In this week’s installment of Managing the Meanies, Buck reminds us of a lesson his father taught him, “the one asking the questions is the one in charge.”  Bad bosses who refuse to acknowledge our questions understand that providing us with answers empower and validate us, and that’s the last thing most of them ever want to do…

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

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader interested in sharing his own stories of bad bosses and the impact they’ve had on his life and career. Always interested in others’ stories and how they’ve coped with really bad bosses, I asked him to send me his. And what a story it is. 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, and he’s got a lot to say about our corporate culture of bad management and worse bosses.

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…

Last week The Huff Post featured a list of what they consider to be the worst bosses of all time. I think the only reason my last boss didn’t make the list is that he didn’t meet the height requirement. Here are some bosses who did make the cut:

• 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 was talking to a friend of mine this week who is, as so many of us are, frustrated at the unreasonableness of her boss.  My friend missed a day of work last week. She hadn’t taken a “mental health” day and hadn’t spent the day getting a mani-pedi. What she did have was, what most would consider, an exemplary record with her employer.  She hadn’t made it to work because the worst storm in decades had shut down all possible routes to her place of employment.  Highways were flooded, buildings were underwater, and when she tried to drive into work that morning, she was forced to turn around and head back home.  Even so, to make up for the lost day of work, her boss made her use one of only a handful of personal days she had coming to her.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

I found a great site the other day, Pissed Consumer. Pissed consumer is exactly what it sounds like, and after leaving a couple of strongly worded letters myself, I ran across this warning about a company called Warren Properties…

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Another fast food manager gets out of pocket and Taco Bell now has to pay $350,000 to two female employees as a result of an EEOC lawsuit.

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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