Bad Bosses & COVID

This is just my vent for this whole WFO situation... Yes, I'm thankful I still have a job through it, as my wife is off and I still have bills to pay.

Is anyone else noticing that bad bosses, are MUCH WORSE bosses while working from home?

Man, I almost became selfish today and told my boss to shove it, like way up his ass. And it's only 9am.

 

Mmhmm

 

I'm grateful to have a job deemed "essential", but working in the car business right now just sucks.

 

that's why the owners make these A holes Bosses cause they use them to push the workers harder and harder to get more out of you to boost their profits. I see a lot of people in my business who went along with the work is your whole life mentality most die early or have lots of medical issues and bad or no marriages cause all they care about is doing what the boss tells them, in the end nobody sheds a tear for those pricks when their time comes

 

Speaking as a "big" boss, I don't know why some places put a-holes in management positions. Every manager/supervisor I've ever hired specifically got the job because they were not an a-hole. I know that if the people that report to my mangers and supervisors are unhappy, I'm going to be talking everyone to find out why. In my experience the bad bosses are less effective over the long run. Their continuous turnover wastes the companies resources and slows everything down while the new replacement employees come up to speed, only to have the cycle repeat again and again. I believe people don't quit bad jobs, they quit bad bosses.

I do know some reasons why bosses can be bad.

• They're a-holes and the company is run by a-holes. (good companies don't keep a-hole managers.)
• They're under performing and their boss is putting pressure on them. They don't know how to manage so they become a-holes.
• The employee is under performing and the boss is pushing them to improve. (IMO that's not a bad boss, but the employee might not like them much)
• The boss is in a new situation (quarantine comes to mind) and they've never managed anyone not in the same building.

The last one is hard, I know. I struggled with it when I was assigned to be operations director for an international company. Going from being able to see all of your employees and wondering where Mr. Slacker is an hour after lunch is over, to not knowing if Mr. Slacker even got out of bed that day can cause a micromanager an aneurysm. If he's already a bad manager, things are probably going to be worse. (I quickly figured out that micromanaging someone on the other side of the planet was impossible and the work product had to be measured differently. The result over time was my department's rating went up, turn over went down, the employees were happier, and I learned how to not be a micromanager.)

I think this whole work from home thing could be a blessing for those companies that can embrace not having their employees always in the office. But, the vast majority of managers I know struggle with the thoughts of not seeing their people in person.

 

Very good points. The other 3 companies I've worked at in my life, I had great superiors. Mentoring superiors. Ones who value your opinion and you trust 100%... Not ones who have seriously said "STFU" on a call to employees.

In my head, the first bullet point nails it. Our environmental designer turnover is incredible because people can't deal with it (longest most stay is about 2-3 years). A past coworker (my cousin) worked there for nearly 2 years, and she honestly cried every day for about the last month when she left work. I can probably count 15 designers who have come/gone in the past 7 years.

My wife tells me it's bullet #2, so I try to put myself in his shoes most days.

 

Sorry to hear that, I feel for you. I would refrain from telling him/her to stuff it. That will get around and the next job may start tainted. Just start looking for a new job, people are hiring; although, you might need to be a bit flexible. A little resume therapy never hurts.

Having a bad boss with no direction and no clue is so destructive to you as a person. My former boss was placed in charge with no training by the director and completely destroyed a functional team. Everyone was reassigned except for me, so I had to entertain needle-dick everyday with his non-managment style. I would ask him what's the project we should be working on and he would tell me "That's not my problem". He would assign me tasks that are orthogonal to my experience and education and if I asks questions - "Go figure it out". I'm smart and I can go figure it out, but it takes time to ramp up on new technologies - "That's no excuse". It's like asking an airline pilot to drive a train - WTF? Then anything that was incorrect was blamed on me. But I wasn't the only one that was unhappy with him. Some people shouldn't be in charge.

In my 25 years in this industry I have never been treated the way he treated me. In the end it was such a bad experience that some words and phrases trigger very visceral responses from me.

I left the A-Hole boss and the ($200 Billion) company behind a few years a back. With a company that size they have too many A-Holes. The new boss and company is really good. They are watching out for us during the pandemic and I couldn't ask for more.

For your boss to tell people STFU is inappropriate at anytime non-the less in a public forum. No one needs to be spoken that way. You could make a stink with HR (but it's probably not advisable) as it's get messy and personal quickly. And despite the rules about repercussions it happens in other ways. Let someone else have that pain.

As @jsi pointed out there may be other factors that you don't see. One thing that might help is to ask him/her if there is anything that you can help them with. It would relieve some pressure son them and build the relationship as well. The best case scenario is to stick it out until you covered with a new job and gracefully leave.

 

I agree. To the point of making a thread about leaving a couple months back here, not so much directed at my boss but him and his actions drove me nuts. Would not listen to me when i asked for help or a raise for working so much more, but when i told him I was leaving for another company he changed his entire attitude and things have been noticeably better. Working from home sounds so much more appealing than it actually is dependent on your career.

 

I have bosses and I have leaders.

I also have infinite ways to resist the bosses. Those bosses will never know that their behavior is slowing up progress.

I will work with leaders and we all win.

 

WFH creates a situation where bosses that are used to managing by walking around can no longer do that, everyone has to learn to better communicate status and not by writing reports and other bullshit. It's also about delivering on time--working from home is a way different thing than being in an office. Especially if you have people at home while you are working. Using a group chat works, setting hours of availability and being there. Those are things that help manage expectations. If you're a person whose work is managed by trouble tickets, not much is going to change except people cannot just swing by anymore. Some people cannot work from home--they have too many distractions or just cannot commit and delivery.

WFH or working remotely is, as you say, all about setting and managing expectations. The hardest part, for me, is estimating work accurately and realistically.

 

My company (about 3500 large) has been working from home since last March, except 100-150 people who have jobs that can't (such as mail room).

The company in general was forward thinking about 12 years ago re that, though some leaders balked at it and refused to have their people home. Wasn't something I cared about but I worked for one like that 10 years ago, just a generally bad leader/boss.

 

micromanaging is a badddddddddddd doo doo. But I also understand from the leadership position as well.

 

Perhaps some need to be watched over more than others. Even forgetting about being remote.

I do think I get a degree of autonomy, though the software installed a few years ago for everyone in my unit that tracks your activity/sites visited/etc doesn't sit well with me at all

 

Us with side gigs have issues with being micro managed.

#early retirement and loving it!