What is the worst boss that you've had?
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I have been "blessed" with the fact that I can say that I've only had 2 bad bosses. First one was actually only annoying, but the second one was the whole enchilada. He was bipolar, treated people like slaves (he is french, we are from a third world country so he thought less of us), liar, cheater, hypocrite, never lived to his promises, micro manager, annoying and the list goes on and on. What else can you ask for? What about you?
His name is J. Roloff. He now works as a programmer somewhere in San Francisco. Printing coupons or something. The guy was such a poor developer/manager. He ended up firing me within his first year and after I had been successful at the company for 7 1/2 years. His reason: I did not follow his wrong advice on writing a specific MS SQL Server stored procedure. Such as loser. However, I did end up as an executive in another company.
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"You can't hire 9 pregnant women to have a baby in 1 month". That's what I always say when a boss realizes that the deadline is impossible and they just add new resources. It just doesn't work that way.
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I have been "blessed" with the fact that I can say that I've only had 2 bad bosses. First one was actually only annoying, but the second one was the whole enchilada. He was bipolar, treated people like slaves (he is french, we are from a third world country so he thought less of us), liar, cheater, hypocrite, never lived to his promises, micro manager, annoying and the list goes on and on. What else can you ask for? What about you?
I've had quite a few, but none compare to my former Bitch Supervisor from HellTM. I and my coworkers have hours of stories to tell about her. She was perfectly suited for the company we work for. The company sacrificed a goat on the alter of schedules every morning. She was called a supervisor instead of a manager because her manager realized she wasn't a good programmer, but know how to crack the whip and promoted her above us. She had the perverse idea that being higher in management meant you were a superior being. She would have been excellent Secret Service material, she would definitely take a bullet for her superior. When I was interviewed for the job, she was polite and attentive, wanting to know what knowledge and experience I was capable of bringing to the company. It didn't hurt that two others on her team had recommended me highly. The position was called "Project Leader", at my previous place of employment, that title was for a person in charge of multi-million dollar projects. This was something I was prepared to step into. After I was hired (at a significant raise, further deluding me into thinking the position was what I had expected), I learned that my position was to be "scapegoat in waiting." The politeness and attentiveness disappeared, now that she was my boss. I was to direct the programmers in her team and guide them in the software development and then take the blame for all her micro-managing mistakes. I would be allowed to blow my nose with written request three weeks prior to the event. The company policy was two weeks vacation and two weeks of sick time and two personal days. You could take seven days of sick time, but after that you had to have consoling. Later the company went to the sensible policy of four weeks of PTO, but at the time, she would insist I tell her what I was going to be doing on my personal day so she could make the judgement call on whether my needs were greater than the company's for that day. I would infuriate her by saying, "It's personal." But I wasn't always the scapegoat, she had two others on the team she had always derided their work. One in particular, nothing he ever did was acceptable. Whereas when I was accidentally left in charge of the department for two and half months while she got her mail-order baby from Brazil, I found him to be an excellent worker. My only complaint about him was that he would sign up for too much and I'd have to take work away from him. His code was very solid. She once made him change t
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I've had quite a few, but none compare to my former Bitch Supervisor from HellTM. I and my coworkers have hours of stories to tell about her. She was perfectly suited for the company we work for. The company sacrificed a goat on the alter of schedules every morning. She was called a supervisor instead of a manager because her manager realized she wasn't a good programmer, but know how to crack the whip and promoted her above us. She had the perverse idea that being higher in management meant you were a superior being. She would have been excellent Secret Service material, she would definitely take a bullet for her superior. When I was interviewed for the job, she was polite and attentive, wanting to know what knowledge and experience I was capable of bringing to the company. It didn't hurt that two others on her team had recommended me highly. The position was called "Project Leader", at my previous place of employment, that title was for a person in charge of multi-million dollar projects. This was something I was prepared to step into. After I was hired (at a significant raise, further deluding me into thinking the position was what I had expected), I learned that my position was to be "scapegoat in waiting." The politeness and attentiveness disappeared, now that she was my boss. I was to direct the programmers in her team and guide them in the software development and then take the blame for all her micro-managing mistakes. I would be allowed to blow my nose with written request three weeks prior to the event. The company policy was two weeks vacation and two weeks of sick time and two personal days. You could take seven days of sick time, but after that you had to have consoling. Later the company went to the sensible policy of four weeks of PTO, but at the time, she would insist I tell her what I was going to be doing on my personal day so she could make the judgement call on whether my needs were greater than the company's for that day. I would infuriate her by saying, "It's personal." But I wasn't always the scapegoat, she had two others on the team she had always derided their work. One in particular, nothing he ever did was acceptable. Whereas when I was accidentally left in charge of the department for two and half months while she got her mail-order baby from Brazil, I found him to be an excellent worker. My only complaint about him was that he would sign up for too much and I'd have to take work away from him. His code was very solid. She once made him change t
"It's personal" hahahahaha This guy I mentioned was worse. He got upset because I purchased a personal computer, with my own money because "the company already provided you a laptop, why do you want another computer?" Also the guy was nitpicky in the details without really knowing what he did, but even worse he *thought* he had vision, but he didn't. We once landed a partnership with a company that had sold several million euro with their product, and this guy landed the deal to distribute in the US. He was supposed to be an expert distributing products, but he isn't. He just made my life miserable by making me do all the work. At the end it didn't work because the European CEO got tired of my bad boss just telling him his product is crap. How can a already-sold-many-million-euro product be crap, told by the guy hasn't sold anything?
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I have been "blessed" with the fact that I can say that I've only had 2 bad bosses. First one was actually only annoying, but the second one was the whole enchilada. He was bipolar, treated people like slaves (he is french, we are from a third world country so he thought less of us), liar, cheater, hypocrite, never lived to his promises, micro manager, annoying and the list goes on and on. What else can you ask for? What about you?
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I have been "blessed" with the fact that I can say that I've only had 2 bad bosses. First one was actually only annoying, but the second one was the whole enchilada. He was bipolar, treated people like slaves (he is french, we are from a third world country so he thought less of us), liar, cheater, hypocrite, never lived to his promises, micro manager, annoying and the list goes on and on. What else can you ask for? What about you?
I'm self employed and can say it can be pretty hard working for my boss. He has unreasonable expectations and sets incredibly optimistic delivery schedules. He has an uncanny ability of knowing when I'm bludging off or having a long boozy lunch. Then again ...
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xavier morera wrote:
(he is french
That's all you had to say.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
hahaha Not quite accurate. I did some biz with some guys from a company called NetReport. French and the bosses were great!
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Wow, that sounds familiar. I had a similar boss. When I ditched that company and moved to my next gig it was the best feeling ever.
Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
Same thing happened to me. I don't know why us human beings are so afraid of the new. We may be stuck in an extremely crappy situation but we don't move. I moved and now I am in this wonderful company, no really, it is great.
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A far better question would be: who is the best boss that you've had and why? I bet almost no answers to that one since they're all pretty bad: most people become managers for the wrong reasons and then fail becuase they receive either the wrong training or none at all and are socially incapabale of managing other people. Just becuae, for instance, someone is a great developer does not mean that they will be a great manager.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
I've had some great bosses [been working in IT for 25 years, though]. My first boss[es] were the best - had I had a crystal ball, I would have stayed with that outfit for all these years. Most of my bosses were just fine; the worst was an x-marine [duh], ass-kisser [duh]. His motis operandi was to trounce on anyone and everyone to get to his objective.
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I have been "blessed" with the fact that I can say that I've only had 2 bad bosses. First one was actually only annoying, but the second one was the whole enchilada. He was bipolar, treated people like slaves (he is french, we are from a third world country so he thought less of us), liar, cheater, hypocrite, never lived to his promises, micro manager, annoying and the list goes on and on. What else can you ask for? What about you?
My first boss out of college use to tell me to use pirated software, place all my SQL code in C# instead of creating store procedures(Some cases the queries were like 6 printed pages long and would not let me use a string builder atleast), micro managed my code down to if I could use a while loop over a for loop and last but not least lied to people about his application failing always blaming IT because we were in a separate Web Development department. -- Modified Monday, July 18, 2011 3:16 PM
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My first boss out of college use to tell me to use pirated software, place all my SQL code in C# instead of creating store procedures(Some cases the queries were like 6 printed pages long and would not let me use a string builder atleast), micro managed my code down to if I could use a while loop over a for loop and last but not least lied to people about his application failing always blaming IT because we were in a separate Web Development department. -- Modified Monday, July 18, 2011 3:16 PM
Ohhhhh... the blaming game... I hate the blaming game...
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"You can't hire 9 pregnant women to have a baby in 1 month". That's what I always say when a boss realizes that the deadline is impossible and they just add new resources. It just doesn't work that way.
xavier morera wrote:
"You can't hire 9 pregnant women to have a baby in 1 month"
I prefer this version: "No matter how many men you put on the task, it takes 9 months to make a baby."
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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xavier morera wrote:
"You can't hire 9 pregnant women to have a baby in 1 month"
I prefer this version: "No matter how many men you put on the task, it takes 9 months to make a baby."
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
And maybe you may add "9 angry men"?
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A far better question would be: who is the best boss that you've had and why? I bet almost no answers to that one since they're all pretty bad: most people become managers for the wrong reasons and then fail becuase they receive either the wrong training or none at all and are socially incapabale of managing other people. Just becuae, for instance, someone is a great developer does not mean that they will be a great manager.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
This reminds me of the Peter Principle[^], which states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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xavier morera wrote:
"You can't hire 9 pregnant women to have a baby in 1 month".
That metaphor doesn't make sense, though, because while women cannot collaborate upon one baby, many people CAN collaborate on a software project.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
many people CAN collaborate
True. The steel rods thrown into the gears is converting "CAN" to "WILL", the second is identifying the resources who KNOW what needs to be done and can COMPENTLY divide the processes so they can be concurrently and independently developed. Then you get integration where 10 people take 10 different paths to get one cohesive whole. Everything works great of course because you didn't hire slackers or incompetents and no miscommunication occured. (SURE, I've also got this bridge for sale in Brooklyn... Interested?) Collaboration can create magnificent results. It can also create magnificent failures.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
many people CAN collaborate
True. The steel rods thrown into the gears is converting "CAN" to "WILL", the second is identifying the resources who KNOW what needs to be done and can COMPENTLY divide the processes so they can be concurrently and independently developed. Then you get integration where 10 people take 10 different paths to get one cohesive whole. Everything works great of course because you didn't hire slackers or incompetents and no miscommunication occured. (SURE, I've also got this bridge for sale in Brooklyn... Interested?) Collaboration can create magnificent results. It can also create magnificent failures.
No doubt what you say is true. I was only saying that the metaphor doesn't make sense.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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No doubt what you say is true. I was only saying that the metaphor doesn't make sense.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
The metaphor doesn't make sense if you look at it literally. In that sense, most metaphors fit in the same category. How about the alternate metaphor: "Throwing 9 men in with one woman won't produce a baby in 1 month"? Does that make more sense because the men CAN work collaboratively together on the process to produce a baby? Does it make more sense saying it WILL produce a baby in 1 month? The point of either one is that adding more resources won't produce better results (Unless you look at the process, plan how get better results, how to coordinate efforts, and show reasonable understanding of how the process works to get a predictive model for better results.) When that predictive model comes close to reality, then you demonstrate you are a good program manager. Unfortunately there are(were?) managers who think you can throw in double the resources and get results in half the time. You don't have to think about how that will work, it just will work that way. Doesn't that thinking exactly match the thinking of getting 9 women pregnant so you can get a baby in one month? (Don't think about how that will work, if it takes 1 woman 9 months to produce a baby, 9 women will have 1/9th the amount of work, so of course they can produce a baby in a month.) Fortunately most people know enough about biolgy that the idea is absurd. Unfortunately most people know so little about software, the idea doesn't sound absurd. You need an analogy (not a metaphor) to show the absurdity. There are real case examples where managers have thrown in more resources to get a faster result and either never get a result or one much later than the original plan predicted and the original team had a highly accurate prediction rate. Of course the "metaphor" doesn't make sense, the original premise it is based on doesn't make sense. The point is, it does show how the original premise is absurd. You can't even say that if you get 9 women pregnant, on average you can get one baby a month. That ignores the biological impossibility of getting women consistently pregnant immediately after birth, premature births, etc. That also ignores you don't want 12 babies/yr, you just want one, next month. More absurdity. If you can find a woman 8 months along, you can get one, next month. If you can find a team working on the same software problem for 11 months and they are one month from completion, if you offer 12 times their monthly personnel budget for one copy of the software, I dare say they would do that. Only that's absurd, you're will
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A far better question would be: who is the best boss that you've had and why? I bet almost no answers to that one since they're all pretty bad: most people become managers for the wrong reasons and then fail becuase they receive either the wrong training or none at all and are socially incapabale of managing other people. Just becuae, for instance, someone is a great developer does not mean that they will be a great manager.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
I agree. It's difficult for me to pick out the worst boss I ever had since they were all pretty bad in their own way. Overall, I'd have to say that one was particularly bad in every way except he wasn't a micro manager. In fact, he was so hands off he was barely involved with the project or his workers in any way. He abdicated everything to a full-time employee who was hired as a programmer on the same project as me. This programmer was totally unfit as a project leader or manager. Anyway, back to the manager. He was too busy starting up a web company on the side and building a big expensive house to be bothered with us.
