Most of my bosses were men, partly because of the times and partly because I mostly worked in male-dominated industries. I had some really bad bosses and some really good ones. The first terrible boss was a guy who promised me a week of vacation when I was hired as a clerical worker, then after I took the time off he told me it wouldn't be paid vacation. When I complained he said my inability to pay my rent wasn't his problem. I made it his problem by threatening to go to small claims court, so he paid me - and then I quit. Another was a sexist creep who made a frequent point of saying the grossest things he could think of to female employees, just to see if he could get a reaction. One of the best bosses I ever had was a judge; he was kind, funny and encouraging. Another male boss served as a mentor for many years.

After switching to another career I had a female boss who was very kind and helpful, followed by another one who was nice enough but wasn't a very effective manager because she was disorganized. After switching jobs again I got a male boss who wasn't a bad guy but he was a terrible manager. He'd give you instructions to do something, then claim he didn't mean for you to do that thing but that you should have done this other thing that he meant for you to do but didn't tell you about. He did that all the time and drove people nuts. After a department reorganization that resulted in his not being the manager anymore, he was much nicer and easier to deal with. He was followed by a female manager whom I liked and found easy to work with. Then there was a merger, and the acquiring company sent their people to take over our department and they were mostly assholes. Our new boss wouldn't have anything to do with people who weren't in management, to the point where he wouldn't even sit at the same cafeteria table with us peons - even though our old management wasn't heirarchical at all and everybody hobnobbed with everybody else. He even told other managers that they shouldn't be associating at all with non-management employees. He was a major douche - snappish, rude, and condescending. And then I retired. No more bosses.

There are so many bad boss stories out there that I've come to the conclusion that good ones are hard to find, and that the fact that you're good at the technical thing that your employer does, doesn't mean you're going to be good at managing other people to do that thing. I was considered for a management position with my last employer (before the merger) but I withdrew from consideration after realizing I'd probably suck at it.