That’s what she said.  Maybe those weren’t her exact words. And no, I’m not talking about Marie Antoinette. When the director of the training center where I’d worked for about a year called us into her office to announce that due to curriculum changes our positions would be eliminated, and that we’d be having cake at what would be our last weekly staff meeting, she might as well have been Marie Antoinette, telling the hungry, breadless French to eat cake.

This was my first layoff, so I hadn’t yet developed the thick skin that years of dealing with really bad bosses gives you.  I was taking it personally. I’d been a dedicated worker, had received great reviews and was loved by my students.  So while she was nonchalantly explaining the paperwork we’d need to complete before we hit the bricks, I was still wondering if I’d heard her correctly. I thought, “Let me get this straight, you’ve just told me I no longer have a job, and you want me to celebrate with cake?!”  Obviously this woman had never been laid off.  Surely this isn’t common.  Surely employers don’t dismiss you and then tell you that on your last day there’ll be cake in the conference room.  It’s not like I resigned, or got another job.  I was being let go, my feelings were hurt, and no amount of carb overloading would fix that.  Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently more and more companies are creating websites to allow laid off employees – alumni, as they like to call them – to maintain ties.  IBM, Lockheed Martin, and KPMG are just a few of the companies helping former employees stay in touch through alumni networks. The sites feature industry news, job leads and keep alumni updated on reunions and company events.  My knee jerk reaction to the idea of keeping in touch with the former bosses and companies who’d laid me off was “take your network and shove it.”  In the case of at least one of my former companies, layoffs were the collateral damage of incredibly bad management, stubborn arrogance and good old fashioned nepotism.  The idea of Facebooking or Tweeting with a group of people who couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag felt to me, like taking a giant leap backwards.

The adult in me however, realizes that not everyone has worked for Kool-Aid pushing, Jim Jones wannabes and that while no one enjoys being laid off, some genuinely like and respect the companies they’ve worked for and actually want to keep in touch.  Some want to maintain ties to colleagues they’ve formed relationships with over the years. Others want to keep their names fresh on the minds of their former HR departments, hoping that in the event of an upturn, something new will open up and they’ll be in line for consideration.

Pride aside, keeping in touch with a former employer after a layoff can open new doors, provide fresh leads for your job search and keep you in the company’s good graces until the tide eventually turns.  That old adage about burning bridges still holds true.  It may be even truer still, when your employer is the one building the bridges.

To read more about alumni networks, click here.

If only our real life really bad bosses looked like this

A couple of years ago Spike TV posted their Top 10 worst movie bosses of all time.  The list included many of the movie bosses we’d expect, including The Devil Wears Prada’s Amanda Priestly, Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko and of course The Godfather’s Michael Corleone.  One big surprise, The Dark Knight’s Bruce Wayne.  I’m not sure I’d classify Bruce Wayne as a bad boss, but let’s just say if he had been my really bad boss, Really Bad Boss the blog would be a very different kind of site. 

The whole bad boss movie list got me wondering why we love really bad movie bosses so much.  I think we can narrow it down to about three reasons:

1. In the movies, really bad bosses are fascinating, edgy, sexy and really cool, adjectives rarely, if ever, used to describe our real life really bad bosses.   Case in point Batman, The Dark Knight’s Bruce Wayne.  We’re not sure we completely agree with Spike TV’s assessment of Bruce Wayne as a bad boss, but they did remind us that Alfred and Lucius (Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman) are always on call, never get vacation and frequently have to retrieve their boss from seedy neighborhoods in the middle of the night.  Bad boss or not, that sounds a lot more exciting than pushing your drunken boss off your lap at the office party.  Add to that, the fact that my boss looks more like a bat, than Christian Bale as Batman, and I’ll take looking for Christian Bale…I mean Bruce Wayne… in the slums of Gotham City any day. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniell Eckert victim of bad management decisions. (Kenosha News photo by Kevin Poirier)

Really bad management decisions and the inevitable breakdown that follows - Case in point, CCRT Properties of Brookfield Wisconsin is going after Debbie Eckert for rent and early termination fees that her son, Colin Byars, could not pay…because he was dead.  Debbie’s son died on February 21^st and now the management company wants March and April rent and early termination fees.  Debbie contacted the management company to advise them of the circumstances behind the early termination and non-payment of rent.  They said they were already aware, but had been advised by their legal representative that they should go after the rent and fees.  This is where a breakdown in management usually begins. 

Manager A talks to Upper Manager B.  Upper Manager B gives Manager A a directive that might cause the rest of us to say “you know what, that might not be a great idea and here’s why…” Instead, Manager A, without thinking twice, is off and running doing exactly what B told him or her to do.  I’m pretty sure that that scenario playing out throughout history has been the demise of countless careers and companies.  We saw it with the hospital manager who called a nurse out of surgery to lay her off because management said that the layoffs were “immediate.”  And, I’m still convinced that at least one smart little worker bee at one of the big three automakers said “it’s probably not a wise idea, Mr. Auto Industry exec, for you to fly to DC.  On a private jet. To make the case that you’re broke and need taxpayer money.”   Read the rest of this entry »

Stock Photo

Doctor mistakenly removes fat instead of appendix

The medical profession is not immune to really bad bosses.  First there was the manager who pulled a nurse out of surgery to lay her off. Now comes word that a doctor in Minnesota had to perform an appendectomy twice on the same patient after removing “fatty tissue” instead of the appendix on the first go round.  Two days later when the patient’s appendix had already erupted and when the pathologist’s report came back showing that what was removed “was not an appendix,” the patient’s real appendix was removed.  We hope. 

 I’ve heard horror stories of doctors amputating the wrong limb, performing surgery on the wrong body part and operating on the wrong patient all together.  Aren’t there checks and balances for these things? Of course the hospital is saying it did nothing wrong.  Maybe it has established protocols that the doctor and surgical staff didn’t follow. Even then, if staff isn’t following established protocol, that is your problem. In this case, the patient survived, but ended up spending 11 days in the hospital after complications following the second surgery.  I hope the doctor found a check in there when he went in the second time because he’s going to need it to handle the law suit that’s most certainly coming his way.

Source

When good HR goes bad – Absolutely unbelievable Mary – Part 2

Yesterday I introduced you to Mary, the unbelievably clueless HR Manager and really bad boss at one of my previous jobs. So you could be sure I wasn’t making it up, I promised to give you details of a couple of Mary’s finer moments including her inability to hire good people, her addiction to potluck luncheons and her two week maternity leave policy. Without further ado:

She demonstrated a complete and utter inability to find, hire and keep good talent - Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t one of the hallmarks of good HR Management the ability to find and keep the right people? If that’s true, yet your company remains a revolving door of people and positions, doesn’t that mean there’s something seriously amiss in HR? Can every candidate be so misleading during the interview process that you completely miss the warning signs that within their first week at work, they’ll call out sick, ask several coworkers ”how long before you can request vacation time?” and steal food from the refrigerator?  The problem was that Mary had a habit of posting positions, bringing in one or two candidates to interview and praying that the one without the felony would excel in the interview.  I’m exaggerating slightly – very slightly – but, the obvious problem with that is, you end up hiring the best of the worst.  In another case, we sensed something was awry with one of the managers she’d just hired (the 3^rd person in that position in about 2 years) when after only about a week, he kept falling asleep during meetings.  He was gone in just under three months, and so was the manager (again, one of two people interviewed) that followed him. 

She was determined to solve all the company’s problems with potluck luncheons - I liken it to roasting marshmallows on a camping trip while the forest is burning down around you.  In Mary’s case she wasn’t roasting marshmallows; she was planning monthly potluck luncheons.  Read the rest of this entry »

Rod Blagojevich (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Judge denies Blagojevich request to do reality show

Our 2^ndfavorite really bad boss is back in the news again. Not content with making an ass of himself in America, Blagojevich had petitioned the courts for permission to make an ass of himself in Costa Rica, on an NBC reality show slated for a June premier.  Instead, “I’m a celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”, will have to go on without him.  We’re glad because we won’t have to watch the complete meltdown when he realizes that there are no hair products in the jungle and he won’t be getting the rumored $80K an episode pay day. During the court proceedings, the judge remarked that he didn’t think Blagojevich “fully understands…the position he finds himself in.”  We agree.