Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie

Freshly Exhumed writes to tell us about a Florida State University study of 700 employees indicating that nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word. The study will be published later this year. From the article: "The abusive boss has been well documented in movies ('Nine to Five'), television (Fox's 'My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss') and even the Internet. 'They say that employees don't leave their job or company, they leave their boss. We wanted to see if this is, in fact, true,' said Wayne Hochwarter, an associate professor of management in FSU's College of Business."

Comments

grievance committees

[udderly]

FTA: Finally, he said, "No abuse should be taken lightly, especially in situations where it becomes a criminal act (for example, physical violence, harassment or discrimination). The employee needs to know where help can be found, whether it is internal (i.e., the company's grievance committee) or external (i.e., formal representation or emergency services)."

In most of the companies that I've worked for, the "grievance committee" is merely a shill for management interests.

Re:grievance committees

[ZonkerWilliam]

Im curious, has anyone been verbally or physically abused by a manager or supervisor? I know I have had terrible managers in the past, some almost could be considered abusive. Just wondered how wide spread it was.

Re:grievance committees

[the_rev_matt]

I worked for a manager whose style would best be described as "scream, berate, humiliate, threaten". I generally threw up every morning before heading in to work because of the stress. This was during the early 90's recesssion, so finding another comparable paying job (only slightly above minimum wage) wasn't an option.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second that grievance committees are really only interested in identifying people that are problematic. I went to one with a review that was a personal attack by someone not even my boss, but did our reviews because our boss got fired and for some unknown reason, was considered more appropriate than our new boss for doing our reviews. This particular person and I didn't get along, quite possibly because he's a raving lunatic, but that's beside the point. Even with a clearly personal attack on a review, the grievance committee only asked whether I felt any EEOC items had been violated. Evidently they were only interested in whether federal rules had been broken.

My new boss turned out to be a manipulative liar, which was the end of the line for my employment with that company. 3 promises made and broken within 6 months. Turns out I wasn't the only one being manipulated, I just saw it earlier and left first. 50+% turnover when your staff numbers over 100 persons is usually not a good sign. All occurring within 1 year of new management taking over.

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[tompaulco]

I had a boss that was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would yell, but mostly he would just quietly berate you. After a couple of years of working for him he had convinced me that I was of no worth to any other company and that I was lucky to have the job.
I liken it to Saruman's hold on King Theoden. I was lucky to see my way through what almost seemed like a spell he had cast on me and my coworkers. I was the third to leave, and in the end 2/3 of the company quit within a space of about 3 months.

Re:grievance committees

[lp60068]

I agree. Do not be naive - grievance committee's and HR only protect the company leaders and when abuse does occur they will often turn on the abused. I have seen V.P.'s terrorize director's, manager's, and associates - going to point of making people emotionally break down. Then when some naive associates and managers bring up the problem to the V.P. or HR they get fired. Best advice when confronted with this bullshit is to start looking immediately.

Re:grievance committees

[Chyeld]

Then you really need to shop around for companies to work for that actually have competant HR departments.

Management typically is intelligent enough to know that an abusive supervisor is more of a liability than a boon, since it generally costs more to hire and train a new worker than it is to retain someone who already knows the job. Abusive supervisors tend to have far higher turnover than ones who actually know how to do their job, and typically produce poorer quality work.

It's always in a company's intrest to investigate complaints and determine if the problem is with the manager or with the employee (or, as in most cases, a combination of both) and take steps to resolve the issue.

Most HR departments of the companies I've worked for, realize this.

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[smilindog2000]

Yeah, I think they're focusing on the wrong kind of lying...

In my experience, physical abuse is rare, and emotional abuse is typically somewhat self-inflicted (if your boss doesn't like your work, don't make yourself crazy... just get a new boss).

However, I find lying to some degree is far higher than 2/5. Stock options are the typical one. When you ask "How many shares are outstanding?", the typical response is "Try to imagine that each share is $10." They'll say that even when the current selling price is $0.10. Some bosses also distort information badly, if not down-right lying, to benefit themselves. If you bust your buns making the whole project succeed, it's quite likely your boss will get a bonus or stock options, and you'll get nothing.

In the end, you've got to fend for yourself, while forming a positive relationship with your boss, even though he doesn't always tell you the whole story.

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[PPH]

Never by a manager, but we did have an engineer on a team who thought he was tough sh*t and made threats to that effect.

I don't look like much, but one day I brought one of my grip exercisers to a meeting. During the meeting (while this bozo was shooting his mouth off), I just sat there quietly, squeezing the handle, but I made sure it was visible to everyone. When the meeting let out, I intentionally left it lying on the table. A few witnesses told me that this guy picked it up and nearly busted his gut trying (unsuccessfully) to move it. After that, he quieted down quite a bit.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Best advice is to start documenting it immediately. Document everything you can. I'm not a fan of litigous bastards, but if H.R. goes on the offensive against you, you've got to protect yourself. Further, there are lots of whistleblower protections that a good attorney can help you with. And yes, abusive behaviour is illegal.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an excellent point. Most lying bosses want you to think of them as their friend/supporter.

I thought my last boss was great and for the most part he was.
However he had been promising a better position for almost two years claiming he was trying to convince middle-management that I was more than qualified.
Then a person in that position quit, making it easier for me to move to that slot but they hired someone else from outside the team. Then my boss quit.
I now see he was just stringing me along to make sure he didn't lose head-count.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

That would explain the bribery to keep employees onboard that gave indications of leaving by one manager I've seen.

On the other hand, it really depends upon what the company's goals are. Reduce headcount? Reduce salary (get rid of old higher paid/optioned employees and replace with fresh new faces straight out of college now that the startup phase is done with)? Because the entire company's management is full of shitheads?

The reasons go on and on, you're lucky if you find a good company based on the collective experience I'm aware of.

Re:grievance committees

[BluedemonX]

Yeah, but karma is a bitch.

I worked somewhere where the managment took advantage of the REALLY terrible job market to basically say "this will be done ON our unrealistic schedule, without listening to your suggestions, or you can all find jobs elsewhere" (which they knew didn't exist). "If it takes weekends, evenings, it will get done, or you can find another job."

Halfway through the project, at a critical juncture, when they'd sign contracts that committed the company to delivery, an employee cracked and shouted at someone else. They fired him on the spot. Half the team looked at the job market, realised it had since become VERY VERY good, and more than half the team walked out.

Needless to say, managment were on the chopping block in a big way when the promised delivery date rolled around and there was no product. The businesses who had signed big deals for the project were demanding major price reductions or cancelling.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.

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[GMontag]

On the position I stayed in the longest I had a boss who not only would throw tantrums like a badly parented child, but he would make lunges as if he were going to strike me. As that may have been 'profitable' it is something I would prefer to not have to deal with either.

His team had a high turnover rate compared to the rest of our business group too. I stuck it out there at first because I really liked the customer and the mission. Also needed to keep stability of work because of child custody/support concerns. When the family issues were no longer an item I updated the Monster resume with what I had done (had made the mistake of tailoring it too much to what I wanted to do) and several much better job offers appeared right away. In that job, the customers really liked me and my work, I could not stand my boss and several co-workers, nor them me but that clique seemed to have issues with everybody and most had problems with them.

Ended up leaving the first one in a few months, because I had conditioned myself to thinking a place that "does not suck" was good enough. Got along quite well with most all of the people there, especially the customer. However, things did seem to change for some people over night and I was not waiting around for it to happen to me, i.e., the customer would just tell our firm that they wanted someone off the contract immediatly and it seemed to have nothing to do with their work and the person was gone the next day. Some of these folks had been assured by the customer that their work was fine, right before being booted.

Another firm that had interviewed me before I took that job called several more times and I accepted a position there. Got along with new boss and customer great. Had 2 coworkers that were reacting oddly to the automation that I was doing and ended up being annoying. Did not really matter, I was one of the only people the customer liked and the guys who were acting oddly were not liked by her at all. Different problem cropped up. The agency I was supporting was moving their offices several States away. I was offered a new position that was in the area and was not going to move for a while, so I decided to try it out.

Bad news/good news: my customer does not seem to like my work (this is a first for me) and has made some serious complaints to my boss. The complaints are completly non-quantifiable too. The good news is I contacted a higher boss asking about some overseas work we had discussed a year earlier, right before I took current job. He came back with some other options, then my boss from my previous job contacted me about two very interesting items that are in late proposal stage with news of more progress that came in today.

Looks like I can move on and let current customer figure out what he wants without me and I don't really have to worry about missing a mortgage payment and getting a bad name in my industry.

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[lawpoop]

I had a manager when I worked at a gas station who was verbally abusive. It wasn't a matter of volume; it was the tone. It was like he was hocking venom at you or flicking daggers.

"I can't believe this shit..." Made you feel like you were a three-year-old. I was 18 at the time and I didn't know how to mentally disengage from him. I was the best employee ( the other long-term employees were adults with no education and just didn't care at all ). I did a good job; he told me I was his best employee. I wanted to do good, but when I screwed up, however minor, he would berate me like he did the others that worked there. I just took it like a bitch; while the other folks would get in heated arguments. I felt bad about myself. I had all kinds of stress responses -- headaches, muscle aches, etc. I developed GIRD (gastro-intestinal reflux disease) and the doctor prescribed me Nexium -- at 18 years old. So much for western medicine. The real answer was to leave the mentally and emotionally unhealthy environment. Which I did.

I think the reason that there is so much anti-depressant use these days is because, as our economy slowly swirls the drain, we have no mental health care industry to take care of people dealing with the fallout of not having enough resources to provide for themselves and their families. Having more opportunities to talk about our feelings would be good, but I think the real answer is more power to the individual in the workplace.

In pursuing my anthropology degree in college, we watched a video of a native healer in Uganda or somewhere. His patient was having general sickness such as tiredness, upset stomach, etc. The healer guy went into his trance and danced around wildly. The healer diagnosed the problem being with the man's father-in-law or something like that, and within minutes, the father-in-law was in the room, and they were having it out -- emotionally airing their grievances, arguing, and coming to a new agreement, all mediated by this crazy medicine man. The whole village was gathered around, watching, and I have no doubt that they would help enforce the new agreement.

It would be great if I could have sat down with my then-manager and explained what he was doing wrong. If he could learn to manage by also being nice. But no, my doctor had no authority to call him into the office, I had no authority as a kid to question how "The Real World" works, and, being the best manager in the district, the oil company had no incentive in getting him to change his ways. He continued emotionally abusing people, perpetuating burn-out and turnover. So the abusive, destructive environment continued.

In the US, do whatever BS management tells you or get fired. The rest of the department has been outsourced, so you have to do the jobs of 3 people. With unions on the wane, it is just a lowly individual against a vast corporation. The working class had their jobs outsourced to the 3rd world, and now it is happening to white collar jobs. All the while the media tells us that we can mitigate our unhappiness with new cars, alcohol, and bling. Terrorists attack us on our own soil, we are entering an endless war against a nebulous enemy called "Terror" and Bush says the best thing we can do is go shopping.

I realize a lot of slashdotters are well-educated and many of them have decent jobs. It seems to me that this is a child-like view of "Things are going well for me; if anyone else is having a problem, they are just not working hard enough." Well, the $#i+ seems to be hitting the fan with outsourcing and now the white-collar middle class is beginning to feel the effects of limitless corporate power. If left unchecked it will lead to virtual slavery and serfdom.

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[Zanth_]

I had a very abusive thesis adviser (verbal harassment). Though not entirely the same as above, the fact that I technically worked as an employee in his lab (my grant and scholarships paid 100% of school fees and lab expenses, not to mention a good portion of my living expenses, but I needed a bit more cash and we had agreed early on he would pay). The university was well aware of his antics, particularly given that he had only had one successful candidate actually graduate in 10 years (most would bail). Yet, they did nothing, because he was the associate dean and was able to bring in quite a bit of money for his research. I could have kept climbing higher and higher up the chain of "boards" to complain to, but honestly, if I had to work with the guy for 3-5 years, would it be worth it? No. So I too left, and found a much better environment at a different school. It killed one year of my life, but it was worth it in the end. Some may view this as cowardly, others will agree with my move. The point is that I had no real choice. The guy was a dick, he would remain so and having a grievances filed against him by me, and him falling victim to whatever punishment handed down would have only made our working relationship that much more stressful. The university should simply suspend him for a time, and/or restrict his capacity to accept graduate students (until his anger management kicks in). His funding will be cut, it will be a hard lesson, but these "grievance boards" do little else than screw the student in the long term.

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[Lord_Dweomer]

What can be a bigger problem is what I see happening to a lot of people who just graduated and are entering the professional world for the first time. You come out of school cocky, but still aware that you don't know a lot at all, but then they have a boss who basically makes them feel like they don't know anything about their chosen profession and kills their confidence, which in turn leads to more mistakes etc.

The reason this is such a problem is while a seasoned professional who runs into a bad boss can still walk out of there knowing deep down "its a bad boss, I know my shit, I'm good at what I do even if he doesn't think so" whereas a recent graduate might think "wow, maybe I chose the wrong career path, spent all that money for nothing..." and end up working at Starbucks because they no longer have confidence in their abilities.

Re:grievance committees

[ZonkerWilliam]

This rings a bell for me, I just left a company that I loved the job. I got along with my manager as he was, what I thought, a good guy. Over two years I began to see a pattern emerge, he would tell me what a good job I was doing, but at my reviews he would give me "satisfactory" even though I would work 60 to 70 hours a week and be out of town for weeks at a time ( my marriage took a nose-dive for this job), his boss would even wonder why he would only give me a satisfactory. Word finally got to me, my manager always wanted to be top dog, so he would never make anyone else look better than himself, no matter how much work he would give them and how well they do. The straw that broke my back was when he finally said that was between a good engineer and an excellent engineer...like himself. but I digress...

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[BluedemonX]

Another CoC enthusiast? I'm on the #3 list.... which one did you leave around? 3 or 4?

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[GungaDan]

nitpick:

GERD = (n) gastro-esophageal reflux disease

GIRD = (v) something you do to your loins before battle ;-)

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[Eccles]

I had a manager when I worked at a gas station who was verbally abusive. It wasn't a matter of volume; it was the tone. It was like he was hocking venom at you or flicking daggers.

"I can't believe this shit..." Made you feel like you were a three-year-old.

Sheesh, I don't need a boss like that. My wife does that enough already.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked somewhere where the managment took advantage of the REALLY terrible job market to basically say "this will be done ON our unrealistic schedule, without listening to your suggestions, or you can all find jobs elsewhere" (which they knew didn't exist). "If it takes weekends, evenings, it will get done, or you can find another job."

And even after cases like that become prevalent in the US, the whole union idea is some kind of pathetic idea that can only come from no-good, pinko, un-american communists. Yeah, unions are evil but the idea of getting constantly bum-fucked by the bosses, without any rights or any say so... Well, that is pretty much acceptable and very peachy indeed.

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[garcia]

had a boss that was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would yell, but mostly he would just quietly berate you.

I did too. My "supervisor" screamed at me I laughed in her face. She broke down in tears, went back to her desk and called her shrink to cry and then her supervisor.

Her supervisor called me for my side of the story of which I replied, "She went off the deep end screaming at me and I laughed in her face. End of story."

She never screamed at me again but she still works there. It never ceases to amaze me.

Re:grievance committees

[BewireNomali]

Re: fending for yourself. You're exactly right.

I consult with small and mid-cap investment firms in the NYC area - evaluating media opportunities. In my capacity as a consultant I see how many bosses deal with employees and I am grateful and humbled that I have the opportunity to build a business the way I do, where I mostly report to myself.

One of my clients - head of a small sized hedge fund has two analysts that report directly to him. Both are Ivy educated, under 30, and scared out of their mind at this man.

Because I spend a significant amount of time with him out of the office - I have a true gauge for the kind of man that he is. This is what he told me: His hires are based on psychological profiles. He hires overachieving young men with father issues (this guy strikes kind of a very photogenic prototype father figure - I've heard many an employee comment on how great a father he'd make). He uses this ammunition to twist these guys into knots - competing with one another, betraying one another for "fatherly" favor... working ungodly hours to one-up one's "sibling" - setting the two in diametric opposition. I asked him why he did it - he said that fear lasts longer than love. He also said, in the NY finance market, there are plenty of opportunities for well educated finance guys - in order to retain talent (other than with significant financial compensation) one has to get the employee so emotionally invested in the task at hand, to the struggle the firm is trying to overcome, make it so the firm's fight becomes personal. These guys hate each other and do everything they can to outwit one another, and to this boss, it's a big joke. It's what he does.

I've seen other bosses develop a method of manipulating underlings that utilizes a code. They run it in meetings - wide open. One manager might make a reference to having a headache - and the other manager replies that they are out of brand X of medicine for headaches, but brand Y seems that it would be most effective in this situation (the situation being a particular impasse with the team). They gauge situations and resolve them by manipulating workers in real time using pre-established "plays" or social strategies - I've watched employees react like puppets, on cue.

Women in the workplace are controlled in a similar way - but using aesthetics and attractiveness as the meter. Even women who profess to not be affected by it become embittered when the boss champions the hot chick, so the other women work doubly hard to prove their worth on different merits. Checkmate, boss wins. I've seen the hot chick go from belle of the ball to also ran when a new round of hiring brings in younger, hotter eye candy.

The best thing an employee can do in my experience is NOT INTERNALIZE the firm's business, and be aware that almost EVERY ACTION by a boss is done to manipulate you to HIS ENDS. Objectivity goes a great way. FEND FOR YOURSELF and realize that your skills and experience determine your market value - and realize that a bosses' power relies totally on the self-sacrifice of those under him.

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[jcr]

Too bad you didn't have the option of taking your manager to Uganda, and leaving him there.

-jcr

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[eugene ts wong]

I don't know if I've been verbally abused, but I've bee sworn at and micromanaged at the same time. I've been accused at being deceptive to the management team, slacking off, and playing games with the management.

1 time, I was just pouring water down a drain, and the project foreman started swearing at me from across the site. Apparently, I wasn't pouring fast enough for him. Another time, I wasn't going to what he thought was the best drain possible. Another time, I got sworn at because I didn't take my lunch break. Apparently, I was a bad worker for not watching the clock.

I could go on and on, and yet I only worked for them for 4.3 months.

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[frieza79]

You worked at Accenture too?

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[smilindog2000]

Holly cow, that's harsh!

I make a poor manager, so I let others run the small business I founded. However, I do recruit guys and have a plan for getting the most out of our employees... I try to do it above-board, and let them know about my tricks during the interview.

In short, I try to hire super-bright guys right out of school, with salaries slightly lower than competing offers. I also explain that I expect them to work like heck, and eventually quit when other companies offer them salaries I can't match. In return, I promise they will have a chance to learn everything I know about EDA, and instead of fixing bugs in someone else's code for a living, they'll have a chance to make a major contribution. I tell them they'll have a chance to see their efforts directly help grow the company. I buy them laptops so they have a chance to work around the clock, both at home and at work.

In Silicon Valley, this strategy worked very well. It works fairly well in NC, but the laptops don't work out. Around here, people just don't seem to take work home with them. Partly, I blame the favorable ratio of girls-to-guys here relative to Silicon Valley, and the stronger focus on families. It's also just the culture. I also have difficulty getting the guys here emotionally committed the way that they do in Silicon Valley, which makes a big difference. I moved here partly figuring that since salaries are 25% lower, I could start the company with less capital. That was wrong... the guys in Silicon Valley make up for their pay with 25% more work.

I also have another way of motivating a programmer. If I look over their shoulder, and sneer at some code that wasn't done quite right, I find that's much more effective at getting them fired-up and coding right than trying to directly teach them how to do it right in the first place. Their own code is very personal to them, and they'll work like heck to make it meet my standards, but no one likes to simply be lectured about how to write code in the first place, especially if they're very bright and use to writing better code than their teachers.

Re:grievance committees

[anagama]

However he had been promising a better position for almost two years...Then a person in that position quit, making it easier for me to move to that slot but they hired someone else from outside the team. Then my boss quit. I now see he was just stringing me along to make sure he didn't lose head-count.

Your logic makes no sense. It sounds more like he was overruled from higher up and decided he couldn't work under such circumstances.

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[Lord Ender]

I had a boss that was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would yell, but mostly he would just quietly berate you. After a couple of years of working for him he had convinced me that I was of no worth to any other company and that I was lucky to have the job.

Did your manager also have a feathered hat, wear a long, purple fur coat, and carry a cane?

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[cain]

So you implicitly threatened him with violence? Are we supposed to think this is a good strategy for dealing with cow-orkers?

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[msuzio]

What a complete douche-bag. I hope one of these people he instilled with fatherly "love" develops an Oedipus complex and fucks his boss' wife, then beats the shit out of him. No one deserves a mind-fuck like that.

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[ricree]

He didn't threaten anyone. He just implied (to someone who apparently did like to implicitly threaten people) that any threats of violence were unlikely to be successful.

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[chris_mahan]

Last (and only) time management said I should be coding differently I said: "You do the project."

They realized they couldn't so they leave me alone.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah this is crazy, 2 of 5 bosses lie, while 5 of 5 human beings lie.

66% of the time, it works everytime.

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[networkBoy]

Im curious, has anyone been verbally or physically abused by a manager or supervisor? I know I have had terrible managers in the past, some almost could be considered abusive. Just wondered how wide spread it was.

Yup.
I've had my wrist grabbed and subsequently the manager (parallel to my own, and in same department), pulled a big assed knife out from a rather nicely concealed holster and shaved my forearm, this to prove a point about my not shaving every day. Same person has done the whole gammut of "titty twister" through very heavy verbal abuse. I took it to my manager, nothing happened. Took it to HR nothing happened. Informed HR and Security that I would be packing pepper spray for selfe defense, was threatened with termination. Still work for the same company, but in an entirly different division. Have had months of Psych visits, etc. Also have sworn never to bend to Carnarvon agan (the asshole manager).

BTW, he's an ex cop from apartheid (sp?) RSA and has bragged about beating confessions out of people. Real winner. I'll defend myself vehemently against him laying even a finger on me ever again, not to mention I'll simply call the cops rather than internal security or HR.
-nB

Re:grievance committees

[blindd0t]

I agree with ricree - there's a huge difference in expressing intent to inflict harm and expressing that anyone else's attempt to inflict harm to you simply will not be tolerated (and not likely to be successful as ricree mentioned). So long as no violent gestures and/or comments were made, there's nothing wrong with a subtle display of strength. People show off strength all the time - it doesn't mean they're going to use it to beat the crap out of somebody they don't like.

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[haggie]

The best thing an employee can do in my experience is NOT INTERNALIZE the firm's business, and be aware that almost EVERY ACTION by a boss is done to manipulate you to HIS ENDS. Objectivity goes a great way. FEND FOR YOURSELF and realize that your skills and experience determine your market value - and realize that a bosses' power relies totally on the self-sacrifice of those under him.

This is probably the best career advice I've ever seen. It is not overly negative. It is very wise.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The open market takes care of all the things unions used to protect workers from. Now unions are just someone else looking to take home some of your hard earned pay. But the bright side is, even if you are a worthless, good-for-nothing, drunken bum - if you have 10 years of seniority they will go to bat for you every time, even if you are clearly in the wrong! Way to go unions!

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[SpecTheIntro]

I think the reason that there is so much anti-depressant use these days is because, as our economy slowly swirls the drain

Our economy isn't swirling down the drain. It's growing very healthily. In fact, our economy has continued to grow throughout the Bush administration, despite his completely asinine way of running things. On top of that, unemployment is hitting all-time lows. (Richmond, VA, where I live, is so low that we are on the cusp of entering a labor shortage.) And for those skeptics, it's not just "low-end" jobs that don't pay well--this is across the board, from corporations to gas stations.

I realize a lot of slashdotters are well-educated and many of them have decent jobs. It seems to me that this is a child-like view of "Things are going well for me; if anyone else is having a problem, they are just not working hard enough."

I agree with you in that the viewpoint you mentioned is childish, but things *really* aren't that bad over here. We're still growing, every year. Sometimes we grow less, but we always grow. Since 1970, the U.S. has created 57 million new jobs. In that same time period, Europe has only created 4 million. (See here for details.) And judging from my time abroad in Japan and Iran, I'm convinced that the issues with management are universal: very few people know how to successfully manage others. Just look in the job market: you will be shocked at how well a company with decidedly average management can compete. The guys that are actually good at management? They make millions, every time. It's a bona-fide skill, one that takes plenty of experience and a generous helping of talent, too.

The best advice here has already been given, I think: work hard and have confidence in your own abilities. I worked for the state right out of college and after 9 months I'd had it. I worked my ass off, scored excellent evals across the board, worked overtime and hauled ass to get deadlines met and respond to technical emergencies, and come my review, I got a whopping 3% raise. I told my boss on numerous occasions that I loved my job (and I did) but that the money was absolutely not enough for what they were asking me to do. She sympathized for me but was unwilling, ultimately, to go to bat for me and get me more money. So I started putting my resume out there, and within a few months I had an offer for--literally--double the salary. I took it. The most important thing any worker can understand about him/herself is that you constantly have to stick up for yourself. Make yourself difficult or impossible to replace, and demand the proper compensation for the work you do. If you don't get it, move on. Too many people stick around in shit jobs because they think their chance will come. Poor managers rely on that type of thinking. A good manager will see talent and will reward it, because talented people make money for everyone. If you're consistently exceeding goals and not getting some of it pushed back your way, get into your manager's office and demand compensation! And if you don't get it in a timely manner, get out, get out, get out. You are worth more than that.

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[cain]

ricree needs to look up the definition of "implicit".

Again, are we supposed to think that physically flexing muscles (implicitly threatening violence) is a way to deal with problem coworkers? Maybe if you are a boxing instructor, but in all other jobs it simply is not a good or constructive idea. It is moronic and childish.

Re:grievance committees

[jftitan]

I wish I heard about this survey long before now.

I could rate my previous DM & related Management staff as one of the worst in the City of San Antonio. This situation would probably be similar to many others. Tax company (Jackson Hewitt), merges two districts together in order to save money, and eliminate a need to have two districts. I'll say it like this, Between 'East' and 'West', East was the district that was growing, and showing drastic improvements (The two seasons I was working for East, we won all the company awards.)

  So the higher ups decided to merge both districts and make each Districts' Management staff compete for positions. Well, one kiss ass led to another, and West DM staff took over, and what was left of the East DM staff either quit, or was 'let go' for unknown reasons.

  Thankfully, the company couldn't keep reliable IT staff with the West district, so I was fortunate enough to be hired back on w/o competing for my position. Right from the beginning I realized, that my new DM staff was not going to receptive to my methods of getting the job done 'ahead of schedule, and successfully'. I was given way more work than being paid for. Sure I understood that merging two districts ment I would have to deal with 40+ storefronts instead of 28. (yes, merging the West district only added 18 more stores to my work load.) Wasn't all that bad, until I realized that everyone from the West DM staff liked to turn off their phones, and/or forward all phone calls to the Tech guy, no matter what the issue was.

  I spent way more time dealing with, "Such and such store is locked, and the manager of that store can't get in. STOP EVERYTHING YOUR DOING, AND GOTO THAT STORE TO LET IN THE MANAGER." or "Stop doing what you are doing now, and go deliver these tax books to all these other stores... oh, yes we do have a courier, but he is busy mowing the grass at one of the stores." Because of all the delays in what I had to do, I also was blamed for everything technical... "Why are the computers not ready at this store?" and "The tax software is not working properly, you are at fault for not doing your job".

  Until I finally gave up, I being harrased so much by store managers, DM staff, and lack of support for my NEEDS to get the job done, I finally snapped on my final "chewing out". The District Marketing Manager decided to throw his weight (literally and metaphorically) and jump onto the "Chew out the IT guy because we can blame him for all the short comings for this season... because he is the only one left from the East... not part of the inside group... blah blah blah"

  After the Marketing manager jumped onto my case about something as trivial as "DM manager hired a fresh manager to manage a store and that manager didn't know what her username was (HR issue not mine?)." I finally quit, after realizing I just quit my job I then decided to goto HR and see what they could do to help my situation.

  The HR 'lady' was a glorified Secretary. Seriously, she used to be the secretary of the previous Regional Manager, but because the Regional Manager was so bad at doing her job, they moved her on. When the district was merged together the company brought in a HR 'lady' from Jackson Hewitt (higher up position), well less than three months into the job, the HR 'lady' quit because of all the complications with support from the 'West' DM staff. So I got stuck with the glorified secretary, who in turn didn't do a damn thing when I stated to her what happened for all the time I spent dealing with BS.

  Didn't take me an hour to realize that the glorified secretary wasn't qualified to be in her position, I was told "OK, you may leave, and we will call you back when we want you back." Fine with me, I was trying to do my job by myself, instead they took my 3 week old assistant and hired 5 more techs to do my one man job.

  I just wish I had an attorney to deal with this situation because I was seriously harassed, over-worked, and forced out of a job due to inter-management politics. Anyone have suggestions... this was part of my 06 season with the company.

Re:grievance committees

[955301]

I had a software development manager at GTE Government Systems in Colorado Springs who left 3 inch deep knuckle trails between his office and the meeting room. He was a returning employee who left the project before I came on board. The group was a terrific group of developers who fostered good relationships with one another - respectful, supportive, mature.

When this guy returned our project manager gave him seniority over the team. Big Mistake. Within the next few months he did everything from assign everyone as leads over eachother in a matrix format that made NO SENSE (How can you lead one subproject while being assigned to another as a subordinate to one of your subordinates?) to calling me a liar when I mentioned looking into an ldap solution in a hallway conversation. He just couldn't believe that I spend my time at home playing with software.

My point - we had a woman on the team who was out during this downward spiral with a terminal illness & a high probability of dying. She returned and during the first meeting since she came back, she voiced her concern for the progress on the project, assuming our amicability to constructive criticism & peer relationships still existed. The Dev Manager interrupted her, yelled "GOD DAMMIT, THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT" and beat his fist into the table.

I left within two weeks. The rest of the team, including the woman were gone in 4 months.

I hope that guy sets himself an arbitrary deadline to drive to Utah in a snow storm and dies by driving off an iced over road.

Yeah, I'm still angry over the way he treated her. Any of us for that matter. It was a good team.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a cell phone with a camera? Video record it. Or at least audio. Then take it to a lawyer on the back of a phonebook. You'll be able to afford a lower paying job after the settlement.

Re:grievance committees

[hrrY]

I could not agree more, thanks for your insight.

h

Re:grievance committees

[Intron]

Unions seem to work pretty well for doctors and lawyers. They prevent untrained people from practicing, require exams, and prevent abuses. They just don't call them unions.

OTOH anyone can use the title Software Engineer, no training level is required, no exams, and no method of removing incompetents (other than promotion to management, of course).

Re:grievance committees

[lawpoop]

I totally agree with you about what you said about job skills, valuing yourself, and putting your own interests first.

However, while the economy as a whole is improving, only a small percentage are seeing a benefit. The middle class is shrinking and the jobs that are being created are low-paying jobs without benefits, and they are replacing high-paying union jobs with benefits. Bankruptcies are at an all-time high. It's not just people buying flat-screen TVs and 16" rims, but families paying for cars to get to work, housing, and their children's school.

When the middle class shrinks, most people go into poverty, while a few become wealthy. I fear the US might look like most South American countries in 50 years, with a dozen or so families owning most of the country while most everyone else lives in near poverty.

I know there are problems with unions, and as a young person, a lot of my friends who have had union jobs have complained that it allows slackers to slack. But, I view them as a necessary evil, like government, as a check and balance against corporate power. Business people had slaves and serfs 150 years ago; there's nothing special about today that would stop them from instituting slavery again if it were possible. Perhaps one solution to have competition between unions in a workplace.

Re:grievance committees

[smilindog2000]

Yep, this is normal. Most companies have no coding standards, and it's a free-for-all. The companies that do have coding standards often just ham-string their programmers with a bunch of useless code comments (like an "AUTHOR" field above EVERY function). In C, it gets VERY ugly, since the language itself doesn't seem to offer guidelines. It's better in Java and other languages that sort of hand-hold programmers a bit.

I find that coding in straight C, coding standards in our group are very helpful. For example, right now, one of our guys is converting the entire 600K line code base from DataDraw2.0 to DataDraw3.0 (used to manage all the data). DataDraw2.0 generated a 15K line sed script that helps automate the upgrade, but it only works because every line of code in the system is consistent. Our guys spend pretty close to 0 time trying to figure out what tricks the other guys used, and instead just read and write algorithms. Anyone can edit anyone else's work with far less pain than at most companies, and we have far less pain handing a project from one developer to another.

One thing I look for when hiring is willingness to work in a team environment, even when it means compromising on just about every aspect of code development. The best programmer I ever met (Ken McElvain, CTO/founder of Synplicity), is a perfect example of a guy who is probably better off working alone. The team just slows him down, and the team has a heck of a time trying to keep up with his work. If you're such a guy, more power to you, and while I would gladly hire a super-programmer like Ken, they're darned rare, and typically, already rich. They hire guys like me, rather than the other way around.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts:
See if you can determine who owns the company. If your boss is just a hired gun told to keep the employees in line, then that may be part of the reason why the boss acts that way. The real owner of the company does not trust "employees" as a group, and has hired a sob to "manage" them.
Another reason bosses act that way, is that they have something to hide, perhaps stealing from the company, and don't want any employee figuring that out. By acting like a real sob, the turnover is high, and the chance of an employee putting two and two together and finding out that the boss is a thief, are reduced.
Some bosses would want a new crew every Monday morning, all without a clue.
I know of a case where a bosses father "lost the family fortune", so the boss had to go to work for a living, and will take it out on everyone he can. Steal, too. Try and blame shortages and missing money on the staff.
Don't think this does not happen, it does.
Sorry bosses reflect on the group as a whole, so decent bosses get tainted from those who are not.
Some bad bosses are so desperate for some "turnover" that they will do all kinds of crazy and irresponsible things to employees, hoping to piss them off, and run them off.
They really don't give a damn about the "customers" or the "product", even though they talk out of both sides of their mouth, and say they do.
Why would a boss mistreat decent, productive employees, ones that give 110% all day long, and don't spend the day on "personal business", cellphones, and avoiding real work when it presents itself.
Simple, the boss has something to hide, perhaps a lot to hide.

Eventually, the situation degenerates into one where the boss "knows" what the "employees" are saying about him, and threats are in order to keep everyone in line. Bribes, too, for "tattletails". Real perks, such as free automobiles, all expenses paid. This boss is serious about his little empire.
Sound like a "mob boss" here? The underworld? Sure it does, quite a match here on many counts.
One interesting twist is for the "boss" to hire other employees that are, in a word, "unable to do the work", so as to put all of the real work off on those he is trying to "run off". The Company is paying salaries, but only one or two actually do the work on a day by day basis.
As a payment for providing "work" for an otherwise unqualified worker, the boss expects that person to inform on the bosses enemies.
See how far downhill all this can go for an otherwise decent Company? All because of a bad boss.
The Company gets a reputation for having a lot of quarreling thugs that sit on their behinds all day.
Are there telephones? Do the customers report that they "hear things going on"?
Do members of the general public, when visiting the place of business "see all kinds of things going on"?
None of this is news to those who have worked in such an environment.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a boss that was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would yell, but mostly he would just quietly berate you. After a couple of years of working for him he had convinced me that I was of no worth to any other company and that I was lucky to have the job.

Funny, I had a husband like that....

Re:grievance committees

[Aceticon]

A couple of points:
- I'm a (very senior) freelance software engineer (meaning i code too but i do a lot more) and i'm constantly being brought in to sort out applications (or even development processes) which came to be because the software (or the way the team works) was originaly created by a bunch of junior developers. A word of advice - the reduced maintenability (read: extra costs covered by the warranty and thus your costs, not the client's) and extendability (read: ability to add features to the existing stuff when the client comes with more work) of software designed/developed by junior teams (which are basically learning on the job) means that in the medium to long term, due to the highly increased overhead in supporting/changing that software you're loosing money by comparisson with the mixed seniority teams. [Not that i mind: i get payed big bucks because of my superior ability to maintain brittle/crappy software and even clear up some of the mess in the process]
- For bright junior software developers out there wanting to learn a lot fast, i suggest you work for a consultancy. If indeed you are bright you will soon get to be known as somebody that makes the impossible happen. Managers will be fighting to get your time and all sorts of complicated problems will get thrown your way. [Been there, done it. Nowhere else did i ever learned so much in so little time]

Re:grievance committees

[Cornflake917]

In the US, do whatever BS management tells you or get fired. The rest of the department has been outsourced, so you have to do the jobs of 3 people. With unions on the wane, it is just a lowly individual against a vast corporation. The working class had their jobs outsourced to the 3rd world, and now it is happening to white collar jobs. All the while the media tells us that we can mitigate our unhappiness with new cars, alcohol, and bling. Terrorists attack us on our own soil, we are entering an endless war against a nebulous enemy called "Terror" and Bush says the best thing we can do is go shopping.

Whoa there, back up for a second. While I agree with most of everything that's said here. This paragraph just reaks of FUD and needless Bush bashing. I know that the bashing of Bush is needed quite frequently, Bush isn't to blame for corporate bullying. Capitalism has existed in the U.S. long before W took over, and corpations have always had too much power (probably even more back in the early 1900's). Yeah okay, jobs are being outsorced. What the f*ck does this have to do with terrorism?

Here's the thought process I'm getting from this paragraph

Management is forcing us to do stuff -> Jobs are being outsourced -> TERRORISM IS GOING TO KILL US ALL!! -> Everything is Bush's fault.

I think that deserves a WTF.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

You might have had a point were it not for your use of "cow-orker."

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, demonstrating superior strength is a good way to deal with folks who are threatening violence upon you. Our entire civilization has been built on the demonstration of strength as a means to discourage others from using violence.

Re:grievance committees

[aeoo]

What a great post! I just wanted to say, thank you.

Re:grievance committees

[gatesvp]

If you bust your buns making the whole project succeed, it's quite likely your boss will get a bonus or stock options, and you'll get nothing.

This concept of giving the bonus to the boss is a partial buy-in to the fallacy of management. It buys in to the concept of the boss as the "essential" cog on the team. Pay off that one big cog and the rest of the team will continue to work. Stakeholders bought in to the image, so now we have 25-year old "genius managers" making more than the underlings with 25 years of experience who actually make things tick.

Of course, this is where the "fend for yourself" concept comes in. I'm a believer in the "Die Broke" philosophy (though the book is poorly written). Point #1 is to "Quit Today", which roughly translates into "fend for yourself". If you work for a firm where bonuses are given to individuals rather than teams, talk to your bosses and be ready to leave.

I mean really, why work hard to put money in someone else's pockets? I'll give bosses some time to prove their worth, but their time is limited. When my x-mas bonus or referral bonus is 1% on "our best year ever" (with unemployment hovering at 4.5% and everyone looking for new staff), then time is up and I'll start looking for a new job.

Mind you, I think your method of playing both sides is easily overlooked. Everyone wants to a "better job", the key is understanding that you can make your current job better or find an new better job. I have heard people spread the belief that only one of these two can be successful. But I actually see two sides of the coin that are not contradictory. I can keep an up to date resume, keep an ear to job market and send out resumes all while helping my boss to improve my current work situation.

In fact, in my recent interviews, companies have been very accepting of my "desire to leave". It's well-known that the strongest employees are rarely without a job, so no one questsions my behaviour. If anyone really prods, I just tell them that "I'm working for a B-grade company and I really want to be working for an A-grade company". Funny thing is, the companies I felt were B-grade haven't called me back, but the company I felt was A-grade has called me back. It's like they can self-select :)

Re:grievance committees

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Since 1970, the U.S. has created 57 million new jobs. In that same time period, Europe has only created 4 million

Taking Germany as an example, the population hasn't grown all that much. think that has anything to do with it?

Re:grievance committees

[complete loony]

I had a boss who berated and insulted several co-workers right in front of the client. We were developing some custom software for them, took about 4 years of effort and between 1 and 6 staff full time. Once the project was over, he left. I don't really know if he was pushed.
Problem is, his behaviour was quite effective. When he was sitting in his cubicle everyone was busy. Nobody slacked off. Of course when he went for his weekly meeting with the client it was a completely different environment.

Re:grievance committees

[BluedemonX]

I was worried for about 0.0000001sec about this. "Gosh, what if they figure out where I worked based on this?" As if this didn't apply to THOUSANDS of companies.

Re:grievance committees

[EthanS]

Great post, in fact it might be one of the best I've seen in a long time. Thank you for the powerful insights.

Re:grievance committees

[lgw]

I worked for a manager whose style would best be described as "scream, berate, humiliate, threaten". I generally threw up every morning before heading in to work because of the stress.

If the problem is the manager, but not the company, there is an answer to bosses like this. Get him to lose it in front of, or preferably at, his boss! I've seen this work on multiple occasions. I've seen a director get the axe when he sent an abusive email to his entire org. I've seen first-line managers get the axe when provoked to screaming fits as the VP "just happened" to be around the corner. It can be done.

If the company actually tolerates or encourages this sort of abuse, get the Hell out! Save yourself and be an example to others. IMO, this is the primary reason to keep 6 months living expenses in the bank--never be caught in a position where there's no way out.

Re:grievance committees

[nate nice]

Just because it (sort of) works doesn't mean it's any good.

I know from experiance. I work in a system that I can't believe functions sometimes. But then we've throws countless thousands at hardward and maintenace rather than doing it right the first time.

In short our system is garbage and the programmers who are good (not many) know this and we crack jokes about it all the time. But it works I guess. Somehow it manages to work....sometimes anyways.

It's because of programmers with your attitude that developers like myself exist. We take little to no pride in our system because we have to deal with dicks who think that because it works without respect to anyone elses ideas that it's good. We don't care about fixing a broken system when we recommended things be done differently all along.

Re:grievance committees

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

A boss is far more likely to act in his/her own best interests than in your best interests. It brings to mind the adage "He who makes himself indispensable makes himself unpromotable" [and the other version "She who makes herself, etc...]. I once had a half-yearly review where my boss marked me down because it wouldn't do for me to have higher grades than he did as he would look bad. At least he had the courtesy to tell me what he was doing and why and, to be fair, I didn't give much of a shit about the part-time-see-me-through-college job anyway.

Re:grievance committees

[lawpoop]

No, the connection it what Bush asked us to do in response to the 9/11 attacks: Go shopping.

I think Bush deserves a bashing for that.

Re:grievance committees

[Breakfast Pants]

Why don't they use scooters to get to work?

Re:grievance committees

[Lord Kano]

The threat of violence makes for polite people.

Have you ever watched a documentary about prison life? In a place were you can die for being uncivil, people are surprisingly civil. The rules of etiquette are radically different there, but the point is that the threat of violence makes people obey them.

Bullies pick on the targets that they percieve to be the weakest, and if you let it be known that you are not weak, jerks will leave you alone.

LK

Re:grievance committees

[kcarlin]

If a bully is that easily "threatened," then he needs to reconsider his future as a bully.

In the range of hominid threat/response vectors, this is phenomenally mild, indirect response with a reasonable chance of resolving the threat without further escalation. In fact, the response is only discernible as such in the context of the bullying. No bullying, no implicit threat in the response. If the bullying persists, the bully can be fired or otherwise neutralized.

Attempts at a "therapeutic" approach can be much more problematic, interpreted as weakness or provocation, unnecessarily neutralize the bullying behavior, wasteful of company resources, and can extend the conflict and destroy team morale. Escalated territorialism and intimidation is a common result. The approach taken in the case should be determined by a serious assessment of all reasonable options, the individual in question, and the team dynamic.

The hard part for a manager comes when someone from a very aggressive environment (say, professional football) tries to transition to an office existence. The guy had a heart the size of Texas, knew his stuff technically, did good work and had leadership skills, but that aggressive personality just didn't play the same in an office context. I've worked on teams where he would click right in and I've worked on teams that would come apart very quickly with him in the mix.

Re:grievance committees

[Joebert]

But how did the seasoned professional come to know "it's a bad boss" ?
Surely they've been in this situation before & have pushed through in the past.
The new person on the other hand, gave up, maybe they did waste their parents' money & will enjoy working at Starbucks.

Re:grievance committees

[AK Marc]

Again, are we supposed to think that physically flexing muscles (implicitly threatening violence) is a way to deal with problem coworkers?

Yes. If someone threatens you, one way of dealing with the threats is to prove that such threats are necessarily idle threats. That is a valid way of dealing with it. Why do you think it morally wrong to threaten someone with self defense if they attack you?

Re:grievance committees

[Danga]

You might have had a point were it not for your use of "cow-orker."

He meant "cow-porker"!

Re:grievance committees

[jafac]

I'd be shocked as hell if any one of my previous bosses, even those 3 to 5 levels above me, even those at the tippy top of the ladder, put anywhere near that amount of thought into hiring, or managing. . . or pretty much anything at all other than the upholstery color in their new Mercedes.

Re:grievance committees

[Shadow99_1]

I had a manager (though not my direct supervisor) at a former place of employment that was harrassing me verbally (though not in a racial or gender sense which is all the company cared about), it went on for months and the other managers ignored it... One night it was constant harrassement until I got feed up and refused to answer his calls to my extension, so he came to visit me in person and then refused to leave me alone... So I got feed up, and while I managed to control my tongue, my hand betrayed me & I gave him the finger... This had to go up to corporate and since the other managers were on his side I had to reduce my typed (2 page) recounting of events down to 1 paragraph describing my side of the story while another manager watched, even more I was given 15 minutes to write my response and the manager watching had to sign off on it... He wouldn't if I reffered to anythign beyond the events of that night, so I had to leave off on months worth of harrassement as well as cuttign the story down to a single paragraph... Needless to say my whole paragraph was worthless to corporate and they let me go as 'being disrespectful to a manager'.

I also got screwed out of getting paid for the 2 weeks I had to wait while they decided my fate, which they swore they would pay for... & didn't... While I could have sued them over the money at least, I decided to write it off as not worth my time... The same went for gettign the other managers in trouble for making me condense my version of events and the time table I was given to do it in... The state btw agreed that they fired me for 'unsupported reasons' and I got unemployment because of it...

Needless to say I don't really care for them much and prefer to avoid them at almost all costs...

Re:grievance committees

[networkBoy]

Very true, had this not been about 3 years ago, before cameras (esp video) in cell phones were common.
Really I should have simply called the cops, shown them the bare patch on my arm, pointed at the asshat, and pressed charges. Then sued my company.
-nB

Re:grievance committees

[BewireNomali]

I think that's the point. The notion that it'd shock you that they'd go to those depths to manipulate you is EXACTLY why it makes sense to them to do so.

Re:grievance committees

[Phoobarnvaz]

I worked for a manager whose style would best be described as "scream, berate, humiliate, threaten". I generally threw up every morning before heading in to work because of the stress. This was during the early 90's recesssion, so finding another comparable paying job (only slightly above minimum wage) wasn't an option.

Been there...done that in several jobs I've had. Seems the lower the pay...the more of a power trip are the idiots who have no business being managers.

Almost a year ago...was working at a small computer repair shop. My immediate supervisor kept berating me...telling me to shut up during meetings or just blow me off during these meetings. Contacting the owner was my next step...NOT a good step. Out here in BFE...the "good boys network" is what kept this "manager" at his job & me walking out...right before an off-site "good paying" company contract visit. Found another job in a call center a week later.

The moral of this story...from what I can see by driving by their store everyday on my way to my current job...they have not been able to expand the way they planned. Plus...I was not the first employee to sever themselves from that employ in this way & my best friend had to deal with this manager at another job he got fired from for the same type of behavior.

About 20 years ago in a well known pizza restaurant in Southern Oklahoma where I was working...got angry one night & screeched my wheels out of the parking lot in front of that manager & his supervisor. The next morning...this manager threw me up against the wall & threatened me that because I made him look bad. He told me I better watch my back...all while a couple of other employees looked on. Working in a small town of less than 20 K people...even low paying jobs were very difficult to find.

The moral of this latter story...the manager & his supervisor were discovered to have practiced "conversion".

It's been my experience that decent managers/management are few & far between. I find a decent paying job with a good manager...it will end soon & I'll be stuck back in the living hell of low pay & idiots once again. Unlike the "good" job...these jobs seem like they stay with you forever & make death a welcome relief.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

I make a poor manager [snip abusive bullshit]

You certainly sound like a poor manager. In fact, you sound like a complete asshole. I'm glad to hear that you're doing worse in NC than you were in Silicon Valley. May you go bankrupt and commit suicide soon.

Re:grievance committees

[GoofyBoy]

>But how did the seasoned professional come to know "it's a bad boss" ?

Because you've worked in summer positions and know what is good work and what isn't.

Because you can compare your work/effort to others within the company and to companies your friends work at.

There is also a point where you have to ask yourself; "Is this the type of person whom I want to listen to/take the advice of?"

Re:grievance committees

[syousef]

....or if you were in that situation you could make some attempt to work for someone that's reasonably fair and honest. Expecting the boss to commit some noble act of self sacrifice to save you is unrealistic, but finding a fair boss isn't.

Honestly working with, or for, or associating with these kind of manipulative jerks just reflects badly on you both personally and professionally. If you're willing to work your butt off for approval or anything less than financial compensation there will always be some twit ready to take advantage of you. Leave them behind, develop the skills to recognise a boss that isn't a total dick, and apply for a job there.

I learnt a long time ago that I do a good job but I do a good job because I'm paid not out of some false sense of loyalty. Want to see what corporate loyalty is or how much anyone cares? Get seriously ill and see how long before you're out on your backside.

Anyway, it doesn't sound like you personally have that problem at work...though you might want to rethink who you spend your spare time with.

Re:grievance committees

[chris_mahan]

>It's because of programmers with your attitude that developers like myself exist. We take little to no pride in our system because we have to deal with dicks who think that because it works without respect to anyone elses ideas that it's good.

I'll have you know, mister, that my systems are designed the right way, implemented the right way, and don't break. When I mean they don't break, they are easily extensible and do not go down during use.

Re:grievance committees

[Architect_sasyr]

You come out of school cocky, but still aware that you don't know a lot at all, but then they have a boss who basically makes them feel like they don't know anything about their chosen profession and kills their confidence

Happened to me, until I remembered that I chose security as my profession and started idly dropping threats where people could hear. It was risky, but I was ready to leave anyway... words that made it to the boss, who has sinced realised that most people who work in IT are crazy and that he can't treat people like that. The department has been better since I started posting BOFH stories on the internal website...

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people get tortured, killed, raped and misuse in prisons all over the world. The prison is run by people and the people inside do now people on the outside.

Few things change things as much as a few former soldier of fortune types that shows the workers some pictures of the workers kids playing in the park.

Life is prison is often very rough even when you do not see any problems. They might not do anything to you, but they might rape your familiy on the outside.

Prisons is a fact of life. It can not easely be avoided, but it is not a dream place.

Re:grievance committees

[Y0tsuya]

Americans todays are not like their depression-era great-grandparents who worked hard, lived frugally, and saved. The sheer number of non-savers or homeowners who HELOC their houses to finance spending speaks volumes about the type of people we have become. You can't blame W for that.

Re:grievance committees

[BluedemonX]

CoC = Captains of Crush, fuckmunch. Look it up.

Re:grievance committees

[lawpoop]

I'm not convinced that people alive today are especially spendthrifty. To say that people today are broke and going into debt because they are buying large screen TVs is too convenient an excuse for corporations who have been busting unions and outsourcing jobs for the past 25 years. The number one employer in the US used to be GM, which provided high wages, health care, and retirement. Now, it's Walmart, which pays at or near minimum wage, and provides no benefits. All of the statistics I have heard show that the average worker in the US is getting a smaller share of the pie than they were 25 years ago.

I'm in my late 20s. Both of my parents are health care workers and they have a decent retirement. However, a lot of my friend's parents lost most, if not all, of their money in the tech crash of the late 90s. Now, those friends of mine are paying student loans, making entry-level wages, with no health insurance or retirement benefits, and now they are worried about having to support their parents also.

The only way are grandparents were able to make it out of the Depression were because of social programs like social security, the WPA, medicare, and medicaid. 50 years before the Depression we had slavery. After that, we had sharecroppers and mine workers who went in to debt working for their employers. We had child laborers working 80 hour weeks. People formed unions and were beaten up and killed. My grandpa tells me stories of the Ohio National Guard firing on striking workers camped outside the factories in Toledo, Ohio. School kids had fired slingshots at the factory buildings on their way home from school, breaking windows, and the Guard thought that the strikers were firing. So they returned fire and killed some of the strikers.

My grandpa is one of the most bigoted, conservative people you will ever meet. But he is strongly pro-union - Hh practically spits when he says the word 'scab' when telling a story - because he is well aware that companies are out to F* us in the A*. They would have slaves and serfs if they were able.

Re:grievance committees

[Y0tsuya]

Anecdotally, we have the PS3 shopper who fretted about missing their rent payment to get a PS3. Statistically, we have the national negative savings rate. That's enough to convince me.

Your parents' friends who lost their savings in the tech crash exhibited a get-rich-quick, can't-lose, money for nothing mentality common during bubble manias. There's no reason to feel sorry for them, because I think they've learned their lesson. Five years later, we have the housing bubble with a new set of fools waiting to lose their shirts. This is really a different topic (bubbles), but there exists a link between rising stock & housing (asset) prices and negative saving. It makes it possible. There are anecdotal evidence of that (in the papers) during the stock bubble. And there are more anecdotal evidence of that during this housing bubble that are only beginning to show up on the news. I think there a quote attributed to Warren Buffet: "You don't know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out".

And if you haven't noticed, another reason American's can't keep up is because CPI inflation figure released by the government doesn't tell the whole story. Creative accounting notwithstanding, the past 5 years CPI ran at around 3% annually, while many worker had their income frozen. Inflation-adjusted, we actually make less money now. Also, although prices for manufactured goods held steady, cost of services (read: healthcare) shot way up. It's another example of CPI being useless. There are some speculation on where the excess liquidity from the stock & housing bubble are going next. If it gets absorbed into the monetary base, look for price of everything to shoot up.

Re:grievance committees

[lawpoop]

"Anecdotally, we have the PS3 shopper who fretted about missing their rent payment to get a PS3. Statistically, we have the national negative savings rate. That's enough to convince me."

The plural of 'anecdote' is not data. Yes, there are people that can handle money and always screw it up.

The fact that we have a negative savings rate tells me that people aren't getting paid enough to handle their daily living expenses. Everyone I know is responsible -- going to school, going to work, raising kids -- yet broke or getting deeper into debt. So, all the people I know, versus an nth-hand story about a guy who bought a PS3 and couldn't pay rent.

Re:grievance committees

[ahuard]

Holy cow indeed! I like to think that most employers are good people who value those who work under them, but if this is the norm an employee would get better use from a hole in the head.

First off, using intimidating tactics such as snickering over someone's shoulder at their sloppy code seems degrading to me. I had a boss who would stomp his foot in back of me while I'm coding, and when I would turn around to see what he wanted he might rudely say, "get back to work!" IMHO employers should ALWAYS be upfront with employees within a structured, emotionally neutral environment. For an employer to manipulate emotion in the workplace to me seems like total malicious bullshit. Why not just have a code review within a structured environment - having the employee explain why he did things the way he did? Is there really any reason to use intimidating tactics at all? How do you think large corporations do things?

Second, you promise training in the interview to justify a lower than average wage, but then you say that you don't want to directly teach them how to do code to your specifications in the first place. If you are hiring at a less than average wage, it seems to me you're probably hiring those fresh out of college who would appreciate the promise of extra training you give in the interview. Is this not the same group of people who could benefit the most from direct input and guidance from someone more experienced?

One of my first tech jobs was for a web design firm who hired me on at minimum wage (I was 17), which I accepted because of the hands on training in graphics and PHP I was promised. I stayed with that job for two years and worked tirelessly because I was thankful not only for the training, but also the professional friendships that come about from being a respected member of a team. However, there were times my boss made me feel less than respected, which hampered things more than they helped. Our team leader was much more supportive and never rude in any way. I enjoyed working because I believed in the team.

My view is that employers should treat their employees as they want their employees to treat them. Mutual respect (which does not include standing over someone's shoulder - jeez) can be conducive to the "team atmosphere" and may even make you a part of the team (the guy who gets us work) as opposed to just being "the boss". I would gladly work 110% for a team leader who I know has my interests at heart than for some slave driving boss who only knows me as just another expendable employee.

Re:grievance committees

[SRA8]

I've had a manager make fun of my accent (in very bad ways) several times. It was the first and only manager to do this in my life. This was at a Fortune 10 company with a stellar reputation for "culture."

Re:grievance committees

[Y0tsuya]

The plural of 'anecdote' is not data

Which is why I listed statistics as the other reason. Those are quite easy to find, right? I believe this is all related to people not living within their means. Now if everyone cannot pay their bills, then perhaps they could buy less. Stay with me here. If supply-and-demand theory is correct, then less demand SHOULD lower the prices of good and services to where people can afford them again. The fact that it doesn't points to two possibilities: 1) Everybody willingly spend more than they make 2) Price fixing.

I don't know if this is true, but here is a quote from http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/12/22/opinion_buying_a _ps3/

While standing in line for the PS3, I overheard a discussion from a couple in front of, which was not really about the PS3, but more about some possibilities how they could tell their landlord that they couldn't afford their next rent payment because of the purchase of the PS3. I don't have to be Suze Orman to tell you that its plain stupid to buy a PS3 if that means you can't buy food or rent anymore.

About a year ago I watched a documentary about some welfare mother who wanted her kids to have a real Christmas. She also has a minimum-wage job at the local big-box store. I think many single mothers have this guilt-trip about not having a father around. So she went out to buy a big-screen TV to go with their xbox, which I think they have already. My question is of course, if she has the money to buy a big-screen TV, which is arguably a luxury, then perhaps she shouldn't be on the taxpayer's dough. Now on the other hand she could really be poor and must receive government assistance, in which case one wonders why she's blowing a wad of cash on the TV instead of socking it away for a rainy day.

I'm pretty sure these are NOT rare occurances. Many people are not responsible with their money. They stay poor. There's an old saying: "A fool and his money are soon parted." It remains true today as it always has been.

Re:grievance committees

[faolan_devyn_aodfin]

Heh, I hear ya. I'm only 22 and I've had some pretty crap managers myself. Down here where I live many of the managers, especially the younger ones don't know how to keep confidential information private or even worse will down right lie about your job performance to other companies when you reference them after quitting / being fired. It sucks, the last two managers I had practically ruined any chance I have of making anything in this town all because all I wanted to do was go to work do my freaking job.

Alas, just doing your job isn't enough to keep it anymore especially if your boss is power tripping over the fact he's store manager. I'm talking about the guy that nothing is ever done right unless you want to be his friend. The guy who is a total asshole to you, your coworkers, and even the customers and has no business what-so-ever being a fucking manager. And for some reason no matter what job I get, if it's minimum wage then its Bubba Boss and his redneck friends.

Truthfully, I bet these people are really lonely inside and that the only time they ever feel complete is when they are at work harassing their employees. I've noticed one thing that these types all have in common and that these are the same types of people who in high school that would have shoved people like us in lockers and pounded our faces in because we sat at the table with all the "cool" popular kids. It's the same concept. They have their clique and if you don't want to join them then you get the shit no matter how hard you work--but because the boss' new butt buddy and you can slack off as much as you want.

This kind of behavior in a "professional" environment is disgraceful to say the least--especially in large corporations. I'm even surprised people continue to shop at some of these places knowing that many people know full well that people that work at the Dollar Tree and such are treated like pure crap. Minimum wage, twenty hours a week if your are lucky and suck up to your boss. OH! and if you're real good they'll give you a 25 raise at the end of your 90 day probational period where they can fire you for no reason at all (except where I live in FL they can fire me anytime after that for no reason what-so-ever and they also don't have to tell me why or even give me a warning or severance pay). On top of all that you are treated like a criminal on the job having to give over urine samples and fingerprints, full background check (oh and don't think that they follow the "if you've committed a felony they can't hold it against you law" because they do hold it against you), and credit checks. So besides the company itself treating you like crap you have to go to work every day (well, everyday is if you are lucky to have a full time job) and have to put up with some dumb-ass who never evolved emotionally since middle school and feels he needs to bully his coworkers.

I remember when I worked at the Dollar Tree, and it was perhaps emotionally for me the worst time of my life. My grandfather had lung cancer and was bedridden for the last three months of his life and my boss was riding me ass over the most trivial things. He obviously did not know how to stock shelves and would tell us to basically waste space but then demand it all had to be out on the floor. Things got so bad for me at work just having to put up with him yelling and screaming at my coworkers and I that I become so emotionally disturbed that I actually couldn't function at my job. Then, just days after my grandfather's birthday (6 Jan) he died and things got progressively worse. About a month later my boss tried to start some shit back and I told him exactly what I though about him and his butt buddy manager friends (I never cursed) in front of the whole store... oh, and get this he cursed me out and he accidentally left the PA on in the store so EVERYONE including the stockers and district manager in the back heard it.

So what did I get? Fired. They gave the store manager a raise. I got no severance pay and was completely emotionally drained. If i

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

OH! and if you're real good they'll give you a 25 raise at the end of your 90 day probational period where they can fire you for no reason at all (except where I live in FL they can fire me anytime after that for no reason what-so-ever and they also don't have to tell me why or even give me a warning or severance pay).

Florida isn't the only place either. Arizona is the #1 place in the country for this...especially with the "Right to Work" laws they have on the books here. Nevada isn't too much better...especially if you work at the casino's as one of the peons. These type of laws are written to control the unions...but have the opposite effect of screwing every worker who's not in the "management club".

There was a time I quit a job & the manager gave me a good reference & a .50 raise for another year of servitude - from $7.00 to $7.50 an hour. Being that I was on the way out the door...didn't thank them for my bloody sphincter I got from dealing with the idiots who called into the call center. Could make at least a dollar more than that by walking across the street to another casino & working in the kitchen. Wouldn't even have to answer a phone.

Funny thing...almost every other co-worker walked out the door within 2 weeks of me. They saw how much work I actually did & didn't want a thing to do with having to deal with the BS they were getting after I left. The only good thing about this situation...when I gave my notice...I had a peace come over my mind & soul that I will never be able to explain. Did feel sorry for the manager...since they got it shoveled on them from their boss...since my manager was going on sabbatical & needed to make sure everything was taken care of before they left. My leaving took care of this.

KARMA IS A LIKE YOUR EX-WIFE...ONLY YOU LIKE HER EVEN AFTER THE DIVORCE!!!;)

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. In my last job, my supervisor was acting like a petty, vengeful bitch. I went to the head of HR, who investigated, and told me that while I was entirely right about how I was being treated, my actions should reflect the fact that supervisor would remain my supervisor, and that HR couldn't really do much about it. I said that was fine, that I would not be back to work the next day.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

They prevent abuses? If I recall, something like 95% of all malpractice happens from the same 2% of doctors, yet due to their "unions", there's not much that can be done to those doctors...

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... yes. Only it wasn't me that was abused.

I have an assistant, technically I'm his supervisor. In reality, I treat him like an equal. He's a great tech, and a great person. I really can't imagine someone better to work with.

Well... after dealing with 2 to 4 hours of sleep per night for a few months and a wife that was "dealing with issues from her childhood" (read: Acting like a selfish, childish bitch), I was in a pretty bad state emotionally. One day I came in to work, and the guy had left a box in my chair. I went over and told him in an ever-so-sweet tone of voice (top of my lungs) that he had better not ever do that again. He said something (I don't even remember what), and I lost it. I turned around and grabbed a storage cabinet full of various fasteners and threw it at his head.

Luckily, he dodged the cabinet, so all that happened was the cabinet exploded on the wall behind him. The president of the company saw it happen, and was so scared that he just went back to his office and closed the door.

All of that over a lousy box in my chair. Over nothing. It made me realize just how bad of a state I was in, and that I had to make some real changes.

Re:grievance committees

[Marcos Eliziario]

Basically, whetever HR says about having an open door, complaining about a boss, in most cases, is a sure way to get trouble sooner or later. Even in the worst cases, when a boss is later found guilty of criminal behaviour (like harassment), HR tends to mark complainers as trouble makers, detrimental to their schemas of universal "peace" and conformity.
Really, the only two pragmatical options when you have a stupid OR abusive boss is:
1) Get another job.
2) Be patient and wait for him to get another job.
Companies love to say they want people who will stand up and be proactive telling what is wrong. But that's bullshit. The messenger is, invariably, marked as a scape goat to be used when things get hot.
If you can't stand it, stop working for others, and start your own business, and for christ sake, when your company grows, try always to keep in mind why you started it.

Re:grievance committees

[Marcos Eliziario]

At least theoretically, unions are an important element in a free market economy. It's when they divert from their core goal and become kind of a marxist party that they fail to do their job.
There's a fundamental assimetry of power and information between large companies and their employees, and unions can help to equalize this, and thus, thus making the market truly competitive.
Contrary to what anarcho-capitalists says, a functional competitive market, sometimes demands some kind of adjustments to stay competitive and to work correctly.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

Man.... you enlightened me. Now I have to post as an AC also.

Re:grievance committees

[tehcyder]

an employee cracked and shouted at someone else. They fired him on the spot.

You Americans are just too soft, he should have been executed on the spot by firing squad and the cleaning bill for the blood-spattered office sent to his widow.

Re:grievance committees

[smilindog2000]

I fully agree with you. I may have sounded a bit harsh with the "sneering" comment. Frankly, I do it with a smile in a joking rather than mean way, and early on I do it in code reviews rather than at their desk. I try to give them a chance to make a few files ready for a first review, and politely explain any deviations from our coding practice early on. Later, I get more picky as the coder learns the ropes.

I've tried teaching more up-front, rather than waiting for them to make mistakes and then pointing them out, but it simply doesn't work. It's not my choice, just human nature. For whatever reason, I see super-bright guys often make the same mistakes early on, and if I try to steer them around the obstacles, I'm simply ignored. I find that super-bright guys have to learn by doing.

For example, writing comments while coding just makes sense. Every programmer I've work closely with eventually adopts this practice, as do most experienced coders. However, it often takes a year or two, since early on they're in too much of a hurry. I also try to get them to write the interfaces and data structures first, before starting in on the algorithm. It just doesn't happen with guys right out of school. So, the lessons are learned better when I look over their shoulder and point out that they've just written 1000 lines of crud because they fubared the data-structures. It sounds mean, but I so far as I can tell, it's just the way people are, and their's not much I can do about it. I've tried rules like not letting programmers write code until their interfaces and data structures pass review, but they hate it. However, one good "I told you so" incident is all it takes to reform a guy forever.

It's true that I care more about the company and the product than the employee, and that comes across. One of my recent programmers noticed that it took me about a year to learn his name, and I don't think he liked that (he has a difficult name, I'm not good with names, and frankly don't care). That's one reason I'm a better tech-lead than boss (I try to stay out of direct management). However, I can honestly say that the career tracks I try to build offer both the employee and the company maximum benefits. I get plenty of satisfaction believing I'm creating good jobs, good products, and helping our customers, employees, and even the investors.

The typical career of a coder I work closely with goes something like this. I hire them out of school because I feel they have plenty of algorithms potential, and lots of drive. Someone else has to make sure they have good team-working skills and a compatible personality, because for some reason, I can never tell.

They initially write some crummy code, not like anything an experienced programmer would be proud of. I try not to pick on their early work, but I make sure they work on code that's well isolated from the core. Within probably six months, though, a really bright programmer can get comfortable with how to write solid code, and focus on algorithms, data structures, and interfaces, rather than how best to write an iterator. By then, I start seeing productivity on par with most highly experienced programmers. That's when I let them write core algorithms and new tools critical to the company. Productivity ramps up continuously for probably about their first three years, at which point, I'm getting far more out of them than if I hired a programmer with 20 years experience. I let them take over responsibility for virtually the entire code base (600K lines at this point).

At some point, they've not only learned what they can from us, they have also impressed some other software managers, and gained skills and confidence that will last the rest of their career. Even though we offer solid raises to programmers who progress rapidly, eventually someone offers them a 50% pay hike. In the end, I know I'll lose them, but I do try to keep them an extra year or two, and I argue with management to get star programmers a significant chunk of sto

Re:grievance committees

[Jaysyn]

Not in Texas. Not unless you're an actual certified engineer.

Re:grievance committees

[DocZayus]

Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie Experience says 5 In 5 Bosses Lie

Re:grievance committees

[jafac]

No, I just don't think they have the wherewithal. Because they don't exhibit that capability in any other aspect of their professional lives.

Re:grievance committees

[turbidostato]

"A boss is far more likely to act in his/her own best interests than in your best interests"

Everybody is far more likely to act in his/her own best interests than in your best interests.

Re:grievance committees

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

Yes, but sometimes it needs pointed out.

Some people think that their boss is their friend - that they "see eye to eye" - that they "are on the same page". But it is not true. Nope, not true at all. No siree Bob.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Austin papers have ads for software engineers. No mention of any certification requirement.

Re:grievance committees

[Jaysyn]

Let these guys find out about it & watch the lawsuits fly.

http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/

Re:grievance committees

[lawpoop]

Sure, we've all had the roommate who can't pay rent or bills on time, but always manages to find money for a sack of weed. But the people I'm talking about who are in debt or bankrupt are people who were doing everything right, living within their means, who had a sudden emergency, such as a firing, lay-off, or health situation, who have nothing to rely on.

Check out this article on how a job loss. Read this one on how sudden illnesses are bankrupting Americans. I understand that half of the bankruptcies occurring in the US are due to medical bills. There are some 40-50 million working Americans who have no health insurance.

These scapegoats such as welfare queens and people buying PSPs over paying rent do exist, but they are in the small minority. I'm not swallowing the bullshit anymore. Corporate greed is destroying the middle class. Corporations are reporting record profits, the economy is growing, and the stock market is doing well. Why isn't this rising tide lifting all boats? It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that it's because the people who decide where the money goes aren't sharing it with the rest of us.

I know the libertarian ideal is to keep downsizing your life until you don't have any debt. Move from a house to a condo, to an apartment, to a trailer home, to a cabin in the woods, to a mud hut. Hey, if everybody keeps downsizing in response to being paid less and getting laid off from their jobs, we will all be living in tent cities. How about we instead demand our fair share from corporations.

Some people can't just downsize their life at the snap of a finger. If you have three kids, you can't just get rid of one. If you have a house, you can't immediately sell it for what it's worth. If you have a car you owe a lot of money on, you still need it to find a new job while you might be trying to sell it and line up a new car at the same time. If you have a sick child who runs up a bunch of medical bills that you can't afford, I'll bet the libertarian answer is that he was too sick for his parents to take care of, and he should have died. Well, after you've already treated him and run up the bills, you can't just kill him and ask for a refund for all of the treatments that were performed.

It's a question of what kind of country do we want to have. Do we want to pay some taxes to support single mothers and children, or hopeless alcoholics, like they do in Europe? Or do we want to have homeless families living in the streets, with ghettos, shanty towns, and poor villages like they do in South America? I think most libertarians are comfortable with ghettos and shanty towns. I'm not.

There are so many social programs that have built America, such as rural electrification, the GI bill, the national highway system. We are a nation of entrepreneurial self-starters, but to pretend that this alone built the nation and that social programs only make people lazy is in direct contradiction of the facts. Take the example of Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden. They have socialized health care, education, and retirement, yet the World Economic Forum says those countries have the most competitive economies in the world.

I thought technology, industry, and education were supposed to make our lives better. We might be the first generation of Americans to have a lesser standard of living than our parents. Why should this be? Our parents and granparents were the first generation to have 40-hour work weeks with overtime, a retirement, and health insurance, all provided by unions. Before then, people worked 60 to 80 hour weeks in factories and on farms. When they were injured or became unhealthy, they were simply fired. No retirement. Some were even slaves! Are our parents and grandparents lazier than their predecessors? No, they

Re:grievance committees

[real gumby]

If it was your thesis advisor you made the right choice. After all you'll depend on him not only for the 3-5 years in getting your PhD but also after you leave for recommendations and the like.

Re:grievance committees

[Anonymous Coward]

The plural of 'anecdote' is not data.

Everyone I know is responsible

Oh, the delicious incongruity!

anecdote (noun) a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person

correction

[Bastard of Subhumani]

More like 2 in 5 knowingly lie.

Re:correction

[Cerberus7]

I'd go further than that, and correct it with 4 out of 5 knowingly lie, the other one does it out of ignorance. All bosses lie; it's just a matter of how much, and how bad the lie is.

Re:correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't "knowing" part of the definition of lying? If I say something that's untrue, but I think it's true, it's not actually a lie. I'm just misinformed.

Re:correction

[Bovarchist]

This supports my theory that 40% of all people are assholes.

Re:correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Survey says: 2 out of 5 bosses lie - the other 3 lied about whether they lied.

Re:correction

[jesdynf]

Drop dead.

If I say a thing, then my name is upon it, and it is TRUE to the best of my knowledge, and I have made an effort well beyond good-faith to know this. My employees may rely on such things. If by some mischance it was not true, then I either go make it true or inform everyone affected by my error. If it was made untrue, then I'm by-God gonna find out why.

I do not have to lie, not through omission, not through commission, and not through ignorance.

You wanna say almost all meatbags, given power, are tyrannical, deceptive little bastards? Fine by me. But not all of 'em -- or not this one.

Re:correction

[Cerberus7]

Then you are the exception in my experience, and I sorely wish more people in positions of authority were like you. Every single person I have ever had dealings with who is in a management role has either lied to me, or not gotten his/her facts straight before making an assertion that has caused myself, or others, quite some headache. By and large, people who seek authority do so because they then have a certain influence over the lives of others, and they _LOVE_ that. It's not the work that they do; it's the power, however limited, that they can lord over others.

The worst was when I was being paid less than the minimum rate for the position I held, and was treated like I should be grateful for it because it was $3/hr more than my prior position. This, after I had already been doing the work that the higher-paying job required for over a year while still being paid at my prior position's rate. This kind of thing, as I have experienced, is exactly what every manager I've ever dealt with has wet dreams about pulling off. I was a naive kid back then, though, and will not fall for it again.

Tell me my experience is not common, and that's fine, I can accept that. My experience has to, though, have an influence on the statistics and not just be thrown out as a garbage data set.

Re:correction

[oldosadmin]

You wanna say almost all meatbags, given power, are tyrannical, deceptive little bastards? Fine by me. But not all of 'em -- or not this one.

Keep me outta that group, too :) (of course, I've been in management for ~6 months -- maybe the evil has to seep in)

Re:correction

[19thNervousBreakdown]

OK, do you see how you're taking some random twit's generalization as a personal attack on you?

Classic "boss" behavior, and when you boil it down you'll find that you, and for some reason I have yet to understand, almost anyone with even a scrap of real or imagined power, is nothing more than a spoiled child more concerned with where to place blame than actual results.

After you're done freaking out, try to remember this the next time you want something NOW. Stamp your foot for full effect, and try to convince everyone who witnesses your tantrum that it's anger, not embarrassment that's staining your cheeks red.

Re:correction

[jesdynf]

Yeah yeah yeah, thank you for your insightful psychoanalysis, you're too kind.

We done there? I do get to take the first post personally, I do get to take what you're saying personally -- except I won't, because the first poster was honestly wrong and you're just Some Internet Asshat -- and I do get to reply.

I take what I do very seriously. I've seen too many jerks screw it up, I swore I wouldn't be like them, and whaddya know -- I'm not. 'Cause I get enough done that I don't have to be.

Re:correction

[carpeweb]

I'm confused. Does this mean the other 60% are lying about being assholes?

Re:correction

[jesdynf]

Oh, I'm not gonna tell you it's not common -- I was shocked it only came in at forty. I just took issue with 100%, is all.

I don't even understand what the damn problem is. It's not hard to keep straight. There are things I can do and things I can get permission to do. I will either do or not do things, and I will either be allowed or not be allowed to do things.

I'm not invulnerable to error -- if I say I will do something, I might well not do it. But when challenged, I'll acknowledge my failure and spend effort commensurate to the speaker's perception of the issue's importance to resolve it.

Management is not a hard problem. You've got work to be done and guys who want to get work done. In fact, they even take pride in getting work done. How hard to do you have to work to screw this up?

Re:correction

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know, you're pretty adversarial, and you clearly take a lot of stuff personally, and when you take it personally, you immediately get emotionally involved. You don't pick your fights very well, and you're quick to drop to verbal abuse when someone disagrees. You're quick to assert your "rights" which always rubs me the wrong way...People who do that keep careful track of what they're "owed" which makes everything brutally tit for tat.

Having worked for that type, they're fine when they're pointed at someone else, but they suck when they're pointed at you, and they don't take unexpected things in stride, so when something breaks and there is fault to be found they'll jump your shit in the name of "motivation".

In short, you sound like a short-sighted jackass who can't bear criticism, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to work under you.

Re:correction

[darth dickinson]

Drop dead.

Wow. You sound like a joy to work for.

Re:correction

[19thNervousBreakdown]

You're going to take somebody's overly general and comically exaggerated statement that had nothing to do with you in particular as a personal insult, but not what I said?

Man, I don't even know what to say. Thanks, I guess :P You guys' dedication to avoiding any sort of introspection is just amazing.

Re:correction

[jesdynf]

"All them dudes lie" is not criticism I need to calmly reflect on, and you need to keep in mind that I owe my employees a calm response -- you aren't one, I don't have any especial power over you, and I don't really have to worry about the amount of respect you feel is owed to you.

That's not the first time that complaint has showed up in this thread, so let's make that clear -- I treat people I have power over differently than I treat Teh Interweb People. You all know very well that "contemptous indifference" is a perfectly reasonable response out here, whereas even if I'm the bastard claimed, my employees are trained resources whose jobs and responsibilities I've hand-tuned.

And as for unexpected things, my job is really nothing but -- if everything was going to work fine, they wouldn't need me at all, now would they?

My employees know that when something breaks, I'll come running -- literally -- and they know that I've been there and made every screwup on record and leap for joy whenever they come tell me something broke instead of passing something broken on.

And last, if a slight against my professional honor (even one not meant personally) is truly is a bad fight to pick, then just let it pass and pretend I said something derogatory about rolling Shamans. Or something positive about them. Whatever.

Re:correction

[LoyalOpposition]

Wow. You sound like a joy to work for.

He had just been called a liar. What was he supposed to do? Say, "thank you, sir, may I have another?"

-Loyal

Re:correction

[Qzukk]

You've got work to be done and guys who want to get work done. In fact, they even take pride in getting work done. How hard to do you have to work to screw this up?

You forgot the most important part of the equation: the money. Once money comes into the picture, it's a free-for-all over every last scrap. Worker against worker, department against department. From there comes inflated promises, inflated budgets, office politics, backstabbing, sabotage, and so on.

Re:correction

[Anonymous Coward]

A lie is in *intentional* falsehood. For someone to lie, they have to know they're doing it. Otherwise, by definition, it's not a lie.

So saying 2 out of 5 bosses lie is equivalent to saying 2 out of 5 bosses knowingly lie.

Re:correction

[timster]

Mod parent up, ya sissies. He has a strong opinion -- which happens to be right, by the way -- and he's expressing it in strong language because it has emotional importance to him.

If we're ever going to do anything worthwhile as a species, we've got to stop this "everyone does it" nonsense right here, right now. For instance, consider my boss -- he doesn't lie, because he's not an asshole. It's not hard.

Re:correction

[utopianfiat]

Dude I fought Ragnaros yesterday and he didn't lie to me once.

Re:correction

[lgw]

If I say a thing, then my name is upon it, and it is TRUE to the best of my knowledge,

Of course, that's just what I'd expect a habitual liar to say ...

Re:correction

[dwater]

How can one *unknowingly* lie? If ones doesn't know he/she is lying, then he/she is just wrong, not lying.

Re:correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over yourself, shitcock.

Boss == work??

[denebian devil]

"They say that employees don't leave their job or company, they leave their boss."

I think that's true to a point. In many cases, the environment at a company is colored by the behavior and the policies of the boss (or bosses). So it may be too simplistic to say that the boss is entirely to blame, but they can be responsible for things about a company that don't at first glance appear to be directly their fault.

Re:Boss == work??

[fm6]

In many cases, the environment at a company is colored by the behavior and the policies of the boss (or bosses).

Your immediate boss doesn't "color" your environment; they are the single individual that has the most to do with creating your environment. They set your deadlines and goals, help you get resources, evaluate your performance, give you permission to take time off... it's a big list.

I've never worked for a big company that wasn't dysfunctional and overbureaucratic to some degree. I think it's just in the nature of organizations of a certain size. It can be a pain, but it's something you deal with. But a bad boss makes your life hell, no matter what the general environment is.

Re:Boss == work??

[lazlo]

The flip side of this study is also true. In the last 15 years, I've worked for 9 different companies. I've had 2 bosses. I've had many of the same co-workers.

Loyalty is to people, not organizations.

Re:Boss == work??

[Llywelyn]

Just anecdotally, I've seen a few cases where the entire team was great, the problems existed above the boss at the level that manages him or her.

Re:Boss == work??

[HappySqurriel]

From what I have found, the best bosses are usually those which act as advocates for the employees benieth them. This means that your boss will act in your best interests at all times; there are lots of benefits to the company from this in that Employees are usually happier, more productive, take less sick days and stay around longer. Someone who is deceptive is usually attempting to protect themselves and is typically not acting in the best interests of anyone else; whether they lie to others (taking credit for your work) or lie to you (about upcomming work) they are not looking out for you.

As an example of how a boss can act as an avocate for you, I have worked in a company where we ended up doing (paid) overtime through November and into mid December in order to complete a project on time. My boss at the time worked it out with HR for everyone to recieve extra vacation time in order for everyone to have the week off between Christmas and New Years; it was a small gesture, but the additional 2 (or 3, I can't remember) days off made everyone happier and more refreshed when we came back and most people felt far better towards the company for giving them the time off. I'm not positive, but I suspect the extra days off probably prevented sick days from being taken in January through March because most people didn't become over tired.

Re:Boss == work??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth remembering that the converse is also true. If my boss (CTO of a tech hardware company) were to leave, he would take a slew of good people with him, even if they didn't end up working for him at his next company. He is great at insulating us from the idiocies of the rest of the management, and we all know that. (And I for one try to tell him how much he is appreciated at every opportunity.)

Re:Boss == work??

[jedidiah]

There's a saying that goes something like this...

There's no such thing as a bad soldier, just bad leadership.

Some managers just can't manage and don't have any better people skills than the social misfits they have firing authority over.

Re:Boss == work??

[Apocalypse111]

So true. I have recently gone from a bad boss (guilty of lying and so much more) to a boss who does exactly as you describe, providing what we as employees need and insulating us from upper management and office politics. Otherwise, he pretty much stays out of our way, and we get our work done. I don't have much experience in the work force, but I can tell you that I'm infinitely happier now than I was working for my previous employer.

Re:Boss == work??

[smilindog2000]

Good point. I've also followed bosses, and had them and co-workers follow me. If you get a good team together, it can last a lot longer than your average start-up. It's just a simple human tragedy that so many people stick with poor relationships with their boss for so long. I've had two great bosses, and one who was barely a boss at all but wound up having a great team anyway. Three of my bosses basically didn't work for me, and I'd love to say it's all their fault, but two of them are still highly regarded and successful, and... well the other one actually wasn't good. Everyone's different, and you and your boss can both be great at what you do, and just not work well together. When you find someone you work well with, it's a good idea to stick with him.

Re:Boss == work??

[mentrial]

What do you think organizations are made of? soylent green? (and don't spoil the friggin end of the movie)

Re:Boss == work??

[eggoeater]

Absolutely!!!!

My previous boss was pretty cool. He was always pushing for better positions and more money for everyone on his team. We were very critical to the organization. The middle management was always making dumb-ass rules that hurt morale and confidence.

Then he quit about a month ago and already people on the team are looking for other jobs because he managed to make our environment tolerable. A new boss probably will not be as dedicated or have the pull with management that our old boss had. I definitely have the feeling that our new boss will just be a shill for our idiot middle-managers.

Re:Boss == work??

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, patronage hiring, great. Here at my company, the CTO hired a friend to work on our embedded development. He's fairly average, as far as developers go... decent guy, but no sense of project management, risk assessment, and so forth. This guy rapidly promoted, being close to upper management, and subsequently hired a team of all his friends from a previous job (it's easier than properly interviewing, after all), all extremely average or below. Said average guy is now the project lead for the whole company, and his average friend is now lead for the embedded work, leading a bunch of below-average coders. Yup... good ol' patronage. It's just fucking wonderful.

Re:Boss == work??

[lazlo]

Of course organizations are made of people, the point is that the people that make up an organization can change over time. So the loyalty that an "organization" earned in the past is only relevant if the organization is made up of the same people. If it's all new people, they've got to earn their own loyalty.

And of course I wouldn't let it out of the bag about Darth Vader being Soylent Green's father. It'd ruin everything for those who hadn't seen it yet. :)

Re:Boss == work??

[Llywelyn]

You don't happen to work in my office, do you? :p

Re:Boss == work??

[fullmetal55]

the times I've quit I left the company not the boss. in fact I liked my bosses in 2 out of last 3 jobs. Now that being said the upper management (folks I never got to see who made policy) were to blame, but I don't consider them my bosses. they are the company. the other time I quit, I left the job, the Job I left would have made the company go under, had they kept me. There just wasn't enough work for me. I could see the writing on the wall, and when an opporutnity arose I took it. I loved that boss, he was a great man. and he was also the company (there were a grand total of 4 of us there. I was #2 in the chain of command...) My one job I hated the company with a passion. I loved my bosses. so much that when I wrote my resignation I felt genuinely bad for them. and bad that I would miss hanging out with them daily. that's the kind of work environment that allowed me to stay there for a year and a half when others stayed 3-6 months tops. I was blessed with good bosses. Where I am now, I'll probabally leave because of the company, or if I change bosses probabally the boss. 8

Re:Boss == work??

[Lord Ender]

Do people still maintain the facade of loyalty? In a capitalist economy, a worker provides his services to whichever employer provides him the best compensation (however he defines it). The worker who turns down jobs with significantly better compensation due to "loyalty" is failing to play by the rules of capitalism, and will limit his success in our capitalist economy.

When I buy shares in a company, I expect its management to fire employees who are not profitable. If management were to operate a division at a loss--with no or little projected future profitability--because of loyalty, I would consider them inept and keep that in mind when voting. Loyalty doesn't enter in to management decisions. The perception of loyalty may be an issue if that is one of the tricks being used to keep people working for less than they are worth, but that is entirely different.

It is not the responsibility of for-profit companies to provide a social safety net. Whether it is the responsibility of the individual or the government is up for debate, though :-)

Re:Boss == work??

[p0tat03]

Very true. I will extend your comment and say that advocating for your employees goes beyond benefits, it also requires the boss creating a good working environment for those he manages. I worked under two different bosses at the same company once, and one would consistently pass the buck down to his underlings whenever something went wrong, or bounce upper-management requests onto underlings with already-stressful schedules. Then there was the other one, who actively engaged in the bureaucratic BS with upper management to get his guys more reasonable work levels, who would deflect the usual inter-departmental poo-slinging away from his workers. One was much easier to work under.

I remember that once, it was close to Christmas time, and one project was somewhat behind schedule. One boss asked us to just throw in extra time, since HR wouldn't approve of overtime pay. The other fought hard with the suits and somehow got us double-time for weekend work. Going the extra mile counts - the first boss didn't cheat anyone out of anything, he just didn't fight for his guys.

Re:Boss == work??

[drew]

Loyalty still has a place in the work force, regardless of your capitalist dogma. If I were in the job market right now, and all of my previous bosses/clients made me an offer, I can tell you right now which ones I would take, and which ones I wouldn't. There are two that I would accept any reasonable offer from (but one of them only if he wasn't responsible for business decisions in the company- good guy, good boss, lousy businessman) The rest I wouldn't take a job from even if they offered me double what I am making now. They screwed me in the past, I would fully expect them to screw me again in the future, and i want nothing to do with them. (Maybe if they paid me triple, I'd take a job and just keep my eyes open for a way to screw them before they screw me, but even then I'm not sure it would be worth it.) For an employer it makes sense, too, for many of the same reasons. If you treat your employees well, it will pay off for you.

You just have to keep in mind that there is a line between loyalty and stupidity.

Re:Boss == work??

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Do people still maintain the facade of loyalty? In a capitalist economy, a worker provides his services to whichever employer provides him the best compensation (however he defines it).

There's more to compensation than a paycheck - a good boss gets things done/gets out of the way and generally makes your job more fun, while a bad boss can suck the life out of any situation. Following a good boss makes sense, especially when there's a team attached.

Re:Boss == work??

[mkw87]

You coded on Vista?

Re:Boss == work??

[FooAtWFU]

Job search costs are nontrivial - at the very least, there's the opportunity cost of not having work for a while. Employees are aware of this, and seek a certain level of job security wherever they work, and job security is hard to put a dollar figure on.

While it still makes sense in some cases to cut back on staff, and especially to fire incompetents, being too heavy-handed about it is liable to damage the remaining employees' morale, with potentially far-reaching effects, potentially damaging the company even more than the continued employment of some people had followed. It is in most companies' best interests to make sure that any sort of downsizing takes place in as reasonable a manner as possible and that they reward loyalty as best they can - at least, in any company where employees are not disposable.

Just because we're capitalists doesn't mean we need to manage employees like they're inert matter. It makes poor business sense to do so.

Re:Boss == work??

[ultranova]

Do people still maintain the facade of loyalty? In a capitalist economy, a worker provides his services to whichever employer provides him the best compensation (however he defines it). The worker who turns down jobs with significantly better compensation due to "loyalty" is failing to play by the rules of capitalism, and will limit his success in our capitalist economy.

Not everyone has economic success as a significant goal. Some people treat work simply as a chore, and don't want to deal with the hassle of switching jobs and learning the rules and responsibilities of a new position.

Not all people have ambition, and even those who do don't neccessarily express it in their work. Climbing the endless stairwell is, from some perspectives, quite an absurd waste of your limited time on Earth.

Great news!

[Weston O'Reilly]

3 out of 5 bosses DON'T lie! That should melt a few ice cold cynical hearts out there.

Re:Great news!

[LittleGuy]

Not so fast.

That means 3 our of 5 bosses lie about lying.

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

3 out of 5 bosses are really good at hiding it... that's much more worrying!

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Better a broken promise than none at all.

--SC

Re:Great news!

[Idbar]

And no study yet on how much studies lie to show "interesting" results.

Oh really?

[Azathfeld]

Studies show that 100% of my employees are mouthy SOBs who don't know what side their bread is buttered on. Lie at work? Abusive relationship? You shouldn't have talked, kids; now you'll really know what an abusive boss is like!

Re:Oh really?

[BobNET]

Studies show that 100% of my employees are mouthy SOBs who don't know what side their bread is buttered on. Lie at work? Abusive relationship? You shouldn't have talked, kids; now you'll really know what an abusive boss is like!

That's what you get for being self-employed!

Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[AlanS2002]

would be to say that 2 in 5 people lie/don't hold their word. Where do people think that boss's come from? Hell. There are just a proportion of the population.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[schnooka_boy]

A more universal truth would be to say that 5 in 5 people lie/don't hold their word. I'd like to see someone try to find 3 people in the entire world who haven't lied or purposely misled someone.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Amiga Trombone]

Where do people think that boss's come from? Hell.

Truer words were never spoken...

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Aladrin]

Only 2 in 5? Either my definition of 'lie' is different, or it's a LOT higher than 2 in 5.

"To tell an untruth." ?

I looked it up: "to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive." That's pretty close.

I like to think of myself as a paragon of virtue, and even -I- lie. It's unavoidable sometimes, and it's just plain polite other times.

"How are you today?"

"My stomache hurts, I feel like I'm going to puke on your shoes." -> "Fine, thanks for asking." ---- LIE!!!

If you just go for "don't hold their word", I still think 2 in 5 is a pretty good number, but absolutely reprehensible for someone that holds something as important as my paycheck.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[0racle]

Where do people think that boss's come from?

They used to be normal people, just these people lied to get ahead.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if your boss happens to be the sysadmin ;) (BOFH anyone?)

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is me of course, and my good friend Bill Gates. As I was saying to Bill the other day, you did an outstanding job on that there Vista thing. He said he couldn't have done it without the honesty of Schnooka Boy. So by my count, that makes three of us you can count on. Which, come to think of it, means you were trying to mislead people. Make that two.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Citizen of Earth]

They used to be normal people, just these people lied to get ahead.

Whereas the rest of the employees lied and stayed behind.

Re:Perhaps a more universal truth ...

[Surt]

Indeed, that lying is socially beneficial is scientifically proven.

As a scientist, it would be wrong of me not to lie in some situations.

Lockheed Martin

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok that would four out of five for Lockheed Martin. I am glad I don't work for that organization anymore. Lockheed is run by a bunch of good ole boy retired colonels and generals, who consistently lie to their employees. It's ok so long as they make the bottom line.

Re:Lockheed Martin

[Anonymous Coward]

Lockheed is run by a bunch of good ole boy retired colonels and generals, who consistently lie to their employees.

While I wouldn't generalize the whole company as that way, it's certainly true for some divisions of all military contractors.

The finest and worst managers I've ever had were former military officers. The finest was a former Air Force colonel (and fighter pilot), who was very able to translate his military leadership training into the civilian world, and he had a fiercely loyal set of employees.

The worst was a former Marine Major General, who for the life of him could not figure out his employees were NOT Marines. Whenever we had a "feedback" session, he became quite defensive. Now, any good executive knows that employees are going to come into those forums and gripe, you need to accept it and use it as valuable feedback.

Instead we'd get lectures from him on loyalty to the company and "taking it for the team". I'm sure our competitors loved it, because they'd usually swoop in shortly afterwards with the headhunters. "General Jake" never understood we could actually LEAVE his shitty organization, unlike the unfortunate Lance Corporals that were once under his command....

Re:Lockheed Martin

[Anonymous Coward]

But we stole your missile design documentation. And got away with it. Neener, neener!

do they lie about not lying?

[petes_PoV]

so how did they get their results?

Hopefully it was a bit deeper than simply asking the bosses "do you lie?"

Also, can we therefore assume that 40% of the survey is lies?

Re:do they lie about not lying?

[Anonymous Coward]

so how did they get their results?
Hopefully it was a bit deeper than simply asking the bosses "do you lie?"

If only there were some sort of "linked article" you could have looked at in the time it took you to post this!

Incidentally, how exactly is a prank show parodying The Apprentice "documentation" of reality?

The other 3 only tell lies that MIGHT be belived.

[HornWumpus]

2 out of 5 knowingly lie. They also know that they are doing it openly for all to see.

The other 3 of 5 only lie when they think they will be believed.

So put another way 3 out of 5 bosses still care about their credibility. The other two have already written it off.

This just in...

[Overzeetop]

...managers are human.

C'mon - did you read the list?


  Thirty-one percent of respondents reported that their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year.
  Thirty-seven percent reported that their supervisor failed to give credit when due.
  Thirty-nine percent noted that their supervisor failed to keep promises.
  Twenty-seven percent noted that their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.
  Twenty-four percent reported that their supervisor invaded their privacy.
  Twenty-three percent indicated that their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

Bosses might actually have been better than if you interviewed coworkers. I know this is going to sound sexist, and maybe it is, but if I think of the offices which are mostly women, I would expect number in the high fifties to low eighties on items 1-4.

Re:This just in...

[morgan_greywolf]

...managers are human.

Maybe yours is. I work for Donald Trump.

Re:This just in...

[BalkanBoy]

Donald Trump did not learn business. He invented it.

Control subjects?

[PurifyYourMind]

How often do non-bosses lie?

Re:Control subjects?

[extern_void]

50% less.
When they lie more often, they are promoted.

Re:Control subjects?

[Matey-O]

Bout 40% of the time. It's just like saying 40% of all sick days are taken on Monday or Friday.

Re:Control subjects?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

How often do non-bosses lie?

I don't have numbers on how often a person in authority lies or how often a person with someone in authority over them lies, but since a lot of people fit in both categories those numbers are hard to come by. It is well documented, however, that facts become more quickly distorted when moving up through an authoritative hierarchy than down. That implies that people are more likely to mislead their bosses than to be misled by them. Logically, this follows since providing the truth to a superior often results in punishment, so people directly benefit from misdirecting their superiors.

Re:Control subjects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect "sick" days on Mondays or Fridays to add up to more than 40%. Speaking of lying...

Re:Control subjects?

[SandwhichMaster]

I'd also like to see some data for separate industries. Most of us work in IT, where our bosses hopefully, have had a lot of training. Many people out there work for restaurants, factories, etc, where training may not be as extensive.

For example, at every restaurant job I've ever worked, I've had at least one horrible boss. Harassmant, violations of safety, etc., were a lot more common in under these guys.

At my IT job, I get overworked, and have non-existant promotions dangled in front of me, but I don't think I ever see any harrassment, or vulgar behavior.

I'm willing to bet some industries are much worse than others.

Re:Control subjects?

[Matey-O]

Answer this: What percentage of the days of the week are Monday and Friday?

Re:Control subjects?

[Anonymous Coward]

0% of the days of the week are monday and friday.

~28.57% of the days of the week are monday or friday.

Re:Control subjects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you really are one dumb fucking turd, Michael John Miller. Let me spell it out for the morons in the crowd:

Have you ever heard of someone calling in "sick" when they really weren't sick? Do you suppose that incidents of this would be precisely evenly distributed among the work week, or that maybe, just maybe, there might be a slightly higher percent of these incidents near the weekends? You know... people doing this are already lying, why not go all the way and use it for an extended weekend?

There. Do you feel better now that I've exposed you for the fucking retard that you are?

Re:Control subjects?

[Matey-O]

Hey! Thanks AC! You've proven that if I don't telegraph Every Single Aspect of an Only Marginally Funny comment, you just can't get it.

Look here: http://www.nerdtests.com/mq/take.php?id=458
search for: "It has come to my attention"

tard.

This podcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

This podcast talks about pretty much the same thing as this article.

Going out on a limb here...

[JD-1027]

I'm going to say that about 1 in 1 people lie or don't keep their word.

The other 3...

[onion2k]

The other 3 lied in the survey.

And now I add some more text, ruining the joke, because the lameness filter has no sense of humour.

Re:The other 3...

[gEvil (beta)]

And now I add some more text, ruining the joke, because the lameness filter has no sense of humour.

Uh huh. Sure. That's just what you want us to believe...

Yeah, sure.

[The Anarchist Avenge]

"The study will be published later this year." And we're supposed to believe this?

Not very scientific

[Reality Master 101]

I'm not saying there aren't bad bosses, but there are a LOT more bad employees than bad bosses, just because of the raw numbers. Given the bosses are just employees (duh, I hope), the rate of bad employees ought the be the same as the rate of bad bosses. If we assume that the average boss has an average of ten grunts, then we have ten bad employees for every bad boss.

So how many of these employees are bad-mouthing their boss because they're lazy idiots who expect a paycheck for as little work as possible and skewing the statistics? This study doesn't seem too interested in this question.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

the point is that a bad boss can make life for his underlings a living hell.

a lazy employee may be bad for morale, but it isn't going to poison the work environment the same way an abusive boss will.

Re:Not very scientific

[gEvil (beta)]

If we assume that the average boss has an average of ten grunts...

Ditzy secretary: "I've never had a boss last that long."

Re:Not very scientific

[fm6]

Given the bosses are just employees (duh, I hope), the rate of bad employees ought the be the same as the rate of bad bosses.

Huh? You think managers are representative of the people that work for them? If promotions were decided by cutting a deck of cards, that would be true. But they're not. Managers are chosen, and by criteria that are very different from those used to hire the people under them.

Two groups that have similar labels don't automatically have similar statistical features.

And there's a body of thought that says that the average manager is less competent than the general work force. It's called The Peter Principle.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

the rate of bad employees ought the be the same as the rate of bad bosses.

One would presume that if a working promotion system was in place, the "bad" employees would be removed, and the ones qualified to be "good" bosses would become managers.

Apparently, there are simply too many drinking buddies and nephews to go around to use such a system, so we're stuck with getting bad bosses.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

I am assuming you've never been a manager with a bad employee before. It's horrible. With a bad boss, you can at least share the comraderie of your coworkers in the same situation, as the boss with a bad employee, nobody is your friend.

Your good employees hate you because the bureaucracy doesn't let you fire the person in less than a year, the bad employee pisses in your work day, and your boss doesn't have time to support you, he just cares about getting it solved.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

they're lazy idiots who expect a paycheck for as little work as possible

I am not an idiot! The rest, well...

Re:Not very scientific

[HappySqurriel]

Given the bosses are just employees (duh, I hope), the rate of bad employees ought the be the same as the rate of bad bosses.

Well, if promotions were given simply by seniority this would be true. It is both fortunate and unfortunate that companies are likely to give promotions based on merit ; it is largely dependant on what a company determines to be merit that is worth rewarding with a promotion.

Companies which reward high performance as a way of promoting people will (often) find that they're promoting sociopaths because they are better at gaining success at all costs. Companies which reward education (either level or institution) or seniority usually find that they're promoting a lot of people who are not capable of performing the job.

Personally, I believe if a company rewards people who have strong social skills, a decent moral backing, and adequate technical skills they're probably going to have the best chance at having good management.

Re:Not very scientific

[asuffield]

Personally, I believe if a company rewards people who have strong social skills, a decent moral backing, and adequate technical skills they're probably going to have the best chance at having good management.

I would say that a company which thinks "management" is a promotion from "non-management" has no chance at having good management *or* good workers. Selecting your management via some kind of reward process is a fundamentally flawed concept - the skills required are entirely different. You should select your management as part of the hiring process. While people can conceivably change into or out of the management roles, this should be seen as a "sideways" move in the organisation, like any other change of deparments - neither promotion nor demotion.

Sadly, very few companies work this way. One notable company that does is IBM - and their management staff is appreciably better than average, as most workers there will attest. That's not to say that getting this right solves all problems, but it almost certainly does help significantly.

Re:Not very scientific

[Abcd1234]

I'd mod you up if I could. That's an excellent comment, and echos my own thoughts on the subject. And from another standpoint, the idea that "advancement" implies movement into management really leaves us pure technical folk out in the cold. There are many of us that are perfectly happy working as senior technical staff, and either don't have the proper skills or inclination for management above the technical lead level. IMO, these people should not be punished, but in your average corporation, you either move up or move out.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

lazy idiots who expect a paycheck for as little work as possible

That's not being lazy, that's being a shrewd business person.

See, the business' goal is to squeeze as much work out of the people as possible and pay the absolute minimum in exchange. And with their customers, provide the minimum necessary and extract the maximum amount of money in exchange. Managers who do this get rewarded, promoted, etc.

As the concept of loyalty to the company is long since dead, why be surprised when employees start doing the same damn thing? They provide the minimum amount of work necessary, and try to extract from the company the maximum amount of pay. They're not being lazy, they're maximizing their personal bottom lines.

No one is really an "employee" anymore. We're all temp workers.

Re:Not very scientific

[ciggieposeur]

One notable company that does is IBM - and their management staff is appreciably better than average, as most workers there will attest.

As a former IBMer who witnessed firsthand the official lies about the pension program (which screwed a whole generation of IBMers), the outsourcing program (which has eliminated many junior-level development positions in the USA), and the variable pay program (which is rigged to be a zero-sum game that has little bearing on actual performance), and the jockeying for position among 2nd-line managers that led quality staff to leave IBM entirely, and heard the horror stories from older IBMers about the internal culture during the anti-trust trial back in the 80's, I shudder to think that other companies are significantly worse.

Re:Not very scientific

[Lithdren]

The issue with bad bosses is that, the good ones get promoted and move on.

this is true of the business world in general. You continue to get promoted untill you're so far over your head you no longer do a very good job. If you're ultra-effective and get everything done ahead of schedual, they give you harder stuff to do. Its the idiot who's been with the company for 12 years and screams at everyone, that never gets promoted.

He's there because he knows everything about how your job works, but he's too stupid to figure out how everything works above him. Because if he did, he'd already be working at that level, or would be shortly.

Re:Not very scientific

[BalkanBoy]

merit = /perceived/ value. After all is said and done, and the b.s. layers removed - value is 100% subjective and in the eye of the beholder (much like beauty is). And figuring out what adds value to where you work is entirely, 100% context dependent.

G'day now, Bruce.

Re:Not very scientific

[Thomas the Doubter]

...they're lazy idiots who expect a paycheck for as little work as possible and skewing the statistics...

Please, I promise to work harder and do a better job next year. You know I'm trying, and I'm learning and I can even put in a few extra hours and maybe even on Saturday, if you think that can really make the difference...

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! YES! Thank you very much! Why should I bust my ass for a salary that barely pays my bills ,for a company who wouldn't hesitate to lay me off to save their financial asses, or fire me because I disagreed with my boss.

Re:Not very scientific

[lgw]

I am assuming you've never been a manager with a bad employee before. It's horrible.

It's a terrible but common mistake for a manager to spend most of his energy on the bad apple in the team. Spend your energy with the best performers, mentor the smart but new guys if you're technically skilled, but don't waste time on the loser. Do what it takes to keep him from annoying others, and dump him at the first opportunity. It's better for everyone, including your own sanity.

Re:Not very scientific

[Anonymous Coward]

I have also noticed this phenomenon. I like to call it "The Cult of the CEO". If he is the big boss, he must be right, and smarter than me. Nothing is more pathetic than a culture that is based on current position, instead of merit, intelligence, or effort.

In other news...

[DivineOmega]

Scientists discover grass is green, the sky is blue and dirt tends to be a brownish colour.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists discover grass is green, the sky is blue and shite tends to be a brownish colour.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:In other news...

[DivineOmega]

Thanks.

In other news *people* lie.

[nick_davison]

• Thirty-one percent of respondents reported that their employee gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year.
• Thirty-seven percent reported that their employee failed to give credit when due.
• Thirty-nine percent noted that their employee failed to keep promises.
• Twenty-seven percent noted that their employee made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.
• Twenty-four percent reported that their employee invaded their privacy.
• Twenty-three percent indicated that their employee blames others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

The truth is, we're all like that.

I'm pretty certain everyone has experienced a boss not give them credit where it's due - and I'm pertty certain, whether we want to admit it or even recognize it ourselves, others have complained about us doing exactly the same.

Bosses fail to keep promises? And no employee has ever failed to deliver a project they swore they'd deliver? They've never cut corners on something they promised would be thorough?

Bosses make negative comments to other colleagues? How dare they? Don't they realize that no employee has ever bitched about the boss?

The sad truth is: we all do things that people consider negative. It's not a boss quirk, it's not an employee quirk, it's a human quirk.

Then again, it's always easier to judge others than look at ourselves.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's part of a manager's job to not act in the petty, divisive, close-minded ways that is part of everybody's human nature. In fact that's pretty much their entire job, as 99% of all work actually gets done at the lowest levels of any organization.

I get paid to produce something. Managers get paid to make this process run smoothly. If they are lying, cheating, and generally making people not want to work then they are not doing their job.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

It *is* fair to say that there are two sides to the story, but the story doesn't end there. Managers are supposed to represent the company, and in most cases the company is accountable: in the SW industry, one can resign. Other industries require unions, ombudsmen etc.

Perhaps the real problem is that many managers represent themselves and each other and form social cliques quite apart from the rest of the business. They see both staff *and* stakeholders as the "enemy" and other managers (both above and below) as allies. When staff resign, or unions take action, it hurts the company. But you can't replace an entire column of management, and that's assuming you have the accurate information telling you that you need to, when you rely on those very same managers for all your info.

Take any of the multitude of recent management textbooks (more like self-help pamphlets) and as you read it, ask yourself (1) What real, substantial and accountable responsibilities is it encouraging the manager to take and (2) How might the advice actually *benefit* anyone other than the reader. It's quite shocking.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see some sense of reason in the flood of posts making boss jokes. In my limited experience as a manager, I've learned that many of the decisions I make are often misinterpretted because the employees have a limited perspective of the problem and I'm not able to disclose (for a varity of reasons) a lot of that info to explain the decision. I've also found myself unable to follow through on initiatives and plans due to internal politics, budget, or other decisions that were made above my level. While I try to be upfront about such situations, I can't help but wonder if I sometime come across as making empty promises. Ultimately, I've learned to be wary about judging a management decision unless I'm able to discuss it openly and obtain the same info used to make the decision. Trust me when I say that good management is not at all an easy task.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[BForrester]

The sad truth is: we innately expect that there is a moral or skillwise justification for the progression up the company hierarchy. It's frustrating when a person is placed in a superior position, but displays attributes and abilities inferior to the rest.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[aeoo]

There is no point in simply judging, be the target of such judgment the boss, or ourselves. We have to examine the entire situation and judge the situation in a holistic way, rather than judge the segments of that situation, such as discrete individuals (which in truth are not really discrete).

I notice that most "failed promises" occur simply due to an unrealistic expectation and not due to any fault or flaw in the employee. Many employees want to please their boss, so much so, that they will instinctively, and without thinking, give project estimates that they believe the boss would like to hear, rather than a realistic project estimate. Also, giving a longer and truer-to-life estimate, besides not pleasing your boss, has the ability to create self-doubt (like...if I say it will take 2 months, does that mean I am dumb? Would a smarter person be able to do it in 1 month? I can't be seen as dumb. I must be seen as smart at all costs...1 month it is...). Estimates (or worse -- deadlines) are always affected by real causes, conditions and unknowns, which simply cannot be eliminated. Even a very smart person is going to be controlled and framed by those factors to a large degree. I think that one's own intelligence and ability is only about 35% of the equation, unless the conditions are absolutely ideal. If the conditions are ideal, then individual genius and experience can probably make a 20x performance difference sometimes between the best and the worst worker. But truth is, almost none of us work in ideal conditions. And those people who can demonstrate 20 times the performance of the worst worker in ideal conditions are statistical outliers. And you can't build your business model or project estimates on any kind of statistical outliers, unless you're an idiot or an egomaniac.

Instead of blaming bosses or employees, let's reevaluate our culture that is based on fear, anxiety and 100% unreasonable expectations that have no grounds in reality.

That said, bosses get paid far more than employees (and do far less, unless you count sitting in meetings and writing reports as "work"; I admit time spent coordinating real work is real boss-work, but bosses generally do not need to coordinate that much, if at all). And as long as that's the case, we absolutely have to demand more ethical and moral uprightness from bosses than from those they manage. When bosses start to get paid equivalent salaries to those they purport to manage, and when bosses start to have demonstrable, non-bullshit, personal deliverables (and no, a report or projected presentation doesn't count, unless you really have to research something in a way that taxes a unique skill in order to compose that report -- reporting what your "charges" did during the week does not tax any unique skill, so that is what I call bullshit deliverable), then sure, let's spread the responsibility evenly. But as long as the power and compensation are not evenly spread out, neither should personal moral responsibility and accountability be evenly spread out.

And finally, if you do want to think constructively about this, rather than pointing the blame finger at anyone, INCLUDING yourself, you have to examine the situation as a whole, with all of the situational social and psycho dynamics just as they appear to you before and after strong and sustained critical analysis.

I am of the opinion that in our current culture we are setup for failure. No matter how good you are, you will either crack, or burn out, and most definitely you will fail to live up to expectations (and then you can either lie about it -- which is what most seem to do -- or be honest about one's own limitations -- that's the balls of steel high road that is unfortunately almost never rewarded or understood by management).

We are human beings. We will never be perfect. In fact, we shouldn't even strive for perfection. Instead we should live content and happy lives and strive for doing a good or at least a decent job, while enjoying or, if possible, loving that job. Then, if perfection comes as a result of that, that's icing on the cake. But it's totally retarded to base our entire social and business culture on an expectation of perfection.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me when I say that good management is not at all an easy task.

I can agree with this, but must disagree with the rest of your comment. It's never OK to lie. If you think it would be better for someone to believe something untrue ask youself for whose benefit? Clearly not the victim because his/her descisions will be impaired (would you like your staff to be drunk?). Does the company benefit? If so there's something wrong with the company's contractual relationship with that employee (think about it) and you are the one who negotiates that with the employee. Liars only ever lie for their personal benefit, and that includes knowingly propogating someone else's lie.

It's never acceptable to make a promise and then not keep it. That makes the promise a lie. If you cannot merely say you "think" or "believe" that the thing will happen then there's an underlying problem to solve. Furthermore, even saying that can be a lie, and it can be shown to be such in rare cases.

If employees have a limited perspective on the problem then you should inform them. Restriction of information is valuable in matters of security (national or corporate) only. In all other cases it is a mask for illicit behavour. It may not be your illicit behaviour but by assisting in a cover-up, you make yourself an accessory as well as worsening the damage caused.

Your comment reads as though you begin from the standpoint of playing management like a game, and then bemoan the bad feeling that arises when others desperately try to bring you back down to earth. But, and this is the nub of the issue with you I think, no matter how you rationalise the way you treat those staff, they are still people. People will do one of 2 things: (1) get pissed at you or (2) play you at your own game. You'd have to have the patience of a saint to be able to keep reminding yourself that the people who appear not to understand your treatment of them are really your most honest and trustworthy employees.

Instead, try starting with rock solid general ethics (without the usual management exemptions) and a focus on getting the job done at the end of the day. Even if senior people want to play games, everybody needs a manager and team that delivers real product.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, 67% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

How can one accurately track lying?

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[UbuntuDupe]

Yeah, but, you see, it's different for bosses because they're the slavedrivers in the evil global capitalist system and don't do any real work anyway. Duh. :-P

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[DivineOmega]

Agreed. A society of any type can not survive alone on the ideals of perfection...

... unless they are a cybernetically enhanced race of super-humanoid life forms from a fictional universe!!! Go Borg!

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Surt]

Interestingly enough, I'm becoming convinced that bosses really don't do any real work. I'm currently working for a company with basically no managers, and lo and behold we are burying our competition.

It may or may not be related to our lack of wasteful management layers. It will be interesting to see what happens as we grow from ~1000 employees to more like ~10k over the next couple of years.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[UbuntuDupe]

Interestingly enough, I'm becoming convinced that bosses really don't do any real work.

I'm convinced that there is no final, definitive answer on how many layers of management are "too many", or what form of organization is most efficient. Rather, the answer is rediscovered daily through market processes to the extent that they are free and reasonably adhere to a certain minimum respect for property rights. In such an environment, whichever model is right will beat out whichever is wrong.

Congratulations on beating an obsolete model, at least, one that's obsolete right now for your industry.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

bosses lead by example, whether they intend to or not

and if they have a shitty attitude, they'll crush the moral of the subordinates, and even if the employees were decent people before, all the attitudes and work ethics will have soured.

a boss can torpedo productivity in one fell swoop.

it takes a lot more for an employee or several employees to destroy the whole.

Re:In other news *people* lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference here is this...

If I yell at someone on the floor or mentally berate fellow employees I WILL BE FIRED assuming I have a manager with any backbone.

Being on an open floor and having your manager YELL at you and call you an ASS HOLE is not fun.
If a manager screams and yells at his employees in front of others he needs to be walked out. In NYC - Wallstreet type firms this is WAY to common.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

They control teh means of production. DUh!

seen from the other side

[born4fun]

In the other news: About 60% of all employees aren't honest, when being asked about how they feel about their managers...

It depends on the culture

[Silver Sloth]

"It is important to stay positive, even when you get irritated or discouraged, because few subordinate-supervisor relationships last forever," he said. "You want the next boss to know what you can do for the company." I've worked with (note, with, not for) my current boss for ten years or so. Most of the Unix support team I work for have worked together for that sort of length of time. Whilst this may mark me out as stick-in-the mud and unambitious the benefits of working with a team that you know realy well and can trust completely are one of the biggest job related benefits I know. You would have to offer me 20K GBP over and above what I earn now (which is about industry average) to make me even think of changing jobs.

Where is the Dilbert love?

[mhokie]

"'The abusive boss has been well documented in movies ('Nine to Five'), television (Fox's 'My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss') and even the Internet.'"

What.... no mention of Dilbert?

Re:Where is the Dilbert love?

[Odin_Tiger]

Personally, I was shocked that 'Nine to Five' was listed for movies. 'Office Space' is the definitive bad boss movie.

It's FSU... Not Harvard or Princeton!

[Anonymous Coward]

So technically the report doesn't matter

Easy to identify

[PPH]

They are the ones moving their lips.

But seriously; in some cases, lying might just be a symptom of the boss' lack of authority in the corporate structure. The boss might have promised you that raise and genuinely meant it. But when the unit chief tells him that the funds are needed to hire yet one more of his idiot nephews, there's not much your boss can do about it.

5?

[extern_void]

hmm i though that it was 6 in 5...
At least in my counts...

So Obvious it hurts

[tommyatomic]

Many employers and bosses have irrational and unreasonable demands. No one with a IQ above 80 is going to perform those demands without some incentive. A paycheck is an incentive to meet reasonable and rational demands. for the unreasonable demands a little extra is required. Hense the broken promises (lies) begin. The boss offers some incentive for the employee to meet the rediculus quota, performace metric, complete the project in half to alloted time. Its a wonder that more companies dont suffer huge internal financial losses from disgruntaled employees.

Decontructing the Headline

[susano_otter]

Study says most bosses honest.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[bwalling]

Study says most bosses honest.

Nice way to lose some useful data in the translation. Do you work in Marketing?

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[melonman]

40% of bosses always lie about everything and 60% of bosses never lie about anything? This seems to indicate a market for a third type of boss.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[LunarCrisis]

In other news, most countries aren't being invaded by the United States.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[susano_otter]

Nice way to lose some useful data in the translation. Do you work in Marketing?

Public Relations, actually. Marketing is the people who constantly mistake me for a target demographic that cares.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[susano_otter]

In other news, most countries aren't being invaded by the United States.

And most of the POWs in the Pacific Theater during WWII weren't cannibalized by their Japanese POW camp commanders.

What's your point?

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[LunarCrisis]

My point was that that not all true statements are equally useful. Call me an optimist, but I assume people are telling the truth until I have good reason to suspect otherwise. Knowing that most bosses tell the truth is not useful knowledge, since it's the "default". Knowing that two out of five are liars, on the other hand, tells me something new.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, most countries aren't being invaded by the United States.

Not yet.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[khallow]

I imagine his point was that a surprising percent of bosses, a *majority* even, are considered honest by whatever standard this study uses.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[Kuvter]

Not Lying != Honesty

To definition lying, it's when you knowingly tell someone and untruth or knowingly mislead someone with your statement. If a boss planed on doing something for the employees, but doesn't end up doing it, they're not necessarily lying because their intent was to do it.

Honesty, on top of lying, has to do with being honorable in action, keeping integrity. If a boss continually fails to comply with their promises they may be honest in intent, but aren't so honest in action.

This is not to say your statement is false, only that it isnt necessarily an actuate deconstructing the headline.

Re:Decontructing the Headline

[susano_otter]

I think it's accurate enough for the purpose of a headline.

Also, your use of English, while good overall, contains several clues that you may not understand as much about how words are used in English as you think.

Well, all I can say is...

[also-rr]

I have never lied to *anyone* who has worked for me.

Re:Well, all I can say is...

[TERdON]

I have never lied to *anyone* who has worked for me.

In other words, you haven't ever been an employer? :P

Re:Well, all I can say is...

[KendyForTheState]

I am a boss, and I lie. A lot. In fact, everything I say is a lie.

Re:Well, all I can say is...

[duguk]

YAY! Paradox!

Appropiate linkage

Re:Well, all I can say is...

[XnavxeMiyyep]

Actually, "Everything I say is a lie," is not a paradox. It can simply be false, because if he has ever told the truth, then the statement is wrong no matter what. The paradoxical element of referring to itself is no longer relevant.

Who did they ask again?

[Anonymous Coward]

40% of bosses lie? Wrong: 100% of bosses lie. Bosses (for now) are humans, and like the rest of us every one of them tells lies once in a while. If they're talking about serious work-related lies... how many employees lie to their bosses? (Remember to ask the bosses that one, just to be fair).

Also, while I agree that in general bosses aren't liked, and often deserve it, I get the feeling "2/5 people feel that their boss has at least once lied, or forgotten a promise, or changed their mind, or been forced to change their mind by *their* boss" would be more accurate. I guess not so catchy, though.

Here's the answer

[bogaboga]

I have been a victim of lying bosses, but since leaving that work environment, I have found happiness in a unionized work environment. Over here, your boss cannot do a thing to you. All workers appear to be treated equally which is good. This environment has its problems I agree, but I like it anyway.

So the answer to lying bosses could be: UNIONIZE!

Re:Here's the answer

[easter1916]

Curious; where is "over here"? Never heard of unionized IT employees, even in Europe.

Re:Here's the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm an Engineer. I'm special. I'm not like all that unwashed rabble that has to have a union to make themselves artificially valuable. I'm intrinsically valuable!

Re:Here's the answer

[bogaboga]

Curious; where is "over here"? Never heard of unionized IT employees, even in Europe.

I will borrow a leaf from politicians and therefore not comment on individual situations. But what I can say is that I am very happy "over here." The other thing is all workers are in a union and are not segregated on a department by department basis.

That's our strength. In addition to all other perks, we get subsidized training on new technology.

Re:Here's the answer

[CastrTroy]

The canadian government has lots of unionized IT employees. Never heard of it in the private sector, but I'm sure some company out there has unionized tech employees.

Re:Here's the answer

[gregtron]

I'm a supervisor in a union environment, and I completely agree. We have our own problems within the trade, but overall, employees are treated better, treat each other better, are more productive, and make more money (which is probably related in some mysterious way to their attitude and productivity).

Of course, things are probably a lot different here in my construction world than in, say an IT or marketing department. Honestly, the success of the company I work for is more than likely due to the comeraderie amongst the employees throughout the organization than anything else. The owner, engineers, and project managers are on a first name basis with most workers and direct supervisors, and could probably tell you the name of their spouses, or what their hobbies are. So maybe being a good work environment comes from erasing the lines between supervision and work force.

Sensitivity training, here we come!

Re:Here's the answer

[heroofhyr]

There are IT unions in Austria and Germany, if not all of (western and central at least) Europe. The national constitution in Austria stipulates if 5 people sign a petition for a union, they become protected by law from their employer and have the right to form one without harassment. I'm not saying the companies don't treat the IT unions like shit, or that the union bosses aren't corrupted, but they do exist. 4 out of 5 people in Finland are union members. For IT workers it's only 1 out of 3, but that figure is probably still much, much higher than in the US and a lot of the low figure has to do with the fact that in Europe most young companies (less than 10 years old) offer two kinds of employment: full-time, which in a lot of European countries automatically entitles the employee to join a union at contract-signing time, and flex-time, which give the employee almost no rights whatsoever but have more flexible working hours. Even then, there's nothing legal stopping them from forming a union, they're just more easy to intimidate because their supervisor can suddenly say "Sorry, we suddenly have to cut your schedule to ten hours a week due to budget problems."

As for "2 out of 5 bosses lie" being interpreted as "3 out of 5 bosses tell the truth," don't forget that even a sociopath can pass a polygraph with flying colours. If they flinched when they fibbed, they wouldn't have gotten promoted in the first place.

Re:Here's the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, like those Union Bosses are such nice folks !

Re:Here's the answer

[AuMatar]

Yup. By the way, we need you to work on Saturday and Sunday, to help train Habib in Mumbai.

Re:Here's the answer

[johnlcallaway]

No thanks ... I prefer to take care of things myself instead of having lying union stewards or fellow union workers stab me in the back. I've seen that happen enough times to feel that unionization is no magic bullet; I can trust only my own ability to tell my boss 'fuck you' and go elsewhere.

Re:Here's the answer

[easter1916]

Thanks for the info. I'm Irish, and have worked in Germany (4 years), France (1 year), Netherlands (2 years) and Ireland (4 years), and subsequently have been in the US since 1998. As I mentioned, I've never heard of IT workers joining unions in any of those countries. Sure, we were represented on the Betriebsrat (workers council) in Germany, but no unions per se.

Re:Here's the answer

[Erixxxxx]

Go ahead, join a gang ("Unionize" as you call it).

Just means that much more work for those of us who arent incompetent. Unions are for those who cant compete.

Even worse...

[jpellino]

The boss in charge of this study lied about it - it's actually 4 out of 5 bosses that lie!

Oh, and the fifth one recommends sugar-free gum.

Well documented

[MECC]

FTFA:"The abusive boss has been well documented in movies"

Well documented in the ... movies?! ...

How about also well documented in Mad Magazine...

Re:Well documented

[Otter]

My favorite was how My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss was cited as documentary evidence. Next Joe Millionaire will turn out to have been an informative look a the love lives of the wealthy!

Re:Well documented

[vic-traill]

>FTFA:"The abusive boss has been well documented in movies"

>Well documented in the ... movies?! ...

Thank you. I think you have hit upon the Essence of the Idiocy of the submitter and a number of the associated posts.

The title could have just as easily been 'Most Bosses Don't Lie'.

I'm an IT manager. I like to think I'm not a PHB. Most of my reports, either direct or elsewhere in my reporting structure, like me, but some don't. I can honestly say that I never bullshit them.

The majority of people who report up into my office are smart, reasonably hard-working people who like to come to work and take pride in the results. A few are lying shitheads who lie to both me and their co-workers.

So what does any of this say about a particular individual? Nothing. It's just a bullshit headline that a bunch of people can glom onto and serve up a stack of ad hominem stories that they then generalise to all bosses, or all employees.

Want to get along with your boss or your employees? Communicate. Show up when you say you will. Do what you say you're going to do for them. When there is a problem, let them know as soon as you're aware of it. Give them honest feedback about how you think something should be done.

Specific to bosses: Give credit where due. Recognise and note it when folks go above and beyond. If you've got an issue with how someone is working (or not working), bring it forward quickly with specific examples, and specific comments about how to improve. Don't tell tales out of class. Recognition is public; feedback is private.

If you're working for a boss who is an asshole, start looking for ways to get out of there. By the time people are in their 30's or 40's, you're not likely to change their psychological make-up or emotional (im)maturity. The asshole *will* get theirs in time, but there will be a lot of collateral damage in the meanwhile. While you're there, limit their ability to screw you; don't load their gun (by showing up late or missing deadlines), document your interactions with e-mail that affirms expectations or deadlines set 'in the hallway'. If you're getting mixed messages, or they are switching priorities on you, follow-up with a message that confirms what your new priority is and makes it clear what the impact of the change is ('now that I'm working on Project A full-time for the next week, Project B and Project C tasks (enumerate them here) will move to these new dates ...', etc.).

And if you're a boss, remember that one of the hallmarks of leadership is grace under pressure.

Re:Well documented

[mschuyler]

Thank you for one of the few intelligent posts in this thread. If I had mod points, I'd give them all to you. For every asshole boss story there is an asshole employee story to match. Statistically speaking, more. I was in the workforce for forty years. Thank God I could get out early. I've been an employee whose had many, many bosses, and a boss who has had many employees. That someone "doesn't like" their boss could have two main reasons: Either their boss really is a bad boss, or they are a bad employee. I don't know ANY bad employees who thought highly of their superiors. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the bad employees I have encountered thought their boss was at fault. "My boss is so bad that I'm forced to show up drunk and smoke pot on the roof." If I could impart just one shred of advise from those forty years of work it would be this:

If you do not like where you are at, leave.

Everyone will thank you now; and you'll thank yourself later.

Re:Well documented

[Javaman59]

That someone "doesn't like" their boss could have two main reasons: Either their boss really is a bad boss, or they are a bad employee.

We're getting somewhere here, but I think the most common reason (that people don't like their boss) is actually somewhere in between. Either the employee, or boss, or both, is mediocre (not "bad"), and the personality differences exacerbate the mediocrity, rather than lift it. This particularly applies when the mediocrity is due to inexperience - an inexperienced boss, or employee, doesn't have Plan B to fall back to, when Plan A fails, and quickly becomes nervous, and looking to blame someone else. And most of all, no-one ever admitted that they themselves were "mediocre"!!!

With 20 years experience, and more than ten bosses, I can look back at most situations where I thought the boss was "bad", and see that I was convincing myself that my performance was "excellent", and hence deserving of more recognition, when in fact it was only mediocre. On the other hand, the one or two bosses which I still, with hindsight, see as being bad bosses, were people who demanded perfection from staff, while accepting mediocrity from themselves.

Re:Well documented

[MECC]

Want to get along with your boss or your employees? Communicate. Show up when you say you will. Do what you say you're going to do for them. When there is a problem, let them know as soon as you're aware of it. Give them honest feedback about how you think something should be done.

Specific to bosses: Give credit where due. Recognise and note it when folks go above and beyond. If you've got an issue with how someone is working (or not working), bring it forward quickly with specific examples, and specific comments about how to improve. Don't tell tales out of class. Recognition is public; feedback is private.

That is hands down the best advice I could imagine ever.

Well documented?

[1010110010]

Wasn't the whole point of 'My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss' that the guy was a fake?

O_o

[WgT2]

Only 2 in 5?

O_o

Picture in article

[Stephen Tennant]

Did anyone look at the picture of Prof.Wayne Hochwarter, and assume this was an actor posing to look like a jerk boss for the article?

Re:Picture in article

[operagost]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Imagine walking in to see that sour puss every day.

Nine to Five?

[Herr Ziffer]

>>The abusive boss has been well documented in movies 'Nine to Five'), Nine to Five? That's one lie my boss never told me. So what ever happened to the Nine to Five day?

Lies! All lies!!

[Rob T Firefly]

I'd just like to point out that I have no less than total and complete respect for and faith in my boss, and I'll stand by that statement for as long as it takes me to get home and post to Slashdot via a connection he doesn't run or monitor.

Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie

[Andrewkov]

Also, 40% of sick days happen on Mondays and Fridays.

Actually, to be honest, I'm shocked that 5 out of 5 bosses don't lie.

And in other news...

[maiden_taiwan]

...four out of five people lie.

Re:And in other news...

[LittleGuy]

....and, all this time, I've been using sugarless gum.

I feel used.

Re:And in other news...

[git68]

All people lie, it is a natural human trait learnt by most children at around 3-4 years of age, those who are better at it (in particular concealing it) will often be more successful than those who aren't IMO.

Re:And in other news...

[Surt]

....and, all this time, I've been using sugarless gum.

You really ought to try sugared gum once, because the difference is like dog vomit vs filet mignon. Trust me.

85-15 rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

85% of all issues are due too management. 15% are due to employees.

I love my work. I love my co-workers. I love my Users. They are all good people. But the in-fighting, pissing matches and all round incompotence of the middle management here is the reason I am looking for a new position outside the company. The IT department alone has been the source of significant cost overruns, poor services, and general missmanagement, mostly for the sake of a middle manager that is too prideful and untrained. Combined with a HR staff that has their hands tied and some extremely poor personel management decisions by other managers, this place is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Moral is high at the moment, coming off of a few short weeks and some much deserved pay increases. But prior to that, things were pretty ugly. My guess is that in a few weeks, the x-mas good cheer will wear off, the middle management will continue to treat IT employees (and others too) like crap. And the turn over will continue. You would think that an 80%+ turn over rate in 2 years would shoot up some red flags to the upper management.

And is it just me, or should the phrase "It's very political" not be a f'ing excuse?

Culture of abuse = $$$

[LibertineR]

Not saying it should be this way, but during the gravy period at Microsoft, abuse WAS the culture.

It was so common, that instead of shrinking from it, 99% of those abused took it as a challenge, instead of a personal slight. In the course of an hour, you could go from Genius to Asshole comments about you from the same boss. If you had worked 20 days straight and needed a day off to see a doctor about feeling dizzy, you were branded a slacker or a pussy if something needed to ship and your module was late.

Only when Microsoft started hiring more women and minorities did things change to a large degree. Of course, Microsoft's productivity also took a hit right around that time too.

So, what am I saying? Decide that for yourself.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[liquid_rince]

I would love to threaten you, but I see your point.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Clever7Devil]

Hey hey now. Making statements like this is what makes your point (and there is validity to be found in it) seem bigoted.

The act of assuming that women and minorities are somehow less than white males is the root of the problem. The fact that these groups have been discriminated against creates a need for balance.

FACT: More than 50% of the population of the US considers themselves "White". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census% 2C_2000
FACT: There are more males employed than females. ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat8.txt
THEORY: The ratios will remain largely the same in the workforce.

The reason that an influx of women and minorities may seem to you to have reduced productivity? I believe the explanation lies in companies having "Affirmative Action" policies that make an attribute that has nothing to do with ability a determining factor in choosing who to hire.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Only when Microsoft started hiring more women and minorities did things change to a large degree. Of course, Microsoft's productivity also took a hit right around that time too.

So, what am I saying? Decide that for yourself.

You're a misogynistic racist who has no idea how to motivate workers? Hey, if you're also a habitual drunk, you win a prize!

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[westlake]

I believe the explanation lies in companies having "Affirmative Action" policies that make an attribute that has nothing to do with ability a determining factor in choosing who to hire.

I can't recall a time when "ability" (narrowly defined) was the only thing that mattered to your employer.

"He has the technical skills, but not the social skills we require." Translation: He is arrogant SOB who will be constantly at war with his team mates and his supervisors. He can't be trusted to keep his hands off any woman within his reach.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Clever7Devil]

If social skills (keyword: "skills") are necessary or advantageous to your productivity, they are an "ability" as much as any technical skill.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when Microsoft started hiring more women and minorities did things change to a large degree. Of course, Microsoft's productivity also took a hit right around that time too. So, what am I saying? Decide that for yourself.

Microsoft employees were more productive before they discovered women?

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[version5]

If you had worked 20 days straight and needed a day off to see a doctor about feeling dizzy, you were branded a slacker or a pussy... Only when Microsoft started hiring more women and minorities did things change to a large degree. Of course, Microsoft's productivity also took a hit right around that time too. So, what am I saying?

You are saying that its awesome to be so weak-minded that you can be bullied into risking damage to your health so you can ship some bullshit product that will be obsolete in a year and a half. Also, you are saying that its a wondrously manly virtue to treat yourself and others as if they are empty shells with no intrinsic value outside of their ability to perform a function. In our society, men are trained to believe in the virtue of "taking one for the team." In practice, this means:

• pretend to be invulnerable, ignore your basic physical and emotional needs and desensitize yourself to pain
• take extremely dangerous jobs where you could be hurt or killed and don't complain about it
• join the military and risk violent and bloody death for "patriotism" and "loyalty" -- which are code words that really mean "you have the obligation to die" -- even though war mainly benefits a handful of rich people
• men are taught to believe that they are worthless if they don't have a job. This is why the suicide rate rises with the unemployment rate.
• men are 5 times more likely to kill themselves than women, partly because men are not permitted to express emotional pain
• men are 4 times more likely to be murdered
• male life expectancy is 5-10 years less than women, partly because male virtues include recklessness, aggression, competition and emotional repression leading to suicide

From an early age, men are suckered into the macho cult of invulnerability, aggression and competition, and taught that it makes us powerful. But it doesn't, it kills us off in large numbers. But it sure works out well for the wealthy. Are you having a hard time finding workers willing to be shot at, burned or buried alive, have their limbs torn off by machinery and their bodies subjected to toxic chemicals? Just tell them they are a bunch of pussies, and not only will they be begging you for the chance to prove their manhood, they'll also do free recruiting. Men are taunted, bullied and humiliated to the point that even their basic humanity is taken -- something that no-one has the right to take -- and then taught they can earn it back by suffering and dying for some rich person on a literal or metaphorical battle field. Those that survive turn around and hand their sons the same raw deal.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[LibertineR]

Oh brother, climb down from the mountaintop, will ya?

Christ, that some santimony for my ass!

What I described was an environment of very young, very impressionable geekdom, with nothing but C++ and stock options on our minds. I guess I am not surprised at the PC take on what I wrote, but damn!

The point regarding women and minorities, was the fact that EVERYONE had to adjust to a more politically correct and sensitive environment, where you could no longer sling insults down the corrador, in case it bounced off someone with tender feelings.

My comments should not be seen as suggestive of the relative merits of women or minorities, but I probably should have been SENSITIVE enough to understand that some might take it that way.

The bottom line is that Microsoft got 'big company' disease, and like every other company that became more diverse over time, more attention was paid to those soft-skills and the place became less of a free-wheeling code shop.

Nothing else, bitches!

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[version5]

Did you read what I said? My post had nothing to do with being sensitive to people's feelings, and everything to do with the fact that society's unrealistic demands on men are killing them. In what universe is it PC to say that men are unfairly oppressed and discriminated against by the powerful? But while we are on the topic, you suggested that Microsoft became less productive because of women and minorities, and that means you are a jackass, but you decided you were going to get all evasive and clever, so you say "What am I really saying? Who knows? You figure it out!" Then someone calls you out for being the jackass that you are, and you get to put on another dramatic, yet predictable production of The Poor Innocent Victim Of Oversensitive PC Idiots. I hear its a real tear-jerker. Why don't you just stand by your opinions?

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Monkeyman334]

Women dont kill themselves because they're afraid to. Women tend to kill themselves with pills instead of guns. Women also believe in God more than men do for the same reason. Yes, I am a sociologist.

(maybe there's some other factors, but it isn't just because men are put under more pressure like you state)

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[syousef]

He probably is. But only probably. Hiring shouldn't be based on sex at all. That means no affirmative action either. My experience is that when women are motivated they're very VERY capable in IT. The first company IT I worked for had about 50% of the programmers being female (mostly because the SOB I worked for hired people who had no more than high school educations so he could literally pay the developers less than they'd have earnt working at MacDonalds but that's a whole other story). In any case they were as good as or better than the guys were. However I've also worked some places where the women employed were useless and shouldn't have been coding. Regardless of sex you have to be able to think logically and you have to be interested.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. You hit a very serious issue (with men) right on the head.

How does it take away from my manhood if I don't want to be some pimp(boss)'s bitch? It doesn't. However, we are awash with stereotypical b.s., dogma, from young age, which we completely internalize and live out. This is pushed upon us by those who want to milk men for their last ounce of productivity (whereas women are supposed to look/fuck pretty, talk about double standards).

I'm not trying to wiggle out of responsiblity and/or accountability, don't get me wrong - but there is (I'd say a very fine one) a line between being held morally accountable/responsible for your actions and being turned into somebody's bitch. The younger, more immature and hormonal you are, this line is blurrier.

With experience and maturity, you get wiser (hopefully, or you'll die trying), and are able to tell these distinctions apart you so eloquently outlined here for the /. crowd.

Having personally experienced most of what you outlined (short of having died before my wife :), I can attest to the truthfulness of most of what you said. I'm a software engineer, btw... (10+ years of exp). My dick's bigger than most people (so I've been told by multiple girlfriends), I can do the 'manly' thing to any normal woman with a healthy libido, and I am good at what I do, all without losing my potency, nerves, manhood, or anything else for that matter. I acquired the attitude that escapes the male-stereotypical points later in life (around age 30, and not early enough in my opinion....).

Those who do not understand these points will most likely find out about them the hard way. If they do not, they will constantly feel remiss, dissatisfied and will eventually burn out without exception.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Architect_sasyr]

We have a policy where I work. If you're good at what you do, we hire you. Out of a team, about 15% of them are female. This is merely because they had the better qualifications and the people skills necessary for the positions they were going for.

An interesting point to note in my company is that there are no mixed race people. We are all white native-english speakers. Racism? Perhaps. But if we get someone in here who we can't easily convey an idle conversation idea too, how are we to be expected to get them to code as we wish?

I once witnessed one of my office's receptionists get hung up on because she was an Islander. Hell, she was one of the nicest people I know, but even I had issues talking to her for lack of understanding. The biggest issue we have is with th e huggy-feely department (Human Resources) demanding that we have equal opportunity. That's great, but I hate to say it, when your in an environment you don't want to have a complete curve ball thrown at you... if I were the only white guy in a team of asian-heritage coders, I would fully expect the same sort of treatment.

Each race/gender has their place, but to call someone racist for ensuring their team works well together and there are minimal communication problems?

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[LibertineR]

You are an idiot.

I did NOT say Microsoft became less productive because of women and minorities.

I said that Microsoft became less productive because of a percieved need to be more sensitive because they became more diverse and like any company, would like to avoid litigation.

If you missed that, I hope you didnt miss that you are an idiot?

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

From an early age, men are suckered into the macho cult of invulnerability, aggression and competition, and taught that it makes us powerful. But it doesn't, it kills us off in large numbers. But it sure works out well for the wealthy. Are you having a hard time finding workers willing to be shot at, burned or buried alive, have their limbs torn off by machinery and their bodies subjected to toxic chemicals? Just tell them they are a bunch of pussies, and not only will they be begging you for the chance to prove their manhood, they'll also do free recruiting.

How very true...but I have developed a survival technique which has served me long & well. Being a natural blonde...I just claim stupidty & go my merry way. Sure...it makes me look like an idiot...but it has kept me out of the military & from jobs I wouldn't allow robots to even handle.

I intend to pass from this life lying in my warm bed...rather than clawing & fighting my way to a quick death.

As for the quality of my life... corporations are going to see to it that us peons will all get bloody asses & early deaths. Just look at 3rd World sweatshops. This is capitalism in action!!! The longer I'm alive...the more I believe that Marx & Engel were right!!!

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

I once witnessed one of my office's receptionists get hung up on because she was an Islander

You just hang people in the office??? Does that motivate people? How do you get rid of the corpses? Do you work for the KKK?

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Architect_sasyr]

You just hang people in the office??? Does that motivate people? How do you get rid of the corpses? Do you work for the KKK?

In order: Sure do. You bet it does. We cut them into small pieces and feed them to the wild kangaroo's out the back. Welcome to Australian IT.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[wboelen]

OMG you're even more disillusioned than me, did your boss touch your weenie? ;)

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[fishbowl]

>We are all white native-english speakers. Racism? Perhaps.

Aren't you the one who brought it up? If you were in Atlanta Georgia and you had no black people on your staff, I would be suspicious. If you were in Scottsdale Arizona, I would be surprised to see a black person on your staff, but would not be surprised to see people of Mexican or Navajo descent.

>if I were the only white guy in a team of asian-heritage coders, I would fully expect the same sort of treatment.

I would expect (and give) respect. But then, I'm get along quite well with Chinese people, at least. I know how to act when I get invited for dinner and mah jong :-)

>when your in an environment

Use caution when criticizing the communication skills of others.

Re:Culture of abuse = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

Pussy. =)

The other three...

[Junta]

Use buzzwords such that whether they are lying or not is undefined...

it's more like ..

[rs232]

"that nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word"

It's more like zero in five bosses keep their word. Welcome to the wonderfull world of work.

So very true

[Apocalypse111]

I've only been in the work force for about 2 years now, but I've already changed jobs once - and it was for exactly the reason of leaving my boss. I'm not going to go into too many details, but it was for not only lying, but also for verbal abuse based on unwarranted assumptions and a generally hostile attitude (not anything so drastic I could make a legal case about, unfortunately, although it would be hard to get blood from a rock). It also didn't help that the HR department consisted entirely of the boss's wife, who tried to turn any of our problems with the boss back around into criticisms of the employees and the insinuation that we needed to work harder (although after the first couple of meetings with her to clear the air, her motives became pretty clear). I'm much happier at my new job, and making a considerable amount more money there as well. I've done my best to put the old job behind me, as my only fond memories of the place were in the friendships formed with coworkers. Mostly I try not to think about the place, as it only makes my blood pressure spike.

I Believe This

[broward]

The 40% figure is close to my own experience since the Dotcom Crash. I don't classify it as "lying", though, but as "deceit". And I've learned to be far more critical in evaluating new job positions. My latest experiences in December -

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =dicey_projects

Honesty

[kabloom]

I doubt that the results would be any better if you surveyed a the general public to find out whether they told the truth or lied. Honesty is an important that's sorely lacking in our society, one that we each need to indepenantly work to develop. When you take your 13 year-old child to an amusement park, do you say to him "you look 12" and use that to get a discounted children's rate? Do you lie your way out of parking tickets? Honesty is a trait that everyone needs to develop. You can't expect your boss to be truthful if you're not.

Re:Honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't expect your boss to be truthful if you're not.

That's like saying you can't expect priests to keep their hands off the kids.

We expect more from the people given positions of power and responsibility than we do from the burger flipper who puts the burgers he drops back on the grill. Otherwise, why should I even have a boss for any purpose other than aggregating reports from individuals?

Re:Honesty

[kabloom]

You can't expect your boss to be truthful if you're not. We expect more from the people given positions of power and responsibility than we do from the burger flipper... There are certain skills and character traits required to be a manager, that are a unique qualification to be a manager. Such traits include organization skills, communication skills, the ability to see a bigger picture, and the like. Honesty is not unique to being a manager -- it's a trait required to function any capacity in society.

Number is Higher

[mpapet]

All too often socially discouraged behavior is very hard to quantify in a questionairre.

In questionairres where the socially/morally disapproved behavior is put directly to the interviewee you get a really small number of truthful responses. ex. do you use heroin?

If they tested the behavior in a more indirect way. Ex. When I party with my friends I use A) alcohol, B) Pot, C)Heroin. And then a little later on a similar question. Ex. I prefer A) alcohol B) pot C) heroin. If the truth is being told, there's a correlation between certain questions.

So, that only 2 bosses admit this is suspect. Research on other non-approved behaviors suggests it's probably much higher. How high? Not sure.

Re:Number is Higher

[myowntrueself]

Its all down to how you ask the questions.

For example, you might get the false impression that there is very little bestiality going on if you were to go around asking people directly if they ever had sex with an animal.

The correct way to go about such a survey would be to get them really drunk then say: "I bet you never made it with a farm animal".

Thank god they lie!

[EraseEraseMe]

While I was in college, I worked in the tech support department of a small mom-and-pop ISP (with 8000 customers or so). The department 'manager', if you will, wasn't as technically adept as the snot-nosed brats he had to look after, but he kept a good sense of humour about him.

His big joke was to fire me at every staff meeting.

Re:Thank god they lie!

[Junta]

Milton is that you? Did you get your stapler back?

Lumburgh Approves This Message

[fatnicky]

I had a boss like lumburgh. Always missing the point and rewarding butt kissers who spent all day emailing so they didn't have to do any actual work. The greatest glory I received was an email, forwarded to me by a friend, after I had quit. It was from HR and advised anyone caught defacing the bathroom or tampering with the "mechanical function" of the toilets would be fired. I left a steaming sub in each of the men's rooms the night I quit. I quit on a Friday.

Re:Lumburgh Approves This Message

[Peyna]

I left a steaming sub in each of the men's rooms the night I quit.

I'm hoping this was a fairly small office you worked for. If not, I am very impressed with your bowels.

There are liars and then there are liars...

[__aaclcg7560]

At one company I worked at, the supervisors in my department would compete against each other for the monthly award of having a top team. My project had priority for overtime on a Saturday but my supervisor's rival was in charged and he assigned all my testers for his projects that had a lower priority. The producer noticed that there was no new bug reports in the database and I told him why. I got in trouble with the supervisors for telling the truth to someone outside of the department. I wasn't the only one who had this problem and management spent a month explaining how not to tell the truth without lying. It got to the point that I was willing to be fired for telling the truth. After my supervisor was promoted out of the department, my supervisor's rival gave me "his way or the highway" speech and I resigned the following week. Go figure.

"I've known dozens...

[NoseBag]

"...of bosses, and NONE of them ever lied to me!"

(signed), your boss

RateMyEmployer.com

[Anonymous Coward]

What we NEED is ratemyemployer.com just like we have ratemyprofessor.com!

I, for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

...welcome our prevaricating overlords.

competant HR departments? Where?

[HornWumpus]

Never seen ONE.

They're the ones who hire the assholes in the first place.

A much better bet is a small company where the big cheese is the HR department. That way you only have one potential asshole to worry about.

Re:competant HR departments? Where?

[Chyeld]

And I've never seen a coworker with the attitude of:

"They're the ones who hire the assholes in the first place.

A much better bet is a small company where the big cheese is the HR department. That way you only have one potential asshole to worry about."

Who couldn't be pegged as the source of most of their own problems and the author of their own pink slip.

That doesn't mean they don't exist, I just haven't bothered to look. I have a feeling neither have you.

Dilbert principle...

[fahrbot-bot]

Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie

And (at least) 2 out of 5 are incompetent and probably "lie" out of ignorance. This leaves 1 gem out of 5. Good hunting people. As support for my argument, I cite just about any issue of Dilbert and the popularity of the strip in general... :-)

Re:Dilbert principle...

[Apocalypse111]

Dilbert's boss isn't so much lying willfully as he is lying ignorantly. At least, that's how it ends up most of the time. He's not so much malicious as clueless (although he can be both at times as well). Its a peculiar blend which is best described by the phrase "pointy haired".

Re:Dilbert principle...

[fahrbot-bot]

Dilbert's boss isn't so much lying willfully as he is lying ignorantly.

Yup. Exactly my point - good catch with "pointy haired".

I had one manager who didn't really know anything about Unix and/or networking, but wouldn't admit to being clueless. One of my co-workers use to just make stuff up about the network configuration and my manager would just nod his head in agreement and say "go for it". He went to work for Symantec - make of that what you will...

To do this study correctly....

[King_TJ]

I think you'd have to ask a cross-section of workers under the *same* boss what they thought of him/her, and only given the boss a "bad mark" for lying, shifting blame, or whatnot if the *majority* made the same complaint.

Like you said, it's easy to find someone who feels he/she was lied to once about such things as upcoming raises or thinks his/her pet project was undermined by a boss at some point. The REAL question is, is this sort of behavior a pattern with a certain boss, or are they recording isolated incidents?

Abusive?

[Kaikopere]

I thought it was a stretch to say these employees were involved in an "abusive" relationship with their boss. Lots of folks, employees and supervisors included, are poor communicators and tend to shift blame for their unhappiness on to other people. What I got out of this article was that about 20% of people in the work force have some degree of unhappiness with their employment due to poor people/communication skills and don't know how to fix it. 9 out of 10 issues I've had with my bosses were communication problems and were easily sorted out if both of us were willing to act like professionals. Most of the worst situations, in my experience, were caused by folks who thought you had to be friends to work together (and therefore took everything way too personally) or folks that were afraid of confrontation and wouldn't speak up when they felt they were being wronged. If you don't confront someone you think is giving you the "silent treatment" how do you know that's what they're doing? Maybe they just don't have anything to say to you, or they're going deaf and are too embarrassed to get a hearing aid, or their dog died last night and they're depressed. Supervisors who are out to get someone from pure spite are very rare in my experience. If you keep running into abusive bosses in all the jobs you take, maybe the problem isn't your boss...

Re:Abusive?

[Overzeetop]

If you keep running into abusive bosses in all the jobs you take, maybe the problem isn't your boss...

Truer words were never spoken.

I saw the numbers and immediately realized that they were typical human-interaction numbers. I have left a job becuase of a boss. We just didn't see eye to eye on anything, and neither of us really respected the other in certain ways. Once I realized that, I knew that he or I would have to go, and he was a part owner in the company. I don't bear him any ill-will, there are some people who just don't get along. I would say that I've been very lucky with bosses, and have had very good relationships with almost all of them. I'm pretty sure the the reverse of your statement is probably true. Now I'm the boss, and I've found that it takes a lot of work to be a good one - far from impossible, though.

There are back-stabbing bosses out there, but I would suspect the numbers down in the single digit percentages.

Re:Abusive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, because I'm giving MY boss the silent treatment.

Really, I just don't want to talk to her, ever.

Colonels better than generals

[Flying pig]

This may not be true of all military groupings, but I think you have hit an interesting nail on the head. People who rise to colonel or the equivalent may well have left the forces after a last command posting. They have been running an organisation. They are aware of practicalities. They have all kinds of people working for them, from ambitious junior officers down to specialists counting the days till they leave and translate their skills into civilian employment. The classical colonel-level briefing is "Boys, we've been dropped in the shit again, let's see how we're going to get out."

Generals, on the other hand, deal with people in the abstract. If they address the workforce, it is to issue a few windy generalities about loyalty,patriotism and team spirit like the guy you describe. And, a terrible downer, they have to talk to politicians, which would make anybody cynical about human nature.

Colonels should be allowed to transfer their management expertise to civilian life. They are, in my experience, often remarkably reasonable and open minded. Generals should be allowed to retire with honours. (OK, there are rare exceptions like Eisenhower.) The Roman Empire started to go into the shit big time when retired generals started to become emperors, and I see no reason why the same should not be true of companies.

Re:Colonels better than generals

[tnk1]

Actually, the problem was that the Roman Empire started to be run by a number of *active-duty* generals, frequently more than one at once. :)

OTOH

[bubbl07]

Conversely, although my work isn't all too exciting (standard web application development), one of the main reasons I stay is because of my boss.

Define verbal abuse!

[HornWumpus]

For some it would be any criticism at all.

For others it would be only speech that can get you sued.

Also consider asshole employees force their bosses to be assholes themselves (I'd just maintain an asshole free environment by firing the asshole employee before (s)he gets promoted).

Consider also that some bosses are challenging and gruff and expect to be argued with in the same fashion. These are some of the best I've worked for but are impossible to separate from the others until you are ready to look back without blinking and tell them exactly why they are wrong. The good ones listen, understand and let you earn their respect, the bad ones don't.

In any case communication is inherently difficult. A company staffed by diplomats will have it's own problems (like nothing ever getting done).

More than 2 levels

[carpeweb]

Acting as an advocate for the people who worked for me didn't seem to help them or me much. As a middle manager, you can try to be a good boss, but if the management above you doesn't do the same, it can backfire. My boss's boss eventually forced me out of the company after a very successful two years as leader of the development group. I was pretty proud of those two years, especially since I had never managed a development team (I came from the marketing/strategy side). My reward for succeeding in a difficult situation was a modest settlement package. My boss's boss wasted $40 million over a few years (typical dot-com story; product worked but nobody wanted to buy it), and of course got promoted when the business was "merged" back into the parent company. AFAIK, the people who worked for me liked me well enough as a boss, but they certainly weren't in any position to help me when I became the bullseye. They all did fine, because our projects were delivered on time and within budget (ok, not quite typical dot-com?). I don't think I'll be able to do it, but I understand why some people "manage up".

Leaving your boss or leaving the company.

[Dystopian Rebel]

A horrible manager is in that position because the company doesn't care about the employees. Leave a bad manager as soon as you can for your own sake, but recognize that there is something wrong with the management who keep him or her in that role.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

According to Seafox

[Orion Blastar]

Apple Execs don't lie about stock options and bosses never lie. It is the people who point out the issues about those execs who lie. Which means the survey was a lie.

Not my idea, but Seafox's idea. Seafox being just another one of those Slashdot trolls that thinks he is right about everything.

FORTY percent?

[jcr]

Ok, that sounds way too high. I've had a couple of weasels in my chain of command during my career to date, but nothing like that many.

-jcr

Re:FORTY percent?

[Anonymous Coward]

i guess I will agree with this study since I have held jobs at 4 IT companies after graduation. And I have had 2 realy bad experiences with my bosses (50%) which led to job change

Mod parent up

[carpeweb]

Also, what percentage of employees in general lie? If it's 50%, then bosses are more honest than their reports. There are survey/statistical techniques for addressing whether or not people lie about a specific issue/question. Unfortunately, I forget the details, but it's clear this study doesn't even consider them. One technique involve asking pairs of questions where the average response for one of the questions is well-known and stable, like, "are you right-handed?". Assuming that the known answer is uncorrelated with the question of interest allows for an estimate of the question to which people might not want to answer truthfully, like, "have you stopped beating your spouse?". Ok, not quite, but that's the gist.

I've butchered the illustration, of course, but FSU isn't paying me the big bucks.

Mod parent up.

human resources

[hachete]

I know most people regard HR as a waste of space, but at least they do provide a safety net for whinging about yr boss. There's nothing to say that *they won't tattle-tale, still, I've found them fairly safe. I work for a company that reduced it's HR dept to 0 :-/

By the same token, they should also ban the HR person from marrying the team leader :-/

Re:human resources

[Architect_sasyr]

There is nothing to say they won't tell, that's why we work in IT... we can just send anonymous emails regarding others in our company.

Perhaps we're abusing the power somewhat? Nah... we're all stuck up on the bloody stage to make sure we perform right, we might as well make use of the power we have...

HR is useless!

[HornWumpus]

I've spent many years consulting for large electric utilities around the world. You'd think those would be companies that had strong engineering backgrounds, you'd be wrong. They are run by politicians and shysters.

These companies all had large, professional HR departments. These departments could keep the utilities on the good side of the EEOC (or their international equivalents) but weren't able to hire competent people or managers. This was basically my experience early in my carrier when I crunched numbers for insurance companies and mortgage banks.

They also all (to a one) had large staffs of incompetent managers who talked real good when their supervisors where around but were oxygen thieves. Dilbert is a documentary. The peter principle is alive and well and was actually optimistic when compared to the reality I've seen. Once someone reaches their level of incompetence they then work to surround themselves with even more incompetent people to make themselves look good in comparison (not my observation, just forgot the name of the peter principle correlary).

As I said regarding the small shop. You do have one potential asshole to worry about. You get to vote with your feet.

Hiring during rapid growth is very difficult. In my experience the process went to hell at about the same time a formal HR departments were created. Weather the HR departments were created as a response to the process going to hell is another question. What was painfully obvious was that HR made it worse not better.

Just two in five?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems less than i thought, but then I work for lawyers...

If you can trust those three

[Weaselmancer]

I mean honestly, look at the company they keep. Two out of five of their peers are confessed liars.

3 out of 5 employees are brillant!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, 3 out of 5 employees lie to their managers too. So it evens out. Brillant!

Re:3 out of 5 employees are brillant!

[urbanriot]

That's funny, before I read your post I was going to post something like, "2 out of 5 employees are useless." For a time I was a young manager, in my lower 20's, managing a group of people anywhere between 18 - 55 and I suffered through useless employees, lying employees, employees that steal (common), and employees that felt they were Gods gift to the business who deserved to be treated like prima donnas. Despite paying employees bonus' and incentives, I'd still hear BS about how awful of a boss I was, and other stories that were gross exagerrations of the truth. I take studies like these with a grain of salt.

My Disillusion with Management

[broward]

I wrote this last month. It's nice to see the topic on Slashdot. America has become a culture of deception but most Americans trick themselves into not believing their own lack of integrity. That's why the USA is running $1 trillion trade deficits and $1 trillion federal deficits. There's absolutely NO intention of honoring debts.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =state_of_affairs

I just quit participating. I sold my house, I paid off everything, I sit at my parent's house and play pool now. With twenty years of solid IT experience, I should have a real position, but it's all about paranoia and politics, lying to companies, lying to women. Nobody wants honesty.

So I'll sit here and play pool and take it easy.

Re:My Disillusion with Management

[lgw]

Ahh, the classic Slashdotter - 40 years old and still living in the parent's basement. Meanwhile, the federal government has never failed to honor a bond, and there's no reason to think it ever will. Our debt is reasonable compared to our GDP, and we mostly owe it to ourselves. A trade deficit isn't necessarily a sign of weakness - it's good to share our riches with our less developed neighbors.

FDR did play a bit of funny business while the dollar was still on the gold standard of making it illegal to own gold, but that's really the worst incident in our history. There's simply no evidence that we "don't intend" to honor our debts.

Still, it's a pretty good time to cash the equity out of one's house and rent while that bubble bursts.

Griefers in the workplace

[PopeRatzo]

Interesting that this "2 in 5" figure nearly perfectly matches my own experience in the workplace.

I've noticed that noticed that managers who are shitty people are usually shitty managers, too. The best approach I've found to dealing with them is to try to maintain as high a level of personal ethics and professionalism as possible, and let them simmer in their own acid. And by all means, if it's so bad that you find yourself grinding your teeth in your sleep or chomping antacids throughout the day, leave the job. Today if you can, and get that resume out immediately if you cannot. Life is too short to live in pain.

After all, you became a techie so you wouldn't have to deal with such assholes. In most organizations, you can find other decent humans who actually care about what's best for the enterprise and their co-workers and probably also hate your boss. Find them, befriend them, but don't get into the "bitch about your boss" sessions. Positivity will bring about change, and get you noticed by the higher management, faster than complaining.

Years ago, before I had enough personal juice to be able to actively avoid assholes, I was having trouble sleeping and actually ground my teeth in my sleep (according to my girlfriend, now my wife). I couldn't do much at the time, but I started working out every day with a heavy bag and 8-oz gloves, then swim laps for 20 minutes. The exercise helped me sleep and getting into shape made it easier to be calm and take a longer, more positive approach to my work hours. Bosses who are bullies don't enjoy picking emotionally healthy people as targets, and mine made the mistake of turning his negative attention onto a newer employee, a quiet young woman who happened to also be very talented. She also happened to be dating a lawyer who encouraged her to file a formal complaint with the company. The bad boss was transferred out of the division and within 6 months I got his job.

By the way the same positivity and ethical behavior that was so helpful to an employee working for a very bad boss turned out to also serve me very very well as a first-time manager.

It's corny as hell, but "Don't Be Evil" works just fine as a guiding principle in the workplace, no matter what your rank.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Darth_brooks]

It's corny as hell, but "Don't Be Evil" works just fine as a guiding principle in the workplace, no matter what your rank.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with pulling aside an employee that is as useless as tits on a snake and and directly dealing with the fact that they are a problem. My biggest gripe with the various managers I've had at different jobs has been this; No one wants to confront an employee directly for fear of looking like a loud mouth jerk of a boss.

The best manager I've ever had was the guy that ran the warehouse where I had my first job. The place was populated with slackers, so it was ideal for a 16 year old. The work was just hard enough that they couldn't train monkeys to do it, so they used high schoolers instead. I worked hard, kept my mouth shut, and didn't have a problem. But some of the other guys did, and complained that the boss was always riding their ass about something. It didn't take much effort to put 2 and 2 together. Show up late and leave early all the time? Boss chews you out. Sit on your ass all night and not finish what you're supposed to? Meeting with the boss. Get caught stealing? You're fired. Amazing concepts, I know.

Since then it's an entirely different attitude everywhere else. Everyplace I've worked that's been supposedly more "professional" has had bosses who avoid confrontation like the plauge. A couple specific employees have problems showing up on time? The "department" has an "attendance issue." Someone doesn't know how to answer a phone like an intellegent adult? "Customer service training" for everyone. The useless bits of societal cholesteral get the security blanket of thinking that "well, obviously I'm not the only one who's screwing up!", while the decent employees get a healthy dose of "Awww geez, not this shit again. Can't we just get to the point and fire Bob?"

Sadly, there are useless people in the world. Useless, useless people. We all work with them and know who they are. And they survive because someone doesn't let them get culled from the pack.

There's no excuse for wandering around your department wanting to think people live in fear of you and your pompus jackassery. But there needs to be a bit more accountability in the world. (so says the guy posting on slashdot...) Trust me, I'd love it if the boss pulled me aside and said "hey, dumbass, quit slacking." But instead, it'll come out as "Subject: Dept. Meeting, all staff are required to attend....." just like everything else.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Jotaigna]

I wish I could mod your post +1 inspiring.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Grishnakh]

Interesting that this "2 in 5" figure nearly perfectly matches my own experience in the workplace.

Your comment made me think about my past bosses, and I have to agree. Not counting internships and the like, I've had 7 bosses to date. 2 of those were horrible, 1 was a nice guy but not very good as a manager, and the other 4 were fine. If I give the one guy a score of 0.5 and the good bosses a 1, that gives an average of 4.5/7 or 0.64. "2 in 5 bad" gives an average of 3/5 or 0.6.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Miguelito]

No one wants to confront an employee directly for fear of looking like a loud mouth jerk of a boss.

I think some of it is that, but more of it is likely they think they'll be seen as a failure if they have to fire/discipline someone underneath them.

One of my only complaints about my job is along the same lines.. noone gets fired from here for being incompetent. Unfortunately we have a few people in our group that are either incompetent, have attitudes that cause problems and get in the way.. or both mixed together. If I had any say, I could name 2 people in my group that should be fired on the spot.. but they're still here, a year plus later. It's mostly due to managers not wanting the mark of having fired someone from their group on their record.

One of the two is partly my fault too.. I admit it, me fooled me in the interview as well. I thought he knew his stuff, but it turns out he's a first class BS artist. I'm talking so good at BS that it's almost worth it to hear the guy talk in meetings with vendors and customers, because if you didn't know better, you'd think he held the whole team together and was the true brains of the organisation.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Maxo-Texas]

If they discipline anyone except a white male directly, it is very likely they will be sued.

It's an aftereffect of earlier racism. At some point, it will fade and the people will be punished or rewarded without regard to race or sex.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Jahz]

From what I understand, it isnt always as easy as just saying 'fire them'. Many countries make firing employees extremely difficult to do. I hear that France is the worst (2 jobs ago, we had a sales team in Paris), but it can be difficult in the U.S. as well.

If a manager is constantly singling out one person, it may appear that they have some personal grudge. I think that is the real reason why they would send a whole team to training instead of one or two person. If you are in a management position and considering firing somebody, you need to have some data to back up your choice. Namely, be able to show that the employee in question was given all the same chances to correct themselves as you would give somebody else.

Job security is very important to people like me (software engineers), even though the market is really good right now. We like to feel valuable... part of that is feeling comes from knowing that we can screw up on rare occasion and get a fair chance to make it right, so to speak. Additionally there are things like severence that can complicate firing people without having a solid, legally valid reason. If there is a contract involved, it is pretty easy to imagine cases where it would be cheaper to keep a bad employee on staff while you make a good case for firing them.

All this pertains to small tech firms or 50-100 employees, since that is where I have been employed. Things are probably very different at the warehouse...

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Thomas the Doubter]

2 in 5 is very generous. I'm almost 50 and have had 8 jobs, and in at least 4 of which of my bosses were borderline abusive. They had some smarts, but I still wonder how they got to the position that they had. I have a theory that "management by intimidation" can be pretty successful over the short term.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[billcopc]

The problem is that people aren't yet at the stage where they can honestly look at someone without prejudice. For every incompetent twit abusing the system because he's a "visible minority" or accusing people of sexual harassment left and right, there's at least one bona-fide racist, misogynist or just straight-up asshole. The problem is the accused and the guilty are rarely the same person. It's all a matter of personal perception. The boss who slaps his secretary's ass in the hallway thinks it's perfectly normal to be an undersexed neanderthal, and the secretary also thinks it's perfectly normal in the 21st century to fool around with the boss, file a harassment suit and implicate the wife, splitting the multi-million divorce settlement 50/50. Life's just a game, and people bend the rules however they can to get the edge. If that means exploiting your gender or skin color to an advantage in the fucked up world of the law, then by all means go nuts. Given enough time, the system will balance itself out. The more outrageous suits are won, the more people will be motivated to seek corrective measures.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Cadallin]

"In the long run we are all dead." - John Maynard Keynes.

Which is exactly why the attitude of, "Just wait and it'll all get sorted eventually." is fucking useless.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Ididerus]

This might surprise you, but the worst case of weak-willed management I have every encountered was in the military, the Marine Corps no less. While the low-ranking types (which I was for the most part) get their asses handed to them for any inconceivable transgression (IS THAT A WRINKLE I SEE IN YOUR BED SHEET?!?!?!?) the higher the rank, the less likely anyone is going to point out your obvious faults.

One specific instance involved a Staff NCO (E-6, fairly well along in the ranks) crashing his car into the gate guard hut. His reason? He got distracted from throwing up all over himself while driving home (along with 3 younger individuals [myself included]). Not sick, just so boozed out of his mind that he offered to buy us all prostitutes (he's married) from the local, less than sanitary, streetwalker gang. We, of course, turned him down. He seemed to have fun.

Being scared out of our minds and owing that fidelity to him (aka, the boss) we were in no place to say anything or report him. Being junior in rank, we were not questioned and the guards didn't want to get in bad with someone who might be their Gunny one day.

This is but one example that sticks out in my mind, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it was a somewhat repetitive theme that I noticed. I am since out of the service and if I saw this fellow I would probably knock his brain about for trying to kill me, but it makes me wonder who's in charge of our brothers and sisters directly in danger. These pension-gatherers are a disgrace to our services and the result of our society's fear of responsibility. BTW, thanks for the college money tax-payers.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Darth_brooks]

From what I understand, it isnt always as easy as just saying 'fire them'. Many countries make firing employees extremely difficult to do. I hear that France is the worst (2 jobs ago, we had a sales team in Paris), but it can be difficult in the U.S. as well.

It certainly isn't. Meetings, paperwork, more meetings, sit downs with the employee, six months of an employee doing just enough to not piss you off enough to get written up again, etc. The whole process is almost Yossarian-esqe. But not one wants to even get the ball rolling. Firing isn't the first and only option, but it seems like you literally have to take a dump on the bosses desk in some places to get any kind of disciplinary action, and even then you'll probably just have to watch an OSHA video on hazardous materials in the workplace.

If a manager is constantly singling out one person, it may appear that they have some personal grudge. I think that is the real reason why they would send a whole team to training instead of one or two person. If you are in a management position and considering firing somebody, you need to have some data to back up your choice. Namely, be able to show that the employee in question was given all the same chances to correct themselves as you would give somebody else.

And that's bad part number two. You're not being "singled out" if you are a fuckup. You're a bad employee. Bad employees make more work for the other employees, but not directly more work for the boss. The boss tends to just shift work from where it doesn't get done to where it does. Correcting a bad employee's habits make more work for the boss, but not the other employees. If you're the boss, what do you do?

Job security is very important to people like me (software engineers), even though the market is really good right now. We like to feel valuable... part of that is feeling comes from knowing that we can screw up on rare occasion and get a fair chance to make it right, so to speak. Additionally there are things like severence that can complicate firing people without having a solid, legally valid reason. If there is a contract involved, it is pretty easy to imagine cases where it would be cheaper to keep a bad employee on staff while you make a good case for firing them.

Again, I'm not saying you can't make mistakes in your job. But if you've got a consistent pattern of just not fitting the job you're assigned, it's time for both parties to re-evaluate their positions, and a bad employee surly isn't going to do that on their own. I'm sure it seems cheaper to keep someone on staff, but the intangible costs have to hurt the bottom line as well. Office morale, production out of other staffers who are carrying workload of the bad employees. I think the sweet spot for keep vs. fire is a lot sooner than most managers want think it is, but you're right about the associated documentation.

Some times I think the mob has it right. You screw up, you get whacked. Everybody else sees that you screwed up and got whacked, so they are motivated to stay in line or get better. The guy giving you trouble is whacked and now out of the equation. Win win on all accounts. Of course, then you end up with a bunch of people scared to death not to screw up in the first place who lose focus on the job at hand, but you get the drift.

All this pertains to small tech firms or 50-100 employees, since that is where I have been employed. Things are probably very different at the warehouse...

I really would like to see how that boss would play in IT (my current field). My guess says he'd have a great department of happy, motivated employees. And an HR department actively looking to fire him while being surrounded by jealous managers. So it goes.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[davecb]

Amusingly, one of the best suggestions for a new boss of some unpopular sex/colour/whatever is to hunt down the departmental "wally" and fire them.

Causes folks to sit up and pay attention when a supposedly "nice" female Canadian fires a lying bastard of a salesman (;-))

--dave

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[ciggieposeur]

If they discipline anyone except a white male directly, it is very likely they will be sued.

Care to back that up?

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[lababidi]

Come to DC. The federal government has many employees that do not perform. I'm not saying there aren't competent employees of in the government, but i think the "10% of the people do 90% of the work" holds somewhat true.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Maxo-Texas]

Care to back up that the sky is blue?

I've seen it in my personal life. I've seen minorities in my personal life threaten to do this and other minorities actually do this. I've seen the stupid lengths companies have to go to document everything so they can, if need be, prove years later that there was no racial or sexist reason for a decision.

Some of this was at a company where 80% of the managers were females of variety races and nationalities. The next level had one white female, two black males, a hispanic male and one white male. The next level was a female executive class- no idea above that tho I know there were female high executives.

Despite this racially and sexually diverse staff they still had to document everything and carefully make everything provably gender and race neutral to the point where our annual reviews had nothing to do with our actual jobs or job performance. And they were *still* sued (by minorities but not by white males) when they fired people for trading sexy material via email.

That being said, I can't trust any site on either side of the racism issue. The sites on the right pretend it is over. Some sites on the left are so stupid as to say if half the positions are not black, it's racism (CLUE: 12% of americans are black.. less than 50% are white.. there's this small group called "hispanics" and then there are tons of other small groups like asians and native americans). The fact is that whites, blacks, asians, and hispanics are interbreeding in increasing numbers. I look forward to a day when the distinctions are pointless. In all likelyhood I'm native american, european, and a teensy bit black. Probably no asian blood. The fact that I'm tall probably had more impact on my life than any of those things. There will be a day when being black or hispanic means as much as being irish or catholic.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[redhog]

Nonono, don't fire the guy - he's a god-sent asset, he just happens to be in the wrong department - just transfer him to sales!

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[rastos1]

I thought he knew his stuff, but it turns out he's a first class BS artist.

Move him to the Sales&Marketing dept. Problem solved.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[timmarhy]

more likely it will swing back the other way again. racism doesn't "balance out"

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[asc99c]

Sounds like you've got yourself a new salesman there! Those qualities aren't inherently bad for all work, just not the best traits for an engineer.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[Anonymous Coward]

I am tempted to avoid hiring protected classes for just that reason. Fortunately, HR has only sent grossly unqualified minorities so far. White males, I can fire when they fuck up; a black jewish female lesbian Vietnam vet, not so much.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[TheManInYourHead]

Yes, "Why should I even bother sorting this out?" is much better.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[hummassa]

If a manager is constantly singling out one person, it may appear that they have some personal grudge. In my 20+ years of working experience, every single time a manager singled one person out, it was because they had a personal grudge. That is why _professional_ managers never single one person out; besides, putting every one to training etc makes the peers exert the pressure over the one bad apple... which is good for morale.

That is, if someone does not work in your team, pressure this one person, not the manager.

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[fishbowl]

On the "race card:"

My dad (like me) looked like a "white guy" -- but he was 1/8 Cherokee, had grown up on a reservation, and was raised in a fairly traditional way in a time of dire poverty -- in the 1930s, Indians didn't exactly have the best opportunities.

Eventually he had a business where, from time to time, one of his workers would accuse him of being racist, assuming this charge would resonate a certain way, only to learn that they had deeply insulted their (soon-to-be-former) boss. My dad had a card with a Dawes Roll number instead of a Social Security number, and he had lived through a time of *extreme* poverty and *extreme* racism against him. He really didn't respond well at all to people who would claim he made any decision on a racial basis, which they assumed he did "because he was white."

Re:Griefers in the workplace

[billcopc]

Hey, I didn't say it would fix YOUR life.. all I'm saying is that every force has an equal counter-force. When it comes to humans it tends to take a few years for that counter-force to manifest itself, but it eventually does happen. Push people around too much and they push back. The very fact that you're whining about inactivity is proof that something out there is pissing you off, that something being me. The fact that there are thousands of us whining here on /. has a tangible effect on our perception of the world around us. We're all here, bitching about what we find frustrating and ridiculous, or fascinating and inspiring. All that data feeds into your brain and rattles around in the background. Eventually humankind will find a solution to racial/sexual/digital discrimination, and everything until that time is a process, a series of thought experiments, just like this text you're reading right now.

Re:Everyone should keep their word and not lie

[Serveert]

Last part should have been

Amazing Findings!!

[chasethetail]

I am surprised that a study like this is being conducted in graduate studies. It is nothing more than educational incontinence. The students should have smacked their prof in the head for suggesting that it would be worthy of their time to ask employees whether or not they like their bosses. Maybe bosses are too busy to chat with all of their employees everyday ("silent treatment"). Maybe employees value their own opinions a little too much and are upset that bosses are not running up to their desks asking their opinion about everything. 2 in 5 bosses lie!! 1 in 1 human beings lie!! I'd like to see some graduate studies and statistics arguing against that statement. How about this observation, "No abuse should be taken lightly, especially in situations where it becomes a criminal act." Is this guy Prof. Emeritus or something? Such wisdom and insight, this study will revolutionize the way we work in America! Can you imagine being credited with working on such a project and earning a graduate degree(probably PhD)?

Why so low?

[heroine]

Always thought no bosses kept their word. At least in the middle management level, it's your job to lie. You have to lie either to your subordinates or to your superiors to get things done.

Re:Why so low?

[Beefslaya]

Which is why honest, hard working people almost never make it to management.

There is a 9th Circle of Hell reserved just for Middle Managers.

I was never at LM, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only had one identifiably ex-military boss, but the one I had was one of the good ones.

I remember one time when we got some new racks for the plant, and they were calling all hands to help out and put them together--something well outside my expertise. While I was trying not to grumble at being asked to do it, I noticed something--he came out to help us.

I respected him for that, and it made me feel a lot better about it.

2:5 ratio is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

should be 5:2 bosses lie

apt quote, considering...

[Anonymous Coward]

'They say that employees don't leave their job or company, they leave their boss. We wanted to see if this is, in fact, true,'

It's true. And if my final interview for my new position wasn't later this week I'd post this non-anonymously and include more detail. My current boss lies continually. That's the main one of the four reasons why I'm moving on.

//\\ ALL //\\ bosses lie

[swschrad]

just depends on where and when.

Obviously flawed study

[Anonymous Coward]

They are all liars.

fight club

[Wansu]

We should start a fight club.

what if the owener is cracked?

[MikeFM]

I quit my last job, which I liked quite a bit, because my manager quit which put me directly under the owners control. He micro-managed everything, including stuff he knew nothing about, was paranoid of all the wrong people, always made inappropiate comments to employees and customers, and did nothing to actually keep the company running. There was nobody higher to go to. Unfortunately I found out that having an employer that acts like a pervert, doesn't pay the required overtime, threatens not to pay you at all, wants you to help cheat on taxes, etc is not a good enough reason to quit your job in California as the state denied my unemployment benefits. I'm not sure what an acceptable reason to leave a job would be in their opinion if all that mess didn't qualify.

It's really to bad though because I liked the job, I was good at the job, and I enjoyed living in San Diego.

Re:what if the owener is cracked?

[bladesjester]

You should have talked to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Threatening to not pay you is a large no-no and the NLRB doesn't take crap from anyone.

And I'm not going to say anything about being audited.

Re:what if the owener is cracked?

[lgw]

You only get unemployment (in most states) if your boss fires you, and fires you for reasons other than non-performance. So if the boss fired you for not helping him cheat on taxes, you wouldn't be eligible. Of course, it's incredibly rare to be fired for cause, as that's instant lawsuit bait, so it mostly comes down to: you have to get fired to get unemployment.

Re:Everyone should keep their word and not lie

[Orion Blastar]

I agree 100%, but reality is full of liars and oath breakers. A lot of companies make big profits by lying to people through marketing, public relations, lawyers, and promises of pay raises and promotions and many other things.

I know because I used to work for a law firm, who had Fortune 500 companies like Apple, IBM, Microsoft, etc as clients. I saw some of the paperwork they asked me to help fix the database that kept track of them. I saw the original and the Photoshopped copies of many documents. Forged papers like stock options, accounting books, etc. As long as they cc or bcc their lawyer in on the emails, they cannot use them as evidence in court. Attorney client privilege, is the word the court uses to dismiss evidence when the employer or executive is caught lying or doing something illegal like faking a document on stock options. I worked for the law firm in 2001 when those Apple documents were forged and they attached the emails to them as well. The court will never see them though, and many executives will get away with lying, due to attorney client privilege.

Boss with lying, cheating employees

[spagbol]

I have a great crew. All have been in their job for many years. An incident happened to one emplyoee that was neither my fault nor the compaines fault. The reaction of this employee was so horrible towards me that I would have never dreamed my worst enemy could be so vile. The point being: Some people are mean, nasty and vengeful. Sometimes they are bosses and sometimes they are employees

Don't ask me no questions...

[tygt]

... And I won't tell you no lies.

Seriously, though - I've learned what questions I should expect real answers to, and have learned to recognize truths about them.

Other questions, though ("what's this meeting really about?", "where do you see us in six months from now?" etc) will tell you a lot about the boss. Some bosses will hem and haw about their answer (discard results - you got at best a watered-down version of reality there); some will smile and tell you something (trust not at all); the best will say, "that's something I can't tell you right now", and you have to respect that answer, because employees are often not privy to the real answers, and personally I'd rather be given this answer than a load of crap.

Re:Everyone should keep their word and not lie

[Serveert]

I know people who have been at the receiving end of Steve Jobs' rage(he doesn't like it when you copy his ipod wheel). So we have forging documents, lying. Not very good traits if you ask me. But I can assure you that although it's not evident now, and it seems like being bad pays off, karma has a way of working these things out.

I've seen that

[HangingChad]

In many cases, the environment at a company is colored by the behavior and the policies of the boss (or bosses).

I've found that, to a greater or lesser degree, most companies are a reflection of those at the top. I think that happens sometimes from a natural tendency to hire people like yourself. The best managers aren't always the best people, but I'll take my chances selecting the best people for positions of authority. You can teach someone management skills but you can't teach them character.

And I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment above that shitty managers are frequently shitty people.

So, how is my dad these days?

[StressGuy]

Sorry....low hanging fruit

my bosses were abusive and incompetent ...

[Anonymous Coward]

with one exception, my supervisors and teachers have been more concerned with their privileges than they were with their responsibilities.

The bigger the company, the greater the ineffectiveness became. I now believe most large companies are incapable of effective or ethical actions.

Verbal abuse

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Yep.

Not only that, but in a horribly inappropriate place, too.

Was on a trade show floor, in our booth, and the boss was unhappy about how some code was implemented. He went ballistic on me and a coworker... RIGHT THERE IN OUR BOOTH!!!!

I kept my mouth shut, but was thinking, "You know, there's a time and a place for everything, and this is neither the time nor the place."

Why did you leave?

[ryanisflyboy]

"They say that employees don't leave their job or company, they leave their boss."

I'm not sure who 'they' are. However, for me this is not always the case. Over my 17 year career here is why I made a company shift:

1) Physical move to another city due to family needs.
2) New opportunity more in line with career goals.
3) Step up in career path.
4) Change of pace, broadening experience related to career.
5) Marriage, and another move to a different city.
6) Better opportunity more in line with career goals.
7) Left due to the boss, would have stayed otherwise.

There you go, only one time out of 7 job transitions was due to management. Almost every other time it was external to the company (family, marriage), or it was a step closer to my career goal at the time. Many times I did not take a big increase in pay either, it just had to be done. Can anyone else comment? Why did you leave all of the jobs you have ever had?

Meritocracy

[Toon Moene]

You'd think that in a pure physics environment (like a weather forecasting institute) it wouldn't matter.

Think again.

Verification of weather models, monitoring of weather satellites, calibration of weather measurement instruments is all based on statistics.

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Rumors.

You know, perhaps I really should switch to work on GCC full time. At least integer arithmetic is amenable to mathematical proofs.

Toon Moene (physicist at large and a maintainer of GNU Fortran).

Re:Everyone should keep their word and not lie

[Orion Blastar]

One would hope that karma has a way of working these things out, but by experience I can tell you it doesn't most of the time unless one of the people makes a mistake and gets caught because they couldn't lie their way through it or cover up or hide evidence.

All of this, plus Seafox's behavior are examples of Classical Management which is the #1 cause for most of the problems in business that we keep on seeing. Seafox being the person in the Apple Stock Option Scandal thread that claims just because they have a forged document and stole 1% of the profits, doesn't mean that Jobs or any other executive is guilty of anything and asking why they need a lawyer to protect them if they are not guilty is a lie by the little people. Well the little people are tired of being called liars and being stepped on by the big people.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bullshit...

[Shads]

... if that study says 2/5 bosses lie, then it really means 2/5 bosses are reasonably honest about lying to their employees. The other 3/5 are such huge liars that they wont even admit they lie.

Speak for yourself.

[Erris]

The truth is, we're all like that.

I'm sad to hear you think that. It's not true, as the 3/5 that did not report abusive behavior should make clear. There's obviously something that most people do to make sure they get along with their peers and subordinates. Be careful that you don't use your universal condemnation of your fellow man as an excuse to be abusive because they can tell the difference and will shun you.

2 out of 5 Employees Should Be Fired

[Traiano]

Well, not necessarily 2-of-5, but I'm parodying the quote from the article. The thing that everyone should realize is that at least 1-in-10 and as many of 1-in-5 employees have problems at work. Non-performance, non-attendance, unprofessionalism, or even aggression. In my first job as a manager one of my reports absolutely hated me. Whether it was my fault or not, I can guarantee that this person would have described me as a lying, manipulative, incompetent buffoon. Obviously I have my own opinion on the matter.

Sometimes you need to play the game their way

[Meph_the_Balrog]

It is moronic and childish.

While I don't disagree with the sentiment expressed by the parent, and I subscribe to the theory of "never argue with an idiot, they'll simply drag you to their level and beat you with experience", I also think that sometimes the only way to get the message through to some people, is to be very un-subtle with your message.

What definition of "lie"?

[mutterc]

What definition of "lie" was used in this study?

My guess is that it's the most restrictive one, i.e. "uttering a statement that one knows to be provably false".

This does not count misdirection, omissions, etc. Everyone knows people (politicians and executives of course, but many first-line managers are like this too) whose statements have to be carefully analyzed to determine the exact meaning, e.g.:

• "We don't have any plan to do that." (Today, maybe...)
• "We mustn't think that [by helping co-workers in the India office] we're grooming our own successors." (Just because we mustn't think it doesn't make it untrue...) (A real example from my second-line a year or so ago)
• "Read my lips, no new taxes" (the most famous of all; this statement says nothing about not raising existing taxes)

I'd got to thinking about this when talking to a former manager of mine (my boss, at the time) about why I didn't trust management; I asserted that lying to the employees was an inherent responsibility of the position. He took great offence, and (pretty angrily) asserted that he had never lied to anyone at the company. This amazed me. I asked around a few people (both gruntled and disgruntled) whether they thought this could be true. The consensus view was that the boss was probably using the above very restrictive definition of "lie".

Ugh, I'm sick of amoral econbabble

[dal20402]

There's a fine line here, which you're blowing right through in your eager regurgitation of Business 101.

Yes, the ultimate purpose of management in a for-profit corporation is to maximize shareholder returns. But, whether we like it or not, for-profit corporations have unique power in our society. If management does not at least think about the social consequences of its actions, there is little individuals or government can do to repair the damage. (A good example of socially destructive profit maximization is Wal-Mart's repeated attempts to foist its employee health care expenses onto state taxpayers.)

In their pursuit of returns, managers should be bound by basic ethics, not just the letter of the law. The duties of citizenship, which are attendant on all participants in a free society, extend to for-profit corporations as well as (usually for-profit) individuals.

Deceiving employees into feelings of loyalty is beyond the pale; inspiring those same feelings legitimately by consistently treating well-performing employees better than the competition is terrific. Also, simply dismissing ineffective (but well-intentioned) employees is not always the best remedy for their ineffectiveness. Instead, shifting them to jobs where their skills allow them to be more effective, if possible, allows the company to save the expense and risk of hiring entirely new and unknown employees for those positions, while avoiding the social consequences of putting workers onto the street.

Finally, shareholder returns can be seen from several viewpoints. While loyalty (on either management's or employee's end) is unlikely to positively affect next quarter's numbers, it can be instrumental in building a business that will enjoy success and low costs in the longer term. Hiring and turnover, while good for HR departments, represent a huge cost for business, both through direct costs and the loss of (or inability to even build at all) institutional memory.

Well....

[SlashdotCrackPot]

Well my boss said that 2 out of 5 people that take these polls lie!!

RenewData

[Anonymous Coward]

One place I wouldn't recommend is Renew Data in Austin, TX. Especially if you're in IT or a System Administrator. You'd end up working for Glenn Kippes, the worst VP who can't tell his own head from his arse..

The 15 words that solve this problem. Permanently.

[rickwood]

Look 'em dead in the eye and growl in your best Clint Eastwood or George C. Scott as Patton, "You would do well not to make this into a matter of honor, ." Works every time.

this is not news.

[DragonTHC]

of course bosses lie. that's how they get to be bosses and stay bosses.

they went to the UCYA the University of Cover Your Ass.

they lie because it suits them.

always do business as if the other guy is trying to fuck you. because he is.

the 40% of bosses that lie is in line with the 45% of MBA students that say they cheat because they think that's what you do in business.

honesty and integrity don't matter in business anymore. He who beheads, gets ahead.

Have to know what the numbers mean...

[darkhitman]

What "2 out of 5 bosses lie" actually means is that 3 out of 5 bosses lie about lying...

The other 3

[ChaoticLimbs]

are successful liars.

Wish I woulda though of that!

[mschuyler]

Riiiight! Thanks. Now I get it. Just like all those unionized steel mills in the rust be -er- midwest.

1. Unionize.
2. Demand more money
3. Demand more benefits because they are your "right!"
4. Demand extra money for extra breathing.
5. Demand "job security."
6. Demand MORE money.
7. If you don't get what you want, strike.
8. Lose job to China.
9. Watch another American company go bankrupt.
10. Get job in retail at minimum wage. Radio Shack will hire you!
11. Retire on social security.
12. Complain about government.

But hey! If you HAD a job, it'd be a really good one!

People vs Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd prefer a Lawful Evil boss over a Chaotic Neutral boss. At least with LE you know where you stand and you can sometimes negotiate better conditions. With CN, your support structure is so much mush, your feedback is random, and you have no idea what the hell is going on or how to improve it.

It's also an interesting question as to how many people leave over bad working conditions rather than specific individuals, and how much of the negative environment has been created by bosses at various locations in the food chain.

Duh!

[Master of Transhuman]

"nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word."

In other news, four out of five employees lie - because their boss is too stupid to hear the truth. (The fifth employee is on unemployment right now and couldn't be questioned since he has no fixed address.)

Welcome to the human race.

Next study: humans really dislike each other when they kill each other. Peer-reviewed.

Master and indentured servant.....

[Anonymous Coward]

In several thousand years of documented history humans haven't change one bit. All it is now you "paid" to be a servant of the company and have "little more" respect from management.
A female donkey orifice will be a female donkey orifice no matter how much money they get, how much power they get, and how much sex they get. The current management system is to lie, cheat, murder, rape, molests and steal and to get away with it or blame you for their problems.
A criminal is a criminal no matter what synonym you call it.

What, only 2?

[Bartmoss]

Only 2 out of 5? My experience has been different. But it depends greatly on the culture inside the company in question; and some bosses don't really have a choice but to break their promises. A lie higher up in the hierachy will result in a multitude of broken promises further down.

At work,

[BurningFeetMan]

My boss lies, and I surf /. all day. It's a win win situation.

...and even the Internet?

[dwater]

Nooo! Say it ain't true!

Or

[strider44]

Study says most bosses not caught lying.

The usernames of my management accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

The conservative stastistic that 40 out of 100 bosses lie is one reason why I assign usernames such as "asshole" and "ratbastard" to system accounts with management or administrative functions.

I'm the boss

[gemada]

and i say this story is not true!

One-word answer to this problem:

[rockout]

Freelance.

They do?

[Wass Ammattayou]

So Bowser really hadn't kidnapped the princess? Who the hell did I go through the trouble (read: find the warp zones) to rescue, then?

[OT] "hispanics" hehehe

[hummassa]

I find it interesting when the only way to describe myself is as "hispanic"...

My ethnic profile goes more or less like this:
1/8 south american indigenous (which is asian-like, almond-shaped eyes)
1/4 black
1/8 Spanish european (which has probably an Arab component -- olive skinned people, thick black hair)
1/4 Portuguese european (no surprise here, being Brasilian)
1/4 northern Italian european (clear eyes, light hair, really white skin)

I, myself, am olive-skinned, hazel eyes, thick black hair (going salt-and-pepper in the temples, unfortunately) which qualifies as "hispanic" to most USofAns or (even "arabic") :-)

bad bosses are like bullies

[timmarhy]

all you need to do with a bad boss is stand up to them and they will back down. if they are riding you over deadlines and important work you need to finish, it means that asshole KNOWS you are damned important, and should you fail he will go down with you. milk that side of it, threaten to quit and walk out the door that instant and leave all your work unfinished if he doesn't back the fuck off. i've done it before over unpaid over time, and i won a handsome victory.

Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie

[chrisranjana.com]

"Study Says 2 In 5 Bosses Lie " Lucky there are the other 3 !! Employees blame a lot of things for changing a job and the boss is one of their reasons.

Very well put

[StressGuy]

I know I'm coming in late but I just found your observation. I've recently taken a position with a company that has just that kind of culture and have been making myself nuts trying to find out how to get things done. This observation of your is a darned good fit to what I've been observing. Additionally, they don't seem interested in training anyone - for anything. So, it would seem that, by extension, the managers are also not trained on how to manage. Therefore, they are basically in the same boat as I am.

Next place I go will put an emphasis on training, and not just silly little flash animated tutorials either.

working for $$ != happiness

[Cragen]

Part of this problem is the stuff that we think we "need" in order to become happy. I have had good and very bad managers. Think back. Has a 10% raise ever made you 10% happier? Has building a better widget really improved your life or anyone else's? Perhaps, yet we always think that, with the next job change or the next raise, or the next new car, we are going to be happier. I do not think that we can "work" ourselves into happiness. THINGS will never make us happier -- long-term. It's all short-term and that is going nowhere, fast. If you can, I think you should take at least a year off and do some variation of volunteer work in some cause that you feel is worthwhile. (Maybe do another year of school at the same time if you can't stand the idea of "losing a year". Most people in this forum can pick up back where they left off. I did.) Get to the point that money is not part of the equation and helping others is. The difference in your quality of life and the value of the change in your perspectives will be in orders of magnitude, not in carats or dollars. Being happy is not about having more things. Cragen

Boss turnover in offshoring firms is great

[crovira]

I have had the same job for four years and I have gone through three sets of bosses. I'm about to start in on a fourth set. Its great. If I really don't like one, I know he or she will be gone soon.

(I'm reminded of the Dilbert "Bungie Boss" series of cartoon. :-)

I was a hiring manager...my experience...

[grgyle]

I was once the hiring manager for a spell for a department of a *very* large Fortune 500 company. And I mean large, every random bloke on the street you could randomly ask knows them instantly by their two letter initials. It was nearly impossible there to actually hire someone based on preferential merits due to the insanely obsessive CYA filtering process used to select for quotas of race, gender, and age. Worse, because racial and gender preferential selection is itself discriminatory, the company written policies forbid actually documenting any of those selection criteria during the interviews and hiring. So any rejected applicant had to have us retroactively hunt for excuses in their resume or interview performance for rejection items.
We had many a "too individual-focused, interview lacked team-player focus" ad-hoc rejections of perfectly ideal candidates that didn't meet quota requirements.

So a typical selection round would be:

1. Hiring team selects their ideal candidate
2. HR V.P. responds that candidate be "held for additional review" and gently reminds us that "Company X is committed to a globally diverse environment"
3. We select our next candidate on the list
4. Rinse and repeat until desired unspecified "diversity" metric gets met.

The laughable part of this is that HR set their metric demographics at low level manager point. So I, as a manager of 6 people, was expected to maintain a 6-person team that met company (50,000+ people) demographic ratios. At no time was my team to ever be all-white and/or all-male. We had our single black female employee leave once for a better gig, and it took us 6 months to hire someone into that entry level position, getting over a dozen highly qualified people rejected by HR (who rejected 3 of our black-male choices, and 3 white-female choices). Interestingly, at this company Asians were most disadvantaged because they were essentially non-categorized and not counted in statistical group demographics by HR.

I hated the dishonesty and hypocrisy being a hiring manager, and never wish to do so again.

Unemployment insurance is a joke.

[MikeFM]

I hate the unemployment benefits we receive. They are such a joke and rarely actually provide any benefit to the people who actually need them.

Unemployment should be based on the amount of money earned since the last time your unemployment insurance was used up and nothing else. It shouldn't matter if you quit, were fired, the company went broke, or whatever. Why am I paying taxes to supposedly take care of me when I'm old when I can't pay my rent now. Let me put my money into savings instead so I can use it when I need it or at least make all those benefits available to me now. Damn the government and their half assed, red taped, backwards social programs.

Okay - maybe I'm annoyed since it took them like two months to tell me I wasn't going to get unemployment, after first sending me a letter telling me I was, and in the meantime I've used my savings up and still haven't found a job. Of course I could go into a whole other rant over how it should be illegal to discriminate against job applicants with to much experience or education. I'd work at Burger King while looking fo another decent job if only the rats would hire me. ;)

go postal

[bandmassa]

one of the key indicators of psychopathy is significant levels of lying in the face of responsibility (among a number of others, of course)

coupled with that study from a few years back that found mild psychopaths make very productive middle managers because they keep the "troops" in line with fear and have no conscience, you've got the potential for the boss to go postal.

f*** the state of the job market I'm gone...

It pays to be decent..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's the kind of work I do, but I can't quite work out WHY you want to be like that. If I get a large project I can pick up the phone to people I've worked with 10 years ago and they'll happily come over and work for me again. I don't BS, I'm moderately clued up, have no time for politics or liars and in general can't see why I should micromanage people who I've selected for their ability to think for themselves.

Having said that, I do more and more rescue work where we're left alone to put out other peoples' IT and security fires - maybe that helps :-).

Snow

[tehdaemon]

Rain, hail, and cold.

They can't afford the car and you expect them to buy a scooter too? (ever try to fit a family of four on a scooter?)