Out of a number of office irritants, I had four bosses during my career who caused us underlings to develop ulcers, suffer partial mental breakdowns and to undergo many sleepness nights. They were all idiots, but thought they were geniuses. I like to watch “The Office” now and then just to remind me about my four bad bosses, two of whom were as stupid as the boss in the TV show.
I had one higher boss (office politician & total sports wacko) who most brilliant saying was “do more but slow down”. None of us mere mortals could ever quite work out what that meant. If you didn’t love sports and freelance sports, you didn’t count and were an idiot who was lucky to have a job.
The one below him meant well but was hopelessly out of his league. Spellcheck was something to be turned off and kept off. What was really tiring was explaining (multiple times) that a floppy disk and a network share were not the same thing.
Often worried over every nothing problem as if it was the end of the world. Got really upset if nobody else didn’t either. Everything was a crisis, an investigation, and then kangaroo court to blame someone. It appeased the already mentioned sports wacko who could do no wrong.
The next in-line and the biggest irritant of all to everybody was someone that was passed on to us. We had to train the guy who outranked us. None of us were good enough apparently. It darn near took a lawsuit to change sports wacko’s mind and I lead the charge. Apparently he didn’t like veterans. I digress. To get back on topic...
This fellow would blab everything he knew to the sports wacko boss, pretend to be everyone’s pal, and had a very bad but selective temper. He unloaded on me two times. It never happened again after me and sports wacko had real heart to heart and I mentioned lawsuit.
He lived to tell people what to do but was too good to be told anything. Another thing was to get involved in everybody’s business. That almost got him fired a couple of times. However, being an expert at sucking up to the sports wacko, that won’t happen.
The guy ticked off some contractors who did something else under someone else and kept to themselves. One day, one of them came in and I didn’t pay much attention. A minute later the contractor was going off and getting in the guy’s face. The overly nosey/mouthy one was telling various in charge types that the contractors were not at their desks or whatever. That brought a little heat on him but nothing else.
What is funny is when he is mad at the world which is pretty often, he would sit in a room in a chair and pout for hours. Couldn’t take any criticism of any kind. He had a pet cat that bolted after two days and was never seen again.
The sad thing is that he will most likely wind up as an official supervisor. That is when the well meaning one dies at the office because he has nothing else and won’t retire.
One big annoyance that I had to put up with was working with several guys who had “fan clubs” that called 10 to 15 times a day. Not one would consider a cell phone or a pager. There was no caller id either. These same people called everyday and on weekends and multiple times. I learned to hate telephones and love caller ID. I am glad to have it where I am now.
I am glad I am out of that TV station. It was a good place for a long time but the last couple of years were rough on a bunch of us....