Who Wants to Be A Boss?

Today while perusing the internet, I came across a blog about bad bosses, lol.  Not that I went looking for it or anything :)  Looking back at my work career and calculating how many bosses I have had, I do believe the majority have been sane, hard working people.  But the ones who aren't like that?  They are those kind of evil bitches who can wreak havoc on your life, for no good reason other than their own power hungry personalities.

I remember the one military boss who liked to take a red pen and cross through every other word in every document ever given to him to sign.  It didn't matter that he was the original writer of whatever document he was now editing, he loved to make those red marks.  Back in the olden days, pre-white out, you could re-type paper after paper until you got it just perfect.  What a pain in the ass.

I remember one nursing supervisor in particular who felt true joy in harrassing the hell out of the nursing staff.  She was a day shift supervisor and I worked nights and she used to sneak in earlier and earlier every day to try and catch us doing something "against the rules" like sneaking a drink in the unit or sitting grouped together talking like normal human beings to each other.  That was definitely against the rules, as all cases of perceived camaderie had to be eliminated.  I remember a prank we pulled on her one morning, taking about 50 styrofoam cups and writing her name on them all and putting them all throughout the unit so it would look like she had been drinking in the unit.  I remember one nurse putting lipstick on a bunch of the cups while someone else put betadine in the bottoms to make it resemble coffee.  We heard she pulled cups out from our hiding spaces all day, voicing her frustration.  If she could only hear our laughter. 

There are the bosses that some of us have that are dumb as rocks and everyone wonders, how in hell did they get promoted to that position???  I often wonder what those in upper management base their decisions on when they hire some managers?  We've all seen how well ass kissers get promoted in the work force, more so than the workaholic.  The people who work their butts off don't have time to sit around and supervise because they are too busy being productive. 

I remember one "boss" a few years ago that was so excited to have his own office, he brought in this little plastic pony and placed it on a shelf with such great pride.  The rest of the office was barren, but he had his little pony.  He had a habit of calling me to his office for meetings, that he would forget he set up and he wouldn't be there.  So I started moving his pony around, putting it in different spots, figuring I might as well be constructive with my time waiting on him.  He would panick when he came in and saw that it wasn't on the proper "shelf."  A few times I stuck it in his desk drawer and the other workers told me it would take him hours to find it. 

Then there are the newly promoted bosses who preach how they are not going to "micromanage" anyone.  Beware on that one, thats a definite give away to the extreme micromanager.  They will expect a full accounting of how many minutes you spent in the bathroom, going to the copier, the exact words you said to anyone at any given point of the day and who will interrupt your work flow to ask you stupid questions and then want to be critical of why you can't your job done faster. 

I've been a boss a few times, and never again.  I just don't have what it takes.  I have to work, I have to be competent, and I have to be fair.  I don't kiss anyone's behind and I insist on knowing what my job is.  Apparently that violates the requirements of being "the boss." So for now, I am content on being a worker bee :)


if you need a laugh, take a look at this blog:  http://reallybadboss.com/