Wow, great thread. I've got one, and it involves the entire Board of Directors of our organization...
My first job out of college was working for a rapidly growing non-profit. It grew way faster than management had the capacity or brains to deal with. After 12 weeks as a temp, they hired me to run an entire department (fresh out of college, with a degree in history which I assure you was entirely unrelated to the task at hand).
In the beginning the work had a sense of urgency to it and I enjoyed essentially getting thrown into the deep end and learning how to swim in my field. But the leaders of this organization were crazy--narcissistic, lazy, fought with each other over everything, were working kick backs, you name it. Job dissatisfaction was high and so was turn-over (about 50% per year).
At one point I quit my job and stayed on as a consultant. My new job didn't pan out and I still really cared about the cause and had hope for changes in the organization (the Board had just fired the E.D.) so I negotiated to come back--at twice what my starting salary had been 24 months prior.
I stayed for another 2 years and though the organization never got better or more effective. It was boring and easy but the money was ridiculous for my age and being a non-profit so I stuck around, saving something like 65%.
But it was crushing my idealism to see these absolute idiots squander so much money, pick fights with each other, and generally do nothing to address our stated mission. One guy, "Tony" was particularly tedious and terrible--farming work out to other departments, taking credit for things he didn't do, boring the shit out of us with his slide-show presentations of photographs from his most recent vacations (which were mandatory!!), doing inane shit like making everyone with an Associate job title carry his 30 houseplants across the office when he moved to a bigger office, always asking the youngest woman in the office to get him a sandwich (that kinda crap makes me mad--you have an assistant, don't take advantage of the new kids). Oh and he organized an all staff retreat led by EST (which may or may not be a cult depending on who you talk to). Honestly--it wasn't the straight up stealing stuff I'd seen previous senior staff do but it was enough to be annnnnnnnnooooyyying but not really my problem since it was in another department.
Then, it just so happened that the day I went to put in my resignation, the E.D. also announced his departure. The Board of Directors of the organization was meeting in person and called us in towards the end of the day to let us know that "Tony" would manage things for the forseeable future (probably a year, maybe forever). After 25 years of shit jobs, this was finally Tony's big break!
The Board benignly asked if anyone had any questions or concerns.... I raise my hand and politely ask why this guy is being promoted when all of his direct reports have filed complaints against him, their department never meets their targets and he took us all to his cult meeting? I'm not joking when I say I said it in the politest possible tone. He was sitting 5 feet from me. This set off an hour of others piling on their complaints about why he shouldn't lead the organization.
Ultimately the Board continued with their plan to place him as interim director--which only shows how f'ed up the whole place was. But it felt good to tell them all the crap that was happening under their watch and it did probably prevent him from becoming the permanent ED.
Several years on from that, I probably wouldn't do it again today--it's not worth any professional consequences and it's not as important to me to prove my rightness by being mean.
