When even Human Resources is really, really bad

Remember Napoleon? My overzealous former boss who repeatedly encouraged us to “drink the Kool-Aid”  believing that  repeatedly referring to Jim Jones and his suicidal cult followers was an effective and appropriate motivational tool?  Well, in addition to questioning his sanity, I questioned the competence of the gate keepers who invited him through the door and allowed him to stay even after everyone realized that something had gone drastically wrong.  

One of those gate keepers was our Human Resources manager Mary*.   Prior to Mary, my dealings with HR Managers had been pretty positive, albeit infrequent.  In my experience, HR managers were the quiet dedicated professionals who implemented corporate policies; made sure we got paid on time and went to bat for employees when management went rogue.  That is, until Mary.  Mary forever changed the way I viewed HR.  It’s sort of like taking your car for granted until the bottom falls out of it while you’re driving down the highway. In the left lane. Going 75 miles an hour.  Unless you’re Fred Flintstone and you work at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company, the complete and utter failure of your trusted automobile will be absolutely unbelievable and render it completely ineffective. That’s exactly how I’d describe Mary. Absolutely unbelievable and completely ineffective.

You know how we all have that family member who whenever he opens his mouth in mixed company, everyone  (who’s normal) cringes? Simultaneously crossing their fingers and praying that he doesn’t say something stupid, while at the same time gathering their belongings because they know that in about two minutes they’ll be leaving. Well, if you’re a good HR Manager and you love your profession, start gathering your belongings. Because Mary is that family member and her HR skills will have you denying kinship.  Hypersensitive, overly emotional and inclined to share way too much personal information with colleagues, Mary was, and most likely still is, the worst and most dangerous kind of really bad boss…the kind who doesn’t know how bad she really is. She’s way over her head and absolutely, completely and totally clueless of that fact.

Tomorrow  I’ll share with you some of the highlights of Mary’s incompetence, including her two week maternity leave policy, her obsession with potluck luncheons (she’s a functional potluckaholic) and her comical attempt at creating and implementing official corporate policies. 

*Names have been changed to protect…well, me.

The really bad rap label CEO and his self fulfilling prophecy

I’m no medium, but I could have seen this one coming a mile away.  I think we all can predict a life of crime, imprisonment and possibly death for anyone, if they do the following:

1. Start a rap label and call it anything having to with drugs, crime, arrests, murder…you get the idea.  In this case let’s call it Take Down Records.
2. Make yourself CEO and give yourself an alias that carries the promise of organized crime. In this scenario let’s use the always popular surname Capone. Ace Capone.
3. Star in one of your own label’s music videos as…Ace Capone, the violent drug kingpin -  Be really convincing, because the video will be used as evidence against you in your own trial
4. When the cops raid your home, have on hand; over $500K in cash, 10 guns and 450 grams of cocaine.
5. Finally, do all of this in Philadelphia, the city with the ‘drug kingpin’ statute. 

Ace. Capone no more - Image:Philly.com

35 year old Alton Coles, aka Ace Capone, was sentenced to mandatory life plus 55 years on Thursday for, among other things drug trafficking, wire fraud, money laundering and weapons offenses.  Alton, the CEO of Take Down Records, father of five and owner of a local day care and ice water stand, cried while telling the judge that life in prison was too harsh a sentence for selling drugs. 

I’m not here to argue about whether the sentence was fair or not.  Or, whether Coles’ harsh childhood, including a crackhead father and absentee mother should have been taken into account during sentencing. That’s for another blog and another day.  What I am saying is this.  If, as a CEO, you choose, among all the words available to you in the English language, to name your company using a combination of words associated with crime, you choose to name yourself  after a notorious gangster  and you choose to write about, rap about and star in videos about selling drugs, then when you get busted,  that is what we call a self fulfilling prophesy.  Read more about the case against Coles here.

Classes begin today. First course? Political Correctness 101. We can learn so much from our favorite Really Bad TV boss.  In this clip from The Office, Michael gives us a lesson on political correctness.  When it comes to Michael Scott, watch everything he does then do the exact opposite.

Hulk Hogan just before he turns green

The Really Bad Boss Celebrity Foot in Mouth Edition Vol. II 

We just finished letting Jamie Foxx know that we can hear him when he says things on his radio show.  Now we learn that we also have to let Hulk Hogan know that we can read the interviews he gives when they go to print.  Hogan is a bit different from Foxx.  He’s never won an Academy Award and the safe bet is he never will.  Not long ago he was making a living tearing off his tank top and throwing people around a ring.  Plus, he’s named after a a comic strip character. We really should never take anyone seriously who legally goes by the name of a comic book character.  Ever. 

 Unlike Jamie Foxx, the bar is set lower for Hogan. Much lower. Yet he still managed to get his lip caught on it during a Rolling Stones interview.  An interview that will be published in Rolling Stone magazine and subsequently read by a lot of people.   So, when he, in the interview and on camera, sympathizes with OJ Simpson and admits to having thoughts of killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend, even people who barely paid any attention to him before, started giving him the side eye.  Apparently this is so shocking to the Hulk that he put a sleeved shirt on and apologized. His apology involved him saying he’s “misunderstood” and how difficult it is to see his ex and her boy toy in his former million dollar mansion. Maybe one of the networks will give him a reality show so he can share more of his murderous fantasies during prime time.  Or maybe they can just put him on that island with Blagojevich.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Really Bad Boss Celebrity Foot in Mouth Edition – Volume I

For the 12 of you who haven’t heard, Foxx, on his satellite-radio show, went on a rant against teen sensation Miley Cyrus saying among other things, that she should “grow up, make a sex tape and do drugs.”  He also called her a little “white b****” and said he hoped she’d ”catch Chlamydia” from a bicycle seat.  Hilarious.  Your movie comes out when again?

In addition to his comments being as funny as his Miami Vice remake was good, they were really harsh considering they were directed at a 16 year old.  The rant against Cyrus came after she got into some make believe battle with Radiohead when they refused to sign autographs for her after a show.  But why is Foxx fighting Radiohead’s battles against a 16 year old?   Of course he’s since apologized.  He’s sorry.  We agree.  The truth is, he probably doesn’t really want Miley to make a sex tape, do drugs and get Chlamydia (Paris Hilton would be rendered completely useless if that happened), but I am tired of celebrities, talk show hosts and politicians making comments on tape and on the record and then looking downtrodden on TV when they, inevitably, have to apologize the day after.

Stock Photo

In what we consider a classic really bad boss move, a manager at Dean Health in Madison, Wisconsin called a nurse out of surgery…to lay her off.  A spokesperson for Dean Health said the manager violated medical protocol.  You think?   Dean Health says the surgery was minor and the patient wasn’t affected.  I’ll ask the question for all of us.  If the surgery was minor, couldn’t the layoff wait until after the surgery was done?  Dean Health announced on Wednesday that they were planning on “immediately” laying off 90 employees.  I guess this manager took the announcement literally. I’ve seen it in my own experiences, managers who lack the common sense to think through a management directive and act appropriately, or who blindly, and unquestionably do whatever upper management tells them to do.  To these individuals, we’d like to suggest a novel approach to management.  It involves Thinking. It really works. No, really. You should try it.  Source

 So people are talking about reallybadboss.com and you’re laughing along with them and participating in the water cooler conversations when it dawns on you that you’re a boss yourself.  You start to wonder if your employees could be talking about you.  Not sure if you’re a really bad boss?  Here are five surefire ways to tell: You might be a really bad boss if…

1. You inspire the creation of the website www.reallybadboss.com – If your actions and behavior are so mind numbingly ridiculous that they inspire the creation of a cottage industry based primarily on the asinine things you’ve said and done, you can rest assured…you’re a really bad boss.  
2. Your turnover rate is 100%  – Ok, so maybe not 100%, but if people would rather make minimum wage dressed like  sandwiches/crustacean/ the statue of liberty and dance in the street in front of the local sandwich/seafood/tax preparation shop – in Arizona, in July – than work for you, you might be a really bad boss.
3. The term “Bossnapping” is coined to describe what your employees have just done to you – Some French workers have taken their disgust at their really bad bosses too far. A rash of boss kidnappings – Bossnappings – have plagued France recently.  Worse, 45% of French people surveyed think that it’s ok.  Let’s hope Bossnapping doesn’t cross the ocean.  Felonies don’t look good on resumes.
4. There has been at least one assassination (or coup) attempt on your life, and you work in, for example…the paper goods industry – Assassination attempts and coups are pretty common in some of the more volatile areas of the world where dissatisfaction with leadership is the norm and not the exception. But, Michael Scott notwithstanding, if you make paper or thumbtacks, or some very uncontroversial product and people are trying to depose you or have you forcibly removed from your position, you might be a really bad boss. 
5. Someone quits live on the air – Arnetta the Moodsetta says it best. Click here for the audio.

Got something to add to the You might be a really bad boss list? Add it in the comment section after the jump.

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