Destroying or purposefully damaging company property” is almost always a written policy with discipline up to firing related to it. Enforce the policy & buy this dude some office appropriate fidget tools already. If my feral lumberjack ADHD husband can exist in a cubicle, so can pyro Charlie.

    I can’t vote lol At least bereavement boss was able to be bullied.

  21. Ollie*

    I felt the drunk driving one while serious had a fairly simple non-management solution of anyone calling the police and letting them know what was going on. Charlie was scary and needed a management solution. Stabbing furniture is not against the law and management has to get a clue to fix that one.

    1. STAT!*

      Stabbing furniture is against the law, if it is done wilfully and deliberately. It is called “criminal damage” in some jurisdictions. Don’t know what the common law name for it would be in the USA.

      1. STAT!*

        Meant to add, I agree that management had to step up to manage Charlie. And in fact a whole workplace where somebody could be ostracised because they reported another worker for throwing chairs.

  22. Megan in Seattle*

    I feel like the furniture-stabber and the drunk driver are the worst EMPLOYEES, and their bosses are awful for letting them get away with it; but the other two (lie detector and bereavement leave) are the worst BOSSES. But I can definitely see voting for the two who endanger human life and/or safety!

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