This is a completely hypothetical question. I haven’t worked in years, nor do I expect to do so for several more, but I just know there are dopers that know how to deal with the completely unreasonable, abusive, yet talented boss.
The movie boss was somewhat toned down from the book boss. The book’s solution was to quit your job dramatically from a high moral ground and then write a thinly veiled novel about the boss.
I haven’t had a boss worth complaining about in a long time, but the ones I had in the past I would gladly have traded for one that matched that description. I’ll take any combination that includes “talented” (or, as I tend to think of it, “competent”). The bosses I’ve had in the past that made me want to commit somekindoficide all fell into the “utterly useless” category.
The wife of one of my formers bosses was like this. She would hang around the office (finance) and make demands of me as if I was her assistant, too. My boss was too much of a pussy to tell her to lay off, so I had to just suck it up and keep her happy- the only way was to be all business, absolutely no humor or personality, and be able to tell her, at least half the time, “I already did it” when she asked me to do something. The BEST retort to someone obnoxious is to simply smile and say, “I made the reservation yesterday, do you need anything else?”. Once this happened a few times, she stopped the insane screeching at me. I think sometimes, it’s only type A personalities that assume you won’t do the job unless they’re completely on top of you. If you can actually prove them wrong in this regard, they’ll quiet down a bit.
I haven’t seen the movie or read the book referenced in the OP. However I have worked for a couple of brilliant, difficult, demanding people in my field (science).
NightRabbit has hit on one strategy, they value competence. If you can demonstrate to them that you are on top of your job and know your shit it usually goes very far with them.
I would also suggest they value loyalty quite a bit. One guy in particular had a lot of trouble with any hint of disloyalty. If you were able to make him realize he could trust you (that is, assuming you cared to do so) it made things a lot easier. Those who couldn’t do that were better off leaving, for their own sake.
I’ve had this boss. I ended up getting him fired for sexual harassment.
Demanding, unreasonable, abusive and competant are all independent and mutually exclusive traits.
How you handle a bad boss depends on many factors. The type of work you’re in, how badly you want that job, how long you realistically expect to work with that boss, how think your skin is and your personal relationship with your boss.
For example, my boss is very demanding and competant. Like me, he also has a low threshold for tolerating incompetance. I am also good friends with him outside of work. I hang out with him socially, traveled to his weding, etc. On rare occassions when his demanding crossed over into abusive, I have no problem calling him on it.
Ari Gold from Entourage is an abusive boss. His abuse, however, is mitigated by the fact that he appears to always serve his clients best interests, he is generally brutally honest and he appears loyal to both his clients and his assistance, Lloyd. And at least he’s consistent.
Most of the other senior management where I work are the opposite. The are outwardly polite and friendly, however their actions and behavior tends to be arbitrary, inconsistant and dishonest. They say one thing and do another, play favorites and assign work in such a way as to remove themselves from any accountability. Basically you have no idea if what you are doing is right or wrong as they will give you high praise and evaluations until it comes time to actually pay out.
The book “Liars Poker” about traders at Solomon Brothers also describes abusive bosses. The traders would apparently buy extra long phone cords so they could retreive the headsets after throwing them accross the room at the trainees. Trainees put up with all kinds of bullshit because in a few months they will get the opportunity to make more money than they ever dreamed.
My last boss was that way.
I was more talented and charismatic than him and willing to call bullshit when he tried to place the blame on us. Overall I won the support of the rest of the employees and he had to mellow down since he didn’t want to look like an ass compared to me.
But, at the same time, I was semi-unfireable as I was their best programmer and the head of the company I was a contractor from was an investor. So who knows how it would have turned out had I not been. I wasn’t running around chopping him off at the knees, just injecting wisdom in without shyness, and just doing a :dubious: if he tried to yell at me, so I don’t think that he would have fired me if he could have.
The best thing I was able to do was actually to not cut him off, but rather another guy at the company who was picking up on the trait. Someone had made some sort of oversight or another, and this guy sent him an email–all of our email was cced to everyone–saying something like, “This shouldn’t be like this. I’m not mad at you for not doing blah, I’m mad at you because you did blah. At a professional company blah blah.” I responded to the email–again, all email gets cced to everyone–saying,
"Don’t get mad! =O
Everyone makes mistakes. This time it was him, next time it might be me, but eventually you’re going to mess up something as well. Each time, all you can do is look back to see if something can be done to make sure it can’t happen again, and if so, fix it. If not, well then so it goes."
And of course no one came to yell at me about it because everyone knew that really this was a letter to our boss, not the one guy, and they all agreed and he knew it too, I assume.
These two statements are incompatible.
I’d like for you to step up to the next drill sergeant, symphony conductor, or three-star chef you meet and tell him/her that. Preferably loudly, while smirking.
All these people’s competence depends on being demanding, often unreasonable, and at times, even abusive.
Apparently I misused the term “mutually exclusive”. What I meant is that they are independent of each other. You can be demanding and unreasonable, yet not abusive. You can be abusive but not competant (or unreasonable for that matter).
I had a boss just like the character in the movie (haven’t read the book). Consequently, I didn’t find the character portrayed to be at all objectionable. I found myself thinking, “I know exactly how to handle this!”
To me this type of boss is just super-competent and expects the people working for them to be also. They really feel that they are part of a chain that is only as strong as it’s weakest link. They will put pressure on you equal to the pressure that is put on them (and that they put on themselves). If you can’t deliver, please get out of the way so we they find someone who can. It’s really not personal. To succeed you need to up the tempo of your game to play at their level. It can be quite enjoyable.
Now, there are definately abusive bosses out there - but I didn’t see this character as abusive, just demanding.
Do as good a job as you can till you don’t like it, hopefully making a good impression on the boss’ boss, and then quit and take your skills where you’ll be appreciated. That’s what I did.
Oh, except my immediate superior – the demanding and unpleasant one – had no competencies.