Well, my goodness, what’s wrong with you? Why is your head down on your desk? Okay, okay, let’s uncurl your fingers from that stapler. No, no, we’re not sure you’re ready to hold your, “Best Employee in the World” mug right now…not until you tell us what happened. Oh, wait…what does that email say? Something about TPS reports need to be shipped to CHINA! by 5pm today? Well, um, okay…you better take a few deep breaths.
Start somewhere at the beginning.
Middle-Management Underachiever and Otherwise Odious Human Being
We’ve all encountered them. They’re that guy or gal who has managed to schlep their way up to a middle-management position at company X. And now that they’re out of the rabble, they’ve decided that work is for peasants and peons, so they’d much rather stand atop their little mountain of fax cover letters while surveying their kingdom of cubicles, than actually do what they’re paid to do. Because what they’re paid to do, in their minds anyway, is finding new and ever more creative ways for you to do their job! And there you are miserable, overworked, underpaid, and perhaps thinking a little too often about plotting murder. You’re a good worker. You’re on time, mostly. You answer email. You’re even not opposed to taking calls from the general public every once in awhile. BUT, there is one person who makes all of this meaningless. This is the person who:
- Sends you 95 inane emails a day
- Schedules meetings last minute
- Talks incessantly during conference calls
- Shuffles work around so that it lands on your desk
- Takes an exorbitant amount of vacation (UNANNOUNCED VACATION!)..which they don’t prepare anyone for
- Comes in late due to a hair appointment/shopping trip/meth deal/electric shock therapy/vampire execution…whatever
- Takes the day off the day you return from a sick day/conference/personal day/companywide holiday
- Leaves Post-its on your desk…with smiley faces
- Leaves random, rambling voice-mails in your inbox
- Pitches your ideas to the senior staff using the words (we), (us), and (both)
- Doesn’t refill the coffee maker
- Takes three hour lunches…and then goes berserko-manager when people ask where they are
- Has your cell phone number
- Has a number of firsts: First out the door/first in the break room/first to request vacation/first to volunteer your team/first to offer your services/first to get drunk at the company Christmas party
- Wears his baseball cap backwards at the company picnic
- Has an impressive (read: frightening) amount of figurines in their office
- Ends all correspondence with “And one other thing…”
Yes, these are the people who make you lose sleep! The people who have you keeping Pepto Bismal in your desk! The people who make you wish you had some sort of t-shirt cannon filled with egg salad you could shoot over your office partition on a daily basis! This goes beyond the Bill Lumberghs and Michael Scotts of the world. Those dudes are fiction! You’ve got your own living, breathing toxic boss in pole vaulting distance from your very desk! But alas what can you do? Unemployment is up, and until the country recovers, you’re just better off sticking it out until things ease up. However, that won’t stop you from daydreaming about taking the screws out of your boss’ desk chair, right? Right.
Jerk Redemption: Are You a Toxic Boss?
Brad Schwartz, who seems like a regular Joe, went to a seminar in 2006 and made this nifty pdf that landed on the internet. See how the internet works, Brad?! Anyway, it actually has a good list to determine whether or not you’re a toxic boss. Here we go!
Do you…
- Never praise your employees, but always criticize and publicly humiliate them?
- Always take credit for your employees’ ideas and work?
- Never trust your employees? Maybe even have a personal snitch to report if anyone “gets out of line” while you are not around? [Wow, Brad. Snitches? Really? Well, that would call for some sort of counter intelligence covert operation that could leave Todd in Accounting with scarred nipples. We drones will not accept snitches amongst our ranks will we, Brad?]
- Don’t care about the high turnover of employees?
- Talk down to subordinate employees to constantly remind them of their lower status?
- Continually reject new ideas or innovations because it may undermine your authority?
- Keep secrets? Hold lots of closed-door scheming sessions to keep everyone thinking that you are important? [closed-door scheming sessions? i.e. Looking at the Porn.]
- Micromanage? Monitor everything, including emails, phone calls, office supplies, maybe even photocopies?
- Refuse to learn from mistakes because changing your mind is a sign of weakness? [And we’re thinking changing your mind should be easy since we’re not holding any shiny objects fit for distraction.]
- Believe that fear and intimidation on the job are more important than respect?
Okay, well, if you’re doing any or all of the things up there…yeah, uh…CUT IT OUT! People hate you, and yes, when you walk into the break room and everyone stops talking…1) Yes, they’re talking about you. 2) They really, and truly could kill you were you stand. So take a minute and perhaps re-evaluate your thinking and management style, because you’re not Don Draper.
* If you’ve come in contact with a Jerk recently, and you’d like to have him or her brought up on Jerk Charges in one of these posts, just email me, at [email protected], and I’ll see to it your Jerk becomes a nominee for our “Jerk of the Week”.
