Work Daze

To tell you the truth, I used to think I was the only person with a difficult boss.

Oh sure, other people had “cranky bosses” or “demanding bosses” or “incredibly ignorant buffoon of a boss,” but only I had a supervisor who woke each morning with only one thought on his little pea brain: how can I make life miserable for Bob.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered there is not only a world full of bad bosses, but an entire industry devoted to coping with these monsters of the work place. It’s true! Coping with difficult bosses is not just a curse; it’s a profit center.

My first hint into the universal problem of the bad boss came when I stumbled on the web site of one Steve Quinn at difficultpeopletips. com. Quinn must have worked in the direct marketing industry, because his site most resembles one of those endless junk mail letters you get, describing a vitamin supplement you must swallow, or a politician who simply wants you to swallow their line of guff. His site not only has a “P.S,” the ultimate sign of the classic direct mail pitch, plus a “P.P.S,” a “P.P.P.S” and a “P.P.P.P.S.” by which time you are ready to purchase whatever it is Quinn is selling for $137, just to get his digital foot out of your electronic door.

Unfortunately, while Quinn spends endless pixels haranguing his readers about the evils of bosses who manipulate, ignore, bully and abuse, he withholds the nature of his “11 techniques” and his “7-step process” for those who pony up the $137. [Reduced for thee and me to “an incredibly low $47” if you ACT NOW.]

Badbossology.com is much more giving, if not forgiving. The site is basically a compendium of bad boss stories and cures, most culled from other publications and web sites. There were some truly excellent bad boss examples to be harvested from badbossology.com, like the supervisor who reprimanded an employee for running out of a plant without his safety glasses simply because he was trying to save his wife who was caught in a fire nearby. Now there’s a bad boss. (though really, how much time would it take for the worker to slip on his safety glasses.)

The solutions on the site are less interesting. Typical ideas include acknowledging the situation in order to “externalize the problem and reduce self-blame, rather than holding it in and finally exploding."

Personally, I think a good emotional explosion now and then is an excellent solution for a bad boss. Let the jerk or jerkette know that you are just as capable of irrational behavior as they are. They will not only back down, they could also start thinking of you as management material.

At careerknowhow.com I found a helpful article by Rachelle Disbennett-Lee, MS, PCC, CTC. [What this alphabet soup behind her name means, I have no idea, but I do think it’s impressive, and I may borrow a few letters to replace my own professional signature, Bob Goldman, high-school equivalency diploma.]

Ms. Disbennett-Lee also suggests talking to friends and loved-ones about your jerk of a boss and she brings up the very good idea that you document everything that occurs between your bad boss and your good self, the better to be prepared when he or she starts accusing you of being a lazy shiftless bum. May I suggest that you document your documentation, just to be sure, and then document your documentation of your documentation. This will not only protect you, but it will fill up those empty hours between nine and five when you have nothing much to do except goof off.

It didn’t take much web surfing to realize the problem of difficult bosses represents a global epidemic. At www.betterhealthchannel.vic.gov.au I learned that the Aussie solution to the problem is to “Be Assertive.” This might work in the land down under, but it surely will be a bust in the U.S. The suggestion that we “use assertive language such as ‘I feel’ and ‘I think’, rather than wimpy language such as ‘You always’ and ‘You never’ “ will never work here. Just imagine telling your boss “I feel you are a big jerk” rather than the more passive, American “You’re always a big jerk.” Besides, if being assertive doesn’t work, you can’t take the next step available to an Australian and fill the trunk of your boss’s Bentley with kangaroo dung.

But it’s a lovely thought, isn’t it, mate?