Bad Boss Story: Fast-food Misogynist Meltdown

Source: REDDIT

"The owner of a fast-food store I worked at was a sexist piece of @#$%, on top of other things. When he lectured the female managers on their management style (most of us in our teens/early twenties) he compared running a shift to “getting your kids ready in the morning”. The comparison he gave the male managers was to imagine they were captains of a sports team. Three out of 5 male managers were paid more than the female restaurant manager who had more years of experience, more training and worked more hours per week.

When I queried this I was threatened with a warning for breaking the confidentiality clause in my contract. When I complained about work conditions, the owner asked what right I had to “whinge”. I pointed out that I had the fewest customer complaints across all my shifts among the management team, the lowest refund rate, I took zero sick days in my first 6 months and zero annual leave in 18 months, plus worked 7 weekends straight to relieve the store manager who was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Then he said, “But as a woman, you can go and get pregnant at any time which would force me to pay you for not working.”

The incident which triggered me into resigning: I arrived 30 minutes early for my shift. Male manager who got paid twice as much as me had the place in an absolute state. I took my coffee into the office and started on paperwork. Owner rocked up and yelled at me for being in the office and not helping, unpaid. I told him I literally had not clocked on yet. He pointed at me and said, “How many years of experience have you got? One? Two?” Correct answer was 10 since I had been working there since I was 14. Then he pointed back at himself and said, “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. You do what I tell you.” I knew he was 48 years old and asked him if child labour laws had allowed him to manage fast food stores at the age of 8. A lifetime of eating Filet O Fish burgers, and his blood pressure rose pretty rapidly, judging by the bulging veins in his neck and head. Then I told him to go ahead and fire me if he had a problem with my work ethic. He said “Be careful what you wish for.”

I took myself home, wrote up my two weeks notice, then took those two weeks off sick with a doctor’s certificate for stress leave. Area supervisor called and begged for me to stay, saying the owner was prepared to do anything to get me to un-resign. The store’s biggest sales week due to a local annual event was approaching and they no longer had me to run their dinner shifts. I told them to respectfully eff off and that I would be pursuing the wage theft too.

A few years later, I’m looking forward to seeing this absolute worm of a human defend himself in Federal Court against the class action I helped start."

👀 Our Take:

This isn’t just “bad leadership” — it’s systemic sexism, wage theft, and outright hostility wrapped in one.

Leaders who operate like this damage people, destroy trust, and eventually face the legal and reputational fallout they’ve earned.

Respect, equity, and psychological safety aren’t optional extras — they’re the foundation of a healthy workplace.

🧠 Could this have been avoided?

Easily. Wage equity, respect for employees, and the ability to challenge bias without retaliation could have changed everything.

That’s why we built the Work Personality snapshot — a 60-second quiz that helps leaders reflect on how their attitudes and behaviours impact others, before they poison trust and drive talent out the door.

→ Find out what kind of boss you’d be