Not only is his name Dick but it fits him perfectly! He just finished chewing me out and I feel like venting. Heres what happened.
I am a secretary for a small city and my boss is the City Engineer. He has only been in the position since September of 99’ and he thinks he knows everything but in reality he knows nothing about being a supervisor or an engineer for that matter because he is a fucking idiot! I get a call from the receptionist up front letting me know that Dick’s two o’clock meeting is here and that they would like to go ahead and set up in the conference room, is it alright to let them in since it’s only one o’clock? I check the conference room schedule and see that there is no conflict, and tell the receptionist its clear and to send them on in as I have done many times in the past. Well ten minutes later Dick stomps back to my office and asks me whats going on? I just look at him like WTF?? He asks me if I let the contractors go in to the conference room and I tell him yes I did, since that is how we have always done it and I have not been told to do otherwise. He proceeds to stand there yelling at me that he told me six months ago not to let any contractors in unescorted to the room, and besides he had another meeting scheduled in the conference room before the two o’clock meeting. I tell him, no, he has never told me that and that I had checked the conference room schedule to make sure no meetings were scheduled at that time and since it was not on the schedule it was be alright to send them in. He is a real asshole about the conference room schedule, if he finds out you don’t have a meeting scheduled you can’t use it PERIOD. I then told him since I now know not to do that it won’t happen again (the whole time i’m saying this through clenched teeth trying not to tell him to go fuck himself).
I called the receptionist to apologize to her she tells me not to worry about it that he told her he had never told any of his employees not to send people back for meetings without an escort and several people heard him say it also. He belittles all of the employees who work with him, screaming at them in front of co-workers telling them they don’t know what the hell they are doing (even though some have been here for close to 20 years.) No one is safe around him. He will tell you one thing and then tells you he did not say that when you know damn well he did! He has made a couple of major developers so mad that they stormed out of a meeting with him and went straight to the city managers office to complain about him. He makes contractors mad to where they do not even want to work with us because they don’t want to deal with him WTF is up with this man? He makes about 75k a year, how can they justify giving that man that much money? He is completely unreasonable if it’s not his opinion then its a stupid idea. I don’t understand why they keep him. He is a major asshole who needs to be put to sleep in my opinion.
Thanks for letting me vent and get that off my chest, I feel much better now. Anybody else have a major asshole for a boss?
Isn’t he great ladies and gentlemen? Notthemama will be here all week, tip your servers.
I have an amazing boss now. But I could tell you about the one who expected me to keep quiet about his “borrowing” of a couple hundred bucks from the safe. Or the one who was sleeping with three of his employees (and not with his wife). Or the one who had to tell me all about her Springer-esque life (her husband had slept with her daughter, her other daughter was pregnant at 13). Or the one to whom I sold a car and only managed to pay me the week before our small claims court date. . .
Excuse me, but I need to go in and kiss my boss’s feet right now.
i hear that about DICK!
my boss just last week decided that since the company wasn’t doing so well that i (the only operator on mornings now that two have died and one is in the hospital, sound fishy?) have to start learning how to become a salesman as well as an operator and designer. Already having taken up the extra slack as net admin/operator i was hired to be a graphic designer for this firm, and now i get yelled at in front of everyone in the office for get this: working on a design for one of our clients that wasn’t due for another 3 days. I should have been looking for companies to pitch our services to silly me :rolleyes: and how could i not get that from the last company meeting we had in which he very distinctly said “this is not a doom and gloom speech! I don’t want anyone to think you need to worry about anything!”
well, my resume has been sent out to several companies, my references are good, i’m damn good at what i do, got my degrees and certifications, and 50k/year at 25 aint gonna cut it in nyc for me for another year, no sir bob!
Sound like you have your classic PHB.
Point Haired Boss.
These guys can really suck ass, but let me assure you, there are ways to deal with them. My advice:
[ul]
[li]Get the march issue of Maxim. There is a great article on dealing with asshole bosses from Hell. No offense, Satan.[/li]
[li]Buy every Dilbert book you can get your hands on. Follow most advice, but yanking your boss out of his cheap suit by his pointy hair and flinging his naked body down the hallway is NOT recommended and I accept no responsibility for any consequences resulting from such action.[/li]
[li]Ask Cecil.[/li]
[li]Hire me to wait for him after happy hour with a burlap sack full of old doorknobs and a can of mace. I’ll make sure he see’s things your way.[/li][/ul]
Any of these options have the potential to make your work experience a lot better. Let me know how it goes.
perhaps somewhat more practical than “mayhem for hire”:
Perforate both of your eardrums (or at least tell him that you caught a virus that resulted in that ;)), and make sure you get everything in writing in the future.
I had to let everyone know the latest thing the DICK did. One of the supervisors comes into my office this morning to tell me that DICK said I am abusing my paging privilidge and to stop paging everyone so much!
Since when is paging someone a privilidge, its part of my fucking job! I dispatch crews to resident complaints out in the field and if I can’t raise them on the radio I just send them an alpha-numeric page telling them the address with the problem because a lot of the time they are to busy or are away from the radio. Its not like I page the guys with “I just wanted to say hi and see how you are doing, don’t mind me”
I could not believe this dumb fuck said this to me! I swear he is a fucking moron! It doesn’t even make sense for him to say that. All his problem is that he hates to be bothered or found when he is out fucking around and not doing his job like he is supposed to but I guess that’s understandable since he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing anyway! I told his secretary this morning what he said and she said that he’s probably not taking his medication! So even his secretary knows what an idiot he is! It’s pretty bad when your employees joke about collecting money to have you killed. I’m going to wait it out another couple of months to see if his supervisors can figure out what a fucking idiot he is and if he’s still here i’m going to start looking for a new job.
Oh, poor Shaini—I used to work for one of those, too. A screaming, incompetent pot-head, who only had the job because Daddy owned the company. He actually used to throw furniture around (at that point, I would just leave the office and go window-shopping till thibngs quieted down).
I finally quit the job—it just wasn’t worth it. The company later went out of business, and I hear that Hell Boss has not been able to find work since—“Time Wounds All Heels.”
Oh, poor Shanin—I used to work for one of those, too. A screaming, incompetent pot-head, who only had the job because Daddy owned the company. He actually used to throw furniture around (at that point, I would just leave the office and go window-shopping till thibngs quieted down).
I finally quit the job—it just wasn’t worth it. The company later went out of business, and I hear that Hell Boss has not been able to find work since—“Time Wounds All Heels.”
Poor Shanin! DICK sounds like a complete waste of oxygen.
Who evaluates this idiot? Sounds like everyone else is having trouble with him, too. Document, document, document…and (discreetly) make sure the City Manager/Mayor/whomever knows the score.
Sometimes you can play dirtiest by playing clean. Get things in writing and have witnesses. So you are paging too much? Fine. Then when a torqued off citizen calls for service on a problem, sweetly say you are no longer permitted to dispatch a crew, but you will ask DICK. Someone wants to use the conference room, and it isn’t booked? Apologize sweetly, etc.:“no longer permitted to let anyone use the room w/o prior approval, etc.” Let him take the flak for his own idiocy.
In your most professional manner, ask him–in writing–for guidance on any procedural or policy changes he wants you to follow. It’s all paper trail…in your favor. Either he puts up, or he suffers badly when you can document you asked him for reasonable guidelines.
I work for a municpality, too, and believe me, when citizens, contractors, etc. start complaining to Council, the City Admin. and/or the Mayor, the flames start blasting. Working in the public sector is no piece of cake, but there are some protections.
Good luck! And no, don’t murder the jerk. It’d be too fast. Torture him slowly, subtley and irreproachably.
I feel your pain, Shanin. I’ve worked for my share of dumbasses.
One in particular caused me to quit my job. Back when I worked in retail, The store I worked for had the dumbess bimbo working for Training and Human Resources. she would come to me and ask for my help in training people on the registers (They were specialized PC’s. She seemed to have a problem with them thar new fangled “menu” set ups). The result was that I wound up training over a dozen new employess, while taking care of my own customers (Thank God I wasn’t comissioned).
When she was transferred over my department, I realized I’d wind up being an assistant manager without the pay, and turned in my two weeks. Of course, I had about two weeks worth of vacation saved up, soooo…
I should add that she was more than just stupid and lazy. She was an abrasive, two faced, bitchy, slimy little back stabber. when I left, three other employees went with me.
The boss I have now is so much cooler: He lets me actually do my job.
I can not agree with TVeblen enough. Document, Document. Anytime he does something stupid, or makes a stupid requirement, Email him with a request for clarification. Force him to commit himself, even if he does nothing, he’s left a papertrail.
Doing a google search on how to deal w/such a boss, came across this blog - my foreman (whose boss is a woman, btw) exhibits such hypocritical behavior it borders on psychosis. He’ll have me (or a co-worker) do something for a customer, then take credit for having done it himself. Getting yelled @ daily about how stupid I am but if he happens to make a mistake, nothing happens (or is said about it). He likes to try and intimidate people as a joke, berates employees @ every turn & is generally an asshole to the whole crew - he believes he’s being “motivational”. I could go on & on about his behavior, but I hate to sound like I’m crying in my beer about it.
I’m breaking my back doing manual labor & this constant derision (on top of the physicality of this work) is wearing me mentally, emotionally and physically.
My first reaction to reading " He has only been in the position since September of 99’ and he thinks he knows everything" was “yeah, 14 years of experience will do that to you” followed shortly by “wait a second…”
silly me :rolleyes: and how could i not get that from the last company meeting we had in which he very distinctly said “this is not a doom and gloom speech! I don’t want anyone to think you need to worry about anything!”
