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Is Your Boss An Idiot?
Dracos writes "CNN Money is running an article entitled "Is Your Boss An Idiot?" Advice on how to cope with a PHB is prefaced with humorous, though suspiciously anecdotal, examples of how to identify one."
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For a daily dose of those needing a clue-stick:
http://www.computerworld.com/sharky
Bookmark it people! Put it on your daily reading list! A new story every day!
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I can't believe nobody (or at least no high-scored-post) has yet mentioned that Scott Adams has written many books about this. All the books are full of real life examples of stupid boss behaviour but some of the content is disguised as humorous instead of being documentation for real life. Don't fall into that pit! Scott Adams has even a web site dedicated for idiot boss and cow-orkers. You might want to become a member of DNRC, too.
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Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
The Peter Principle: People rise to their own level of incompetence.
Its really simple, if you can do your current job reasonably well and your immediate bosses job becomes vacant, you're a candidate. Run this algorithm over time and everyone eventually gets promoted to a job they are not competent to hold.
Some firms attempt to circumvent the Peter Principle by bringing in "management" from outside. This is generally worse since the people doing the work see a constant steam of incompetents who know nothing of the business brought in to tell them what to do. With this scenario, not only is the "boss" incompetent but he or she also doesn't understand the business whereas promoting someone from inside may mean you get someone who doesn't know how to manage but at least understands the business.
Regardless of whether you promote from inside or bring management in from outside, there will always be a percentage of people attracted to these positions because their motivations are power, prestige, etc. Since they generally have few useful skills, these people will generally be more politically adept than the poor slob who is actually technically competent and happens to be a person who still hasn't topped out against the Peter Principle. Been there; had this happen to me. That was when I decided that a management career track wasn't for me.
Its really sad commentary about the so-called planned economies of the Soviet Union, etc. that this "system" is still more efficient than any planned economy.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
There was an excellent BOFH article a bit like that recently - Bastard and PFY make 'Intranet Survivor' where people get booted out if their popularity scores get too low. Here
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
I was in tech support, but now am a sysadmin. My previous boss, while not an idiot, was inept at his job and refused to learn new ways of doing things. For example, he figured Windows 2000 was just like NT, as far as how to manage it. We had no firewalls, no NAT, no security policy, no patching schedule. We were wide open for all to see. And crack.
Finally, after I spent yet another day rebuilding a server for the fourth time after it had been compromised, I took action. I detailed all of the things that were wrong with the very nature of how he did things. I cited examples. I said that I found myself doing parts of his job, and it was affecting my ability to do the job for which I was hired. All very professional. Luckily for me, I'm good with words. It wasn't a condescending letter; I was grateful for the terrific opportunity to work there, and respected my boss greatly, since he was the one that had gotten me the job there in the first place. But something had to be said. When it was complete, I emailed my composition to his boss, the CFO.
I chose my allies well and played the political game within the ranks. He never knew it was coming until it was too late. He knew I would be taking over for him after he left, so he said to me, "If you run into any problems, just blame me." It was priceless. I came out clean and looking great.
We've spent the last three months repairing the slow damage that had been done over the last six years. Ever cleared out static DNS and WINS settings on a thousand Windows boxes? You don't want to.
So it can be done. However, YMMV.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium