I have a good one but it's probably gonna sink to the bottom of this post coz I'm 12+ hours late to the party.

I used to work in a department at a university. There are two bosses, Boss A and Boss B. And I am in charge of a program for students under Supervisor C, who's also under Bosses A and B. Boss A is nice and also encourages us to get some research data from students since it's good for the department and also for us. Boss A is also a researcher who publishes regularly. Boss B is very lazy and never shows up to anything, even though they are officially the direct boss of supervisor C, and hence C's team and hence my program. Boss B never attends our team meetings and never asks us anything about my program or other prgrams.

So one time I am talking to Boss A on the corridor and they again ask me about the program. I tell them about it and again they encourage me to do some research since it would help me with my career development later in the dept. At the time I actually have some idea and run it by them informally (like in 2 minutes) and they say I should do it and since it's my own initiative, it doesn't matter if in the end I find nothing. I then talk to Supervisor C, who checks with Boss B (who of course does not care), and say I can just give it a try.

The research is actually very simple. It is really just to see if students' level of satisfaction to our program is correlated with their level of study and whether they are international or local students. And I basically just design some very simple survey-type questions on an online platform and ask participants to fill out the survey at the end of the program. Honestly, this should have been done even before my time but nobody cared for it. And because of the purpose of the research, I need to include a lot of questions about their background for them to choose. But a participant will only need to answer a subset of these questions. The online platform shows them the relevant subsequent questions depending on their answer to a previous question. So on paper, these questions could be like 5 pages long, but in fact each participant will see less than 1 page long.

So after setting this survey up, I reach out to a few instructors and ask them to ask their participants to do this survey. It's really no big deal and I really don't think much of it since it's a pilot study. After the end of term, Supervisor C called for a meeting, as usual, and one of the items is for me to share the preliminary results. Little did I know the most gigantic shit storm was coming.

At this point I have to say I don't feel any pressure from the survey because 1) it's like a pilot study, and 2) if this does not work, we can just revise it and run it again because there is no timeline, and again, no one cares.

I go to the meeting, ready to just show some graphs and figures and discuss with team what we should do next. When I enter the room, Boss B is here, with a hard copy of the survey I designed. Supervisor C looks more serious than usual. I feel like she's trying to say something to me but I don't know what it is. Anyway, the meeting starts like usual.

Instead of starting with some standard items, Boss B wants us to first talk about the results. I'm like OK, but before I even start saying anything, Boss B starts to speak and begins their one-hour long tirade. They begin with "this is the worst design I have ever seen", "who, with research experience, would ask a participant to fill out a 5-page long survey about their background before the main thing?" I clarify calmly at that point, because I think maybe they don't know the question display is customized and not everyone would see the same set of questions. Boss B does not care. They continue to criticize every single aspect of the survey. Supervisor C and other team members are trying to help clarify something from time to time because Boss B clearly does not understand what the survey is about and how participants see the survey on the platform. At some point I realize that this is a personal attack and while I am really pissed and embarrassed at that point, I decide to tune Boss B out. After an hour of continuous criticisms, they stop and say if we really want to do something like this, we should talk to them because "this is really bad and completely unprofessional." and thank everyone, except me, and get up and leave.

So Supervisor C dismisses other team members right after Boss B leaves and we are alone in the room. Supervisor C starts by saying "Boss B and Boss A hate each other." And I'm like ok? And they say Boss B hears that I have been working on this survey with Boss A and so Boss B is really pissed. I then explain the only time I talked to Boss A about this was that time on the corridor and we have not spoken about this since. But this explains why Boss B's tirade: they don't care about research, the only the survey is bad is because they think Boss A helps design it. And since they cannot yell at Boss A, they just vent all the anger on a subordinate holding a small position, me. Supervisor C asks me not to worry too much about what Boss B said and tell me it's not about me, it's about Boss A.

While I feel a bit better, I still feel pissed and crushed. I am still young at the time and I really want to be more research-oriented like Boss A. I am just shocked at how unprofessional Boss B is. And how they could have crushed a person's soul completely. Luckily I never cared for Boss B prior to this since to me they are just useless.

After this, my opinion toward Boss B couldn't get any lower. And apparently colleagues on her side caught wind of this and I was automatically on Boss A's side (note: I was on neither side because it's really rare for me to have to work directly with the two bosses.) So they started to distance themselves from me and the admin people close to Boss B started to give me hard time on my schedule, leave requests and from time to time they would give me extremely sarcastic remarks even when I was just saying hi to them on the corridor. Remember again, I was young, and these are people who worked there for more than 20 years.

It's been many years ago and ironically I am now a grad student DOING RESEARCH. Boss B was shocked when they heard that I got an offer and their attitude completely changed in my last few weeks of work. I was courteous to them but it didn't change my opinion on them.

And yes, I am still very salty about this. I still don't care for Boss B and I don't hold a grudge but I am sorry, I will never wish them well.