Things could be worse at the office — look at these bosses
Knight Ridder News Service
If you think you have a terrible boss, you may take some comfort in the following list of really bad bosses who have gained notoriety:
Knight
Bobby Knight: The infamous basketball coach whose temper ended his tenure at Indiana University. Knight threw a plastic chair down a basketball court and put a chokehold on one of his players.
George Steinbrenner: The New York Yankees owner is loved by fans despite episodes of firing managers and publicly embarrassing star players.
Donald Trump: The real-estate mogul of "The Apprentice" fame gloats arrogantly as he belittles his business partners and reduces his over-achieving apprentices to tears weekly on prime-time television.
Bill Lumberg: The boorish boss in the movie "Office Space." Gary Cole plays the office manager at Initech computer company. He harangues employees and makes them come in on the weekends, warning them as early as Friday afternoon.
Katharine Parker: Sigourney Weaver plays the narcissistic boss in the 1988 movie "Working Girl." Parker has a particular penchant for stealing ideas from underlings. Melanie Griffith stars as an executive secretary who suffers at the hands of this mean boss.
Ebenezer Scrooge: He's the chief character in Charles Dickens' novel "A Christmas Carol." Scrooge is a miserly businessman who begrudges his worker a holiday on Christmas.
Gordon Gekko: The greedy boss played by Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street." He coined the phrase "lunch is for wimps."
Martha Stewart: The domestic goddess turned felon is rumored to have a bad temper around employees. Stewart is often the butt of jokes on late-night television. She was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to the government in 2004 in connection with a well-timed stock sale and served five months in federal prison.
Gen. George S. Patton Jr.: The real-life World War II general was known for carrying pistols with ivory handles and for his intemperate manner.
