Need help surviving a bad boss?

Managers at The Walt Disney

Managers at The Walt Disney Company take the cake for being bad managers and bad IT managers.

http://www.duckau.com

Thanks anonymous, the

Thanks anonymous, the article was brilliant. ( Why your boss is programmed to be a dictator" at http://www.changethis.com/19.BossDictator)

At 67, and after decades of

At 67, and after decades of bad bosses, I have learned two things: 1: they are too incompetent to even recognize that they are incompetent, and 2: they will never improve.

I work for a large defense

I work for a large defense contractor at an off-site location. I have worked for my employer for 9 years and have received stellar reviews until the last two years. I have also received yearly merit increase over 5 percent as a result of my performance and also two out of cycle increases totaling over 13 percent. I only mention these as an indication of my worth to the company and my aptitude at my duties. The only personnel to receive above 2.4% increases did so by threatening to quit right before testing of a system they oversee but do not share information on.
Last year my evaluations were left lying around and I got a phone call congratulating me on well I did (Far Exceeds and Highly Promotable). When I was given the manager approved version I was rated Exceeds and Promo table. The rating entered into the HR system was Meets and no indication for promotable. When I ask for a hard copy it was somehow lost. I got another phone call from a co-worker saying he saw my evaluation again and apologized for the mix up. When I questioned my skip level manager I was told that it was terrible that company private information was lying around for all to read and it would not happen again.

Just last week I found a USB flash drive on top of an unused desk. the drive belongs to the manager I gather because it contains every employee related file for every employee at my location for the last 3 1/2 year. Also thrown in is a folder of pornography. I have also been instructed on more than one occasion to enter charges on my time card which do not make sense and I have also heard from a co-worker close to the finance area of the program that he has seen two sets of financial reporting books that are used as determined by who will doing the viewing. I and co-workers have contacted our HR, Ethics and skip level managers and have been stonewalled at every turn. At least three of us it appears have been thwarted in our attempts to secure positions through a transfer. You may ask why stay with the company. First and foremost this location does not represent the company in general. I fear my only recourse will be to quit and bring the matter to the attention of the CEO or Business Unit president.

The local manager is of no help and allows if not abets most of the questionable activities. The local manager seems to suffer a great deal from an ailment discussed in the latest computerworld that deals with ill-qualified management promotees that may have some level of technical expertise which may account for the promotion. But even in his case it is a very long stretch to even get to that point. I was trying to discuss the possibility of programming unused SNMP modules on network switches to send traps to the network monitoring system so that when we lose power we will have at least 45 minutes or warning before the switch goes down (We lose power a lot). I really think I lost him when my first three syllable word entered the conversation. Well anyway if anyone is looking for a highly skilled, motivated and immensely dedicated computer and network expert then please response here with a location to which I can send my resume. I do not really look forward to the IG investigation and having to testify. So, whether your name is Calgon or not, please takes me away.

Look out for yourself

I'm a very experienced IT engineer who's worked for primarily Fortune 50 companies. I was laid off at the depth of the dot-com bust, I took a Sr. System Administrator job at a small company to keep food on the table.

I highly recommend working for a small company; it's a great way to get varied experiences. You just don't get broad IT exposure in large companies. However, the business had an executive in charge of IT from the 10th level of Hell.

I will never work again for a company that still places IT under the CFO. Besides berating us for every backup tape we purchased, the CFO was a screamer. Every conversation with him started with him saying "G*d*mn" and berated everyone around him. Every time he came out of his office, which was a rare occassion, people ran because they knew a "GD" outburst was coming.

The kicker was when he placed a jar on his desk that said "Ashes of Problem Employees".

I had a great immediate manager, but soon after he was "fired" after a CFO outburst, I left.

I stuck it out long enough to get small company experience and management experience, but I think leaving after you've gotten the experience you need is the best way to deal with a bad boss. HR is worthless and facing the high cost of turnover is the only way most companies will learn about a bad boss.

At larger companies, I think the best way is to transfer.

Companies look out for themselves so you should look out for yourself.

After I left, I heard that the IT systems collapsed because the CFO decided that he didn't need to replace IT people and that he could run the 200 person company with .5 FTE headcount. The downtime ultimately cost the company about $15 million in lost revenue.

How about a bad CEO?

I worked for a small firm and reported to the President, but had a dotted line to the CEO, who was also the founder and owner. This guy thought he knew everything there was to IT, as he wrote the original legacy applications himself. Green screens to him were king - as were clunky applications written on platforms no one used. I was tasked to lead the development of a web-based portal for a new client. This CEO had to get involved. He wanted to design the record format, all of the processing steps, etc. - before any requirements were done. The last straw was when we were in a detailed design session, he spent 30 minutes on what colors and font sizes to use. I started looking for a new job ASAP after that. It was good to hear other executive peers say that he is really just a CEO who is playing CEO. I bailed after only 9 months.

I saved one letter he left me at a hotel we were traveling too in Baltimore. I got in at midnight because he was too cheap to fly out of the local airport, but rather had me drive 4 hours - fly to DC, then drive to BWI. When I got in, the note read, "We have a lot to do - see you at 6:14am in the lobby" Yep - exact words. All because he had no clue on how to prepare for a site meeting with this new client.

Taking this kind of boss to

Taking this kind of boss to HR holds many perils. I did exactly this. The Director was counciled by HR and was ultimately let go. After he left I received several company awards for my work and received very good reviews and raises. The problem was that I was never trusted again by the upper management (I was a mid level manager with about 25 direct reports). After about a year my position was eliminated only to be reactivated 6 months later. If you take the high road with HR be prepared to have to take on another challange, finding a new job!

What about the boss who

What about the boss who believes (or has been taught during his MBA program) that everything can be managed as a "black box" - i.e. you don't have to understand what happens in the box to manage it?

I had one of these - he was famous for bringing up topics by asking "Why can't we .... " and when the answer was technical (which it often is in IT), his eyes would roll back in his head and his brain would shut off! Two days later he'd ask the same question.