I ask because my bosses are fucking disasters to work with. They never know what they have in stock, they're so fucking slow to get anything done, they have no filing system whatsoever for important documents and they're so messy that they make my toilet bowl after Mexican night look like a plate clean enough to clean off of.
We get the most done when they're not there, and by we I mean me and three teenagers who are still in secondary school. We have to come in every morning and sort out their mess for minimum goddamn wage.
So yeah, my bosses suck. Are yours any different? Could they actually work a wage job?
He's incompetent, he's stupid, he's lazy, he's been faking it as long as I've known him. He's fucking weird in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Just another hazard of being self-employed I guess.
My boss hasn't done my job in 30 years but still tries to interject advice. He's the type of boss who tries to be your dad, but in like a "let me be your guidance and mentor" way. It's creepy and I don't like it. He hates everyone who quits, calls them taitors and jokers. He's got no idea how to do our jobs beyond knowing the basics of what we produce. He's pretty good at quality assurance. His politics can only be desceibed as goofy. One time he put a Ted Cruz sign in the field in front of the workplace when Cruz wasn't even up for election. He also likes Jimmy Carter and one time called Ayn Rand a "Bolshevik."
I don't know what my boss does and I don't think she knows what I do either.
It's perfect.
This really isn't to say anything about the people who are bosses in general, but I have noticed that most of the bosses I've had have only gotten to that position because they've been able to jump through all sorts of hoops/smooth talk their way up to that position through connections and straight up dumb luck
From what I've seen, rarely are bosses in their positions because they're the "best" at what they do. It's all a stupid, career-climbing game and some are just better at playing it than others
Managers are selected by executives because they will maintain the existing power dynamic. Their effectiveness at their position is irrelevant because the people in charge would rather liquidate the organization and move on once it no longer represents a significant profit. The effectiveness of the organization and the lives of the people who operate it are of no consequence.
Ironically my giant corporation managers are better than any previous non profit, small business, or family owned place I have previously worked at.
They’re hands off, trust I can get work done, ask me if I need help with anything. My Managers at smaller places micromanaged, screamed, and were just miserable pieces of shit.
They're way worse. Way fucking worse. The total damage is less but if you just magically traded the companies you'd have full fascism tomorrow
You just described my last job. The senior project manager was at the same tiny non profit for like 20 years. My direct project manager was basically the only mediocre one just good enough to handle the position. She was bad but not bad enough until you stayed long enough to notice all of her shortcomings.
Everyone who left is making double now or going back to school.
"good at their job" :same-picture: "incompetent"
Serious note: There's this idea that people will be promoted until they get to a position that they aren't competent to handle.
When I had a "normal" job, all of my direct bosses had come up through the ranks. So they HAD spent time being a cashier, receiver, stocker, buyer, etc.
But when they got to the "Department Manager" job, shit started to go sideways. (99% certain could be blamed on the General Manager and Store Manager being some flavor of chud desperately trying to maintain the normal business hierarchy.) They'd suddenly forget all of the first hand experience they had doing the normal day to day jobs and start making really stupid demands that were completely brain dead.
The Peter Principle, I think it's called. True enough in my experience.
I work construction, union.
My boss, the CEO, is very knowledgeable, but not great at actual management. He's kind of the stereotypical boomer engineer. Type of guy you ask a simple question to and get a 15 minute technical explanation as an answer. Its good at times, to learn more, but also its not great to just get work done.
My more immediate boss, the head project manager, is actually great. Biggest problem I have with him is he's hella busy, and therefore sometimes scatterbrained around remembering random things that weren't scheduled, but he's one of those construction PMs that worked in the field for years, and generally knows how shit actually works.
Politically, coworkers are basically all chuds, but I just kind of avoid talking politics, and it goes. "Union" might be the reason people here are generally knowledgeable. Union construction is a pretty small market share where I am, though what jobs are union are usually the big ones.
mine are not. store manager is a perfectly nice guy but needs to have retired 5 years ago. assistant manager just wants to be a high paid stocker and wants nothing to do with anything else. both are tech illiterate as we careen headfirst into amazon inspiried techno-dystopia. but...i've had far, far worse.
I've mostly worked in tech, and I've had basically one good boss my whole career.
The good boss had been a worker like me a few years back and just kinda stumbled into the mgmt role. She was super caring and gave me tons of great advice about work politics stuff. She even had me take PTO multiple times but not submit the paperwork to HR, so it didn't take away from my actual allotted PTO hours which was about the most based thing I've ever had a boss do. She understood that the PTO hours was about as close to a severance as we would get, so she wanted to make sure everyone had a good stack of hours. Unfortunately she left to better pay at a different place.
All my other bosses have been pretty bad, either at doing the actual mgmt work or at knowing anything about the work being done.
I've had real incompetent bosses in the past but fortunately that's not the case right now.
My current boss is competent. They don't get in the way of the people they manage and generally help facilitate work. They could do the job of any of the people they manage.
That said, they generally work less hard than the people they manage.
they generally work less hard than the people they manage.
And often make significantly more :marx-joker:
I work in software and luckily my boss is pretty good. He started out in QA way back and could work a wage job
I'm in tech and honestly my bosses are really awesome. Like I sorta wish i could shit talk. I did have a manager that was good who was replaced by someone far more stuck up, but as far as bosses that do technical work and manager work, they're all like really nice people who actually care about the people they manage. Its really weird. My tech lead offered garage space and help for some repairs on my motorcycle. My project manager will make sure my wife is doing well and offer advice on personal projects. I've never been spoken down to despite being a really shitty employee. My manager's manager is a big goof but good at the important interpersonal work with customers and will make time if I just want to bullshit and talk about airplanes with him or something. The managers I'm under who are on the technical side are often basically geniuses. They'll spend months doing power points and reports then be asked to spin up a new project and personally set up all the infrastructure, networks, and start a baseline of the work before getting any engineers in.
All this to say, my company does have issues with a lot of stuff and the C-level is pretty tone deaf, but its also relatively easy to stir up shit in the big group chats and get issues addressed which is really rare. I hate my industry but I'm honestly really thankful for the people I work with.
My boss/manager is the co-owner and she’s pretty good yeah. The only complain I have is that, you know, she exploits us and takes our profits. Standard capitalism bs.
