Reading, writing and rip-offs

Over 700 NYC school teachers, accused of offenses ranging from sexual misconduct to lying, collect their full salaries of $70k or more, while sitting in “rubber rooms” – off campus holding spots for teachers while they await disciplinary hearings.  The teachers spend their days doing yoga, reading, playing scrabble – anything but teaching – and enjoy holidays throughout the school year.

This happens because union contracts make it very difficult to fire tenured teachers, regardless of the offense.  Some teachers wait months and others as many as five years before their hearings. Union officials (of course) argue that the teachers’ right to due process can’t be ignored, but five years? Seriously? Who’s in charge of the process that allows this to happen? Many of the teachers argue that they’ve been targeted for running afoul of a really bad boss, or reporting amped up test scores.  If anyone can sympathize with the fallout of a really bad boss, it’s us, but any process that allows individuals being investigated for wrongdoing to continue to receive their full salaries for years, has got to be revisited.

As usual, whenever adults fight over time and money, kids are the ones to pay. These union rules and the antiquated investigation process cost taxpayers an estimated $65 million a year – money that could go towards improving the school system.

Unfortunately this scenario plays out in other cities throughout the country. Los Angeles has non-working teachers being “housed” while receiving their salaries, and Philadelphia has a “cluster office.”  While we, more than most, can understand the consequences a really bad boss, we can’t cosign this one.  It is not ok to collect a $70k annual salary while doing yoga, or playing scrabble – when what you’re supposed to be doing is teaching.  And, contrary to one teacher, who likens himself to Martin Luther King sitting in a Birmingham, Alabama jail, we do not see these teachers as political prisoners and heroes who should be saluted.

Source: Associated Press

We didn’t get any responses to our help wanted ad the first time around. So, we’re trying again:

Help Wanted:  Frustrated and browbeaten ex-employee, tired of Really Bad Boss, seeks really good one

Frustrated ex-employee seeks Good Boss for management position.  To be considered, candidates must have at least 15 minutes prior, successful management experience.  Repeatedly telling your husband/wife/child/pet what to do is not, despite common perception, previous management experience.  Neither is managing to get to work the morning after an all night drinking binge, managing to put a matching outfit together and/or managing not to get arrested, despite repeatedly breaking the law.  Additional qualifications and requirements include:

1. Ability to speak authoritatively without being laughed at by employees, to your face and/or behind your back
2. Ability to increase productivity without  frightening employees and threatening violence and/or termination. Relying on  references to Jim Jones’ cult as a motivational tool will result in immediate expulsion from the company (and hopefully the country)
3. Must know and remember the names of all six employees that report to you, especially after they’ve been there an entire year
4. Must be able to go an entire day without; swearing, referring to female employees as girls and/or referring to various employees as “the Black”, “the Asian”, “the fat guy” etc. (see requirement #3)
5. Must know that Microsoft Office refers to software and is not, in fact, a physical location in the building. When apprised of the fact, must not pretend you knew it all along
6. Ability to remain sober and off furniture at holiday parties and sales meetings; If intoxication occurs, must be able to sober up before year end sales presentation the following morning
7. Must know what you are talking about at least 51% of the time
8. Some travel required – must be able to quickly get off high horse when it becomes abundantly clear you have messed up big time…again

Three non-family, non-paid, human references required. Email resumes to denised@reallybadboss.com, or post suggestions in the comment section. 

This ad first ran on Reallybadboss.com on May 5, 2009

This week in Really Bad Boss…

•  In a classic case of do as I say, not as I do, the CEO and founder of a California, anti-drug organization gets busted selling drugs. 
•  Noodleconomics is the answer to Really Bad Bosses.  Entrepreneurship is a long, hard road, but for some people, it beats bowing at the feet of incompetents any day.
•  Immoral vs. Incompetent – John Ensign resigns after he gets caught having an affair. Does bad behavior automatically mean you’re a really bad boss?  Maybe not.
• The EEOC files charges against an Oregon nursery where sexual harassment, rape and abuse seem to be the conditions for employment.

And we thought we had it bad.  The EEOC has filed a case against Willamette Tree Wholesale, operator of 140 acres of retail nursery farmland near Molalla.  The company allegedly ignored reports of sexual harassment and rape, and then retaliated against the workers who filed the reports.  One 38 year old female was reportedly taken to remote areas of the property by the company foreman and raped repeatedly over a period of several months.  According to the EEOC, the investigation found that predatory sexual behavior at the nursery was rampant, “expected…and a condition of employment.”

What makes this case even more shocking are claims that the problem is a national one.  Migrant workers are largely undocumented individuals who, because they’re in the country illegally, underreport crimes committed against them.  EEOC lawyer William R. Tamayo says workers refer to fields in California as fields of “calzon,” or “panties” and in Florida as “The Green Motel.”  According to them, sexual harassment is par for the course for farm workers and complaints are the exception and not the rule.

 While individuals who are in this country illegally are committing a crime, the people committing crimes against them are no less criminal. They’re just citizen criminals.  Read the rest of this entry »

Ensign resigns

Bosses behaving badly – Another Senator, another affair

Nevada’s Republican Senator John Ensign is the latest publicly elected figure caught up and out engaging in an extramarital affair.  It’s becoming rote. The headlines can practically write themselves.” Insert politican/public leader /CEO name here, has affair with 30ish assistant/campaign staff member/former model.”  In fact, it’s so common that this “news” almost didn’t make it as a post.  But then I started thinking.  The fact that extramarital affairs by public leaders have become so commonplace that it’s no longer news…is news. 

Extramarital affairs, bathroom dalliances and a random love child here or there is no longer headline news.  Remember a few weeks ago when 61 year old Citigroup Board Chairman Richard Parsons admitted to having fathered a child with 32 year old ex-model MacDella Cooper?  You probably don’t. It didn’t dominate the news for days on end and most believe the affair and his ability to do his job effectively are too separate issues.  Are they though? When someone in a position of power lies and cheats (which is essentially what adultery is) does he get a pass for his personal (and now almost expected) indiscretion or does it make him a Really Bad Boss?

It’s easy to argue either view. On the one hand people who lie to their spouses, close friends and family, are only one step away from lying to the people who elected them.  Some might say they’re more susceptible to breaking other rules and laws that will eventually impact their ability to do the jobs they were hired or elected to do.  Plus, there’s a degree of arrogance that comes with getting away with a deception for any length of time.  Judge Sam Kent, the judge I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, felt untouchable because he’d gotten away with his nastiness for years.  But is it that simple?  Read the rest of this entry »

Kendall Craig Farris (Source:Daily Breeze)

CEO of youth Anti-Drug organization busted

Really Bad Boss was created with people like this in mind. Kendall Craig Farris, founder and really bad CEO of the California based ‘Over the Wall Foundation’, an anti-drug abuse youth organization, was charged last Thursday with…wait for it…dealing drugs.  In a classic case of do as I say, not as I do, Farris, whose self described mission is to “help youth, schools, and families prevent drug and alcohol abuse before it starts…” was busted selling $480 worth of methamphetamine and Ecstasy to an undercover officer.  In an ironic twist, what Farris was trying to pass off as meth and Ecstasy was actually rock salt and antihistamine.  Rock salt and antihistamine.  So, Farris is about to serve time for potentially treating someone’s anemia and allergies.

 It gets better. When Farris was busted, he had in his possession, paperwork from school officials thanking him for a recent anti-drug presentation. In an ironic pile-on, if he ends up serving time, his organization’s name ‘Over the Wall’ takes on a brand new meaning.  Source: The Daily Breeze