Sitting here editing my resume in an effort to move from two part-time jobs to one full-time job I reflected on the various bosses I’ve had Type A
Delightful personality, friendly and sincere but couldn’t organise an f**k in a whorehouse. You and coworkers end up carrying the load. Type B
Organised and sincere: great to work for and feel productive and valued. Emotionally Intelligent. Type C
Wheels Up: near retirement and fully focussed on retirement condo and golf while the workplace crashes and burns Type D
Autistic Evil Criminal: double talking, fake, insincere conperson who covers their complete lack of achievement in an endless Niagara Falls of verbal garbage. Makes “Dilbert” look tame. Type E
Barking Mad: mentally ill and unable to cope but no one in senior management will do anything to help - “It’s all in your mind…”
Luckily I’ve had a few Type Bs to balance out the damage done by an Academy Ward winning Type D.
Given the wide experience of people on this forum I’m sure there are others and variations on the above![/b]
I’d add energetic, driven and charismatic to the above. Thinking back on my favourite boss, I’m amazed at how motivated I was to always do my best and how little I resented working the extra hours when they were needed. She was inspirational.
My boss is fabulous because he lives in another state, and I only need to check in once a week.
Okay, and he also places a tremendous amount of trust in me, gives guidance when needed, understands that there has to be a work/life balance, and only lectures me once a year (usually about my quick temper when i have to deal with moronic co-workers).
I hear that! My current boss, an American guy, is a good boss when he is:
a. on vacation,
b. home sick, or
c. generally staying out of my way.
He is a bad boss when he wants to offer his “advice” on cases that I handle because he usually is so far out of the loop by that time that he has no idea what’s going on. His “advice” usually messes everything up and, unfortunately, my Taiwanese colleagues are too timid to correct him, which means that I always have to do it. Luckily, he doesn’t take offense and if I tell him to butt out, he will, which makes him a good boss again.
[quote]Perhaps job interviews should be considered as a chance to audition the boss.
Ask them difficult questions.
[/quote]
A Steve Wright gag goes something like this:
When I’m in job interview I like to pull out a book and start reading it.
When he asks me what I’m doing, I ask him “If you’re driving a car at the speed of light and you turned on your headlights, would they make any difference?”
If he can’t answer me that question, I don’t wanna work for him.
Care, understanding and a powerful strive makes a good boss. Understand the patrons, the business and the employees. Care for the little things and strive to excel but more so to improve.
The voice of experience here. I have hired nearly 300 people in the last 10 years. Not all of them would say I was a good boss. I made my mistakes but all in all, I like to say I was pretty respected as a boss. I had several people working for me for more than half a decade.
This is funny actually. When you become a boss, you will have to hire someone for the very first time.(the hardest part of being a boss, hiring…) Inexperienced and all, it’s not easy to judge someone from a short interview and a resume. I had to do it so I hired this girl who was quite desperate for a job and she turned out to be the best employee I’ve ever had. Call it beginners luck, she worked for me for three years and we got together. We’ve been together for just about ten years now.
We left the business to go travel Australia for one year and when we came back, business was down by 40%. Needless to say I was rehired and within six months, the monthly sales were back up to normal. That business operated in the mid six figures annually.
