What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• Are the new TSA pat-downs more like rub-downs?

• Need a boss personality type manual? Check this out at The Sydney Morning Herald.

• Does your boss display Jekyll and Hyde tendencies? Yes? Read on.

• My favorite bad boss post title ever in the history of bad boss post titles: Bitchslapping Narcissus: 9 keys to surviving a bad boss. And the post is pretty great too.

• And check out our own real life, really bad boss tale from a reader here.

The blogosphere’s buzz on bad bosses this week…

One of the most shocking stories to come out of the “Possible Abuse of Power” files this week is the sordid drama revolving around mega-church pastor, Bishop Eddie Long and the cases brought against him alleging sexual misconduct with young, male church members.

Do “even the most level-headed elected officials harbor megalomaniacal tendencies?” David Archer on the Daily Caller wrote an interesting piece about Indiana Congressman Mike Pence’s campaign request for un-paid interns with “a servant’s attitude” and the underlying attitude his choice of words might signify.

Roy Horn, the Horn half of Siegreied and Roy, is being sued by one of his former assistants, Oliver Preiss. Priess claims he was fired in April following years of fending off Horn’s sexual advances. Reach the full story on ABC News.

Unlike rancid meat, when good bosses go bad, you can’t just throw them away. Over on the CNN Money – Fortune blog, When good bosses go bad reviews the cases of a few good bosses who went rogue and a few who did just the opposite.

If you’d like your blog, article, or book featured in a future Really Bad Boss Blog Roundup, email your story to denised@reallybadboss.com.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bad bosses…

• What to do if you can’t or don’t want to quit you bad boss – Steve Strauss, USA Today

• Oooh Casey – Casey Affleck hit with second sexual harassment lawsuit…

• While the case against Al Gore was dropped.

• Advice on dealing with a bad boss, including walking a mile in his shoes…if you can stomach it.

• Your weekly funny – Living Dilbert’s the GD ringmaster of a corporate three ring circus. If you can’t do anything about your bad boss, at least you can laugh at LD’s.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• “My boss and I never got along” – Whether it’s true or not, this is just one of several things you should never say during an interview. Fred Whelan and Gladys Stone share an entire list over at the Huffington Post.

• A sea of negativity – bad bosses and bad employees can lead to a seemingly endless “sea of negativity.” About.com shares five causes of workplace negativity, including excessive workloads and anxiety about the job and offers suggestions on how to stop the raging sea of negativity before it even starts.

• Are you the boss from hell? – If you exhibit any of these characteristics, there’s a good chance you might be.

• BP exec Tony Hayward maybe out, but trust, he’s leaving with some loot in his pocket. The Economist tackles bad decisions, bad bosses and the current culture of “payment for failure.”

What the blogosphere’s saying about bad bosses this week…

• The only good thing I can say about a bad boss is that you can learn an awful lot from them if you’re paying attention. Bad bosses provide a roadmap of exactly what not to do as you’re progressing in your career. And over at TLNT.com, John Hollon tells you why it’s good to learn from a bad boss.

• Janlogie’s Blog shares a few opinions about bad bosses, bad employees and the rights of both.

• Over at the bnet blogs, Suzanne Lucas shares 5 Things to Do When the Boss is Wrong.

• On Work in Progress – Bad Boss Misery, Johni Siegel shares tips on improving and maybe eliminating a bad boss situation.

• Sonja Crider shares her boss from hell story and tells us how she learned to work for a control freak.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

Intern horror stories – Monica Lewinksy, Anita Hill, David Letterman’s former intern – what’s her name – all victims of sexual harassment as interns. This week’s installment of Deadspin.com’s intern horror stories is the sexual harassment edition. Check out the anonymous true stories here, and be grateful you’re no longer an intern.

“And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. The Incompetent Shall Run it. And ThatsMyBoss.com shall record it.”  That’s how the guys at That’smyboss.com describe their site. Visit, leave your own anonymous comment, read some of the other crap that others have had to deal with and then be grateful we live in America and can boldly (yet fearfully) litter the blogosphere with anonymous bad boss hate mail. Love it!

12 things good bosses believe, and a few things bad bosses know – Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, has written Good Boss, Bad Boss and this 12 things post is a great look at the dynamics of both good and bad bosses.

If you can’t say anything nice… Inc. Magazine talks discusses rudeness in the workplace and how that affects productivity.

Email your blog or post for consideration in the Really Bad Boss Blog Roundup to denised@reallybadboss.com.

This week I’m featuring a couple of my favorite blogs, plus a link to Really Bad Boss in Inc. Magazine…

• eBossWatch uses an evaluation form to let people anonymously rate their current or former bosses. The site’s founder also runs GreatPlaceJobs a source that helps job seekers find jobs at award-winning great workplaces.

• The Earmark always manages to wrangle up a great list of really bad bosses, mostly of the political kind. Here’s the most recent.

• Workforce Management Today asks the question; Has the employer-employee relationship changed for good? A quote from someone they interviewed for the article pretty much sums it up, “Let them fire me. I don’t even care what happens anymore. I’ll just go work somewhere else and be totally unhappy in that job too.”

• On her blog A Meaningful Existence, Karen shares The top 5 reasons to leave your job – no surprise here, a bad boss is number one. And while this economy might have you staying put for a while, it’s important to note her suggestions, particularly about doing something everyday to move towards finding a better job, and a better boss.

• Over on Inc. online, Raven Hill offers advice on managing bully bosses and guess who was tapped for the piece. Check out the story and Really Bad Boss’ mention here.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• “In the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue.” I couldn’t agree more. On the site flameofhope.net, a guest post by Dr. Zimmerman falls in line with what we’ve been saying all along, bad bosses are bad for business. Check out Zimmerman’s insights here.

• Call center staff in Britain say their bad bosses are treating them like caged animals – battery hens to be exact. The Mirror’s report found that some staff were allowed only eight minutes for bathroom breaks during an eight-hour shift. Read the whole story here.

• I called it. Remember Debrahlee Lorenzana, the woman who was way too sexy and distracting to keep her job with Citibank. I smelled a reality star wannabe and it’s begun! The Frisky’s reporting that Ms. Lorenzana is now starring in a promotional video for Long Island Plastic Surgical Group in which she touts her second breast augmentation surgery and says she wants to be “tits on a stick.” Wonderful – she’s just set sexual harassment causes back a decade. Read the full story here.

• Over at the Worcester Business Journal, the article Boss Management 101 offers advice on ways to make working with a bad boss less stressful. Some of the tips include; identifying your boss’ management style and asking the right questions. Read the full article here.

What the blogosphere’s saying about dealing with bad bosses this week…

• Your diploma is a passport to nothing – So begins an essay in a Canadian Newspaper by Rick Spence. Caitlin Kelly follows up with Eight Lessons That Might Help – a lesson for new college grads. I’m sure if I’d had some of this knowledge before accepting my first job, I wouldn’t have ended up with the horribly bad boss I suffered under for the first two years of my career.

• Employers, don’t take your employees for granted! And now there are even more reasons not to. On his blog SandersSays, Tim Sanders offers great insight into why employers should treat their employees with more respect. My favorite quote from the site – “By the time you realize your company’s culture stinks, it will be too late to turn the ship around, and when the economy totally improves – you are toast.”

• Over at The Working Girl blog, the working girl tackles the age old question about who makes a better boss – male or female. Check out her honest observations here.

• Over at Brainzooming, Mike Brown shares 5 things you can learn from a bad boss. No, intense hatred isn’t one of them. But he does point out that you can learn what a boss shouldn’t do, and I completely agree with that.

What the Blogosphere’s saying about bad bosses this week…

Over at the Non-working monkey, the non-working monkey himself has a “strong desire to do very little (unless it’s something you really like doing) and be answerable to no-one, whilst understanding that working is necessary in order to get money, which we need to live.” One of the things he does well is create cute little movies, with cute little characters acting out skits about really bad bosses. You can check them out here.

eBossWatch is reporting that Jackie Chan’s former assistant says Mr. Chan and his wife Joan Lin are really bad bosses.

On Bullies Be Gone, Ben Leichtling provides some tips on stopping bullies at work, specifically the control freaks.

The New York Times blog reviews workplace reviews – you know those horrible things we’re forced to undergo quarterly or annually that are often meaningless? Well we’re not the only ones who think so.

The Literary Edition – This week we’re taking a look at a few of the books on the market that focus on bad bosses and how to survive them…

• A Survival Guide for Working With Bad Bosses: Dealing With Bullies, Idiots, Back-stabbers, And Other Managers from Hell by Gini Graham Scott, PhD. The title says it all – Scott outlines several strategies for dealing with the bad bosses who’ve become the banes of our existence.

• Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots: 201 Smart Ways to Handle the Toughest People Issues by Vicky Oliver. Oliver takes on more than bosses in this book. She provides over 200 ways to deal with your garden variety office idiot.

• How to work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive…Without Killing your Boss by John Hoover. After years of unsuccessfully trying to change I-bosses (idiot bosses) Hoover decided to bring the knowledge directly to the poor souls who have to work for them.

• When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace by William & Kathleen Lundin. If you notice a pattern here, it’s because there is one. Bad bosses are often dumb bosses, and the Lundins offer strategies for coping with the dumbest of them.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bad bosses this week…

• New York Post columnist Cindy Adams thinks that female victims of workplace sexual harassment should just deal with it, bad bosses and all…

• Quite a few people at the Huff Post disagree.

• Yahoo Shine suggests 5 ways to make work better when you hate your job and your bad boss. No, not working isn’t one of the suggestions.

• So, your boss is a jerk, so what? Over at  Career Woman, Inc., Lisa Quast answers that question by introducing you to four fictional bad boss types.

• When mean girls go to work – Ella L.J, Edmonndson Bell, Ph.D examines views on women bosses and notes women, especially white women, are sometimes stereotyped as super competitive, while black women, are often labeled as “angry.”

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• The Washington Post is featuring a series which is a collaboration between The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post’s On Leadership site.  This week’s topic is How to deal with a bad boss, and it addresses issues with bad bosses in federal government. Let’s hope the series is required reading for all government managers.

• Over at mademan.com, Mia Faulkner offers tips on How To Manage A Bad Boss including, not taking bad boss behavior personally and documenting the behavior.

• 13% of workers say their boss is lazy. 21% say their bosses unfairly take credit for their work. And 25% say their bosses don’t provide enough guidance. Check out a few more stats and a neat slide-show on How to Deal with a Bad Boss at Baseline Magazine. Their best tip? You don’t have to be a suck up to build a better relationship with your bad boss.

If you’d like to be featured in a future roundup, email us at denised@reallybadboss.com.

• For your viewing pleasure – Jay Leno’s Jaywalk – Bad Boss edition
• Proving bosses are just as bad across the pond – half of Brits would take a pay cut to work for a better manager. The study, conducted by Chartered Management Institute, surveyed over 85,000 employees and bosses. According to management specialists “Britain is suffering because our managers are simply not up to scratch.” Now that’s something we have in common with the Brits. Read the full story here.
• Bad bosses are bad for business – Over at the Post-Tribune, Leanne Hoagland-Smith explains why that’s the case and why bad boss behavior is unlikely to change unless we make some changes to the way we train managers. According to Hoagland-Smith, “The K-16 educational experience fails to provide the necessary knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits required in the real business word.” If you ask us, professional business schools aren’t doing a bang up job either.
• Got the bad boss blues? Forbes Woman helps you get over you bad boss blues – One great tip, get over your anger and resentment. The quicker you do that, the better the head-space you’ll find yourself in.
• What do Ben Stiller, Marc Cherry and James Cameron have in common? According to The Frisky, they’re on the list of the 10 worst bosses in Hollywood. How bad are they? James Cameron reportedly nail-gunned cell phones to the walls during the filming of Avatar when they rang at inappropriate times.

What the blogosphere’s saying – and doing – about bosses this week…

• Pass me a donut – Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that stress, particularly chronic stress, is known to have a negative impact on health. University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have observed that workplace stress is strongly associated with being overweight or obese. Read the full article here.

• Don’t let incompetent bosses stand in your way – According to Financialpost.com, “the process of adapting to an incompetent boss begins with adopting an ‘it is what it is’ attitude so you don’t beat your head against a wall wishing the situation will change.” It’s maybe not what you want to hear, but they’re probably right.

• Careerealism.com – We love this site’s tag line, “Because every job is temporary.” Careerealism’s mission is to become the world’s number one blog for career advice. With free webinars and lots of professional advice about dealing with bad bosses, they’re well on their way.

• Glassdoor.com – Gives you an inside look at over 70,000 companies, all for free. The site offers salary details, company reviews, and interview questions — all posted anonymously by employees and job seekers. Sign up, create an account and get started today.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• Listen up bosses – Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein interviewed Daniel H. Pink about his new book, “Drive” in which he discusses why the traditional carrot-and-stick approach to leading, does little for job performance and satisfaction.

• Forehead Tittaes – I don’t create it, I just report it. Click here to read, and see, what this is all about, and what it could possibly have to do with bad bosses.

• The great divide – 30 years ago top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did — now they make 300 times what their workers make. And they don’t understand why we can’t stand them. The Business Insider takes on ‘Undercover Boss’ and how out of touch bosses really are.

• The secret to having happy employees? Fire all the unhappy ones. Wait. What? Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

• This just in – courtesy and manners can help improve job satisfaction. In Back to Basics: The art of saying Thank You, Laurie Griffith asks bosses to check themselves.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week

• Good boss, bad boss, young boss? US News & World Report offers 7 tips for working with a young boss.

• Tula Connell at the AFL-CIO blog, introduces us to the book Can They Do That: Retaking our Fundamental Rights in the Workplace. The books author, Lewis Maltby,  president and founder of the National Workrights Institute (NWI), reminds us that “almost 20 percent of employers today require all employees to agree in advance not to go to court if the company violates their legal rights….If you don’t agree, you don’t get the job.” Connell thinks this book should be “part of every high school curricula.” We’ll get our hands on a copy and let you know what we think.

• Everyone’s talking about Brittain’s PM, Gordon Brown, being a big bully and that includes Hugh Cortazzi writing for The Japan Times Online. Like us, Cortazzi believes bullying in the workplace needs to be tackled seriously if abuses of power are to be kept in check.

• On Tuesday, amNY ran a post about tyrants in the workplace, and interviewed us for the piece. Check out the online version here.

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• Candadian site, GlobeLife wants you to know “What to do when your boss is a bully.” The post centers around a new book out that alleges that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was a big bully to his staff. While some claim the PM was merely passionate, Gary Namie, founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, suggests that calling bully behavior passionate, sends the message that  everyone else should “learn to live with it.”

• Got a boss who’s a perfectionist? Be Ruly offers a couple of pretty good suggestions for dealing with a perfectionist boss. We’re big fans of her Defensive Documentation suggestion.

• What to do when your boss gives up – While some might use it as an excuse to give up too, if you’ve got career goals then giving up on a boss who’s given up, is not an option. The New York Times offers suggestions from leading management experts on what to do. And although we wouldn’t necessarily suggest going this route, they even share the story of a group of employees who were bold enough to confront their own boss.

• Frank Newell’s back with part 2 of Bad bosses, bad employees. This time he’s talking about bad employees, specifically the thieving kind.

• NWsource reports that a new study proves what we’ve known along. Bad bosses who appear to be good performers get a pass. Upper management, and anyone outside of the line of fire for that matter, may not want to befriend the bad boss, but they’ll accept the bad behavior “as long as they don’t think they’re the next target.”

What the blogosphere’s saying about bosses this week…

• I came across a really great article about the relationship between bosses and employees on VandNews.com, Virginia and North Carolina’s community newspaper. In part I of his series, Bad bosses and Bad Employees, Frank Newell, of Newell Farms Wildlife Center, writes about the mutual respect that bosses and employees should have for each other and how that manifests itself in a great culture.

• Firing bad teachers – Teachers are one of our most underpaid and undervalued positions. Charged with instructing the children of this nation they’re faced with daily obstacles that would be difficult for many of us to surmount. That said, a bad teacher is a bad teacher and he or she has got to go. Not so easy in Los Angeles it seems. According to an article on KCET Local, “trying to fire a bad teacher in L.A. can cost the city up to half a million bucks, and almost never happens.”

• Egypt moving closer to passing sexual harassment laws – Although they’re often ignored by bad bosses in the states, at least we’ve got laws on the books that define sexual harassment and make committing it a crime. Egypt, not so much. Reuters reports that that might be changing.

• Over on OpEd News, Roger Shuler reacts to a federal jury awarding $2.7 million in a sexual harassment suit against Georgia based security company, U.S. Security Associates Inc. Referring to his own age-based harassment claims againt the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Shuler asks the question ‘How clueless can management be these days?’ By the number of sexual harassment and discrimination cases in the news each week, we think the answer is “very.”

As we suspected they would, a lot of people had a lot to say about CBS’ premier of the reality show ‘Undercover Boss’ this week. Here’s some of what was said…

Popeater asks, is ‘Undercover Boss’ exploitive of employees? To make their point, Popeater points out that the employees featured don’t make a dime from their appearance. This while the networks are making millions from the show. Good point. We still think that anything that has the boss cleaning toilets and collecting garbage can’t be all bad.

Newsweek thinks the dirtiest job in America right now is producing reality TV and exhibit “A” is the “deeply fictional” reality of ‘Undercover Boss.

Over at Three Star Leadership, Wally Bock’s post entitled “Undercover Boss: A Repellant Piece of Trash” left us unclear about how he felt about the show. Not really, obviously he hated it. Check out his post here, to see why.

The HR Capitalist thinks executives wished that’s all it took to change their businesses and questions the real “reality” of the series. Kris Dunn sees the main problem with ‘Undercover Boss’ as that fact that transformation just can’t plausibly happen during the course of a 60 minute reality series.