Dreadlocks

I want the workplace to be a place which embraces all lifestyles.  I want to work with people who don’t have families.  I want to work with people who don’t watch football every Sunday.  I want to spend my time by the office water cooler next to people who chose not to have kids.  People who don’t play the stock market, or wear suits, or have a retirement plan.  Is that weird?

When it comes to job qualifications, I feel that the line between merit and identity has been blurred.  What this means is that while in theory, people are hired by their ability to accomplish the job well, in practice, people are hired because they fit the mold and personality of what a good worker should be.  As a result certain people with certain personalities are excluded from the workplace even though they can work just as hard and do the job just as well.

We all know that in the past, various parts of our society were excluded from doing certain jobs – with the main example being that women and minorities were excluded from jobs reserved for white males.  While we have progressed and laws have been put into place to curb this blatant prejudice, the inequalities are still there.  While an employer can no longer ask for the sexual orientation and the ethnicity of the prospect, they can still ask questions to identify what they feel is a regular productive member of society – with the image they have in mind for this stereotype being a straight, white, male from a upper-middle class family.  That is not fair and I speak for the disadvantage minorities today in the workforce with this following rant.

I don’t care about who won the Steelers-Colts game last Sunday.  And just because I do not know the score, I still should be given all the chances that Chad does – such as having lunch with my boss, getting invited to happy hours after work.  I don’t find it fair that Brad gets to spend the first hour of the workday discussing with his co-workers the results of the fantasy sports league they are in but I have to document the work I do each hour because when anyone talks to me, it’s about business.

I don’t understand why others look poorly upon my desire to take a day off when I don’t have kids or a wife.  Johnny got to get a whole week off because it was his kid’s first days at school and he had to take his wife to a doctor’s appointment.  Why isn’t my need to volunteer at a local soup kitchen and to take art classes any less of a need for me?  They help in my self-discovery and just because my life goals don’t involve a family doesn’t mean that my life goals need to take a backseat to work.

I may be male, and I may be straight, or maybe I am not, but either way I am  not comfortable objectifying women, even if it is in private.  I do not mind that Tom and Frank do it behind closed doors as long as I don’t have to hear it, but I don’t see why they should get a promotion over me just because they have better “synergy” from thinking the same things about banging women.

Let’s put it this way, if you are a sharp-looking, business suit, gelled-hair white male but the proper “look” for a salesman was to be a dark-skinned female wearing rastafarian colors and having dreadlocks, how would you feel if you never got hired or promoted even though you did your job just as well?

You, speaking confidently but feeling soulless: Well sir, I have a 10 year plan to be worth 7 figures by the age of 35.  I hope to start my own business around that time, and to have MBA.  I also believe in the potential of this company.  You guys went public recently and have shown strong sales number.  I want to ride that tidal wave and show you I can slug a homerun in this industry into the horizon of the future, sir.

You’re this 25-year old kid got a lot of spunk and a resume that would fly off monster.com like pancakes at a Google cafeteria.  You’re a go-getter, I love your attitude, and you know your stuff.  You are goal-oriented and you’re going to be successful one day, and I would want to make you a part of any company I was invested in.  And man, you can stuff three slick sales-talk metaphor sayings into one sentence.  But seriously, though, are you for real?

I think about what these kids are saying all the time.  I am one of these kids, in fact.  But when I’m sitting around a pub in Berkeley, kicking back with my mates and discussing life, I don’t talk about my imaginary 10 year career plan.  I just say that stuff in interviews so I can get the job.  But who really believes that stuff?  When we discuss life, we talk about how we want to travel the world.  Maybe find a good woman or man to be with.  Move to a new city, find something to be passionate about.  Maybe teach in a inner-city school or open up a small environment-friendly cafe-restaurant.

And that’s the problem.  There has always been a gap between life and work and now it is widening.  More and more people say what they need to say to get the job, but in the end they realize that they feel unfulfilled.  They realize that a job is necessary to pay the bills but now people are thinking that there is more to life than surviving.  People want to have a purpose, a reason, a passion, and they want to live life and not just get through it.  As a result, we see more and more of our youngest and brightest moving away from the private sector and joining programs like Teach for America.  And why shouldn’t they?  It’s the soullessness of being a part of the workforce that is driving them away.  That is what needs to be changed, not the good hearts of today’s youths.

The Retirement Hobo

More of the same by Lauren Close

I am a big fan of the Fortune columnist Stanley Bing and I’ve been reading his column for a very long time. He happens to have written a book called Crazy Bosses and there is a companion site here with a quiz to determine whether your boss is crazy. So I haven’t read the book yet but I’d like to write down some types of crazy bosses I have observed.

1. The Megalomaniac Tyrant — This is the type of crazy boss that thinks he is king of the world. They are always right and they would bite someone’s head off if they want to. Most of the time they are CEOs because there is almost no consequence to their actions in a company. A CEO is technically the king of his/her own empire. The Tyrants are usually fairly clear headed when they get angry and know what they are yelling for. So generally they’re not logically insane, but they are definitely explosively tempered. I am quite familiar with such a personality.

2. The Paranoid Delusional — I think most of these are mid-level managers without too many real skills. They are paranoid because they are afraid they can be downsized at any moment. The paranoia makes them delusional and they start to blame their underlings for anything that goes wrong whether or not the event is their fault. Paranoid delusionals are harder to deal with than Tyrants because they don’t understand reason. Paranoid delusionals can also be a little bipolar and treat you really nicely one day and put you in the dog house the next. This type of crazy boss is probably the most difficult to deal with and could drive you insane, too.

3. The Party Animals — These guys don’t really care about work and would gladly have a beer bash every day. It might seem awesome to have one of them as a boss at first, but eventually you realize something is not quite right. What is worse is that you may become a slacker like your boss and lose all motivation towards an honest day’s work. The Partiers are also more likely to pull stunts like making you cover for them because they’re drunk. I would say I haven’t really met a true party boss yet. Though, there are a couple that came close.

4. The Over-compensators — These guys are direct opposites to the Party Animals. They are willing to work their team to the bone for their own sense of accomplishment. Usually their underlings are quite unhappy and these crazy bosses LOVE to take credit for any good that comes out of his or her slave driving. These bosses tend to make their people leave quite quickly. I think these crazies are quite common and it’s quite easy to recognize them when you start getting calls on the weekends to go into the office when you don’t even get overtime pay.

5. The Addict– These are bosses with substance abuse or gambling problems. They are obviously sick and need help, but they are still functional enough to hold onto a job. Before they fall to their ultimate demise they may regularly assert their power and borrow money from their work flunkies and not return it. I have already seen two cases of these crazies and in both cases they were fired. The best thing for a victim to do is to report such behavior as soon as possible and get the crazy boss fired. Unfortunately a lot of people are afraid of their bosses and a lot of times these addicts are quite manipulative and lie as easily as they breathe.

6. The Manipulative Empath — These bosses may seem extremely normal and actually get you to work with praises and compliments. Then when review time comes and you’re due for a raise you don’t get it. Then they give a lot of excuses as to why you’re not getting a raise but still pay you with compliments and possibly a free lunch. Then behind your back they wipe their brow and think to themselves, “I just suckered that guy out of a $4000 raise with a seven dollar lunch”. It’s hard to spot this type of crazy, and that is because they’re deviously smart and manipulative.

7. The Sexual Deviant — Personally I haven’t met one of these, but I have heard many many stories of these crazies. They are the reason why you may have had to sit through a sexual harassment training seminar. Many companies now also have rules on whether or not a supervisor could ask his or her direct employee out to drinks after work. Once again, these bosses can be reported, but usually it’s harder to prove that your boss sexually harassed you than proving that your boss is an addict. It would be good to save emails or tape recordings in case you meet a crazy like this.

Fortunately, I have not had any of these personalities as my direct supervisor, but I have definitely interacted with some of these crazy bosses. If you have had a crazy manager, how would you dissect his or her personality?