‘What’s the most ‘Michael Scott’ thing your boss has ever done?’ – 22 managers who would even be too cringe for The Office

People who think they are amazing bosses tend to be the ones who are the worst, or at least the most embarrassing, as anyone who has seen either the British or the American version of The Office will know. But do these buffoons exist in real life? It turns out they do.

Beleaguered employees of deeply cringeworthy people in senior leadership roles have been sharing their stories on the AskUK subreddit after user RumpleForeskin7717 posted this:

‘What’s the most ‘Michael Scott’ thing your boss has ever done?

‘My sister texted me yesterday morning to say her boss had announced big exciting news. It was a secret but the ‘big reveal’ would happen before close of play.

‘Speculation was about bonuses, pay rises, a merger with another company, a move to a different office premises, company cars, etc. The whole team were hyped up waiting for this groundbreaking news, all texting their loved ones in anticipation.

‘Late afternoon, he asks for the team’s attention and proudly unveils… a Nescafé Dolce coffee pod machine he’d ordered off Amazon.’

Yikes. Here are some other managers who would put Michael Scott and David Brent to shame…

1.

‘I had a boss who had clearly read somewhere that he should remember a single personal fact about each person in an effort to connect to them. The thing he’d apparently decided to remember about me is that I like sausages.

‘Every single Monday, I’d have the following exchange when I went into the office:

‘Him: Morning. Did you have any sausages this weekend?

‘Me: Yes…

‘Him: Ahaahaa excellent.’
–weeble182

2.

‘It wasn’t my boss but I worked at a company where we’d have a ‘balcony brief’ where the whole company would gather and listen to people talk on the balcony in the middle of head office where the stairs were (pre-Covid so 100s of people).

‘Anyway a director was due to give a talk and he entered with Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You playing and he proceeded to sing the entire song then went about usual business i.e running through turnover for the previous quarter.

‘No idea why he did it.’
–HotelPuzzleheaded654

3.

‘I used to work for an extremely well known Scandinavian telecommunications company. The boss came on to a global all-hands meeting to Cotton Eye Joe. That was a bit odd.’
–sihasihasi

4.

‘It was around the time of that awful 2022 heatwave. Friday afternoon. Boss sends an email at about 1pm that basically said ‘I fully encourage everyone to have an early finish today! Go out, enjoy the sun, go for a walk, go for a beer garden pint! Whatever you want to do, the afternoon is yours!’

‘On Monday I got reprimanded. ‘I know I said people could leave early but you took advantage of that’. I left fifteen minutes early.’
–soverytiiiired

5.

‘Not at all my boss but a very American Office moment I think. We were in a team meeting which often felt a bit like a telling off and because of that we kept making each other laugh or making comments, etc.

‘Our manager told us to be more mature One of the women hummed the chorus and then went ‘Oooh Vienna! Sorry, I thought you said I had to be more Midge Ure’. The meeting promptly ended because none of us could keep it together.’
–hadawayandshite

6.

‘I had a boss that was very David Brent. He’d go around the office every morning greeting each person in a different language while giggling to himself… ‘BonJoooournnnoooo James’.’
–Sea-Computer-9818

7.

‘During my group induction for a job, the manager running the induction couldn’t find some paperwork. He did a really bad false laugh and kept nudging this pretty girl’s arm saying: ‘It’s a good thing I’m chilled out, eh? Eh? EH? EH?!’ Until she finally shrugged her shoulders and shouted: ‘Yes, you’re chilled out!’

‘So awkward and so very David Brent.’
–PlayMental5504

8.

‘My old boss had a Spanish wife. He’d always greet everyone in Spanish and loved throwing a random por favor or cerveza into an English sentence.

‘This stopped after a Venezuelan guy joined the team and tried responding in Spanish, revealing that in twenty years of marriage the boss hadn’t learnt how to put a full Spanish sentence together.’
–nouazecisinoua

9.

‘I was at the urinal and he came in, took the one right next to me instead of the other available five, and then looked me in the eye and said ‘Don’t worry, it’s just me, not some WEIRDO!”
–4444dine

10.

‘My direct superior decided to spend 20 minutes of a 30 minute meeting talking about his gym routine, telling us all which bit of his body was sore today and why.

‘When asked: ‘You do that all before work?’, he replied: ‘I’m all about the five to nine before the nine to five.’

‘Context: he’s a fat man with skinny arms. He doesn’t go to the gym. Why lie?’
–Erewash

11.

‘I worked in a gym and we had a guy come in, either on a trial shift or his first day I can’t remember. The boss was showing him round and introducing him to everyone. Every time he introduced the bloke, he would say ‘He’s gay by the way’ and laugh to himself.

‘I think the first time the guy laughed, by the time he got to me, the poor guy just looked at me with a confused expression and said ‘I’m not gay’. To this day I cannot even begin to guess how and why the boss thought it was appropriate. Understandably never saw the guy again.’
–EffBee93

12.

‘My boss held the staff Christmas party on a weekday because he knew nobody would attend if it was a weekend (you can guess how much we liked working there). He spent the whole day being obnoxious, acting like it was his party since he was ‘paying for everything’, and then almost started crying when everyone started leaving at 6. Nobody wanted to be there longer than they were obligated to be.
–shivvy27