Ok, our office is being driven slowly crazy by a crazy supervisor (the one I report to)

She decided a while back to create spreadsheets for each member of the staff. So today I was dutifully working off that list when she darkened my door asking what I was working on. When I told her, she wondered why I wasn't working on a different project. The reason - what I was working on was the "top" priority. She acted a bit miffed that I was doing that.

Another staff member, who apparently has been doing good work (she won a national award for it) suddenly has to place a little sticker on a flowchart showing where in a process she's at.

Couple this with the fact that our work requires quarterly reviews now (part of the pay for performance program), but we have yet to receive one for 2007. Grrrrrr

Anyone have good stupid boss stories?

Hey LKS!

I think your story has been the subject of a recent bit in the Dilbert comic strip. The boss has decided to "manage by spreaksheet." The funniest one's (ok - not funny to you) are always true!

As for stupid boss stories, since I have my own business.............. I've got a bunch of them!

I had a number of stupid bosses spread over my 45 year working career. At different times, I also "inherited" stupid subordinates. It is almost a "toss-up" as to which gave me more heartburn. Being responsibe for a screw-up can be as irritating as putting up with a stupid boss. The third category that can drive you up the wall is the stupid customer.

It generally takes a lot of concentrated effort to dump a bad subordinate, but getting away from a dumb/bad/disagreeable boss means figuring out how to leave on your own terms. I've done both, and neither was "Fun" by any measure. Walking away from the stupid customer is a bit different. On one occasion, I had the great joy of telling a Gov customer that we had decided not to do business with them anymore because of their behavior on our site. They were floored, but it should probably be done more often.

I guess what I object to is what I feel is some sort of passive-aggressive thing - I can't tell you if you're not doing a good job, but I'm going to micromanage you.

If I'm screwing up just tell me. I'm a big boy, I can take it.

If not, just tell me what you want done and I'll do it. You hired me because you thought I could do the work, so let me do it.

Anyway, got our first review of the year and I got a pretty good one. So apparently I'm not screwing up.

Another odd thing - when we (my supervisor and I) go over my priorities, she has to have her boss in the room too. Why? Because she's afraid that she won't get his instructions right. So why am I even reporting to her?

Like I said - Grrrrrr

Just bumping this to get the spam off the first page.

Well, I think I have figured out one of the issues here. My "review writer" can't make a decision to save her life.

Our department head, my review writer (I'll call her J), and I sat down to work on a training plan for J (since I'm kind of on the management team, I get to do fun stuff like that).

I thought the department head was going to stroke out trying to get J to commit to a training plan. She kept coming up with an issue for every date. Our boss got so frustrated that when we finally got her to agree he had her sign and date the plan.

I got to tell you it is hard to work with someone that can't make decisions.

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I thought the department head was going to stroke out trying to get J to commit to a training plan. She kept coming up with an issue for every date. Our boss got so frustrated that when we finally got her to agree he had her sign and date the plan.

That inability to get things done will cost her!!

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Originally posted by Pecos:

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I thought the department head was going to stroke out trying to get J to commit to a training plan. She kept coming up with an issue for every date. Our boss got so frustrated that when we finally got her to agree he had her sign and date the plan.

That inability to get things done will cost her!!

Yet, it hasn't. I think in part that's because she has the most institutional knowledge - she is the only one, for instance, that knows how to publish all our data. Others, like me, know bits and pieces, but she knows the whole thing.

The thing is, even that stresses her out to the point of near paralysis at times. She had to nearly be forced to take vacation since she was worried that no one could do her job.

Another issue is that she wants everything documented in detail. That's great, I like that too, but we differ in what that "detail" consists of.

Let's say I'm installing some software. My documentation of what I did might be something like "Inserted DVD, took all defaults on install." Her's might include screenshots of all the individual option screens, with notes on the fact that she took the default. To me, that's wasted effort. To her that's security.

quote:

Let's say I'm installing some software. My documentation of what I did might be something like "Inserted DVD, took all defaults on install." Her's might include screenshots of all the individual option screens, with notes on the fact that she took the default. To me, that's wasted effort. To her that's security.

It sounds like someone burned her in the past!