They’re the six words that strike fear into any worker’s heart:
“THE BOSS WANTS TO SEE YOU.”
It doesn’t have to be a disaster. You could be in line for praise, a raise, or even a promotion. But as you take that long slow walk down the cubicle aisle to the corner office, you know it’s much more likely that you’re about to get yelled at.
And when a boss is yelling, can the dark shadow of Big Dumb be far away?
After all, based on what our readers tell us, we live in a world where:
You might get fired for wearing a Green Bay Packers tie.
You might be reprimanded for looking down on a boss who’s six inches shorter than you.
You might be getting set up so that the boss’s girlfriend’s angry, jilted husband beats you up instead of him.
The bad news is that stuff like that happens to us all the time.
The good news is that when it does, we can’t wait to talk about it. Our unscientific survey here at Reader’s Digest shows that for every story about a dumb celebrity or dumb husband or dumb bureaucrat, there are approximately 432.7 stories about dumb bosses.
Boss Dumb is, in a word, special. It’s not that it’s fundamentally different from other kinds of stupid. Bosses are dumb just like everybody else; they’re overworked or misinformed or behind the times or wrapped up in dumb rules handed down by their own dumb bosses.
No, what makes Boss Dumb so fascinating is that the boss has power. The boss rules our lives. When somebody sitting next to you on the bus does something dumb, it’s of passing interest. When your boss does something dumb, it can change your world.
And while many of us are blessed with bosses who treat us well, we all know that inside every boss lurks a ruthless dictator. Somehow they all eventually learn to think like baseball’s Gene Mauch, the dugout boss who once said: “I’m not the manager because I’m always right, but I’m always right because I’m the manager.”
In fact, bosses are a uniquely nasty bunch. Rainn Wilson, who is considered by some to be a leading expert on the subject by playing the egomaniacal Dwight Schrute on TV’s The Office, described the boss mentality this way:
Bond villains are a great source of inspiration for me. At their desks you’ll often find a sequence of buttons, the sole purpose of which is behavioral correction. Any modern manager will thrive with one of those fear-the-boss workstations.
So the boss is out to get you; there’s just no doubt about it. It’s their nature and they can’t help themselves.
But if power corrupts, it also, apparently, stupefies. A boss may be powerful, but he’s bound to be dumb eventually.
Keep that in mind if—make that when—you’re a boss. Because you know that in your heart of hearts, you want to be one.
“I do! I do! But I won’t be dumb!” you say. “My people will love me! I’ll be nice! I’ll be smart! I’ll be the smartest boss ever!”
Sure you will, boss. Sure you will.
Working for a big corporation, you can feel pretty unimportant. In fact, you can begin to wonder exactly how much anybody cares about what you’re doing.
So a colleague and I decided to test the water. He would stop working, and I would work like never before.
At the end of our test period, we had a performance review. His said: “Worked well and was barely noticeable. Two thumbs up!”
Mine said, “Overall negative impression,” and recommended that I study my friend’s work habits. He got a raise, and I didn’t.
—TALES OF CORPORATE OPPRESSION, CORPORATEOPPRESSION.COM
Even a working man’s hero like Willie Nelson can tap his inner boss when he needs to. His longtime harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, says working for Willie was great but getting paid took a little while.
“I just decided to follow him around Texas and show up wherever they were playing,” Raphael once recalled.
“And at one of them, Willie asked Paul English, the drummer and leader of the band, ‘What are we paying Mickey?’
“Paul said, ‘Nothing, he just showed up.’ Willie said, ‘Well, double his salary.’ ”
—SOURCE: RIVERREPORTER.COM
Today I asked my bosses for three weeks off in July to go on a much-needed vacation. Their response was to fire me on the spot. The punch line: my bosses are my aunt and uncle. FML.
Our company chairman was famous for burning through assistants. One was a young man whose name was Alan, but the chairman called him “Seven.” For days after being hired, Alan endured the chairman yelling down the hall, “Seven! Seven!”
Finally, Alan asked, “Why do you call me Seven?”
“Because you’re the seventh assistant I’ve hired this month,” the chairman answered.
Alan got it but kindly asked, “Why don’t you just call me by my name?”
“Because you’re not going to be around @#$# long enough for me to learn your #$%@# name!” the chairman replied. He then pushed passed Alan, shouting to his other assistant, “Kate! Get rid of Seven and get me Eight!”
—TALES OF CORPORATE OPPRESSION, CORPORATEOPPRESSION.COM
As a teenager, I worked at a diner that had an all-glass front. One day, a blizzard blew in, knocking the wind chill factor down to 40 below. But my boss sent me outside anyway to wash the windows.
“Put some alcohol in that bucket so the water doesn’t freeze,” he said.
“The water? What about me?” I asked.
He grunted, “You’re too young for alcohol.”
—SCOTT DONOVAN
After I’d been working in a small marketing agency for two years, my boss called me into his office one afternoon and told me I was finally receiving a promotion and a raise. I was elated. But when I reminded him about it the next day, he changed his tune. I started to argue, but he cut me off.
“You know better than to take me seriously in the afternoons,” he said. “I’m drunk every afternoon.”
—ELIZABETH B.
Some people are so sensitive. My boss just chewed me out because, according to him, I look down on him. I’m six foot five. FML.
It’s good to be the boss—until you screw up and everyone can see it. That’s what happened to Captain Francesco Schettino of the ill-fated Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground in Italy on his watch in 2012. Not only is Schettino accused of sailing too close to shore, he allegedly fled the sinking ship long before the rest of the passengers and crew.
Schettino has defended his actions, saying he tripped and accidentally fell in the lifeboat. A trial in Italy will reveal the truth, but the whole incident left more than one observer recalling the words attributed to the late British prime minister Winston Churchill: “There are three things I like about Italian ships. First, their cuisine, which is unsurpassed. Second, their service, which is quite superb. And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.”
“Ex-NBC Exec Gets Chair”
—THE MIAMI HERALD
Our former department head was famous for his malaprops. Here are his greatest hits:
—STEVE WEHMOFF
I’ve been running a bar in Prague for many years, and I live in the same building. I happen to be a sleepwalker, and after one episode, I woke up naked on the roof, locked out of my own apartment. The only thing I could find in the attic to wear was an ancient, filthy, rubber raincoat.
Out of options, I put it on, went downstairs to my bar, knocked on the back window, and asked Jana, the cleaner, to let me in. She looked at me in horror. ”Don’t ask,” I said. But soon enough, I was sitting at the bar, waiting for a friend with some keys, shaking out the cobwebs, and having a drink.
Unfortunately, my friend was slow to arrive, but my drinks weren’t. Soon enough customers were asking the bartender, “Who’s the strange drunk naked guy in the too-small, grease-smeared, black rubber raincoat down at the end of the bar?”
“Oh, don’t mind him,” he said. “That’s the owner!”
—GLEN EMERY
I’d gone on vacation without having processed a pay raise for one of the employees of our medical practice. When I returned, I discovered that my boss had filed the forms away. I opened the file cabinet and looked up the employee’s last name, first name, subject matter—nothing.
“Hey, where did you file those papers?” I asked my boss.
“Look under M,” he said.
“M?” I asked. “But his initials are C. S. Why would you file it under M?”
Exasperated, he said, “For money.”
—DEBORAH BUSH
While on the job, I was unpleasantly surprised by the early arrival of my monthly cycle. After unsuccessfully begging every woman I could for “logistical support,” I reluctantly approached my supervisor, Jerry, and, choosing my words carefully, stammered, “I … um… would like to request permission to go home. I am… having trouble with… a female issue that… I’m not able to successfully resolve.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Jerry. “But tell me, which female?”
—GLENDA HERRIN
Once after work, my boss, a self-titled “e-mail man,” sent me a text message instructing me to check my e-mail. I rushed over to my computer and pulled up the important missive. It contained two words: “Call me.”
—MARTIN HOFFMANN
One night I worked late with my boss fielding customer requests. It was a quiet, unremarkable evening until one call left him with a look of horror on his face. Turns out he’d been making some questionable decisions in his personal life and was about to pay the price.
“I have to get out of here!” he yelled. “That was my girlfriend. Her husband just found out about me. He’s on his way over here right now!”
The husband had never laid eyes on him, he said, but knew he worked late nights. My boss bolted out the door but not before telling me, “Keep answering those phone calls!”
Being eager to please, I stayed put. But then it hit me: my boss was setting me up. He was hoping I’d be mistaken for the boyfriend!
I quickly grabbed my coat, turned out the lights, and got out of there.
—PHIL P.
Does anything sound dumber than a boss trying to save a few bucks? Inc. magazine collected these quotes from employee performance reviews, most of which would seem to suggest that someone besides the employee needs a review:
Another boss who found himself pinned in the harsh glare of the dumb-cam is Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football League, who hired replacement referees to deal with the league’s labor problem.
The result was chaos—a string of notably awful on-field calls and embarrassing confusion, playing out on national television and triggering an avalanche of withering criticism.
And on Twitter and late-night television, the nation’s comics had a field day:
At my old office, one of the bosses went crazy and threw his computer out the window, 50 floors up. Thankfully, no one was hurt—it bounced on a ledge a few stories down and stayed there. Later, the boss was taken out of the office in a straitjacket. Oddly enough, he returned to work a month later.
—B. O.
“Four More Newspapers Switch to Offset: Conversion Is Not Always Soomth”
—KANSAS PUBLISHER
I was working as a reporter for an “alternative” New York City newspaper. Our office was a storefront with a double door. The publisher owned a small Honda, a tiny 1970s model no bigger than a shopping cart. Or so it seemed, until he decided to park it in the office at night to avoid the hassle of parking on the street.
“It will never fit,” we told him.
“Sure it will,” he said.
So we pushed all the desks against the wall, and he backed the vehicle across the sidewalk. Sure enough, the rear end of the car made it through the door with an inch to spare on either side. Wow! This was actually going to work! We were going to park a car in the middle of our office!
Alas, no. Half an hour later, and dizzy from breathing carbon monoxide, he could not squeeze the side mirrors through the doors. The strange thing is, as we moved our desks back, I was as disappointed as my boss that his scheme didn’t work.
—D. N.
It was a typical hectic Friday afternoon at our law office. My boss, meanwhile, was hundreds of miles away at a luxury resort, preparing for a meeting. In the midst of my insane day, I got an urgent call from him.
“You have to phone the hotel right away. It’s important,” my boss said. “Ask them to send someone to the pool area immediately.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We haven’t seen a waiter in 20 minutes, and we need our drinks refreshed.”
—BONAH BACHENHEIMER
The front office asked us to figure out the square footage dedicated to each department in our clothing store. To save time, I suggested we count the ceiling tiles above each department.
“They’re each two square feet. Counting the tiles would give us an accurate dimension of each department without having to work around all the displays,” I explained.
My boss hated the idea. “Hell-ooo,” she said, sarcastically. “We need the square footage of the floor, not the ceiling.”
—TERRI HANKE
After I worked through lunch to help my boss with a report, he offered to show his appreciation by taking me out for a bite. The place he had in mind had a wonderful buffet, he said, with foods from around the world. I was absolutely salivating with each detail. So what was his idea of an exotic dining establishment? Sam’s Club. We spent the hour dining on the free samples they handed out.
—WENDY BROWN
My boss’s biggest nemesis is the English language. During one meeting, I asked about the status of a particular report. He replied, “We aren’t going to prepare that report. It would be an exercise in fertility.”
It would be funnier if he didn’t earn four times more than I do.
—SUE T.
On my first day at a new job, I arrived to find someone in the office that I’d been told would be mine. Puzzled, I went to find the person who had hired me, but she was away at a conference. So I told another person my story. She made a few calls, then told me to find a place to sit.
“Don’t speak to anyone,” she ordered. “Just wait for someone to find you something to do until your boss returns.”
Turns out, my boss had forgotten to fire the person I was replacing before she left town.
—NANCY E.
My boss was a real gentleman. Although it wasn’t my job, he once made me mow the lawn around our office building. I was wearing a dress and high heels.
—TAMARA T.
My boss was notoriously cheap, so when he handed me a birthday card, I was pleasantly surprised.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “And when you get through reading it, take it to Robin down the hall. It’s her birthday today too.”
—GAIL SNYDER
As an employee representative, it was my unfortunate duty to do battle with our boss whenever he asked too much of his employees.
“You think you know everything, don’t you?” he yelled at me once.
“No, sir, I don’t,” I countered. “But I do know what the law says. And the law says—”
“The law!?” he roared. “The law has absolutely nothing to do with what goes on in this company!”
—Y. F.
I was performing with another comic, and part of our deal was a free meal. After my set, I asked our waitress if I could get a bite. She said no. That’s not usually how it works, so I asked to speak with the manager.
Next thing I knew, he was charging straight at me, screaming that I was rude to his waitress. He chased me around the table, yelling and lunging at me. Thankfully, the bouncer separated us.
When the other comic got offstage, I said, “You won’t believe this, but the manager tried to kill me!”
“Really?” he said. “I didn’t think your set was that bad.”
—D. F. SWEEDLER
I was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, and the principal decided it was time we had a chat about dress code … my dress code. “I don’t know if you are aware, but your body is changing,” she said awkwardly. “I’m concerned because your breasts have become inappropriately large for a secondary school teacher.”
A long, uncomfortable pause followed. I didn’t know what to say. Then she broke the silence. “That’s all,” she said, dismissing me. She never did say what she expected me to do about the problem.
—KRISTEN J.
My boss likes to save pennies. How much? I caught him in the break room retrieving paper cups from the trash and shoving them back into the dispenser next to the water cooler. He didn’t even bother wiping off the lipstick.
—BARBARA B.
During my brother-in-law’s first performance review, his boss said, “I’m not quite sure what it is you do here. But, whatever it is, could you do it faster?”
—JEANIE WAARA
—READER’S DIGEST
Being a boss means making decisions. And based on the decisions some bosses make, the world needs some better boss schools. As noted in AdWeek, each one of these terrible decisions was approved by somebody’s boss:
Today I was fired by my boss because of the way I laugh. Apparently, it reminds him too much of his ex-wife’s laugh. I’m a guy. FML.
My boss gave the first employee-of-the-month award to himself.
My boss hired a guy who was color-blind to do color corrections at the photo lab. After angry customers returned their pictures, I informed my boss. She told me that I was putting him down to build myself up.
—J@AOL
My editor left a note on a recipe story I was working on. It read, “Please be specific. Do you have to peel the egg before you boil it?”
“2 Producers Quit Show Complaining Report has More Substance then Hype”
—NAPLES (FL) DAILY NEWS
With talk of downsizing the U.S. Postal Service always in the air, our union steward passed the word to all the letter carriers that we needed to be proactive.
“Save our jobs,” he urged. “Email your Congressman.”
—SUSAN KEMP
