‘They wanted what?’: 20 crazy things bosses made employees do
Prepare to be alarmed by the kinds of things C-suite executives, managers and supervisors have asked their subordinates to do for them.
Two surveys conducted in the past few months — one by CareerBuilder and one by Staples Business Advantage — asked employees to name the craziest, most unusual requests they’ve received from their superiors.
Thousands of workers participated in the surveys. But 20 responses stood out as the clear winners in the odd/crazy request department.
Behold:
- A boss asked his employee to get a dead raccoon out of his truck (The question is, did he hunt it or hit it with his truck?)
- One boss asked her employee to take her grandmother to the doctor.
- An employee was asked to feed the birds in the boss’ backyard.
- An employee was told by his boss to NOT help the boss’ ex-wife move (One can only assume the employee and ex-wife were friends).
- A boss asked an employee to breakup with his girlfriend for him (Yet another addition to the list of difficult conversation managers try to avoid).
- Employee was asked to taste a dog treat (Umm … what? … why?).
- A boss dropped his cell phone in the toilet and asked an employee to get it serviced (Here’s hoping the employee wore gloves).
- An employee was asked to help her boss organize the boss’ high school reunion.
- One boss asked her employee to help cut her out of her pants.
- Another — possibly very hairy boss — asked an employee to shave his back.
- An employee had to buy furniture for his boss’ mother. It was her birthday (“Happy birthday! Here’s a bunch of furniture I made my assistant buy”).
- Every day, while the boss was away, an employee was asked to go to the boss’ house and water the garden.
- One employee had to fill out a claim for the boss’ mother-in-law’s insurance policy (Sounds fishy).
- Another boss had her employee prepare a resume and job application for her husband (Sounds like a real go-getter!).
- An employee had to find a doctor for a company executive, visit the hospital for updates on the execs’ health and then report back to the execs’ family.
- A boss asked his employee to meet him at the airport with a rental car. Sounds fine until you get to the part of the story where the boss ditched the employee and told him to take a cab home. Oh, and this was all on a Saturday afternoon (At least it wasn’t a holiday).
- One employee said, “I had to order my own award and then go pick it up” (Sounds prestigious).
- Another employee was at a bar with some friends when they ran into the man’s boss. The boss then told the employee that if he didn’t sing karaoke he’d be fired. The boss then video tapped the man singing and showed the video to the office the next day.
- A boss asked his employee to go to his house and spread wood chips over his “acres” of land (Maybe the boss felt the man could use some exercise).
- Last but not least, a boss asked an employee to hand-deliver $15,000 in cash in a seedy neighborhood to “finalize a real estate transaction.” The employee was scared but lived to tell the tale.
