Dear boss, you suck, the end. (short)

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear boss,

You arrange this elaborate project management chain of command and then you don’t follow it.

You promise to make phone calls to clients that we’re developing software for to clear up misunderstandings and you never do it. I’d do it myself, but you don’t allow me to do so.

You hand me work at the last minute, not following aforementioned chain of command, and then bitch when its not done by the deadline that you didn’t tell me about, mostly because you made promises that you had no idea if I could keep for you.

You get snotty when our advertising isn’t in by the magazine’s deadline. Unfortunately, you’ve never once given me a schedule of who we advertise with, when the account is renewed, and what the specs are for the ad we paid to run. Your method of telilng me this is to rip out last year’s ad from the current issue and drop it on my desk.

You expect 110% from your employees, to the point that we’re all cross-trained to do jobs that we weren’t even hired to do, then you go on 1 3-month vacation a year, an additional 1-month vacation a year, plus you’re only ever in the office 3 days a week, if we’re lucky, and you wonder why morale is low. You don’t care, why should we?

Of course, you can do all this, because you own the company. That doesn’t mean you’re not a rotten boss.

Verily, thou sucketh.

-TWMD

2

That was not that short. I bet your are lying about your boss just as you lie to us.

3

I like that… I don’t usually say much but I just wanted to tell you that.

4

I didn’t find anything extraordinary in your description of your boss. With the exception of some industry-specific anecdotes, it could serve as a definition for Boss in Wikipedia or something… :smiley:

5

Huh?

6

I wasn’t implying that the rant was short. I was merely mentioning how my height is usually catagorized by those taller than I. You should quit jumping to conclusions.

Then again, I could be lying…I guess we’ll never know, Stimpy.

Hey, I never claimed it detailed extraordinarily sucky traits of my boss. I just said it was short. Of course, that’s up for debate as well.

7

Does he *only * suck the end? Does he never suck the middle, or the beginning?

8

Haha!

9

Pretty much par for the course. The worst citizen in any company is always the one in charge.

10

I was going to attempt a witty, sarcastic “Dear employee” letter, but I just couldn’t muster one up. Dude, your boss blows.

11

True. But as Genghis Bob pointed out, he sucks only the end, so mayhap he blows the beginning and middle. Or something. Sucks the alpha, blows the omega, maybe.

12

May I join the party?

Dear Boss,

Please recall - or not, I don’t give a fuck - that you allowed me to have access to your email from my desk. This was so I could check your email while you were out.

Therefore, you may want to consider all those emails going back and forth about how you’re going to fire me, and perhaps phone folks instead.

Sincerely,

Your Assistant Who You Think Is and Asshole Because She Doesn’t Beg for Forgiveness When You Go Off Your Nut and Shout at Her Because She Put the Client Files on Your Desk and Not in Your In-Box

13

I logged in just to say…

:eek:

14

I’ve had a few bosses from hell over the years. One was a notorious priority-shifter:

Boss From Hell [over the phone. Time: approx. 9:10 A.M.]: “I want you to drop all your other projects and do Project B immediately, do you understand? I don’t want you to be working on anything else until B is done! B is to be your top priority; nothing else gets done until that’s done!”

Me: “O.K., if that’s what you want. Just to let you know, though, you remember Project A? Well, I’ve only got another 2, 2-and-a-half hours to go on A before that’s completely done… are you sure you don’t want me to just wrap that up first before moving on to B?”

BFH: “No! I want you to start Project B right now!..”

[approx. five hours later]

BFH [via phone, again]: “Have you finished Project A yet?”

Me: “Uh, no. I’ve been working on Project B since this morning…”

BFH [cutting me off]: “What! Why?!? Why haven’t you finished Project A yet?!? What reason could you possibly have to have not finished A yet?!..”

This experience, and a few others over the years, has led me to advocate a much-overdue labor-management policy reform: the nationwide legalization and mandatory authorization of pre-employment conditional drug-testing of employers for the benefit of potential employees. Before I accept a position reporting to your hopped-up, overcaffeinated ass, I want to verify that your blood-caffeine level never exceeds a one-cuppa-java level and that amphetamines, cocaine, etc. never enter your system… so would you kindly take this urine sample cup and stick it where the moon don’t shine? :smiley:

A similarly-administered battery of intelligence and psychological tests would also be most welcome, but I’m afraid that would be just pie-in-the-sky wishing… :rolleyes:

15

Get them to email you stuff. Keep the emails. When contradictory instructions are given, and you get chewed out as a result, print the emails out and wave them at the bosses, shouting “bite me, monkey boy!” Works for me.

16

jimm, yeah, I know, but just how does one go about enforcing a protocol or a code of behavior on an egomaniacal, tyrannical boss? The most authoritarian and sadistic ones know perfectly well that they’re nasty, and can read between the lines of such a request. The worst of them might well fire someone on the spot who tries to enforce a “you must email me your instructions first” protocol, on the grounds of insubordination or shirking or whatever.

It’s kind of like the old Aesop’s fable about belling the cat, no? An idealistic mouse figures out that their problems would be solved if only they could slip a bell around the cat’s neck. Then, one old and wise mouse says that that’s all well and good, but who’s going to be the one to put the bell on the cat?

17

Exactly. The business golden rule: if it isnt in writing and signed, it doesnt exist.

18

Yeah, good point. Perhaps trying to trick them into emailing you might not be that feasible.

I guess I’m looking at it from the PoV of European labour law, where random firing isn’t as easy.

But getting everything in writing is something I’ve learned through painful experience - e.g. at one company, that was in the process of being bought up, I was offered a huge bonus not to resign for a certain period, in order not to upset the apple cart. The big boss mumbled the dates and stipulations, and didn’t really get his point across. I never got it in writing, and I resigned anyway - result, lost out on said huge bonus, watched the guy’s head nearly explode with anger, and had to work out my four weeks’ notice period with a very angry little man refusing to talk to me and looking daggers at me through the window of his office. Bad move.

19

Yeah, getting it it writing would not have helped the folks in my firm that were “let go” as part of a downsizing. My boss didn’t like them. Neither directly reported to him. One was definitely an essential position that is now going to have to be re-filled (so no save in FTE there). He didn’t like them because they didn’t “yes” everything he said, and they both let him know that they didn’t appreciate his barbaric treatment. They stuck up for themselves. And now they’re fired. Under the guise of right-sizing.

20

Oh, God, I could have written every one of the posts in this thread. I think some sick, sadistic bastard has cloned my boss and placed him in random companies throughout the country.

My boss will change his mind ten times about a project, and only tell me about half of the times. Then he’ll call me up to ask why I haven’t followed out the most recent change he failed to tell me about.

He is very email avoidant, as he has difficulties typing/spelling so most orders are done via phone. I’ve learned to carry around a notepad and pen to scribble down anything that sounds even vaguely like an order or task.

The only behavior of his I’ve managed to change: When I first started working here (a very small office) he had the rest of the staff in the habit of coming into his office at his beck and call. He’d yell out something he wanted done (to no one in particular) and expect someone to come in to be briefed on the orders. Well, I gave in to that at first, but soon started to feel like more of a servant than an employee. After awhile I started ‘failing’ to hear things. When he called a second time, I’d say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m a little hard-of-hearing in one ear.” Now he rings me on my line and asks if I have a moment to come into his office. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

If anyone has any good ideas for getting him to start putting everything in writing (email) I would love to hear. I’ve suggested it outright, and things will go well for a couple days but then it’s back to the way it was.