Dealing with difficult bosses. Success stories?

[Bobs69]

Do we have any? 

Who else has or has had an arrogant boss.  One that relies on "rats" on his crew and his "tuff guy intelligence" to get things done?

[68X426]

Let me think .....

[Slowpoke]

I had one when i worked for a Subaru dealer, but it was not a success story for me. 
I was the parts guy and they promoted a service writer to be the parts and service manager.
After six months she had cut the service profit by 1/3, and was starting on losing parts business.
since I was strictly commission this did not impress me at all. She was supposed to be the parts manager but after six months
she still couldn't look up an oil filter and there is only two used by Subaru, the four cylinder and their six cylinder version. 
She fired me for having a bad attitude and then proceeded to go through 5 other guys in two months before the canned her.
Turns out she was promoted from another store just to get rid of her, they were afraid of being sued because she was female, a minority, and a lesbian.
they waited till they had a ton of reasons before they fired her, and it cost them a lot of business just because of the fear of a discrimination lawsuit.

Sorry for the long story but could not think of a shorter way to explain it.
I'm not angry at them about the job since i was looking for a different one anyway, just the way they went about it bothered me.

[Bobs69]

googled this.  "According to the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute, an abusive boss is more likely to be a woman than a man. That's right -- forget their nurturing image! Woman to woman bullying represents 50 percent of all workplace bullying; man to woman is 30 percent, man to man 12 percent and woman to man bullying is extremely rare -- only 8 percent."


Thanks for sharing.  Sounds like you had a special situation.

[68X426]

Seriously, I had several over the years. Never an easy way out - train "up", avoid, confront, transfer, quit. I have no advice because a difficult boss spells misery.

One observation: the boss's boss might actually know what's going down and eventually fix it. I had a miserable SOB once, a company VP who walked on water and was universally hated. One Monday morning the call came that he'd been fired. Sometimes the higher ups know, and you just have to outlast the SOBs.

[Bobs69]

 

No doubt.

[Silver R/T]

I deal with one (more like 3) on daily basis. I just do my job and come back next day to repeat same process, I don't try to change anything anymore as they just won't listen to someone who does same job everyday and probably knows way more about it than they do.

[Chryco Psycho]

I got caught in shop politics , I had a foreman that was a sales person promoted to run the shop but he new squat about machining & building engines , so he had to intimidate everyone ... total Jerk . I kept my mouth shut I did my job but he came to me a wanted to change a machining process so we did , warranty went from 2% to 50 % !!
I was friendswith the owner & heard he was coming to talk to us about the change in warranty , so the jackass comes to me & tells me to lie to the owner about changing the process . SO now I am screwed lieto the owner lose my job or don't lie & suffer the backlash from the foreman .
I did what I have always done & told the truth , work became hell for me so I watched & waited , kept track of all the screw ups the foreman made , found another job & asked to speak to the owner . The owner saw me & I gave him 2 weeks notice  & informed him of everything that was going on & enlightened him on why other people had quit & that included 2 others quitting the same day . The owner pleaded with me to stay but I told him I simply couldn't unless he fired the foreman . He refused to fire him after 14 years with the company so I left .
The good news is a month later with the owner paying attn the Foreman did get fired & I became a hero at the shop as all the other workers were extatic . I heard the foreman had taken a contract out on me to have me killed , he was out of work for years afterwards & was very depressed .
Was it a win , not really , I lost a good job I liked , it was a win for all of my friends at the company , some  stayed almost 20 years after that & I did do a lot of damage to the jerk foreman .
The bad news in all of this is 20 years later the owner sold the company , you would never guess who stepped up & bought it .... yup the Jerk .

[bakerhillpins]

Sometimes the higher ups know, and you just have to outlast the SOBs.

And unfortunately, sometimes they still think they walk on water and it's time to move on.

[Tilar]

I had one job for a short time when I was 20ish that had a boss like that. Life is way tooo short to deal with that crap. On the day I decided to quit, I explained to him that he needed a serious attitude adjustment and I was more than happy to be the one to give it to him. Course back then I was a pretty stout farm boy and could more than handle myself, Now at this age I'd just call him a cock sucker and leave. 

[Cooter]

This is why there's tires on his/her vehicle to be flattened. Paint to be gouged. Windows to be cracked. Etc.
Bosses that act like this are just screaming for someone to inflict a form of "Your gonna screw with me where i have no recourse? I'm gonna screw with you where YOU have no recourse" type action.

I had a b*tch of a bosss one time. She even got me fired for some racial BS she said I said.
I said, "That's ok, your time will come as Hell hath no fury like a patient person". I simply caught this chick about 8 years later working for the supermarket right down the block, standing outside smoking. I walked right by her and looked straight at her. She just turned once she saw me. Tried to act like she didn't recognize me. I walked right up to the store manager and asked him "Sir, I wonder if I might have a bit of your time?" Told him that I didn't appreciate her yelling Racial slurs at me when I walked by outside. As I left, the manager was paging her to come to the front desk. I simply winked at her as I walked by...

[Tilar]

  payback is a bitch.

[Bobs69]

I deal with one (more like 3) on daily basis. I just do my job and come back next day to repeat same process, I don't try to change anything anymore as they just won't listen to someone who does same job everyday and probably knows way more about it than they do.

This makes me think of the old tv show "That 70's Show" where Red tells Eric that is what a man does.  It's work not happy joy fun place!  You go in see how much crap you can take from the boss and go back in to do it the next day because that's what a man does!

[Khyron]

my boss is a dick....


and I'm self employed

[moparstuart]

my boss is a dick....


and I'm self employed

  me too 

[Troy]

I've never stuck around long enough to have any success with a bad boss. I know some who have practically destroyed the company they were with but I had enough sense to bail out before I got dragged down as well. I'd rather make less money and enjoy where I work than be frustrated/pissed off every day.

Troy

[Tilar]

   Like I said above,

Life is way too short to deal with that crap.

[nvrbdn]

my boss is a dick....


and I'm self employed

[Budnicks]

As a former Contractor & current very small Golf business owner, I have never met an employee that doesn't think they are under-payed or an employer/owner who doesn't think that most employees are lazy overpaid F&$#%S....  

[Budnicks]

If you don't like your job, if you think you can do better, man up & start your own business, than you can be the a--hole... It's not that easy, to start & run your own business, the employees & all their petty problems {also non work related}, payroll, facilities up keep, customers, suppliers, shippers, inventory, petty cash, rent or mortgage, banking, loans & taxes & much, much more, try it, you may end up, respecting some of those old a--hole bosses a bunch more, afterwards... I know I did...  

[Chris G.]

If you don't like your job, if you think you can do better, man up & start your own business, than you can be the a--hole... It's not that easy, to start & run your own business, the employees & all their petty problems {also non work related}, payroll, facilities, customers, suppliers, shippers, petty cash, rent or mortgage, banking, loans & taxes & much more, try it, you may end up, respecting some of those old a--hole bosses a bunch more, afterwards... I know I did... 

Always two sides to every story. The "bad boss" thing is fun to claim, but I'll bet they could fire back with why someone was a horrible employee.

[Tilar]

I gotta disagree with you Budnicks, at least to a point. I've owned my own small business with employees and I've also managed a couple different multimillion dollar a year businesses with 10+ employees and never once did I have any employees that I thought were lazy. I did have a few at the one place that thought they were underpaid but most had been there for 10+ years. The other one was a body shop where most of the guys made over 50k a year.  If employers and employees both would just use a little empathy in their everyday lives, things would be a lot different for those of you that think their boss OR employees suck.

One thing I did figure out about being your own boss, While the pay is great, the benefits suck.

[Budnicks]

I gotta disagree with you Budnicks, at least to a point. I've owned my own small business with employees and I've also managed a couple different multimillion dollar a year businesses with 10+ employees and never once did I have any employees that I thought were lazy. I did have a few at the one place that thought they were underpaid but most had been there for 10+ years. The other one was a body shop where most of the guys made over 50k a year.  If employers and employees both would just use a little empathy in their everyday lives, things would be a lot different for those of you that think their boss OR employees suck.

One thing I did figure out about being your own boss, While the pay is great, the benefits suck.

I was refering to Lazy, just to simplify the response, any employees that I thought were lazy were soon fired, I have had some great employees that were very well compensated for doing a great job, I was generalizing to shorten what would have been along drawn out more boring post.... I probably should have said overpaid in stead of Lazy, but Lazy strike a nerve better...  

[Chryco Psycho]

I too have been self employed for a looong time now , sure the boss is an ass but I can work things out most of the time !!

[nvrbdn]

they brought in a woman as area manager. never did that before. is totaly lost.makes the wrong calls, but once she says something, she refuses to back down. her own people try to guide her but she wont listen.