Is your boss and idiot?

A MAJORITY of Australian workers - some 57.7 per cent -believe their boss is completely ineffective, according to a new survey.

Talent2 CEO John Rawlinson, whose company led the survey, described the finding as a wake-up call for employers. "Employees truly believe their employers should be able to perform their job with a superior skill level and thus to obtain the respect of their charges,'' he said.

"It is no longer sufficient for bosses to expect their employees to carry the load.'' From www.news.com.au


Now this comes as a surprise to me (note high levels of sarcasm here). I must admit that during my expansive working career, I have only had one boss that I really respected, admired and looked up to and that was when I was working in Tokyo. All my other bosses have been completely and utterly incompetent and I had absolutely no respect for them what so ever. Is that bad of me? Should I look up to my bosses as if they were some Jedi Knight or Shaolin pen pusher?

I guess it is hard to respect someone who doesn’t really respect you and I think that’s what it basically boils down to in the end. I’ll respect you if you stop treating me like some 16 year old school girl who has never worked a day in her life before. I find patronising your staff doesn’t work, treat me like an equal, listen to my ideas and thoughts and give constructive criticism – the operative word being constructive here. Don’t shoot me down in flames when I have a brainwave, yell and scream at me because I wasn’t willing to say “how high” when you said JUMP and don’t whatever you do say to me “when you are older you will understand” how much bloody older do I have to be, for Christ’s sake I am old enough to have a pre-teen child!

When I was working in Tokyo I had an internship for an all female language teaching organisation (all female students, all female teachers – reduces the amount of either student and or teacher hitting on each other). The woman who set the whole organisation up was amazing, she really was. She started off in Tokyo teaching English then decided to write a book about ‘gaijin’ (foreign) women’s experiences in Japan in order to help other women who were thinking about moving or already living in Japan. Now she runs seminars, helps find women jobs and offers a real community support network for women living in Japan – check out her website http://www.being-a-broad.com/


The real stand out difference was that she treated everyone as equals, never spoke down to anyone, never yelled at anyone and never expected anyone to work ridiculous hours. In fact she would sometimes actually leave the office at around 5:30pm so that the Japanese workers would feel it is ok to go home and then if she had any other work she would come back after she had a coffee or she would tell them to go home.

Now I find that all my subsequent bosses have had little to no respect for me, maybe I am imagining it, I don’t know. However, I get the feeling that when my previous boss said to me “we’re going to a big meeting tomorrow how about you put a short black dress on”, he wasn’t interested in my views on the current market trends and potential hot spots for increased sales through my new sales plan.

The thing that really shitted me off when I was working for Mr Nobb Ed, was that the only people who ever got anything or anywhere where the women who giggled at all his jokes, smiled gooey eyed at him when he was in the room and massaged his ego (I was going to use another ‘m’ word there but I actually felt physically sick thinking about it).

I tried it once and only once, that night I scrubbed myself raw with my loofa because I was so ashamed and felt so dirty. Plus I just couldn’t pull it off, it always came out dripping with sarcastic acid, I don’t know why, must’ve be my intonation.

So now one of my current bosses thinks that I don’t have enough work to do. Frankly that is bullshit, I don’t get nearly enough time to read all the blogs that I want to during my lunch break, so that obviously means that I am over worked.

Work is a major hindrance to everyone’s social life, so why make it even more painful?

Work to live, not live to work that is my motto and if they don’t like it – eh what are they gonna do about it?