Nightmare Bosses

Throughout my working life in corporations, I have worked for many different bosses. Many have been excellent. Some, however, have been an utter nightmare to work with.

Two nightmare bosses have firmly placed themselves in the annals of my memory.

Nightmare Boss 1

The first was my boss at a large multinational company. During my interview with him, he asked me the following question. “Here I am a similar age to you and I am CEO of a multinational company, and yet you are merely a marketing manager at a large local company, what makes you think I should hire you? I question your ambition. I only want go-getters, ambitious people working for me. Tell me why I should hire you.”

I was about to answer when his mobile phone rang and he made it clear to him that it was the CEO of Turkey (the country) and he had to take the call because it was more important than what we were discussing.”

I should have known after that interview, that I shouldn’t take the job, but I was attracted by the money and the experience, and the career path I would forge within the company.

From the first week, I knew I had made the wrong decision, the man was a complete narcissist. He would call meetings to expound to all of us just how great he was. He would also micromanage each and every project. We had to discuss each step of each project and justify our thinking for each decision we made.

Then the real fun started. This man was a bit of a sexual predator. Rumours flying around the office were that he was after one of my female colleagues. I did not believe the rumours at first because most people disliked the man so I thought they might just be speaking nonsense about him. It was only when my colleague, a married woman, told me that he had made advances on her, that I realised the rumours were true.

He had it in for this lady as she would not give in to his advances. One day he called me into the office and said. “You know I think ‘Tracy’ (not her real name) is not cut out for this business, there are only two types of people in this company those on an advancement path like you and me, and those on an exit path like Tanya.”

It was after that meeting that my dislike for him turned into hatred. But hate is a destructive emotion. I bided my time, he was soon posted to Europe to manage the business there, and I spent 3 more years at the company, enjoying it and learning a lot in the process.

The company had a policy that we had to have exit interviews when we resigned. I had received a better offer from another company and so I resigned. I was clear though in my exit interview to mention, that he was a major reason why I would leave the company, even though he was overseas at the time. The lady from personnel remarked that she had received similar motivations from others that had left the company. While he was head of our country, the staff turnover was apparently astronomically higher than any other country or region, and our global head office was looking into the reasons for that. They needed to look no further than that boss.

Nightmare Boss 2

I left my birth country and emigrated and I was desperate for a job in my new country, so I took a step down and accepted a role junior to my previous one. I figured this way I could also get to know the geography and the culture better.

The owner of this company had built it up from nothing, he was a magnificent entrepreneur, the problem was that because the company was now large and growing rapidly, it could not be managed by one man.

This owner would remain too involved in the day-to-day running of his company. He had employed general managers and senior executives but he just couldn’t let go. He was a control freak. If things did not happen as he envisioned them, then he would lose it.

Many times I witnessed a screaming match and a tantrum from this man. He loved to micromanage too. We had to present business plans to him every two weeks, sometimes weekly, and it was like a final exam. He expected us to know everything about our industry and woe betide the one who had not read the same articles he had read.

These meetings were literally us trying to read his mind and then present what he was expecting to hear. We hardly got work done because we had to continually prepare for these weekly or bi-weekly meetings.

On one occasion I remember going to show him new pack designs, which he loved, so I got him to sign that he approved them. Two weeks later we showed him the designs he had signed off and he lost it. “Those are junk! I don’t like them, who designed that nonsense?”

I showed him where he had signed and approved them. “I must have been delusional that day,” he said. I thought that he was always delusional.

How to relate to Boss 1

Stroke the ego, let him know how great he is, then at the same time do not get involved or commit to his manipulations. I stayed out of denigrating my colleagues or agreeing with his evaluation of them. Always ask for his ‘valuable insight’ on decisions where you want his backing.

Plant ‘seeds’ when discussing things with him, make subtle suggestions, and ask for his opinion. He would be allied to you if it was something that would advance his bonus cheque, it was all about him.

How to relate to Boss 2

Keep him constantly informed of each aspect of your project, meet with him often to discuss things, and get his input on absolutely everything. You slowly start to decipher the way he thinks, and you tailor-make your presentations to suit his style.

When speaking to him casually after hours let him know about the pressure people feel continually presenting to him, he seemed to get the message in more casual settings.

Please respond about any nightmare bosses you have had to deal with, and thank you for reading.