Reading all these stories makes me happy my managers so far have been okay to excellent; not always as good as you'd want them to be, but nowhere near as bad as most of these stories (though the bad breath sounds familiar...)

What struck me about a lot of these stories is the naivity and lack of self defense of the people being screwed over, espcially the person who took a paycut to keep somebody else working!

Of course, by definition only bad managers take advantage of this, but it is important to remember your boss, your manager and your co-workers are not your friends or family and it is important to not expect them to be.