Call for advice: What to do about our lazy, incompetent fool of a boss? (loooong)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible; I am naturally long-winded, and the shortcomings of my boss are legion. I’ve been working at my job for eight months, my boss for seven. We and two co-workers comprise the fundraising department for a small, private college. The “other three” of us are sick to death of our boss, and are in semi-open revolt, for reasons that will become abundantly clear.

On an average day, our boss comes in at 10:30, and leaves sometime before 5. Actually, that’s a good day: last week, there was a day she started at 12, and the next day she worked from 11 to 2 with a 90-minute lunch break. When she is at work, she spends long periods of time on the phone with her friends and her SO–hour-long calls are not unknown. She also has a habit of taking “unscheduled vacations,” and then “forgetting” to report them to HR.

She either won’t or can’t carry out her own duties on the job–she either “forgets” to do them or manipulates one of us to do it for her. Examples: she won’t go on donor visits alone because, in her words, she’s “frightened of asking people for a lot of money.” (Question: why is she in this profession at all?) When asked to write a grant proposal, she (probably intentionally) made a hash of it, then begged a co-worker and I to finish it for her (which isn’t our job to do). We spent almost two weeks repairing the damage. What’s worse, she spikes our own work by failing to approve visit lists, prospect reports, and the like, or more directly by taking our time away, by asking us to approve or revise the tiniest of tasks (such as a thank-you letter to someone she met for lunch).

She seems incapable of making any important decisions. It took her seven months, and ten interview candidates, to hire a secretary, simply because she couldn’t make up her mind on which candidate she liked best. (And, now that we have hired one, she spent an hour yesterday picking my brain for advice on what to say to the temp now that we had to let her go.) She puts off doing important tasks, such as grant requests (we’ve missed three foundation deadlines in the past two months), and even opening mail. Last week she handed me a pile of stuff that she’d “misplaced and never looked at”–the stash included a software update CD from December, info about a conference I was supposed to attend in February (and couldn’t because she f***ed up the budget, but that’s another matter), and a check from a donor from January.

But none of the above is really so bad compared with this: she routinely and persistently takes credit for work we have done. Example: a co-worker spent months working on a donor event. My boss’s input consisted of writing 10% of a speech she was asked to write. Yet, during said speech, she did not thank my co-worker, nor anyone else who worked on the event. Furthermore, she lies about who’s worked on projects–she claimed to our college president that she wrote those grant requests all by herself.

Our department has become, within seven months, the laughingstock of the college. I can’t go to lunch without hearing other staffers gossiping about her. We are falling way behind with donations, and we are not cultivating any new donors. My other two co-workers (both female, BTW) are so dispirited that they’re starting to bunk off work too. And anyone who’s been watching my posts carefully will probably realise I’ve been posting a lot from work–it’s the only way to keep my sanity.

If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations. (There’s a whole lot more I could have written, honestly.) The “other three” of us are planning to meet with the college president this week. We’ve already protested long and loud to the boss and to HR with no result, and this is our final appeal. My question is, what can we ask the president to do? We’re way past the point of “ignore her and she’ll get better,” or expecting that a few words from the prez will encourage her to mend her ways. Should we ask that she be sent on “executive training sessions” (HR’s idea)? Have other senior staff keep an eye on her? Request that she be put on probation? Personally–much as I like her as a person–I can’t see that anything short of firing her will make any real difference.

Sorry I’ve ranted so long–you can see how much this is troubling me. Any and all suggestions gratefully received.

2

Make sure you have clearly documented your case before going to the President. Show the donation fall off. Have proff of when she comes in and when she leaves, the unscheduled vacations, etc.

If you have a very professional documented presenation, he might listen to you. Otherwise, you’re going to look petty, incompetent and gunning for your bosses job. It is always a very tricky thing to take on your boss. Hope you understand the politics of where you work, have a champion or two in your corner, know who is in her corner before you take it to the top.

3

It’s so important that you do something. Not only for your own morale, but for the life of your college.

Maybe the more diplomatic approach would involve asking that your unit have more supervision from the President or a VP (if you have any). You could just say there are some inconsistencies (which you have proof of) and that you know you are your coworkers would do a better job for the college if there could be some more continuity–which, regrettably, needs to come from higher up than your boss.

That way you don’t look like you’re gunning for your boss’ job. You look like you care about the organization you work for.

If she isn’t comfortable asking people for money, you’re right about her being in the wrong position. And fer chrissakes, every development officer KNOWS that the wealthy EXPECT you to be asking them for their donations. They’re not idiots. They know that’s why you are calling on them. Sheesh.

4

Call your business agent and file a grievance. You should not have to be doing the boss’ work.

5

In addition to having clearly documented what you can, I would avoid any mention of her not giving you credit. That makes your actions look bad, and it has a way of coming out in the wash anyway.

Concentrate on where she is actually failing to do her job. Document not only what she is not doing, but make a connection to how that impacts the university.

6

I’ll put a very big IMHO and YMMV disclaimer right in at the beginning, but I was party to a similar situation and the following is basically what I learned:

The problem with lazy, incompetent bosses is twofold: first, since such an individual obviously didn’t get into a position of power by being smart or talented, they must have had connections; and second, they rely so heavily on the efforts of other, more talented individuals that they know in their heart of hearts (even if they don’t really admit it to themselves) that they are actually stupid, and therefore resent anyone with a brain. As a corollary, since you do all your boss’s work, she sees you as responsible for it and will blame you for all her failures; since she knows she’s really an idiot, she’ll fight tooth and nail against any action which might expose that fact (including your departure - what would she do without you?); since she’s connected and resents you, she’ll try to ruin your chances for promotion or good references (and keep you in your place, under her control, and unwanted by anyone else) by disparaging you to her friends, whether you leave or stay.

You have two courses of action: Either get a new job, before the department goes down in flames and you get blamed, or do some really big, good deed and make sure you get all the credit and your boss none (if possible, make it look like you did it just a little bit in spite of her - not enough to make you look insubordinate, just enough to make her look like she doesn’t have strategic vision). Should you choose to leave, it would be difficult since you haven’t been in the position long. You would need to do so without giving your boss the opportunity to sabotage your references - I would say get letters of reference rather than giving out names and phone numbers.

As for a really big, good deed, this is a BIG gamble. Maybe find some hugely wealthy potential donor. Make sure there are no records, don’t tell anyone about it, wait until she takes an unscheduled vacation, and then go up to another higher level of management (try to make sure it’s not a particular friend or enemy of hers, though in a pinch the latter would be preferable) and ask for permission to contact the donor independently. Find some reason why it’s urgent and can’t wait until she returns, and simply say very innocently and apologetically that she’s not around and you had no choice but to go over her head, in the interests of getting the money for the college. Make sure you actually get the donation. She’ll return from vacation and hate your living soul, but you’ll now have at least a small bit of goodwill from one of her higher-ups (roughly proportional to the size of the donation, I’d say). See if you can manipulate the situation into a transfer out of the department or a friendly phone call from said higher-up to your department’s equivalent at another local college about a transfer there. At best, if you succeed spectacularly, the higher-ups will realize you’ve got potential, and as they’ve certainly heard the word on the street about your department they may recognize where the blame truly lies and decide to promote you. The important thing about doing this is to make it NOT look like you’re after your boss’s job - the sweet and innocent act is key, as is making it look like there was absolutely no way to avoid having to go over her head.

I’d advise against filing a grievance at this point, but do document and collect evidence in case she decides to ruin your chances of getting promoted or getting another job, or at worst, fire you. I would NOT let on to ANYONE that you have even a TINY problem with her, unless you’re getting fired or she’s keeping you from getting another job - she’s the well connected and powerful one, and she can make your life hell. Be positive and try to find ways to shine in spite of her. If sane people are running your college, they will notice. If they don’t, well, you need another job anyway. Make sure no one can say anything bad about you.

7

I apologize - I think I was offering advice more on my own experiences than on yours, and it delevoped into a kind of rant that didn’t take into account a few facts of your case. At your meeting this week, I would ask that you and the other staff be officially given some of the duties that your boss has assigned you anyway. That way you’ll get the credit you deserve and you can turn a complaint about your boss’s incompetence into a plea for greater efficiency in the department and a chance for a promotion, in duties at least. You can justify your request for expanded authority by pointing out the (unwilling) experience you’ve had already and suggest that your boss’s time might be spent on better things (big donors, strategic tasks, or maybe bring up the executive training seminars?). I’d then follow up by trying to build a good reputation for yourself along the lines indicated in my previous post, and try to be promoted or get a new job as soon as it’s feasible. I knew an individual once who worked at a small college, and I can tell you that the politics are complex. In the long term, whatever process got your boss hired may not be one that you want to have to deal with.

8

The most elegant solution is to leave before it gets ugly.

Failing that, know IT WILL get ugly - donations, are, I suspect, carefully tracked - when they plummet, there will be an inquiry.

How I did it:

email specific requests for instructions, contact names, all the info I SHOULD have been given to do my job. cc his boss, the user’s, everybody who was expecting me to make bricks w/o straw (or, in my case, an interface system, given only the name to call it when I was done. I’ve had some interesting assignments, but this one takes it, big time.)

Result:

boss gone. his boss gone. one user who tried to horn in gone. User manager resigned.

The higher the visibility of your operation, the less effort is required to get people to look into the mess.