TLDR at bottom.
About 15 years ago I worked as a project manager for a construction management company. We did new builds, restorations and project planning.
I have IBS. If anyone cares, essentially I feel like shit everyday of my life. I am usually exceptionally bloated and in constant discomfort. I have tried everything under the sun to solve this problem including doctors, specialists, nutritionists, gastroenterologists and even fru fru natural doctor mixes of herbs and spices. Nothing helps. So I just deal with it when it's bad and do my best in life.
My boss however was an idiot. He was loud, boisterous and a know it all when it came to anything. He would treat me like a child, even though I was a fully grown man and would say things like “You need to watch your attitude.” and “Show some respect for your elders. I am your father's age.” and shit like that. He was also in a 'religion' that many people refer to as a cult. I don't know all the details, but everyone is a minister or a deacon or something like that. So he had this super weird air of superiority going around him at all times, when in reality he just came off as Homer Simpson in a $50 button up suit.
So I was having a bad day at work one day and my stomach was just ripping me up inside. It was very uncomfortable. He came into my office, like he likes to do about 40 times a day, to see what I was working on. I told him and also told him that I was having issues that should hopefully pass in the next few hours. He starts to talk to me about his weight loss journey and how he is taking this magical juice called noni juice and in combination with these pills he was dropping weight like crazy. I told him that was great it was working for him and tried to get back to work. He kept talking about it and how it 'reset' his gut health and changed his whole digestive system. I eventually was able to get back to work like 15 minutes later.
A few hours go by and I am feeling better and working away when I get a call to come into my boss' office. He is sitting there at his desk and in one of the chairs closest to the office door there is a man sitting. My boss invites me to sit in the other chair near the wall of the office. I sit down thinking this was some dude who we were working with or a consultant or something. I even brought in notepad and pen to write down stuff with for that because I thought it was an impromptu meeting. Nope.
This man is introduced as Adolf. Yes that was his name. Adolf had a magical drink for me to try. It was the cure all to all my ailments. It was something out of an old western movie where the snake oil man was talking about how this will reset my gut health, fill my body with 100000000000 healthy bacteria. How I'll get better sleep, feel more rested, wake up ready to go, have smoother skin, no more headaches, and most importantly it will 100% guaranteed cure my IBS. So he pulls out this bottle that looks like wine and sets it down. My boss goes on and on about how this magical elixir will cure all that ails me. How he drinks 3 shots a day, one in the morning, one after work and one before bed. How it changed his life!
At this point in my life I have had so many people like Adolf try and push this type of crap on me. Miracle pills, oils, lotions, salves, drinks, tonics, elixirs, wraps, infrared lighting systems and so much more. I have spent hundreds of dollars out of desperation to find something, anything, that would help even a little bit, but it has always done nothing, or has made things so insanely worse. So I know this speech and sales pitch like the back of my hand and I was not having it. I explained that I was not interested. I was then told it was only, ONLY, $100 a bottle and that would last me a week and a half. Once again I said I was not interested and thank you for coming in, but it was not something I would be buying. My boss started to get pissed off. He started talking to me like a little kid. “I brought Adolf in here just for you! He can help you! Why are you so stubborn about your health? Look at me! I am doing so well because of Adolf's help and I can't believe that you are being so inconsiderate and rude without even trying it!” He then opened up the bottle, poured about a shots worth into a plastic cup and told me to drink it.
Now if you don't have IBS you may not understand, but the last thing you do is try new foods when you are out on IBS. You have no idea how it is going to react to your system. You could be fine, or you could be stuck in the office toilet until 11pm because you can't stop shitting. So it is not something many people with IBS do.
I told him no I was not drinking it. He said, “You have to! I just opened this bottle and you now owe Adolf $100 for it. So take a drink!” I am sitting in a chair blocked in my two men, who are both larger than I am, in the corner of an office with no ability to get around them to the exit of the office. I have nowhere to go. Essentially they are holding me hostage until I drink this drink and then pay $100 for the bottle that was opened 'for me'.
I put down my pad and pen and calmly say, “This is not my first rodeo with this type of stuff. I was trying to be nice and polite, however it is time for reality. Adolf, you're selling bullshit in a bottle. It does nothing for anyone. Boss' name, you sitting there trying to peer pressure me, and then intimidate me into drinking some random drink and paying $100 for a bottle of it, not only is unprofessional, but it is also ignorant, rude and childish. You're having a temper tantrum because I won't spend $100 on something I had no intention on buying and now you're blocking me from leaving this office. So I am getting up, going back to my desk and getting work done, because I have wasted enough time on this show so far.” I got up and walked right by them as my boss tried to come over the desk at me to stop me.
I was yelled at for a good 10 minutes straight in my office by my boss as Adolf left. Just rants about being disrespectful and “If you were my son, I'd give you a roughing up.” and shit like that. It was almost 5pm at that point and I just sat there as he berated me. Just before 5 his wife always calls so she called, he left my office and I walked out and went home.
The next day I come in and my boss is still super fucking pissed off at me. He starts off the day talking about how amazing he feels and how immature I am for not listening to him. How he feels so amazing etc. He went on another 10 minute diatribe about how Adolf's magic juice and these pills he was taking were helping him shed so much weight etc. I just wanted to work. At about 1pm I look over into my boss' office from mine and he is sitting there white as a ghost. Like I mean beyond pale looking. I can see the sweat stains through his fancy button up shirt. He is just saturating his clothing. I mouth to him, “Are you ok?” and he shakes his head no and gets up and walks quickly out of the office and down the hall into the toilets. 2pm rolls around and he is still not back. When 3pm hits I go to check on him. Mind you this was like 2008 so texting for old people was a foreign language and we didn't have smart phones. So I couldn't just message him while he was in the shitter. Anyways I get in there and the smell is unimaginable. Like a mix between campfire, pickle juice, old wet swimwear in a bag you left for a year and rotting flesh. Essentially death. It was the smell of death. I call out to him and ask if he is ok as I try and speak through my sleeve covering my mouth. He says he is very ill and for me to go home when I am done my work.
So I go back to my office and I have about an hour of stuff I have to finish up before I can send it out to the client and I try and get it done as fast as I can. As I am just hitting send around 3:45pm he comes back. Shirt untucked, just dripping sweat off of it. Pants soaked through. Sweat dripping off his saturated head. It was like he just jumped in a pool fully clothed. He grabbed his wallet and keys off his desk, looked at me and said “Doctor's. Now.” and walked out of the office. I packed up and left.
The following day he is in before I am. You know why he was so sick? Well the magic juices, elixirs, potions and pills he was taking to be healthy and lose weight, essentially emptied out his whole body. All of his bowels emptied. He couldn't stop peeing. It caused him to start sweating uncontrollably. He said when he went to the hospital and they weighed him he was 11lbs lighter than he was when he weighed himself that morning. I don't know how truthful he was about that because as I said before he liked to tell tall tales, but it's possible. He essentially put his body into shock. His blood pressure tanked and he was in serious risk of having really bad issues if he didn't get to the hospital. They released him at 11pm that night after treating him and giving him IVs and stuff like that.
A few days later I quit after his wife got into a car accident and he said he couldn't pay me because he used money from the business to buy her a new car.
TLDR: Boss traps me in his office with another man to try and force me to buy magical elixir that will fix my IBS issues that I knew was BS. Yelled and screamed at me for refusing. Then the next day he had a reaction to all the 'natural medicine' he was taking that came very close to killing him.