I posted the 2nd and 3rd worst already but the other two pale in comparison to this one. So bad that allegations against my former boss by the staff came to a 17 page long double sided document (and that was the condensed version).
I used to work for a summer camp. I had attended it as a kid, volunteered as a teenager, then got hired in uni as an Archery/Canoe instructor. About 2 years ago I got re-hired as the assistant director.
Unfortunately for me I didn’t know the real reasons why.
I had never worked with the director myself, only seen him around since he was a very hands off manager. Only showed up when he absolutely had to.
It led me to doing his job, my job, and he didn’t hire a chef so I did that too. He approved the registrar to take a vacation during camp so I learned her job and added that to my number of hats for a few weeks too.
But then I learned he only hired me as a scapegoat. He believed only women were supposed to be good with children but none of the female staff stayed on site so he wasn’t allowed to abandon the campsite as usual.
When I found out what was going on behind the scenes I realized that meant if anything happened with the campsite it would be put on my permanent record with the organization and I would be liable so I said “well I’d better be allowed to fire anyone if needs be.”
I couldn’t and there were two that really needed to be fired. 1. A counsellor who I realized was on drugs while doing his job (if he was even around to do his job) and another, a suspected p*dophile who didn’t do his job at all anyway.
It took me 7 weeks out of the 8 the camp ran for to get the director to fire the second one but the first one? When I said there was a problem with him the director said “the only problem we have here is you off your (ADHD) medication.”
I took a quick breather then got back to work but it was a nightmare of him micromanaging everything that didn’t matter, and leaving me without any assistance on major issues.
I had to balance the budget without being given the costs of materials /or/ the budget, manage the staff, force him to deal with the s*xual harrassment claims against him by the staff, force him to follow worksafe standards and labour laws… the list goes on.
The funniest part was his “misplacement” of $48,000 which I found out because he accidentally sent me the budget. I should stress it’s not embezzlement or anything illegal.
He owned the camp and was entitled to any money leftover after expenses. The reason he lied about budget was because he liked to claim he was a volunteer and because we’d be less likely to stick to a budget if we knew there was that much left over.
Anyway. Needless to say I wouldn’t go back there again.