[rapjr9]

I had one boss who would ask me to write up ideas for the future direction of our department, then reformat them using a text editor meant for customer documentation, and present them at annual meetings as her own plan after she added a few sentences. I was doing her job and my own. She had seniority in the company (had been there at the founding) so unless she chose to quit her job was guaranteed, blocking any route for my own advancement. I should have left soon after this started but it was a huge inconvenience since I was in a rural area and would have had to move to another area. Eventually the company lost millions due to poor management and had to lay off half the company. I was the most costly employee in her department (after herself and she was not going to fire herself) and I had just trained an assistant to do much of what I did. Getting fired was one of the best things that happened to me, my life improved dramatically after that. I was prepared for it also since I saw it coming.

Had another boss who would make fun of my ideas and insist on doing anything but what I had suggested. I'd propose buying equipment to try out ideas and he'd approve the purchases, but then he'd also assign me enough work that I had no time to investigate any of it. It was someone else's grant money so he didn't care about wasting it. I left after four years, after which he started doing all the projects I'd suggested and he'd ridiculed. He must have kept a list.

In my last job I gave notice a year before leaving so there was time to train a replacement. We hired someone and he was coming up to speed and then quit a few months before my retirement. I got assigned all his work, doubling my work load (or more since I had to come up to speed on projects I hadn't been part of), even though I was leaving in a few months. Then more new tasks were added! I prioritized it and did what I could. Then I left. They then tried to get me to do all that extra work for free "to finish up the projects". I politely refused, I had better things to do.

Those were the worst of my bosses. There were many that I had much better experiences with. It's very difficult to judge a bad boss when being hired. They'll fake it and say all the right things, and they'll continue saying the right things, but their actions will belie their words. Once you figure it out, start planning to leave.