# Your boss, best/worst



## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Unless you are a trust fund baby, you have probably worked for someone.....What makes a good/lousy boss.....In my case I always respected a boss who was on the job when I showed up, knew as much as or more than I did, and respected my efforts......

I am amazed at some of the stupid people I have worked for....Micro managers who don't know anything, and are afraid everyone is as dumb as they are....


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## bbdad (Feb 11, 2013)

I work for my self now, so I would say best is me.. ha ha... but, it is just me so no worries there.

Actually, the best boss I had did not know my job better than me, nor was he always there before or after me. However, he respected me enough to do the job right and to leave me alone so it could get done. Micro managing never worked for me. The guy that treated me with respect like that is still a friend, long after I left that company. I left to go out on my own. I handle my business in many of the ways that he handled his and it has shown to work well.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Very early on I had a boss who was also the first black man I had worked for....He was fantastic. He had a unique ability to assess the ability of an individual, and turn him loose to do his work. He told me the only time I would catch flack from him was if I knew the correct thing to do and did not step up and make the decision....Unfortunately the next boss was also black, and was lousy....He did not know the product, and the testing procedures, and hated me for what I knew....The plant (Carter Carburetor) was shutting down, and on my last day as I was walking to the door, I ran into him. I was surprised he even acknowledged me, but he stopped me to say good by. He said, "I want you to know you were the best person on my crew".... I said "I know" ....and walked out....


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

My worst was an attorney that I handled real estate closings for right out of college. Her thing was she didn't believe in training people to do the job. She just wanted you to learn as you went along. Which, in theory isn't in itself a problem. The problem came from the fact that she also didn't believe in gradually increasing responsibility until you had learned to do the job. My first week, with no training and no experience, I was in charge of all the paperwork, documentation, title work, tax record checks, insurance requirements, etc. for 10 closings. It was very stressful. 

She also had zero patience with me asking questions. And zero patience with errors. She once called me into a closing to berate me for having failed to type in the date in a single location in an 80+ page document package - in front of the sellers, the buyers and their attorney, the insurance rep and the loan officer from the bank. I lasted 6 months at that job, which paid $14,900 a year in 1998. It's the only time I've ever quit a job without having another lined up.


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## soccermom2three (Jan 4, 2013)

I haven't had a really bad boss.

My best boss was a woman that I started working for when I was 21. She was my boss, mentor and became a very good friend. Besides my mom, she probably was the biggest female influence in my life. In fact, sometimes I would accidentally call her mom instead of her name. I would be so embarrassed but she would just laugh and say, "Well, I am old enough to be your mom". I worked for her for 7 years until her death at 48 from breast cancer. It was an honor to speak at her memorial service. I use the knowledge she gave me everyday.


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

Best - I'll call him "Syd." Took me into his department even though I wasn't really qualified. (Company was too cheap to hire someone who was.) He was a natural born teacher who could point you in the right direction, give you help when you were taking a wrong turn, but didn't need to peer over your shoulder every five minutes. 

Worst - I'll call him "Bill." A disciple of Steve Jobs. He would push people to go faster and faster and faster, threaten them with their jobs and then scream obscenities and throw chairs when mistakes were made. One of life's most satisfying moments was running into him years later, hiking in a designated primitive area. I was on horseback accompanied by two big dogs and a .444 Marlin. He was on foot, in shorts and goofy looking athletic sandals. We were polite to each other, but the look on his face was priceless.


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## MarriedDude (Jun 21, 2014)

Best boss I have ever had (other than me), was a squad leader.

He was a douche, meaner than hell, expected nothing but 100% at all times, and had the worst taste in music ever....

But...he kept me alive. Over and over again.

Everytime I hear the carpenters or captain and Tennille, I think if him
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

I think I've had as many bad bosses as good. I work in software development doing some R&D type things. I had a woman who was some kind of whiz-kid MBA with no technology experience. The only conversation she ever had with you was, "Is it done yet?" and "When will it be done?" Completely useless. 

I had another woman whose mission was to personally correct gender based pay disparities all by herself. Me and another guy were constantly solving the knotty technical issues and finding and fixing the bugs, yet the far less skillful women on the team who were her lunch companions were singled out for praise and raises time and time again. Big misandrist. 

Two really good managers had strong technical backgrounds. One woman, one man. They understood technical issues, and more importantly, used their authority to resolve conflicts and expedite processes. Good role models, too.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

How is this for a total douche of a boss....I really needed a job, he interviewed me, but *hired someone else....

*The guy worked for 3 days, and never showed again...

I got the job....I showed up day one and was told *he had given the job to another employee,* and I was given his old job.....

Week one I was told there was an after work meeting at a local motels conference room....I showed up, and the entire management staff of the plant was there....

*My new boss handed me a pointer, and said Charlie is going to show everyone how our carburetors work,* lights down, projector on...Show time......

No warning, no heads up, this pric% had not even asked me about my knowledge base in carburetion....

*I gave a 45 minute extemporaneous lecture in gasoline fuel systems....When I said "Lights please, are there any questions*"?

You could have heard a pin drop....

I made a huge impression on the staff at that plant....*No thanks to A$$hole.....
*
The worst thing I ever saw a manager do was by him. A Vietnamese tech got a letter from Nam telling him his mother had died.....*Our A$$hole boss would not grant him bereavement time off because he did not attend the funeral*.......

To top it all off, he was a born again something, constantly spouting scripture, while drooling over every skirt in the plant......When the regime fell, corporate fired him, the plant manager, and numerous deadwood*......My boss was seen blind drunk in a motel mens room, bawling his eyes out and ranting about "Those mot$erfu&kers that fired him....*A sad day...


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

I am definitely the best boss I have ever had, and anyone below me better agree as well >


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Can't say as I've ever had a stellar superior, at least not one that I learned from or would emulate. I work best for people who leave me alone. To me there are two types of horrid bosses; those who are negligent backstabbers and those who are nano managing control freaks. Ok maybe a third type, the idiot crony.


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

I've hit a really bad string of working for truly terrible bosses. They have not respected me, my work or my department, don't know what there are doing and are only submerged deeply in company politics and don't give a damn about anything else.


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

It's the Peter Principle at work. "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence."

I don't think it's true of every employee, but it can definitely explain many managers I've seen. The other observation I can make is that the main competence of some people seems to be self-promotion and/or brown-nosing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robasgh...-reigns-what-the-peter-principle-means-today/


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

VermisciousKnid said:


> It's the Peter Principle at work. "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence."
> 
> I don't think it's true of every employee, but it can definitely explain many managers I've seen. The other observation I can make is that the main competence of some people seems to be self-promotion and/or brown-nosing.
> 
> Forbes Welcome


I was in a meeting to discuss a new assembly line which was being set up....When the meeting concluded, the staff members were asked to stay. I was discussing an issue with my boss, when a corporate V.P. walked in, and I was accidently privy to a good old fashioned "Get right with Jesus" meeting.......

His opening line was *"Here I stand in a little chickenshlt $6,000,000 plant in a cotton field in Arkansas, and what do I see? EMPIRE BUILDERS! Ladies and gentlemen, there are NO empire builders in little chickenshlt $6,000,000 plant in a cotton field in Arkansas*....

I had a spontaneous orgasm....

Over the next week, heads rolled like bowling balls.....


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

It depends on the culture of your organization. Some corporate cultures imbue a manage-your-boss mentality; eg; kiss up, yes man, psychological judo. Others imbue a stomp on your subordinates mentality. While others instill a mindless hopeless metrics driven assembly line where the best place to be is wherever the sh^t aint. And those are the ones that are mediocre to well run. Still more are run pathologically, like that recent expose on Amazon. And then there's the places where people really do and still do sleep their way, not to the top but at least middle management. And then there's the feudal empires where department heads aren't entirely clear what their job or purpose is so they set out to gobble up turf and massacre all opponents. 

Most large organizations are only run well enough not to suddenly and spectacularly fail. For example, IBM with its latest CEO is 13 or so quarters into declining top line revenue, stock price down 35% and no clear direction forward. But it's big enough for the cronies at the top and in the board to rape and pillage the company without it imploding. It's essentially a hedge fund that also sells technology services and software. Or you could look at Bank of America which has turned over most of its C-Suite in the past two years and has nothing to show for it. The examples are endless of poorly run firms that are poorly run by choice because they are filled with weak stupid leaders who make bad decisions and they surround themselves with flunkies who have a vested interest in those bad decisions. 

If you have a bad manager and he or she also has a bad manager then your firm is headed for some sort of calamity because up and down the chain the people who actually are supposed to get the work done are bad at their jobs or not permitted to be good at their jobs. 

I spent many many years as a management consultant and we would come in kick ass and write long papers on organization, metrics, goals, cost dynamics, O.R., risk management, etc and we'd get our checks and move on to the next one and sponsor of the project would maybe ignore 3/4ths of it and poorly implement the other quarter. Because fixing things wasn't their agenda and the skills to do it were never in their wheelhouse. 

Bad companies are like bad relationships. The first question you have to ask is 'why am I here, why are you asking me to ask these questions?' Followed up by 'what does success look like to you?' Because most managers, even executives, hand to god, cannot tell the difference between success and failure.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Runs like Dog said:


> It depends on the culture of your organization. Some corporate cultures imbue a manage-your-boss mentality; eg; kiss up, yes man, psychological judo. Others imbue a stomp on your subordinates mentality. While others instill a mindless hopeless metrics driven assembly line where the best place to be is wherever the sh^t aint. And those are the ones that are mediocre to well run. Still more are run pathologically, like that recent expose on Amazon. And then there's the places where people really do and still do sleep their way, not to the top but at least middle management. And then there's the feudal empires where department heads aren't entirely clear what their job or purpose is so they set out to gobble up turf and massacre all opponents.
> 
> Most large organizations are only run well enough not to suddenly and spectacularly fail. For example, IBM with its latest CEO is 13 or so quarters into declining top line revenue, stock price down 35% and no clear direction forward. But it's big enough for the cronies at the top and in the board to rape and pillage the company without it imploding. It's essentially a hedge fund that also sells technology services and software. Or you could look at Bank of America which has turned over most of its C-Suite in the past two years and has nothing to show for it. The examples are endless of poorly run firms that are poorly run by choice because they are filled with weak stupid leaders who make bad decisions and they surround themselves with flunkies who have a vested interest in those bad decisions.
> 
> ...


I have seen just seen it all when it comes to bad managers. I have seen paranoids, pill heads, hopeless skirt chasers, victims of Napoleon complex, and hopelessly clueless......

I have seen subordinates impregnated, concubines on the payroll, thieves, steering plum contracts to cronies, abdicating a failing company to play golf, bribery, and almost willful malfeasance..

I found out the best way to get even with these A$$HATS is to endure until they are found out and FIRED...

I spent a year doing a detailed re-organization of a plants layout for a tyrant of a plant manager....When I finished, I showed him an alternate layout that would save a quarter million bucks....He trashed my alternate layout and presented his plan to corporate....He was fired on the spot, but informed he would stay a month to break in his replacement...His replacement was also an A$$HAT, who lasted only 1 year.......


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

*I spent many many years as a management consultant and we would come in kick ass and write long papers on organization, metrics, goals, cost dynamics, O.R., risk management, etc and we'd get our checks and move on to the next one and sponsor of the project would maybe ignore 3/4ths of it and poorly implement the other quarter. Because fixing things wasn't their agenda and the skills to do it were never in their wheelhouse. 
*

Manufacturing went through a series of "Management systems" beginning in the 1980's....Quality is free, quality circles, etc...ad nauseum....All of them worked, and none of them worked...They were all just different iterations of imposing systems and procedures....The only thing these systems needed to work was a real commitment by management....They rarely got it...

None of these systems were any better than old fashioned 14 point Demming......


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## CuddleBug (Nov 26, 2012)

Woodchuck said:


> Unless you are a trust fund baby, you have probably worked for someone.....What makes a good/lousy boss.....In my case I always respected a boss who was on the job when I showed up, knew as much as or more than I did, and respected my efforts......
> 
> I am amazed at some of the stupid people I have worked for....Micro managers who don't know anything, and are afraid everyone is as dumb as they are....



I worked for a boss that favored hiring his buddies and friends and of course, kids still in highschool and right out of highschool. He paid these kids as low as possible and told them his place is a great career. Guys at the shop would tell these kids the shop is not all that and they quit and got a job elsewhere or went back to school. His friends and buddies would miss shifts, crash machines and fall asleep at the job and it was okay with him. Now if anyone else did that, you're fired!!!

If you talked on your cell during shop time, he tried to dock you 15 minutes pay. Or if you were late once in the year by 5 minutes, again, tries to dock you 15 minutes pay. If you talk while working during shop time and he saw that, he'd be giving you dirty looks and watch you. Now if his friends and buddies did that, the boss would even sometimes join in and its okay.

No seniority at all. You could be layed off 5 minutes at the end of your shift with no heads up.

He keeps kids and his friends and buddies (2 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.) over guys who worked for him 5, 10, 15 years, etc.

He never pays out anyone's severance. So you get layed off, its a long permanent layoff, but he classifies it as temporary layoff. Calls you back 3 months later, want to work? Just bring boots, no tools and I'll find something for you to do.....makes or tries to get you to work for your severance 2x over. Most just quit and tell him off.

Employees everyone agrees are useless and should of been fired years ago he keeps (his friends and buddies) and hard working employees are layed off or given a hard time.

Looking back, I would never of worked for him in the first place.

We just had 3 guys quit in 3 months and another kid went back to school, so 4 gone in 4 months.

Total shop size around 24 people in 2010, now today 7 people left and its still slow, maybe even 6 left......

His shop manager, QC manager and shipper/receiver where his friends and buddies that got away with much and everyone noticed.

Tells me not to walk through the front of the shop past the secretary, for customers, etc. Then the boss, his managers all chat up there and walk through the front on their cells, with the secretary, some apps, youtube vids and he always bought them coffee every day too.

If my boss fired both managers and the shipper/receiver and hired people that weren't his friends and buddies and he didn't know them, that would of probably stopped the majority of everyone quitting over the many years. And treating everyone equally instead of major favortism and discrimination, most of the guys wouldn't of quit and moved on.

The boss has a shop policy coworkers do not date other coworkers. Then his shop manager dates the shipping/receiver, she gets pregnant, and they got married. Then they had the baby, 1 year later split up, and he started dating the secretary and the shipping/receiver started dating another guy, also married and in the process of getting divorced. But they're his friends and buddies so its okay...........

He also wouldn't hire black people because they're lazy in his eyes.

He wouldn't hire women, even ticketed and professionals, to run his machines because women are useless in his eyes.

He doesn't hire you if he finds out you're gay, he hates gay people too.


I worked in a real peach of a shop for........10 years. Now anyplace else is going to be better and that was the worst shop I ever worked at in my life.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Woodchuck said:


> None of these systems were any better than old fashioned 14 point Demming......


You're starting to see the limits of that approach in Toyota. They measured everything in an attempt to shave fractions of seconds off the process step time. Eventually they hit a point where the cumulative rate for complex assemblies began to climb, eg the airbag problem, the throttle body computer problem, the brainbox problem, the unintended acceleration problem. Toyota got to the point where they were measuring the wrong things too closely. I chalk it up to handing your company over to accountants and attorneys. But generally yes, the iterative process of identifying piecewise corrections in a feedback loop and managing the deviations down to where the first and second order outputs stabilize still work. 

On the other hand with the de-industrialization of America, you're no longer capable of stepping back to grasp the big picture because you're measuring too much and the numbers are still squishy. No one's asking 'Why are we even doing this? What purpose does this department serve and what would happen if it went away?' You see large swaths of companies that serve no objective purpose than looking at other people's spreadsheets, making changes to them and passing them up the chain to someone who will make their own changes and so on.


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## Woodchuck (Nov 1, 2012)

Runs like Dog said:


> You're starting to see the limits of that approach in Toyota. They measured everything in an attempt to shave fractions of seconds off the process step time. Eventually they hit a point where the cumulative rate for complex assemblies began to climb, eg the airbag problem, the throttle body computer problem, the brainbox problem, the unintended acceleration problem. Toyota got to the point where they were measuring the wrong things too closely. I chalk it up to handing your company over to accountants and attorneys. But generally yes, the iterative process of identifying piecewise corrections in a feedback loop and managing the deviations down to where the first and second order outputs stabilize still work.
> 
> On the other hand with the de-industrialization of America, you're no longer capable of stepping back to grasp the big picture because you're measuring too much and the numbers are still squishy. No one's asking 'Why are we even doing this? What purpose does this department serve and what would happen if it went away?' You see large swaths of companies that serve no objective purpose than looking at other people's spreadsheets, making changes to them and passing them up the chain to someone who will make their own changes and so on.


I never really had those issues, perhaps because I designed the tooling and test fixtures, and picked the control dimensions, 
picking what to measure, and how to measure it keeps things honest....

It seemed that even so called management could not get the hang of it..........

I was asked to look at a machining process and determine why some dimensions were out of control. I found three diameters were being charted for depth, with one in control, and two all over the place.....All three holes were being drilled with a step tool, so it was impossible to have the depth vary...The issue was that two of the measurements were to very narrow ledges, so that the variation in measurement was what they were charting.... Duh....

I found that in Japanese companies, they are so inbred that none of them will crack down on quality issues...cutting off a vendor was not possible because you owned the vendor.....Corporate incest...


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## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening
In my opinion:

*good boss traits:*
Is aware of their own limitations - makes decisions in their area of competency.

Sees work as a "duty" that goes up and down the chain: Protects their employees, and tries to serve the company's interests - balances the two.

A good boss will spend a lot of time telling their employees to work less hard. 

*Bad boss traits*
Threatens employees (with job termination etc)

No balance - either a kiss-ass, or an empire builder.

Makes decisions on things where they have no competence.

"spreadsheet management" - insists that all decisions be able to be reduced to numbers.


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## lucy999 (Sep 28, 2014)

Worst: my first job in the legal arena as a legal secretary working for a bankruptcy attorney. Just me and him, no other staff except for his wife, the 'office manager.' He and I got along very well. But his wife? Boy was she brutal! She belittled me at every turn, talking to me like I was an idiot. No patience for helping me learn the ropes. Found out later that she was my boss's former secretary! That answered everything. Talked to my dad about it (he was WONDERFUL at giving advice on how to interact with coworkers), and he said that I'd never win because she's family. With that, I found another job at a law firm. I'll never forget when I told my boss I was quitting. He started crying and declared, "Everyone leaves me! Why?" I simply said, "Your wife." Sadly, that formed my dislike for working with other women. 

Best: my current boss. He's like my father. He's patient, respects me and my skills, and lets me do my job w/out micromanaging. He trusts me and praises me on the regular. I'll be devastated when he retires. Best job I've ever had.


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