Dear Denise,

I report to the Bus. Dev. Manager – a lady with 23 years of experience in her field of expertise and good at her job when she focuses on it.
Why is she the boss from Hell ?
a. She gets angry when she has to do actual WORK because it interrupts her extra-curricular activities – CHURCH & CHARITY. Screaming, shouting are the highlights of the day.
b. All her staff are bullied into supporting her Church Charity Organisation – coerced into buying books, donating money  etc. If we dont, we are ungrateful, stingy, godless creatures.
c. She lies to HR about her activities in the field – urgent meeting with client actually means church meeting to disscuss fund-raising) etc…. you catch my drift.  All employees are required to lie blatanly saying that she has a meeting with important clients.
d. Her entertainment claim for company’s clients is utilised for taking pastor and his family, church board directors for big lunches and dinners, wooing potential contributors for her charitable organisation.
e. Her petrol card provided by the company is used for ferrying various church members to and fro. Collection of donation in kind from existing company’s clients all in the name of charity.
f.  Personal remarks she has made to me – I’m not blessed by God that’s why I dont own a car, cant carry a designer brand handbag, have no husband. Your personal life must be an open book to her.
g. Personal remarks she has made to me – I’m a negative personality that’s why I don’t go to Church. She (Boss) is very blessed and that’s why God has given her a Mercedes.
h. Personal remarks to me and others – If God has blessed you, you have no money problems, you will not be sick etc. Only Christian people are honest and do good work.
i.  Personal remarks to me and others – She is a happy person because God has blessed her for her passion in doing charity work. Because we dont support her charity, we will not be blessed hence no bonus and no increment.
j.  I was never told that handling the paperwork for her Christian Charity org. was in my job scope during the interview. Her pet charity home was launched in 2009. During my recent appraisal, I asked her for an incentive as this was extra work.  Her response was that I was ungrateful, did I not realize this was GOD’s work?, she also threatened me saying that she would fire me, make sure that I would be disciplined by HR for insubordination.
k. Her tirade went on for an hour whereby she stated that she has tried to counsel and instill CHRISTIAN VALUES in her staff but I’m ungrateful, extremely cold person and resistant to change and need to be taught a lesson.
l.  Her statement “anyone who goes against me will end up badly.” By the way HR Manager is deadly afraid of her because my boss is on very good terms with the CEO of the company. All complaints, protests by me and other employees to HR have been squashed. Instead, HR liberally issues disciplinary action letters upon request by my boss for our department.

Suffice to say this is the last straw for me – after 3 years of enduring her personal remarks and abuse; I am actively seeking a position elsewhere. In my department when my boss joined in 2007, there were 7 of us. Now only my boss and I remain in this department. I tolerated and swallowed this abuse for years. Nobody deserves this sort of treament.

A Victim

Sounds like ‘A Victim’ works for a real lunatic. I hope her job search goes well and she’s able to get away from this woman as soon as possible. I wonder if the lunatics pastor knows she’s stealing time and resources from her company to care for the church? Something tells me he/she’s got to have some idea about what’s going on. And if so, they’re just as bad as she is.

Send your bad boss story to denised@reallybadboss.com.

1. As CEO, give your annual state of the company address loaded. Fully loaded. The following two quarters, do it again; include staggering and slurred speech for effect. As if that weren’t enough, stumble into the lap of your assistant in front of a room full of employees. Good times.
2. Completely revamp the company’s sales structure. Give it three months to work, then revamp it again.  Repeat every quarter for three years. Then when, as a direct result of your restructuring, half the sales force quits, systematically get rid of everyone who reports to you, blaming the company’s abysmal state on them.
3. When morale is at an all time low, throw weekly potluck luncheons, blindly believing that employees will be so busy binge eating they won’t realize the CEO is drunk, the VP is insane and the HR manager is off her meds. Oh yes, send intimate gifts to your male subordinate and promote him shortly after. No one will suspect a thing.
4. Call the marketing manager on a Friday night to ask her about warehouse inventory levels and why product hasn’t shipped. When she reminds you that she’s marketing and not purchasing/warehouse/sales or anything remotely related to what you’re asking, insist loudly and repeatedly that she should “know everything that’s going on with the company!”
5. Insist that female employees where pantyhose, even in 100 degree weather. Conduct unannounced pantyhose checks and clandestine trashcan searches just because you can.
6. While you’re at work, have the police come looking for you to investigate your passing of counterfeit bills. Leave abruptly through the back door,  for an “appointment”, when you notice the officers entering the building. Don’t tell your staff you’re leaving so that the cops suspect them too. (Refer to Mark Sanford’s Disappearing Act for detailed disappearing instructions.)
7. Use a clown nose and Dr. Seuss hat as props during your annual address to board members. Be hung-over when you give your presentation. As an added bonus, chug ice water directly from the water pitcher on the table in front of you. “Resign” the following week.
8. At your first meeting with your racially diverse staff, begin the conversation with “the first time I ever met a black person was in college.” Convince yourself that there’s nothing wrong with introducing yourself with that statement because, you know, one of your best friends is black.
9. Use the Jim Jones cult’s mass suicide by Kool-aid as a motivational tool. Continually encourage employees to “drink the Kool-aid” even after their eyes widen in fear, and they contemplate lodging a complaint with the EEOC.
10. Do not take the time to remember the names of any of your employees. Instead, refer to them by their race/ethnic group/body type, i.e.: the black guy, the Asian, that fat chick.

Submit your true stories of stupid things your bosses have done to denised@reallybadboss.com, or leave them right here in the comment section.

• He has no inside voice – A large percentage of this bad boss’ day is spent screaming at people above levels that are considered normal by most. Just to add a little more crazy to the mix, BCBBs pepper their outbursts with the foulest words in the English language and hurl them indiscriminately at whoever might have the misfortune of walking down the hallway at the peak of their meltdown.
• He suggests – no insists – that everyone in the company “drink the kool-aid” despite being advised that the first time something like that happened, it ended with everyone dying. To confirm his lunacy, he’ll repeat the suggestion, ad nauseum, to anyone within ear shot.
• He tells you that it’s ok to go $500,000 over budget – even while the company is hemorrhaging money. He’s got no plan or strategy to back up the bold request, but has given up all hope and wants company under that bus he’s just thrown himself under.
• He wears a clown nose and hat to the national sales meeting which is attended by board members. He is also still drunk from the night before.
• Her mood swings are so epic, the mere thought of approaching her sends shivers down everyone’s spine. She often goes days without speaking to anyone in the office. The opposite is also true – on some days she reveals way too much of the intimate details of her personal life. She is also the head of human resources.

BCBBs are as dangerous as they get. And while some of them might really have a problem that requires medication, many of them are just plain mean, rude and don’t give a damn. Whatever the cause, the effect is the same – employees walking on eggshells, low morale, and the feeling that at any moment, your BCBB could snap. My advice, get out of dodge as fast as possible.

If you have, or have had a bad boss that fits in any of the five categories, share your stories in the comment section or email them to me at denised@reallybadboss.com.

The church for its part, although acknowledging incidences of physical violence in the past, denies the incidences occurred at the hands of Miscavige and says that Rathbun was the one responsible. It also says that Rathbun was stripped of his authority in 2001 when Miscavige learned of the problem. Officials say they offered Rathbun counseling, but he refused and left the church three years later. It was only after that, they claim, that Rathbun began to make his accusations. Church leaders and members, including the ex-wives of some of the accusers, have shown their support in affidavits, emails and interviews.

Visit Anderson Cooper’s blog, AC360 on CNN.com for the full story.

Beyond poor managing was her micro-managing. Emailing and responding to clients was a large part of our day. She decided that she needed to read each of the emails that we sent before we sent them. Yes, you can imagine how much wasted time occurred by emailing her a copy of every email we sent for her to review and then sending back an “okay” before we could send it. We are not talking about an office of high school drop-outs. All of my former team had at least an Associates degree, our manager included. I myself have 2 BAs and am working on my Master’s so I do acknowledge that I was a bit more frustrated with that new rule.

In addition, she had our tech team put effort into a weekly “dump” of our emails – to see if we were sending any personal emails (no one in the co sent personal emails via company email!) And to double check that none of us were sending any client emails without going through her. Talk about paranoid!! In addition, all of our phone calls were recorded. Not for the company’s protection – but so she could check our phone calls as well. We went to upper management regarding her behavior. Nothing was done.

While in the office one day, she publicly humiliated (we also had two clients visiting our office at that time) a co-worker by telling her that she used the wrong word choice and that she noticed it in an email as well and that she was also misspelling the word. Her behavior was an embarrassment to the entire office – not just for the obvious, but because her vocabulary didn’t include the word my co-worker had used. The co-worker in question ended up bringing the email to me and after our guests left, I insisted on a meeting with my department manager. She denied her behavior (with a roomful that witnessed it) and insisted that we were not as educated as we thought we were. Yes, she went there – all because she was not familiar with the word! I insisted on a meeting with her, upper management and HR because of her poor attitude. She was chastised and had to go through a two-week workshop about tolerance and employee treatment.

It wasn’t long after that a similar situation arose and she was chastised again. In the meantime, I had had my resume out and quit as soon as I found another job. Four employees followed shortly after my exit. I keep in occasional contact with my old co-workers and have since learned that she (my former department manager) was severely reprimanded again by upper management – she violated HIPAA privacy laws by demanding to see the blood test results of one of her employees who had been off work and ill. What boggles my mind is that the company still has her as an employee, let alone a manager!!

It’s stories like this that make it easier understand things like the banking meltdown and foreclosure crisis. Incompetent people in management making bad decisions with ramifications that go well beyond whether an employee’s feelings are hurt or not. And like our commenter, I’m left to wonder why these mis-managers are allowed to remain in their positions of power for as long as they do. The one bright side of this story is that our reader was able to find another job and get out.

Can you relate to this bad boss story? Share your own story in the comment section, or email me at denised@reallybadboss.com.

I recently left a job that I loved because I could not stand to deal with my Dept Manager and her own set of rules any longer. When the co first hired her and she was moved to our dept, we were informed that she was coming in as a co-worker (we needed the assistance as we were all working 12-14 hour days). We were a small group of 10 and immediately tried to welcome her and bring her up to speed with what we do. She rebuffed any friendly overtures and acted like she knew more about what we did than our entire dept combined. We ended up losing 12 major law firms that we worked with in light of her behavior. Unfortunately, her direct boss chalked it up to “growing pains” & not as a result of her antics.

It wasn’t long after that that she was made our dept head. The office atmosphere changed immediately from fast-paced and friendly to tense and stressful. Other than “managing”, she did not pick up any of our case load, but she did cut overtime to 1 hour only each day (we were still expected to maintain the same number of closed files each week, however, and had to produce a Daily Mgmt Report for her. Talk about a waste of time & paper! Each of us spent the last 30 minutes of every work day preparing one for her that we could NOT email. We had to print them out and personally hand them in. She would peruse them (30 seconds at the most) and then crumple them up and throw them away. In addition, she re-organized our case load so that each of us were dealing with a new group of clients. Not necessarily a bad idea except that each of us had built up our own relationships with these individuals. At least 40% of our client base made complaints to higher mgmt. A month later she changed everything back – a good idea in light of the complaints, but we lost a lot of ground in the meantime while trying to build new connections & accomplish what we needed to do.
Unfortunately, things did not stop there. She, too, implemented a cell-free zone – while leaving hers on prominent display in the center of her desk. She spent at least 3 hours of each work day sexting her boyfriend. We were not even allowed to use cells at lunch unless we left the building (several of us grabbed lunch at our desk in light of the demands of the office.) Btw…leaving the building to take a call was not an option as it took 10 minutes in any direction to exit the building. When she was made manager, she changed the 1 hour lunch to 2- 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch (she was a smoker). My entire dept was female and the majority were mothers who would use the 1 hour lunch to run home & put the crockpot on or pick up prescriptions for their children, etc, while us non-mothers stayed behind & took care of answering any calls that came in (as we were friendly, it was a system that worked for all of us.) Her new lunch implementation changed all of that.

Much like the boss in yesterday’s post, this boss seemed to implement rules that not only destroyed employee morale, but was also counterproductive. I like to call this the arrogance factor – where bossing people around is more important than managing them.

Tomorrow: Part 3 of bad boss, bad rules

There has to be some type of answer to this problem. Someone needs to rewrite the law on what goes on in the workplace, whether it is harassment or bullying. Where I work, we encounter harassment and bullying by the office manager. This office manager is the savior of the world and we are nothing.

There are two sets of rules the office employees must follow one for her and the other for us. No personal phone calls only at lunch time and no cell phone use during the day. But it is ok for this office manager to receive personal phone calls during the course of the work day and her cell phone goes off (personal calls) and she leaves the office the speak to whoever and does not come back to work for 1/2 hr later.

In my review I was reminded that personal calls were not allowed and I told the office manager that when doctors calls I must speak to them, it’s when they are available for me to talk to them not when I’m available. My husband is very sick and I need to discuss things with them. You speak to doctors when they are available not when you are available. She told me that the doctors should call my husband and not me. But it is ok for the office managers doctors to call about her, her husband, sister-in-law, etc. I can go on and on but I won’t. I need some type of help regarding this situation. Can you help me?

While what her employer is doing seems heartless, it’s probably not illegal. If they’ve got policies that state there’s no cell phone use in the office, then employees are required to abide by those policies. Is it fair in this case where an employee has a true medical situation to deal with? No, but it’s probably legal. As for management having their own set of rules, we’ve dealt with this topic before. There are different rules for the rest of us. Managers, by virtue of their position, are allowed more “freedom” than employees, and some of it is justified. But when management adopts an “in your face” stance that seems to flaunt their freedom in the face of subordinates, it’s not only not cool, it’s debilitating to employee morale.

What are your thoughts on corporate rules and policies? Should there ever be exceptions? What advice would you give our reader who’s obviously between a rock and a hard place? Share your thoughts in our comment section.

From the “We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried files” the New York Post is reporting that cocktail waitress Nicole Slama is suing her former boss and Manhattan nightclub owner Gary Malhotra for sexual harassment after he essentially forced her to use her body as a drug table.

In her $3.5 million suit, 24 year old Slama claims that in 2007 Malhotra forced her into a storage closet and said “I want to sniff [coke] off your [butt]. You have a great [butt].” Slama’d recently left a job at Applebees hoping to make money as a cocktail waitress at Quo nightclub. But in addition to the $500 she got during her first shift at Quo, she got an earful about management’s alleged practice of snorting cocaine in the back office and having sex with employees.

Slama alleges Malhotra offered her cocaine on several occasions but on December 6, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Although she managed to rebuff the butt request, Malhotra sprinkled coke onto her shoulder, snorted it and then licked Slama’s shoulder and neck. She later snuck out of the club and went to the police. In December, Malhotra was convicted of sex abuse, harassment and forcible touching. Of course Malhotra is using the “disgruntled, fired employee” excuse as a defense.

While most people probably think it’s impossible for sexual harassment to occur in sexually charged environments like clubs and bars, the fact is, sexual harassment is defined as unwanted sexual attention, and regardless of what may or may not be going on with other employees, if a boss forces an employee to do anything sexual, then he’s guilty.

Read the entire sordid story here.

Image: Nicole Slama/Inset Gary Malhotra – source: NY Post

The next morning, Kohl-Leaf awoke to this email from the company’s vice president.

Sarah,
Drive to White Bear Lake and also go f*** yourself. If you dont have money for entertainment, get a better job, and don’t pay for everything on your credit or check card. You can also shove your time and gas up your f*****g ass. Also, find better things to do with your time. This email is an absolute joke. We don’t care to have you as a customer. Let me know if you need directions to white bear lake.
Steven
Steven J. Payne – Vice President
Evergreen Entertainment
929 Old Highway 8 NW
Suite 200
New Brighton, MN 55112
Phone – (651) 636-1417
Fax – (651) 636-1418

Geez! Can you imagine what this jackass must be like to work for? If there are any employees of Evergreen Entertainment who want to (anonymously of course) tell me what this gem of a VP is like to work for, please email me at denised@reallybadboss.com or leave a comment below.  By the way, as is often the case of businesses behaving badly, there’s now a boycott against them on Facebook. Check it out here.

The show’s premise is simple – bosses from major companies across the country go “undercover” in various entry level positions in their respective companies. CBS’s tag line for the show is “They will discover the truth.” And to some extent they do.

O’Donnell sorted trash at one of his waste management facilities, collected trash from the side of the highway and cleaned toilets at a carnival. Along the way he meets with several dedicated and hardworking employees (no doubt handpicked by management for their great attitudes) and learns as much about their personal struggles as he does about the shortcomings of his own company policies. For instance, workers are expected to clean 15 port-o-potties in an hour. On an assembly line, employees have to remove cardboard from a conveyer belt going at extremely high speeds or risk jamming expensive machinery. And female garbage collectors are forced to use a can as a toilet during their routes.

O’Donnell comes across as a conscientious boss who genuinely seems concerned about the well being of his employees. By show’s end, he vows to review some of the corporate policies he and his management team have instituted and he promises to become a better manager. Only time will tell if O’Donnell and Waste Management really make changes.  The cynic in me thinks that when management is really concerned about how their policies impact employees and productivity, they don’t need a television show and cameras to learn the truth, they just  need to listen to their employees.  But, if “Undercover Boss” causes even a few companies to take a closer look at the way they do business, then it’s a start.

To catch clips from last night’s premier, click here.

I was out of work for over a year so when I was offered a job to work at a non-profit agency an hour away from home, I said, Thank you, and took the job. Little did I know that the female version of Adolph Hitler is alive and well and running the non-profit agency where I had just agreed to work. While this woman was unpleasant at the interview, I just assumed that she was having a bad day or perhaps was stressed. I was mistaken; that is the norm.

On my first day in the office, instead of receiving any kind of welcome or introduction from her, she approached me as I was still holding my coat, purse and bag containing personal items like Kleenex and reference books, and said, Meeting in five minutes – I need you to take notes. The receptionist showed me where my office was and I hurriedly sat my things down and grabbed a pad and pen. There were about a dozen people in the meeting and she never introduced them to me, so I drew a diagram of the seating and numbered them so I could keep the comments straight of who said what. Finally, when there was a lull in the discussion, I spoke up and asked if, since I was asked to take minutes, I could please have everyone’s names. The boss later told me that I was never to interrupt one of her meetings again. Afterwards, she gave me several documents to make revisions on, however, I was not allowed to have access to any documents of my predecessor, so I had to completely re-type all the documents.

When I went to my new boss to ask a question, I discovered that she had left the office and had locked her door shut – she does not share her schedule with anyone and no one knew if and when she would return for the day. Another admin assistant introduced herself and showed me around the office and sort of explained what my position would be like. I was also told that I was the fourth secretary my boss had had so far this year. When my boss returned, I told her that I had tried to go to her to ask a question but found out that she was gone but the other admin had been very helpful and answered some questions for me. The boss was livid – “WHY WERE YOU TALKING TO HER??? SHE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING – SHE’S JUST A TEMP! SHE IS NOT YOUR BOSS – I AM YOUR BOSS! (repeating) ..SHE IS NOT YOUR BOSS — I AM YOUR BOSS!!!” I reminded her that it was my first day; that she was gone and I didn’t know if she would be back and the other admin had actually answered my questions. I was reminded that I was never to go to the other admin again for any reason without express direction.

…On Day #2, I handed a document to my boss that I had just completed; she looked it over while I stood and waited for further direction from her. She turned to me and said, “You’re a perfectionist, aren’t you?”, I replied that I guess I am. With a sinister tone, my new boss told me, “I’m a perfectionist, too. We’re going to butt heads and I’m going to win.” I told her, “You can win! You’re my boss and I’m just here to help you. Why would we butt heads?” She said, We’ll see. I have now been here two months and it is some of the longest two months of my life. I cry on my way to work, I cry on Sundays knowing that I have to go back to that horrible woman on Monday. Although she does not usually raise her voice, her tone is always cynical, sarcastic,

accusing, condescending and demeaning. She does not believe in training. Her philosophy is that training is “clerical work” and she’s the boss around here and she will NOT do clerical work. While I don’t need training for my skills, every office is run differently and some kind of training is needed in order to learn and to be most efficient in being of service to your boss. But my boss does not believe in that. There is an assumption that you should come in on Day 1 and know everything there is to know about the agency and your job as if you’ve been working there 20 years.

Since there is no preparation beforehand and you learn very quickly that any kind of question you have will not be answered, or will be answered in such a belittling way that questions your intelligence or willingness to work that you soon learn it is not worth it to ask questions, if something – even the smallest detail – is done in an “unacceptable manner” as the boss deems, you are called into her office and berated for not getting it right. She is completely disorganized, but if you do anything to try to help her get organized, she accuses you of trying to “manage” her. She once CC’d me on an email to her other “staff” where they were to submit a report to me by noon on a certain day. On the morning that the reports were due, I emailed the staff members that had not turned in their report as a reminder that I needed them by noon that day, and I made the mistake of CC’ing my boss. …I was told that I had overstepped my boundaries and to NEVER email “her” staff again without express direction from her! However, a few weeks later, a similar situation arose when projects were due and when I told her that certain people had not followed up and we were missing documents needed from them, she was furious with me that I had not followed-up on this appropriately. She then (at the end of the day on Friday, when I should have been leaving) demanded that I call the offending parties and tell them that if they did not turn the missing pages in by mid-day Monday, she would file everything “as is”. I left voice messages and followed up with email messages, trying to word everything as politely as I could, while still getting across the message that this was urgent and we needed them ASAP. I was told to CC her on the emails.

Once again, I made an attempt to leave for the weekend, and instead was buzzed into my boss’s office – again she was outraged – because some of the “offenders” were Board Members to whom she answered, and I was told that I had been rude for seeming to rush them. I was then told that she was going to have to call them to smoothe things over with them and apolgize for my rude behavior, and furthermore, I was to meet with her at 10:00 Monday morning to discuss my failings further. I was literally sick all weekend, throwing up from nerves, but that morning, when I went in to work, I came prepared. I literally wore a wire. I stuffed a tiny tape recorder in my sweater and wore it – I still have the tape – my favorite part is when she is telling me how I am to treat the Board Members with kid gloves because they are people with money and influence, I am simply nodding my head to what she is saying when she snaps – “LET ME FINISH!”, as if I had interrupted her – it’s all on the tape! ….There is sooooo much more that I could write here…. not enough time to document it all, but it is unbelievable… By the way, today is New Year’s Eve and our office is closed today, but I am here because I was sick yesterday. To be more specific, I was driving in to work and a half hour into my commute, I became extremely dizzy and felt I was going to faint, I panicked and pulled off the road and immediately either went to sleep or passed out, for only about five minutes. I pulled the car into a nearby parking lot and since it was too early for anyone to be at the office yet, I was still feeling a little dazed and extremely sleepy – I closed my eyes and went to sleep again.

I called the office and told the receptionist what was going on. I told her that I was going to have my sister come and get me and I was going to go home and lie down and hopefully I would be well enough to come back later in the day. After about 45 minutes, my sister did come and get me and took me home – where there were two phone messages waiting for me, wanting to know when I was coming in. I called and explained that I was going to try to get some rest and I would try to come in later. I lay down and had just gotten to sleep when the phone rang again, my boss had asked a staff member to call me to find out, once again, when I was coming in. I was told to call back in another hour or so. Knowing that I would not be able to get any sleep, I got up, got dressed and told them I was coming in, however, I was very upset and I was told to not come in and that instead I would be expected to work a full day today. I told her that I was not expecting to work on New Year’s Eve and I had things that had to be done that day that I would not be able to do if I had to work a full day — and I was told to do them yesterday, since I was not coming in. So, instead of getting any rest, I went out, had my car serviced, returned gift items at the store, and had a meeting with my insurance agent and mortgage company. I got home after dark, completely exhausted. So much for getting any rest. And here I am. Not only is our little non-profit agency closed today, but we are in a large, four-story office building, and mine is the only car in the parking lot – I had to have the security officer unlock the doors for me so I could just get in. I still feel sick, but I am here. The boss is due in in any minute – she is going to give me instructions and then leave.

There’s no worse feeling than finally getting a job after having looked for one for a while, only to find that you’re now working for the boss from hell. It’s even worse when you come to that realization on the first day of work. What advice would you give to our reader to help her handle her boss and her situation? Do you have a similar bad boss story to share? Share it in the comment section of this post, or email me at denised@reallybadboss.com.

According to insiders, the Tyra Banks show has been plagued with high turnover for years. “She and the higher-ups on the production staff could be extremely brutal,” says the source. “She really is a diva.” Sources say it was her way or the highway. In our experience, that’s pretty typical bad boss behavior. But if reports that Banks and upper management frequently demeaned lower level staff and that some employees only learned that the show would be ending after the announcement had been made to the press are true, then Banks and her management team are treading into really bad boss territory.

Now some of the reports coming out might very well be sour grapes, but it wouldn’t be at all surprising to us if at least some of stories are true. After all, what management training does Banks have? Plus we all know that training alone isn’t enough to make someone a good boss.  We’re sure something close to the truth will shake out over the next few months, but we’re not holding our breath.

Source: Examiner

Great communicators make great leaders, and the opposite is true as well

I have had bosses where the ebb and flow of dynamic conversation was absolutely prohibited. Having such a dialog would have empowered me, given me too much confidence and in turn would have diminished their control over me and the situation. One guy that I worked for had a desperate dislike for opinions – my professional advice and contributions, that is – and whenever I shared my thoughts on a matter he would quickly rebuke me. He was the one asking the questions, and my opinions, should he have entertained them, would simply diminish his control over the situation and me. Great communicators do indeed make great leaders and the opposite is true as well. Most bully-bosses are poor communicators, they tell you only what you barely need to know and not a fragment more. Keeping you in the dark and always guessing is their way of maintaining absolute control. It’s also their way of never making a poor decision, or any decision at all for that matter, bad decisions that someday might indict them for incompetence.

The corporate bully-boss that I just described above was a classic case-study in the realm of poor communication. Working for him was like being a laboratory rat in a complex labyrinth; you never really knew which corridor to go down. Should you just happen to work your way down the right path you’d be rewarded with no feed-back whatsoever, advance down the wrong path and you’d be jolted with a shock. It took me several years to figure out that the complete lack of direction from him was his way of never stumbling into a bad decision, and along with his dual-faced profile that he showed – lord and master to those below him, obsequious subject to those above – was the manner in which he skillfully survived in a senior management position for some twenty years of so!

Insecure managers are extremely dangerous people.

The tragedy here, and it can be described as no less so, is that those running the company don’t see these corporate de-motivators for who and what they really are; morale-busters just as pernicious to the health of the business as any other threat. One such de-motivator told me during my yearly performance review that I wasn’t a team player, a ridiculous condemnation that went into my file. I confidently shared my opinion with him that most people in the company, my colleagues as well as higher ups, would disagree with him. It was only because I offered contrary opinions to his from time to time, resisted his bullying threats and de-motivating intimidations that he branded me as such. It was me who was a threat to him. He perceived me to be more competent than he and when around I exposed him as the fraud that his own insecurities thought him to be. Insecure managers are extremely dangerous people.

Buck Hamilton is a sales and marketing executive who’s spent over thirty years working in the paper distribution business. He’s a prolific writer who’s presently working on a book which narrates the stories of sixteen Vietnam War veterans. You can read his weekly series  “Managing the Meanies: A Survival Guide” every Tuesday here on Really Bad Boss.

A very costly mistake

Another manager that I had worked with as a colleague some years ago, Mark the plant engineer,  learned this lesson too, but unlike my experience, with bitter results. Mark was a real hard case, a tough guy and walked around the paper mill like he had a broom handle for a spine. He was in tight with the general manager and Mark was quick to note infractions on the clip board that he carried, always reporting to the higher ups whatever he had discovered. Feared by everybody as being the ferret that he was, Mark was an internal affairs type that snitched and tattled for the sole gain of advancing himself and his career. Sure, he had control over our workers, the fear and intimidation type of control, but he had no positive influence with them and in general everyone was unresponsive to Mark. It wouldn’t be too strong an assertion for me to say that all of the papermakers positively hated him.

Well, the time came when Mark made a dreadful miscalculation, a very costly mistake that had huge exposure. He couldn’t hide the fact that he had messed up royally, everyone knew it and his failure was revealed for all to see. He sought me out in the mill, came to me for sympathy I suppose, and I tried to console him as best that I could. He was so distraught that tears ran down his face, his eyes bloodshot and watery, mucus ran from his nose. Gosh, it was awful and I was in conflict with the compassion that I felt for him and the urge to walk away after saying to him “Well, if you hadn’t been such an SOB you wouldn’t be feeling this humiliation, would you? Have you ever thought about what being such a hard case really every got you?” Mark had been disgraced and shortly after was gone from the company. More than a few of us were relieved to know that the company recognized what a morale-buster this plant engineer was and the negative effects he had on the performance of the business.

Acknowledging your question empowers you

My parents understood the maxim that the one asking the questions is the one in charge and surely bully-bosses know this too. “Listen mister, I’m the one asking the questions around here” would have been my father’s reply when I was a kid and for some mis-managers it’s the central tenant of their management style. As for myself, years of successful selling has taught me well that questions are the key as to how fluidly a customer interview will go; the one asking the questions controls the direction and the outcome of the meeting. If you have ever had a boss who simply wouldn’t give you any answers, a very frustrating situation, then contemplate just exactly what’s going on here. Understand that acknowledging your question with a satisfactory answer empowers you, at least in the minds of the bully-bosses; it validates you, lends you respect and establishes you perhaps in some ways as an equal. It renders them answerable to you.

Some years ago I worked for a guy who was afflicted with the worst case of royalty syndrome, and asking him a question — at least if the inquiring person was one that he perceived to be beneath him in the corporate hierarchy — would elicit the most agonizingly uneventful response. Ask this guy a question and he would look away, rub his face, scratch his head, sigh and grunt, all the time fidgeting…and then, absolutely nothing. You could leave his office and go run around the block a few times only to still find him there when you returned, paralyzed by his reluctance to relinquish even a shred of power. You see, he knew that an answer would then validate the inquirer and it was for me to learn after working for this guy for several months that a commoner like me was not allowed to ask the king a question.

Next Tuesday: A desperate dislike for opinions: The poor communicator

Buck Hamilton is a sales and marketing executive who’s spent over thirty years working in the paper distribution business. He’s a prolific writer who’s presently working on a book which narrates the stories of sixteen Vietnam War veterans. You can read his weekly series  “Managing the Meanies: A Survival Guide” every Tuesday here on Really Bad Boss.

Anne Burrell - Image source nymag.com

Anne Burrell hosts Food Network’s Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. But before that she was a chef at Centro Vinoteca, a neighborhood restaurant and wine bar located in New York’s West Village. A lawsuit filed earlier this year claims that while Burrell was a chef at Centro she repeatedly hurled insults at, and discriminated against, female employees. A bartender says Burrell told her she had “saggy boobs,” and called her a “ho.”  Other female employees say they were called “sluts and whores.” The suit alleges that employees who complained to the restaurant’s owners were terminated, and that male employees were “not treated in the same or similar manner.” The complaint also states that Burrell suspended an employee for allegedly stealing a piece of cheese and claimed an employee faked an ovarian cyst to get out of working.

I don’t know much about the restaurant business, and even less about what goes on in the kitchens of these restaurants, but I always thought that restaurant kitchens were really tough places to work, where insult hurling was par for the course. I’m by no means excusing or justifying Burrell’s behavior, especially if it was only directed at female employees. But it’s got me wondering about the effectiveness of these types of lawsuits and the long term impact it may have on women in this particular industry.

Everyone has the right to work in a non-hostile, non-sexist environment, and I understand that when it comes to changing behavior, particularly corporate sanctioned behavior, money talks. Fear of being sued predated the shift in thinking that brought about an end (at least on paper anyway) to an environment where secretaries were openly and routinely goosed and propositioned in the workplace.

It would be interesting to hear an industry insider’s take on it. Is Burrell’s alleged behavior considered typical or even acceptable for the industry? Will a successful suit see the beginning of changes in behavior in restaurant kitchens, or will it more likely result in a reduction in the number of women being hired? Will it make a difference one way or the other? Share your thoughts in our comment section.

Source: Slashfood.com

I’m very excited to welcome Buck Hamilton as Really Bad Boss’ first ever guest blogger. His stories are honest, often amusing, and familiar accounts of really bad bosses and the damage they can inflict on their employees and the companies they run. This week begins the series we’ve entitled Managing the Meanies; A Survival Guide to Corporate Bully-Bosses.  Every Tuesday over the next few months, Buck shares his personal stories of bad boss behavior and how he managed to survive his own corporate bully bosses.

In part one of the series, Buck introduces us to the first of his many bully bosses. Peter was the quintessential bad boss – “grumpy and unapproachable” with a god complex…

An eager young supervisor

It was while talking on the phone with a friend of mine who just recently left his company for a new job with a competitor that I heard in his voice a level of passion and excitement that he had never shown before. As if having been released from Puritan stocks he was liberated from the former company, the massive oak mantle that he had been locked into had been lifted. My friend was the casualty of a bad boss and the dysfunction cost the former company hugely with the loss of his talents.

His demoralizing bad-boss relationship was reminiscent of my own story when I was coming up in the paper manufacturing business as a young supervisor. At the time I had been challenged with a nearly impossible task, one that had been tackled by several other managers before me without results and one that I was determined to succeed at. This overwhelming assignment involved the disposal of hundreds of tons of waste paper that had been irresponsibly accumulated by the company over the years, paper that had no use whatsoever other than to be gradually reclaimed into the process as raw material, and if successful, the bottom line return to the firm could ultimately reach well beyond half a million dollars.

I worked on the project over time, reading about and researching the technology of recovering the waste, understanding the quality impact of using such raw materials in the process, talking with the old-timers at the paper mill and securing their thoughts and input. Several trials yielded promising results and I was thrilled with the progress that we had made.

Grumpy and unapproachable with a God complex

Well, every morning the company’s general manager, Peter, walked through the plant making his tour, his hands thrust into his pockets and always looking grumpy and unapproachable. On one such morning he stopped and asked me about the status of the project and I told him of the progress we had made and that several chemical company consultants were coming in to advise us on the technology — free input, I might add, with no cost to the company other than the price of the chemical should it work. He lost it right there on the floor and blistered me for bringing in consultants, the only consulting he insisted that the company needed was from him and he walked away berating me over his shoulder. I was left standing there flushed with embarrassment, crushed by the granite weight of his rejection. The encounter left me demoralized and uncertain what to do with the project, paralyzed as to whether or not I should even continue to develop this technology.

The seminal moment

Despite the general manager’s deflating style I succeeded with the challenge and in time recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in bottom-line savings for the company. My nasty encounter with Peter, however, was the seminal moment in which I realized that it was time to leave the company and move on to a competitor; I had no desire whatsoever to work for a company that promoted such poor management style. But most importantly, Peter had demonstrated to me the lessons of yet another episode in how not to treat subordinates.

Have any of you ever had a seminal moment? A moment where, while working in a bad job, or for a bad boss, you simply realize that you can do better? That you just have to do better? We’d like you to share your seminal moments with us. You never know, maybe your story will give someone the courage they need to realize their own seminal moment.

Next Tuesday…12 bosses, less than 20% worth their salaries…

• Anna Wintour – She’s got everyone in the fashion industry hanging on her every word and she’s so bad, she even had a book and movie made about her really bad boss ways
• Lenny Dykstra – The former professional baseball player launched a publication a couple of years ago to help teach young athletes to invest wisely. Instead Dykstra swindled employees into using their credit cards to pay for fuel for his private jets. Nice.
• Scott Rudin – I think when you tell an employee “The only thing separating my hands from your neck is the fact that there are 3000 miles between us”  you might be a really bad boss.

To see the Huff Post’s entire list, click here. If you’d like to nominate your boss as one of the worst bosses of all time, leave your comment (anonymously if you’d like) in the comment section of this post, or send an email to denised@reallybadboss.com.

I find that unreasonable.  Really unreasonable.  I’m sure some HR heads out there will point to established policy that indicates that my friend’s boss was simply following the rules when she made her take that personal day.  I suppose she was. But at what cost?  The road closings were well documented and had been a national news item for days.  There was no question about my friend’s inability to get to work.  And, as I said before, she was considered an exemplary employee. What employers don’t get is this – when great employees are only marginally happy with their jobs, things like making them taking personal days for a natural disaster, only increase the likelihood of them jumping ship at the first possible opportunity.

I had a similar situation with a previous boss who read me the riot act when I let her know (a week in advance) that I’d be unable to work a NON-MANDATORY weekend event due to a prior commitment.  On speaker phone, from the comfort of her own home and with an assistant manager in the room, my boss proceeded to tell me how “very disappointed” she was in me. She went on to question my “commitment” to my job.  I reminded her that in my review earlier that year, she’d commended me on my work ethic and my willingness to work whenever asked, even on weekends.  Her response was to stutter a loud “are you disobeying a direct order?!?” and then to ask whether or not I knew “there’d be consequences” to disobeying that order. I took her words as the threat she intended them to be, and it shook me. Considering I wasn’t in the military, I found her questions surprising and offensive. Not only had I been one of the strongest employees in the unit, but we both knew that I was also a very dedicated and committed one.

If you’re a good employee, when an employer questions your commitment, treats you unreasonably and barks orders in your face (or over the speakerphone), it’s a blow. A blow to your ego, your sense of self respect and your pride.  But for me, the incident turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  It was on that day that my efforts at finding a new job shifted into high gear.  From that day on I dedicated myself to finding new and better employment, and spent every waking, non-working hour fine tuning my resume and applying for jobs.  I’d wanted out for months, but it was the humiliation of that conversation that gave me the push I needed to finally get out.

These stories should serve as a precautionary tale for employers.  Had my boss been reasonable, I might still be working there today.  Instead, her unwillingness to acknowledge my role with the company and her compulsion to repeatedly remind me that she was in charge, led her to lose a great employee.  It got me wondering, is it really that difficult for bosses to be reasonable?  And, is it worth the price they pay when they are?

Warren Properties is a bad employer. I worked for Warren Properties for about 2 years. During the time that I worked there I saw all the partying pals of the area supervisors getting promotions, while the people that never layed out of work never got anywhere. They also have little consideration for the tenants, they have even been sued for keeping deposits. The pay rate is so low it is no wonder, most of the employees are low scale laborers at best. Warren Properties is a bad place to work for. There are no ethics, the bosses can scream at you and write you up at will. You can not retaliate, or talk to the boss, or you get screamed at some more, and belittled. Being belittled in front of co-workers, and tenants is the normal activity when working for this company. If you like to party with the boss, then this is the place for you. When i worked there I felt like I was in jail. So glad to be free.

It’s amazing that companies who routinely mistreat employees stay in business, and even thrive.  Does the way a company treats its employees impact its bottom line? If so, why do so many bad employers do so well?  Tell us what you think in the comment section after the jump.

If you have your own really bad boss horror story, leave it in the comment section on our Bad Boss Stories page. If it’s really bad, we’ll feature it here.

In another case of sexual predator parading as management, really bad boss Terence E. Davis, a former Taco Bell manager, was accused of sexually assaulting a 16 year old female employee on her first day of work.  When she left to go home following the assault, he even followed her.  During their investigation, the EEOC also uncovered evidence that Davis had raped another 16 year old employee just five months earlier.   Davis plead guilty to raping both women and is serving two concurrent eight year sentences. The EEOC tried to reach a voluntary settlement with the Irvine, California based Taco Bell Corporation, but was unsuccessful.  In addition to the $350,000 payout, Taco Bell must maintain a written policy against sexual harassment and will distribute the policy to all employees.

The thing about written policies is that a lot of managers think the policies are there for subordinates, not them.  In this case though, when you’ve got a boss who’s capable of raping two teenaged girls, you’re dealing with a sexual predator, and no amount of written policies will stop a predator.  However, I do believe that because fast food work attracts younger employees, a fast food restaurant is obligated to be even more thorough in their screening of management. Sixteen year old girls are unlikely to recognize non-violent forms of sexual harassment and even less likely to report them.

This isn’t the first public case of out of control fast food managers.  Burger King was sued recently after a general manager repeatedly propositioned a female subordinate for sex.

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