amazing - ask for rotten manager stories, and the howitzers come out... ;-)

my worst manager was actually not my direct report - but the ceo of our company... he had a habit of bypassing lines of command, however, and issuing direct orders to the humble foot soldiers. among the many beauties he delivered this one stands out.

our product was a large targeted marketing database (sold to our clients as a "data warehouse", even though it wasn't). this product ran on an oracle platform, and required a very technical and very manual installation process. we had a very large customer pee all over their server, and needed a re-install.

the client, being rather ignorant (not their fault - that's why they pay us), insisted on saving money and doing the re-install themselves. our manager came to us asking whether this was wise - we replied with a unanimous and obvious "no!". within two hours, the ceo made an appearance at our cubicles, informing us that the client *would* handle the re-install themselves.

one year, and about $100k of effort later (not to mention the $4-$8 million the client lost in revenue), the install was still a botched mess - and the client was lost.