How bad is your boss?

After reading blogger Gintai’s “How to nurture your boss”, I feel inspired to write about bad bosses. Gintai has also encouraged me to blog again and hence I take a break from my project to do so.

The following are some examples of bad bosses and when should one quit the job. Please feel free to share your personal experiences too.

1) The boss has PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) everyday. She communicates with her staff by yelling.

2) The boss dares not make decisions nor takes responsibilities and has the clueless idea all the time; always asking “what do you think?”

3) The boss gets mad when a staff resigns; he gets someone to occupy the staff’s work station while the latter was serving his remaining weeks in the company, leaving the staff to find elsewhere to sit in the office.

4) The boss asked the staff to jump out of the window when the latter could not meet his sales targets.

5) The boss micro-manages his staff; warning the staff when they’re late for five minutes (when they had worked late till 2am the previous night). But when his own boss gets out of town, he’ll go for long lunches including golf-playing.

6) The boss is always abusive to his/her staff often calling them stupid.

7) The boss always send his/her staff to run personal errands like collecting laundry, going to the banks, etc., when the boss himself/herself is also the employee of the company.

8) The bosses sent a team of staff to their house over the weekend to decorate because it was their father’s birthday. The staff were not paid nor invited to stay to enjoy the party and food.

9) The sales boss (with no sales experience at all) accusing the staff of pretending to make sales calls (because he saw the staff was not talking when in actual fact, the line on the other side was ringing and no one had come to pick up yet).

10) Having a scheming and vicious boss is no easy life in the work place, especially in sales environment where sales persons’ income is based on commission for closed sales. A good boss would define/assign clear sales territories to the staff. A bad boss would act blur when your coworker starts to contact the companies that were supposed to be your sales accounts. This would create “bad blood” among coworkers.

When does one decide to “divorce” his/her boss (to call it quit)?

1) When you bring your emotional package home; throwing temple toward your loved ones; being impatient to them; easily agitated over the most minor things.

2) When you starting doubting your own intelligence; hearing voices in your head repeating what your abusive boss has been telling you “You are so stupid.”

3) When you start falling sick frequently and develop psoriasis, eczema, gastric, etc., which are stress related. This is your body signaling, telling you that your immunity is going down.

4) When your boss requires you to work onsite on Sundays (which both of you are responsible for the project) but he will not show up because he needs to spend time with his family.

5) When you start to doubt your existence in this world. (Dude, this is seriously dangerous).

The above are tell tale signs that you should seriously consider resigning, for the interests of you and your loved ones.

My Love For You

It has been years since we last met. Though we dated briefly, I still have vivid recollection of the times we were together. For whatever reasons then, you decided not to see (or call) me anymore. Due to pride (and from my understanding if a guy is not interested in a girl anymore, he’ll stop calling), I, too did not contact you.

All these years, you have never left my mind. I always wonder how you have been. Many times I wanted to pick up the phone to call you, to tell you to give us another chance but I couldn’t do that. Perhaps I was afraid of rejection. Today, I plucked out the courage to contact you. You suggested meeting up and we had tea in town.

You look good, if not better. We chatted. You asked why I am still single. I told you it’s not easy to find a lifetime partner. I didn’t ask if you’re married. I don’t usually ask that kind of question. We talked about other things: jobs, our mutual friends whom we both have kind of lost touch with them. Then very subtly you told me you’re married.

Now I understand the saying: “the person you love most may not be the one you’ll marry”. I’m not sure if the one that you’ve married is the one that you love most. But I certainly understand that the one whom I love most does not love me.

What a way to end the year 2010. I didn’t have the courage to tell you my feelings then, and I don’t see the need to tell you today. So I gathered you’ll never know how I really feel about you. No words can describe the aching feeling inside me now.

The short periods that we spent together were wonderful moments to me. I’ll store those good memories in my heart, forever.

Why Didn't He Call?

Recently, a girlfriend of mine was upset that a guy, after their first date, did not call her anymore. I told my truly upset girlfriend that he could be busy with work and might call her later. “But he promised to call!’’ she said. So I asked: “Did he really promise or just said he’ll call?” She replied it’s the latter.

I try to explain to her there are many reasons why a guy would not call the girl (anymore) after the first date. “You know, dear, perhaps he finds you unsuitable for him and so didn’t want to waste time going out with you.” I said. She replied: “But it’s only the first date. How would he know we won’t click?”

Sometimes, during or after the first date one would know if he or she likes the other party or not. Most people called it “chemistry”.

I, as usual, trying to be analytical, explained the possibilities of him not calling her:

• He could have lost his mobile phone and hence lost all his contacts. Who can remember phone numbers nowadays?
• He feels that he doesn’t deserve you because you are too beautiful.
• He finds you resembling his mother.
• He dislikes your dining manners. Perhaps you eat too loudly?
• He feels guilty of not telling you that he’s married or already has a girlfriend.
• He didn’t get what he wants on the first date.
• He feels that his mother would not approve of you.
• He realizes that he is indeed gay.

Once I accidentally stepped on the toe of my date with my high heels and didn’t even notice till he told me. I never heard from him then. 8-(

I did advise my girlfriend to call him but being Asian, (a rather conservative one), she refused. So I taught her what I learnt from a book I’d read. It’s about mental skills vs physical skills to accomplish something. In that book (could not remember the title), it said that experts had found out that if one mentally project a successful image in the mind, it would come true. For example, a person may not know how to play basketball. If he or she imagines throwing the ball into the net (imagine that a few times), and when they try to throw the ball into the net, it actually work. Another example was that the experts gathered some people and divided them into two groups. Group A would do regular exercise in order to slim down. Group B would just imagine that they would slim down. Guess which group actually slim down? Group B! (I am still trying to use this technique to lose some pounds).

So if my girlfriend starts imagining that the guy might call her, he might call her some day. This, based on my true experience, actually worked for me. Quite a few times, I imagined the guys would call me, and they did. 8-)

I also advised my girlfriend to move on and not waste time on that guy who didn’t call.