What's the cruelest thing at work someone ever said to you that you still remember word for word? I’ll go first - my former boss when I was struggling learning excel formulas said, “I don’t know why we hire such idiots”. Made me too afraid to ever ask a question again.

"We believe in your growth" only to get laid off a week later.

“F*uck your kids” — said in response to my polite heads-up that I’d have to duck out a bit early after giving my updates in a routine status meeting that was running past 5pm, to go pick up my kids from school. Said in front of a room full of colleagues.

“You’re aware we pay you for skills, right?”

In an interview looking for my first job: “you’re like a diamond in the rough… (I think I’ve got the job)…but like a diamond it will take millions of years of pressure to get anything good out of you.” ( No job)

Yikes. Sorry to each and every person who’s had to deal with such awfulness.

“I should demote you back to intern” when I had been a junior for about a year. Back at my second agency.

I was told that the truth didn’t matter when a client outright lied about something I never did but he said I did.

"You're only going because we need a black face at the table."

Early in my career I was in a meeting with a lot of senior people, and at least one of them was offended that I, so junior, was included in the meeting. When I dared to speak, she cut me off with, "I don't give a f*ck what you think. " I was so shocked I laughed. Fast forward about 8 years, I'm now a manager, and someone runs in my office to tell me this woman has collapsed behind her desk and they can't wake her up. While we wait for the ambulance, I tell her I'm holding her hand and won't leave her. I'm not sure she can hear me but tears roll down her face. At the ER, I meet her mother, and the doctor comes out and says there's been severe bleeding. "We can either let this run its course and she will probably die within a few hours, or we can operate to relieve the bleeding but she will likely be in a vegetative state." And her mother instantly turns to me and says, "What should I do?"
If you had told me in that first meeting that that woman's mother would one day be asking my advice regarding her very life I could never have imagined it. How strangely the tables can turn.

Oh, after I got let go as a junior freelancing. “You really need to find a mentor.” What do you think I had been trying to do?

My comment got reported for saying what my manager said to me?! Woah some community here

”You’re either really good or really, really bad” - a former boss told me smiling over lunch. 20 years later I’m still wondering what he meant!

My old manager messaged me on the day of my mom’s funeral asking where I was and we had stuff to do

i was brand new to a design team and whilst campaigning was going on for one of the recent elections… a persian woman who sat in a cube next to mine told me “i’m going to call the president and ask him to build a wall between my cube and yours so i don’t have to see you.”

Asking my boss if we could get cleaning material and rat traps so that we (the artists) could clean up rat droppings. “They’re probably cleaner than we are”

Asking same guy for office chairs as we were sitting on plastic lawn chairs. “It would be nice to have the art room looking like a jet plane cockpit but it’s not in the budget right now.”

I never get a job at this app I have a great experience with us, but I never get a job

I should have known better but I was 21, naive and afraid of everything. One of my most toxic jobs was working at Y&R for the head of broadcast music - the first thing he did when I sat down for my interview was look me up and down and said "I really like big women". Another time he slammed the face in my door and screamed "WHY CAN'T YOU BE A HUMAN?!?!??!". And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I have a few.... 1) You're just a project manager, you just take notes and schedule meetings (from an architect to me at a company I had just joined after being tired of IT leadership for the past 15 years) 2) At the beginning of most every staff meeting my manager would greet us with 'Hey Guys...er, Hey Guys and [My Name]' calling me out for being a woman 3) I was plugging in the workstation under my desk, and my supervisor at the time with a wink said..."while you're down there..." and 4) Today is your last day at [craphole company]

"It's not my fault she doesn't know what she's doing".... from the girl who was supposed to be training me.. also left me out of birthday cake celebration for someone else. I showed her. I became an expert in 2 of our software programs and didn't teach her. ;)

"You'll have to tell me when you start trying to get pregnant so I have enough time to find and train a replacement for you."

Yes. President of company wanted to know my bedroom activities/conception schedule.