Dan Schwabel over at Brazen Careerist posed a disturbing question today – What would you do if your boss sent you a friend request on Facebook? 

 After picking myself up off the floor at the realization that my boss actually had a Facebook account, I’d be pretty disturbed.  I haven’t always had bad bosses, but the thought of “friending” even the good ones gives me hives. 

So what’s an employee to do? Schwabel narrowed our options down to three. You could just accept the friend request unconditionally, granting your boss access to the most personal and sometimes most trivial details of your life.  Yeah…that would be a no for me.  The second, more palatable, but still disturbing alternative would be to accept the request and utilize your Facebook account settings to restrict what your boss will be able to see.  Utilizing that option would mean your boss would go to your wall, see your name, one photo of you and your dog, and know you’ve restricted his access.  Finally, and definitely more up my alley, you could explain to your boss that you want to keep your business and professional lives separate.  A reasonable boss would understand.  Actually, a reasonable boss wouldn’t have made the friend request in the first place. 

The flip side of granting your boss too much access to your personal life is learning way more than you ever wanted to know about his. Who cares what he had for breakfast or where he was on Saturday night?  And I for one, DO NOT want to see his semi-nude beach photos or who he’s been sending cocktails to.  That said, I choose option four, ignore his friend request all together.  Career suicide?  I doubt it, but if he’s that bad, I’m probably working on getting out of there anyway.  How would you deal with a friend request from a boss?

Last week in Part I of dealing with a Really Bad Boss we advocated taking the high road because as difficult as it can be, rising above the noise and nonsense of a really bad boss can result in unparalleled personal and professional growth. Today in part 2, we’ll list five reader submitted, time tested suggestions for helping you do just that.   The key to surviving a really bad boss is tackling each day as it comes. Hopefully these tips will help you do that:

1. Work as though you have the best job and the best boss in the world– Cruel I know, but it works. Take it from me. Much like a relationship, when the thrill is gone from a job (if it was ever there to begin with) it’s really hard to make an effort, especially when the person on the receiving end is an ungrateful, unyielding, good for nothing… umm…boss. The truth is, when you bring your A game to every assignment, every meeting, every challenge, regardless of whether or not your boss notices, you’ll develop exceptional skills that will work wonders for you when you eventually move on to the job and boss that are perfect for you.  In your new digs, when everyone’s crumbling under pressure because the boss has a hang nail, you, having survived the incoherent ramblings of an intoxicated CEO, will be the picture of calm productivity, and for that, you’ll be elevated to rockstar status.
2.  Know you’re probably smarter than she is, and she knows it– Knowing you’re the smartest person in the room can provide you with a quiet confidence that belies your current circumstance.  As employees railed against mistreatments and the ridiculous antics at the hands of our really bad and stupid boss, I plugged away diligently at the tasks at hand, convinced that the degree hanging over her desk had been purchased from the nearby Goodwill store. When she created her own private system of mathematics rather than owning up to an error in her calculations, she confirmed my suspicions.  Her frustration upon being confronted with the error and her anger that she’d been found out, had me smiling widely…on the inside.  Which brings me to the next tip…
3. If you need your job, don’t let your boss know that you know, just  how bad he really is – In fact it’s a good idea not to discuss your boss’ shortcomings with colleagues either.  With the exception of Human Resources (except if your HR Manager is Mary), discussing your boss’  lack of mental ability at work is a bad idea.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had several requests to reissue the Really Bad Boss APB for Good Management. In light of GM filing for bankruptcy, our ongoing bank crisis and the relentless stream of idiocy displayed by the really bad bosses around us, I thought today would be a good day to reissue that APB: 

Authorities issue an APB for Good Management. Missing for years from thousands of offices around the world, Good Management appears to be gone forever and authorities are not optimistic about locating it.  For starters, since really bad bosses rarely display good management sense, employees have been unable to provide an accurate description.  As far as authorities have been able to ascertain, good management may never have been in really bad boss’ possession, as no one can remember ever seeing him utilize it.  Common Sense, a close friend of Good Management, is also said to be missing from the ranks of managers worldwide and was last seen…well…no details are available on the last time Common Sense was seen in management.

Authorities are currently questioning the human resources manager, who has long been suspected of hiring the really bad boss in question, despite having prior knowledge that he had never possessed nor utilized good management or common sense.  The HR manager, when questioned about her own lack of management sense, refused to answer, citing preparation for an upcoming company potluck (the company’s 12th this week) as her top priority. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including her DNA found on ridiculous decisions strewn recklessly around the office, the HR manager still maintains that she is doing an exceptional job.  Upon hearing this, authorities immediately questioned her sanity and her understanding of the word “exceptional.” Read the rest of this entry »

One of my previous employers had a no eating at the desk rule.  Since no one likes to call a business and be greeted with the sounds of a customer service rep polishing off the remains of her barbeque chicken and rib combo, I had no problem with the rule.  It made sense…for the employees whose job it was to answer the phones.    For the rest of us, it felt like just another rule that 1) penalized all employees for the unprofessional behavior of a handful and, 2) reminded us that we were being managed by people who had nothing better to do than spy on the contents of employees’ trashcans.  

Each morning and afternoon, managers took turns walking down the cubicle lined aisles, peeking into trashcans for any sign of unauthorized snack consumption. Being a government agency with precise, militarily timed breaks of 15 minutes each, if you happened to be hungry at any other time than 11:15 am and 2:15 pm every day, you were stuck in a snackless hell.  So, as adults who are treated like children often do, we disregarded the rule and with childlike fervor became adept at sneaking snacks into our work areas, masking our defiance and coming to the aid of fellow snack bandits with perfectly orchestrated hand signals and turret like outbursts.

It was in the midst of a particularly harrowing snack sneaking session, in which I had been balancing a bag of potato chips on my knees while tapping out Morse code signals and flashing gang signs to fellow colleagues, that it dawned on me that I was an intelligent, talented adult, and not, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, a five year old. How had it come to this? How had I allowed snack espionage to become the highlight of my day?

Which brings me to my point.  When you routinely treat adults like children, they begin acting like them.  There are managers that will argue that if employees just did what they were supposed to, management wouldn’t need to create silly rules in the first place.  I agree that there are some employees (like the one in our office who tried to eat an entire pizza at her desk) who just don’t get it, and never will.  But we didn’t hire them, you did.  You created and/or contributed to your own management nightmare, so go manage it! And for the record, walking from desk to desk peeking into trashcans, is not managing it. Managing it would look like hiring the right people in the first place.  It would entail pulling the offending employees aside and addressing their offenses with them.  It would involve highlighting the people who are doing it right,  and, it would mean trusting the employees you’ve hired enough so that you don’t micromanage them to within an inch of their lives. 

The next time you’re tempted to do a clandestine trashcan inspection, think about the rest of us.   Think about the 95% of us who’ve known since we were about six years old that answering the phone with a mouth full of food is not ok.  Think about the 95% whose morale and motivation get knocked down a peg every time you devise another rule that screams “Look at me, I’m their manager, I can make them do anything!”  A well managed office won’t need a bunch of ridiculous over the top rules and a hall monitor to make sure things are running smoothly.  But, if yours does, whose fault is that?

Apparently more and more companies are creating websites to allow laid off employees – alumni, as they like to call them – to maintain ties.  IBM, Lockheed Martin, and KPMG are just a few of the companies helping former employees stay in touch through alumni networks. The sites feature industry news, job leads and keep alumni updated on reunions and company events.  My knee jerk reaction to the idea of keeping in touch with the former bosses and companies who’d laid me off was “take your network and shove it.”  In the case of at least one of my former companies, layoffs were the collateral damage of incredibly bad management, stubborn arrogance and good old fashioned nepotism.  The idea of Facebooking or Tweeting with a group of people who couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag felt to me, like taking a giant leap backwards.

The adult in me however, realizes that not everyone has worked for Kool-Aid pushing, Jim Jones wannabes and that while no one enjoys being laid off, some genuinely like and respect the companies they’ve worked for and actually want to keep in touch.  Some want to maintain ties to colleagues they’ve formed relationships with over the years. Others want to keep their names fresh on the minds of their former HR departments, hoping that in the event of an upturn, something new will open up and they’ll be in line for consideration.

Pride aside, keeping in touch with a former employer after a layoff can open new doors, provide fresh leads for your job search and keep you in the company’s good graces until the tide eventually turns.  That old adage about burning bridges still holds true.  It may be even truer still, when your employer is the one building the bridges.

To read more about alumni networks, click here.

Vermont restaurant’s  twin waiters Jed and Michael Gelzhiser won their lawsuit after it was determined their boss created a hostile work environment.  Jed detailed one incident in which his boss “ran his hand up his skirt.”  Yes skirt.  Because in a hostile work environment where both brothers were being harassed by their boss,   Jed decided to wear a ”naughty school girl” uniform to the office Halloween party.   Of course, even if Jed decided to come to the party dressed as Adam in the Garden of Eden, his boss shouldn’t have laid a finger on him. But a naughty school girl costume?   Really?  Maybe Vermont Restaurant should rewrite their Corporate Halloween Party Manual.  Maybe sexually suggestive costumes should be banned. Just a thought.  By the way each twin was awarded $1,000.   Maybe 12 other people had a problem with the costume too.

You’re the director of a major hospital in Queens, NY and over an 8 year period you recieve numerous written and verbal complaints about one of your doctors.  You ignore the complaints and allow the doctor to continue working at the hospital.  That decision could cost the hospital  $15 million.  Actually, $7.5 million.  A Queens, NY jury found both the doctor and the hospital equally liable.  The nurse who brought the suit, Janet Blanco, says she suffered sexual torment at the hands of Dr. Matthew Miller for over 8 years.  Read the rest of this entry »