Surviving A Bad Boss's Most Recent Posts

Question: I have a boss who neither has a degree nor an IT background. That would be fine, but he doesn't have management skills either. We have an IT department of three and the company hired a finance person with no technical skills. When he was hired, the company bought him his very first cell phone. Also, his very first laptop he worked on was here at the company. This person is 40 years old and knows nothing about IT.

The above issues would not be a problem if he knew how to manage. His idea of managing is calling a group meeting once a month. I worked with him on a project when he first became my boss. I was having issues with a finance person pushing off his work onto me. My job is to make sure this person has the tools to do their job and make sure the tools work correctly. Instead of my boss telling this person that he should do his job, he actually told me to "kiss the persons a*s". I then told him I was about an inch from finding another job and he told me, "If you need a good reference, let me know."

Question: I work as a Systems Architect for a manager who it seems can never be satisfied with any work I do. He's constantly trying to find some fault or the other with my work. As it turns out, I'm not alone; he's doing it to all other architects on my team. No matter how prepared we go into our meetings with him and provide him a very clear status update, he's always nitpicking some vague/non-existent issue. Even after having saved the company millions of dollars in excess technology spending, he's given me a below-average rating on my review.

On the social side, while even our Director has had lunch with our team at least 4-5 times in the past 6 months, our manager has never sat down to have lunch with his team in 2+ years. However, he always has a smile on his face and tries to please people above him in the management ranks.

Question: We have a new boss who not only lacks managerial skills, she has no people skills either. She cuts people off mid-sentence, constantly asks for information that is unclear and not well thought out, insists on editing our written communication with our clients. In some cases she has forbidden some of us as Project Leads to even talk to our clients directly!

The staff meetings she holds have no structure or any obvious purpose, she constantly asks us to 'brainstorm' with her. Her latest tactic is to have her boss, our director, come 'visit us' on a regular basis! In fact, she calls him several times a day.

Question: Help. I have been in Banking/IT for 15 years, I now have a new boss who just doesn't seem to like me and I stand no chance at advancing or receiving a decent evaluation or pay increase. I am considering leaving the company but hate to lose the 15 years I have in. What do I do???

Management consultant Paul Glen responds: Do any of your boss's peers like and respect you?  You may be able to make a lateral move into a different group getting away from your current supervisor.  If that can't work, you may want to try to take a stint working in one of the user groups that you have served over the years.  It may turn out to be a great opportunity to learn more about banking operations to work elsewhere.

Nearly anyone who's worked in IT is familiar with this all-too-common scenario: a technologically brilliant boss with no management skills. Unfortunately, it's just one of many bad manager stories in IT.  There's also the non-technical manager with no idea how to run an IT department. The boss who micromanages. Or the boss who calls 3-hour crisis meetings at 4:30 on a Friday -- and then leaves before they're finished.

In our Jan. 23 feature package How to Survive a Bad Boss, Computerworld examines coping strategies for surviving a bad boss. And all next week, we'll have experts on hand to answer some reader questions about how to deal with a less-than-ideal supervisor.