Despite his hurt feelings about losing The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien is in an envious position right now and it’s not just because of his reported $40 million payout for leaving NBC. Conan is king because he got to mock, ridicule and otherwise shame the bad boss goofs at NBC who got him and the network in this whole mess in the first place.

Think about it. For the last couple of weeks, Conan’s been paid millions of dollars to diss his own bosses – and he’s been loving it, and so have we.  Julia Roberts even got in on it on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. And although Leno was some of the collateral damage – deservedly or not – the world stood behind Conan in declaring the real screw ups in this matter as NBC. How often does that happen? How often in “real life” does the laid off employee get a national platform to complain about his bosses and there’s nothing the bosses can do about it? Never. And that’s why, no matter where you fall in the late night battle between Jay and Conan, you’ve got to admit, that at least for a little while, Conan was king.

If you or I had mucked up the way the head honchos have at NBC, we’d be out of a job faster than you could hum the NBC chimes. Let’s recap…

Leno (who I personally think is the least funniest of the late night hosts) has the number one late night talk show on the air. Things are going so well, the folks at NBC say, “let’s fix it” – because we all know, no one can break anything that’s working, faster than a bad boss. They say, “Let’s skew for a younger audience and let’s save a gang of cash while we’re at it. We’ll cancel promising shows like Southland, move venerable favorites like the Law & Order franchise to the 9:00pm timeslot and ‘change the face of prime time.’”  Ok, so maybe those weren’t their exact words.

If by ‘change the face of prime time’ they meant put dozens of people out of work to ensure the continued employment of wealthy comedians and NBC execs, fail miserably at their new venture, and have to eat crow only months later, then NBC and it’s current team of decision makers are the most successful group of individuals ever to “grace” network television.

In all the shuffle, O’Brien’s lost his big dream of hosting The Tonight Show, Leno, although presumably returning to his 11:35pm slot, completely flopped and might want to start thinking about hanging it up, and Fallon, well Fallon has just become a footnote in all the brouhaha. When it’s all said and done, it is hard to feel sorry for these guys with their million dollar contracts and buy-out deals. Who I do wonder about is O’Brien’s staff and crew who picked up and moved to the other side of the country for this gig. What will they do now? I doubt if their contracts include million dollar clauses. And what about the slew of 10:00pm shows, stars, crew and crafts people who were all left without gigs months ago?

Who I’m not wondering about are the head honchos at NBC. If history is any indicator, even after a gi-normous mistake like this, their jobs will still be intact, as will their salaries and bonuses. It seems that even in late-night, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

When Tyra Banks announced that she’d be ending her talk show this year to pursue movie production, people (those who cared anyway) immediately began wondering about the real reason for the end of the show. After all, with two Emmy’s under her belt and with Oprah as her mentor, many thought she would become the next talk show queen. Well if you believe some of her employees, Ms. Banks doesn’t have the management chops to run her million dollar empire, much less a talk show.

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

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 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.           
2. In the movies, bad bosses are really evil and really smart.  Think Gordon Gekko, Wall Street and Miranda Priestly, The Devil Wears Prada.  We might not like their methods and we definitely don’t like them, but behind all the dislike is a certain degree of respect.  They know what they’re doing and they’re really good at it. In real life, most really bad bosses have the evil part down pat.  The smart part…not so much.  Real life bosses forge ahead, logic be damned, making it up as they go along. We never respect them for that.                                                   
3. Finally, the movies remind us that even though our really bad bosses act like the embodiment of evil, things could be worse.  They could actually be the devil. Think John Milton (Al Pacino) in the The Devil’s Advocate.  The movies remind us that our bosses, despite their best attempts to convince us otherwise, are only human – barely human – but human nonetheless.  Just think, no matter how evil our bosses are, if a rocket scientist like Keanu Reeves can defeat the devil himself, we can certainly make it through another day with our own, barely human, very mortal, real life, really bad boss.

Got your own reasons for loving your favorite really bad movie boss?  Share them in the comment section.  For the  full list of Spike TV bad movie bosses click here.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.  Who better to honor you with than Mr. T himself.  I’ll let his video and lyrics do all the talking because he’s so eloquent and you know…shiny.  I don’t remember this video. Either that or I blocked it out.  But, I am not ashamed to admit that I started tapping my feet halfway through.

How does this relate to Really Bad Boss? Mr. T should have fired his really bad agent right after he booked him this really bad gig and then again when he suggested Mr. T wear those really tight booty shorts.  Where’s the A-Team when you need them?  Well, at least his agent didn’t book him in Midgets vs. Mascots.

A little really bad boss weekend fun…pun intended

Entertainers and their handlers make great subjects for really bad boss, usually just by waking up in the morning.  But, we’ve got to certify Gary Coleman’s agency as one of the worst really bad bosses around for booking him a role in the Indy film “Midgets vs. Mascots.”  Yes, in case you’re pc challenged, midget is an offensive term, and Coleman himself says he’d like to “bash his fists right into his [agent's] face” for bringing him the role. If he could reach his face. The 41 year old actor cites his well publicized financial problems as the reason for taking the role.   As if that weren’t really bad enough, his agent also shows his disdain for his own client by allowing him to be photographed looking like this and (gasp), this.  We have a word of career advice for Mr. Coleman, one that his agents are obviously determined not to share with him. Lotion. Not only will it moisturize his skin, it might help us take him seriously when he complains about not being taken seriously. You think he’d listen if Willis talked to him?