Former DC Maryo Marion Barry

Drugs, tax evasion and now stalking? Marion Barry determined to remain Really Bad Boss icon

Not content with being remembered as the mayor caught on tape smoking crack, former DC mayor Marion Barry was arrested last Saturday night for allegedly stalking a female companion. The woman who made the complaint dined with Barry earlier in the day, but apparently he was still hungry when he saw her again later that day at a July 4th celebration.  The woman flagged police officers down as she was driving and told them that Barry was chasing her in another car.  Barry was charged with misdemeanor stalking and released.  In fairness to Barry, he had not been smoking crack at the time of his arrest, although he is still on probation on federal charges resulting from him not paying his taxes EIGHT TIMES IN NINE YEARS.

Marion Barry deserves a Really Bad Boss Lifetime Achievement Award for his political contributions.  In fact, we might give him two. He set the bar for really bad political behavior which the likes of Blagojevich and his ilk have spent their entire political careers desperately attempting to fling themselves over.   You may remember Barry, who in 1990 was famously caught on tape smoking crack. As is par for the course with politicians, he initially denied wrong doing, and then claimed he’d been set up (because apparently it’s really easy to get a sitting mayor, who claims he’s never smoked crack to smoke crack, if you just ask him if he wants some…and hand him a lighter.)   After serving six months in federal prison, the mayor was actually reelected in 1994, going on to serve as mayor through 1999.  Seriously. It even says so in Wikipedia, and as a backup source, I’m old enough to remember it. During his tenure, crack became DC’s state flower (ok, I made that part up.) 

Barry’s spokesperson, Natalie Williams, said Barry was unavailable for comment on Sunday because he was in church all day. We’re taking up a collection to help him lease an entire pew and a VIP parking spot at the church. He needs them. 

You can read more about Barry’s arrest here. Submit your nominees for The Really Bad Boss Lifetime Achievement Award in the comment section after the jump.

Really bad boss refuses chairs/Walk really fast (Source: dannychoo)

From the Really Bad and Crazy Boss files  – According to Hisashi Sakamaki, president of Japan’s Canon Electrics, chairs are a waste of time. So much so he removed them from his offices.  That’s right; his employees are not allowed to sit and must perform their duties while standing.  And, because that wasn’t bizarre enough, he also installed an alarm system in the hallway that triggers when employees walk slower than 5 meters (16′ 5″) every 3.6 seconds. 

Not satisfied with just inflicting his brand of crazy on his own  employees, Sakamaki has written a book.  A company will do well if you get rid of the chairs and computers,  available on Amazon, explains the virtues of chair and computer-less offices. I’ve yet to receive my copy of the book (because I never ordered it), but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Sakamaki also believes breaks, ice water and bathrooms are also wasteful and indulgent and has invented a strap on cooling/waste management/snack system that will allow workers to continue working while sipping water, eating snacks and relieving themselves.  If anyone orders the book, please let me know if that’s the case.

By the way, the wording on the blue sign on the floor reads “Lets rush – if we don’t then the company and world will perish.”  Seriously.

If you read Japanese and want to see the book on Amazon, click here.

Source: dannychoo.com  ]]> http://reallybadboss.com/2009/06/a-company-will-do-well-if-you-get-rid-of-the-chairs-and-computers/feed/ 3 http://reallybadboss.com/2009/05/liar-liar-pants-on-fire/ http://reallybadboss.com/2009/05/liar-liar-pants-on-fire/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 01:21:18 +0000 denised http://reallybadboss.com/?p=2344

Rod and Roland - aka Pinky and the Brain

Not these two again- Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris (aka Pinky and the Brain) are at it again – denying the obvious and doing their best to convince us that we are all deaf, dumb, and blind.  

Unfortunately for them, unlike the very special group of people who will continue to support their elected candidate, even after he’s caught on video smoking crack, the rest of us can smell a hot mess a mile away, even if it’s sporting a massive pompadour.  Burris, despite transcripts released Tuesday that reveal the exact opposite, continues to deny attempting to buy the vacant Chicago senate seat from Blagojevich.  The transcripts reveal Burris telling Rob Blagojevich, Pinky’s brother, that he’d  ”personally do something” to help the governor’s campaign.  The transcripts also show Burris saying “I know I could give him a check… well we, we, I, I will personally do something, okay.”

Burris, says (in what we imagine is a very whiny, high pitched voice) that he realized after getting off the phone with Rob Blagojevich, that he couldn’t do it.  He said he couldn’t risk the appearance of impropriety.  It’s amazing that he didn’t realize that while on tape. Burris’ attorney is asking for a smoking gun, suggesting that the wiretaps don’t provide enough evidence to support the claims that Burris tried to buy the seat.  Apparently his attorney has forgotten (see deaf, dumb and blind reference above) that under oath, Burris denied ever having any conversations with any Blagojevich regarding the senate seat and money.

Politicians are famous for doing this, President Clinton, John Edwards, Larry Craig.  Remember him? Craig was the Idaho Senator who claimed that he adopted what has to be the widest toilet seat stance in American history in a bathroom known as a hangout for men looking to have sex with other men, just to get comfortable on the toilet.  Few people in power have mastered lying as well as politicians.  Second only to lying is the political skill of “not manning up.”   I miss manning up.  Remember when a politician would do something wrong and sometimes even before getting caught, would make a public statement denouncing the behavior and apologizing to the people he’d disappointed?  Me neither, but you get my point.  Whatever happened to manning up?  When did it become acceptable, and almost expected, for men and women in power to take the child’s route out? 

I’d like to ask Roland Burris if the senate seat he wanted so badly has been worth it.  If in the end, his failed attempts at lying, cheating and stealing got him what he wanted.  I’d ask the Blagojevichs, but I think they’re too far gone.  They’ve moved on to reality TV stints and trying to make a profit from this whole fiasco.  Burris on the other hand, with his shaky responses to pressing questions and his deer in headlights stare, might not be a complete and total moral loss.  In fact, occasionally, I wipe the dust off of my cold heart and feel sympathy for my little senator friend.  I feel sorry that he’s a man who wanted something he felt he was unworthy of getting, and in a cruel twist of fate, in getting it, proved how truly unworthy he was.  And, while Blago and the little Mrs. continue to cash in on their deceit, my whiny, nervous little friend will not.  I think when we look back at history, the position and influence Burris fought so hard to get, will work even harder to distance itself from him.

1. You inspire the creation of the website www.reallybadboss.com – If your actions and behavior are so mind numbingly ridiculous that they inspire the creation of a cottage industry based primarily on the asinine things you’ve said and done, you can rest assured…you’re a really bad boss.  
2. Your turnover rate is 100%  – Ok, so maybe not 100%, but if people would rather make minimum wage dressed like  sandwiches/crustacean/ the statue of liberty and dance in the street in front of the local sandwich/seafood/tax preparation shop – in Arizona, in July – than work for you, you might be a really bad boss.
3. The term “Bossnapping” is coined to describe what your employees have just done to you – Some French workers have taken their disgust at their really bad bosses too far. A rash of boss kidnappings – Bossnappings – have plagued France recently.  Worse, 45% of French people surveyed think that it’s ok.  Let’s hope Bossnapping doesn’t cross the ocean.  Felonies don’t look good on resumes.
4. There has been at least one assassination (or coup) attempt on your life, and you work in, for example…the paper goods industry – Assassination attempts and coups are pretty common in some of the more volatile areas of the world where dissatisfaction with leadership is the norm and not the exception. But, Michael Scott notwithstanding, if you make paper or thumbtacks, or some very uncontroversial product and people are trying to depose you or have you forcibly removed from your position, you might be a really bad boss. 
5. Someone quits live on the air – Arnetta the Moodsetta says it best. Click here for the audio.

Got something to add to the You might be a really bad boss list? Add it in the comment section after the jump.

For years I wasted entire Sundays absolutely dreading Monday mornings.   The uneasy feeling would start to creep in on Saturday night, and by Sunday evening, I was a basket case.  For many of us Monday spells the end of the weekend, the start of the work week and a return to a real tool of a boss.  Facing a really bad boss on a typical Monday morning is bad enough, but it’s even worse when you’ve got to face him with bad news from something that happened over the weekend.  What could you possibly do over the weekend that would require you to give your boss bad news on Monday morning?  Glad you asked.   I crashed…no… totaled the car. The company car.  Did I mention I’d been on the job for only two weeks when it happened?  I challenge anyone to top that Monday morning story.  

Thankfully no one was injured in the accident.  I still remember the two block walk of shame to the office that morning, after a totally sleepless Sunday night.  As my new colleagues sped by me on their way to work, I sensed more than saw them looking at me in their rear view mirrors wandering why the new girl was walking to work.  They all knew I had been given a company car and like a scene from The Office, were all peering over the receptionist’s shoulder when I arrived several minutes later.  I could have taken a cab, but in addition to the car, the company was paying for me to stay in a hotel until I found an apartment.  I thought it would be pretty presumptuous to take (and expense) a cab to work the day after totaling the car.   

 It’s a testament to the saying “time heals all wounds” that I really don’t remember much of the conversation that took place that morning.  I do remember that it involved a lot of cursing on the Reprobate’s end (in two languages) and quite a bit of apologizing and tears on mine.   I was pretty young then, so crying was one of the only coping mechanisms I had mastered at the time.  I think I must have blacked out for a couple of minutes too because I remember someone handing me a bottle of water and seeing half of it on my shirt a few minutes later…or maybe that was sweat.  In any event, my point is this.  I dreaded that Monday morning probably more than any Monday morning I’d ever had before then and have ever had since.  Yet I survived.  I made it through the swearing, spitting (yes there was spitting) and crying that day.  Had I known 10 years later that I wouldn’t even remember the conversation clearly; I would have slept that Sunday night.  Had I known that the next two years would involve a lot more cursing, a lot less tears, and me ending up no worse for the wear, I would have had a lot fewer sleepless nights. 

It took several more bad bosses and Monday morning mayhems for me to learn that we can’t always control how our bosses treat us, but we can control how we respond.  Our really bad bosses get our talents, our time and our energy, but we own our emotions and our responses to theirs, no matter how erratic they might be. The next time I was faced with a Monday morning mayhem of that magnitude, I slept on Sunday night – not like a baby – but like an adult who knew in her heart that no matter what the boss dealt me on Monday morning, everything would be all right in the end.

Racketeering, conspiracy, wire fraud. Just another day in the life of impeached former Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich.  Here at Really bad boss, we love Blago almost as much as we love Kwame Kilpatrick.  If not for men like this, we wouldn’t have anything to blog about in our political category. Charged with caring for the concerns of his Illinois constituency, the disgraced former Governor instead was, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the mastermind behind a “scheme to deprive the people of Illinois of honest government.”  Shady government officials are no longer uncommon, or for that matter, shocking. But what makes Blago such fodder for Really bad boss is his complete arrogance.  Like Kilpatrick, he insists, even in the face of pretty strong evidence to the contrary, that he has done nothing wrong.  Prosecutors, the U.S. Attorney’s office and everyone else in America who saw the transcripts of the wiretaps where Blago referred to Obama as a “mother***er”, and where he referred to the senate seat as a “ f***ing” valuable thing,” are all out to get him. We also hurt his feelings when we questioned his hasty appointment of Ronald Burris to the then vacant senate seat.

 In the meantime, he’s so torn up, he’s hosted a Chicago radio show, signed a reported six figure book deal and was at Disney World with his family when the indictments came down yesterday.  There really are different rules for the rest of us.

• “The beach was too sandy”
• “No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled”
• “There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners”
• “I was bitten by a mosquito – No one said they could bite”
• “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food at all”

Read the entire list at Telegraph.