I've never had any mean bosses. But I've been mostly self-employed. I have, however, worked with some rather difficult people. My secretary at U.T., for example, was a career employee of The Republic of Texas. Texas has a merit system that makes it almost impossible to fire a public employee unless they've been caught stealing or killing coworkers. Even then, sometimes they're just given a slap on the wrist and moved someplace else.
When I was ready to leave U.T., Austin, I was also ready to go to the mat to get rid of my secretary who had been everyone else's secretary in the College at one time or another. It was sheer joy to sit in front of a formidable committee of merit employees and U.T.'s Human Resources attorneys and present more than four years of documented laziness, four years of "less than favorable" performance reviews, poor office support service, bad work habits, verified lies to get out of work, and also call upon several of her previous bosses (including the current Dean) who testified that the woman needed to be put down for the sake of humanity. But because she was a merit employee, they gave her one more chance to redeem herself. And it only took three months at her job within the system before she was permanently out on her ass. Working a McDonalds is too good of a job for this person.
To this day I can do a reasonable impersonation of her. So, Fran, where ever you are: "Hello and a gracious good day to you. And you've been so gracious for being so patient."