In this fast-paced world where the avenues of technological developments are touching new heights, and employment prospects for the ‘truly skilled’ individuals in various fields (with AI and ML categorically dominating over others) are somehow increasing at a turtle’s pace, most of us are managing to work at some organization or other. Irrespective of whether we are working in a top-notch govt organization or a reputed private MNC; a unicorn startup or a big financial institution; a global consultancy firm, or a billion-dollar GCC; in all possibilities we work under a boss (no matter how senior or entry-level positions we are at). Even if we are the boss to a team of tens of subordinates, or even hundreds and thousands as we gain experience, we still work under a senior who’s superior to us in terms of experience/skillset/designation/networking/unethical office politics/height of sycophancy/reservation luxuries etc. So, no matter how senior or reputed position you are at, there always remains a boss who either makes your life all hunky dory or snatches all the dory from the hunky through his/her terrible leadership and pathetic attitude.
Having worked under different bosses for quite some time now, listening to stories from colleagues, friends and family, and having an interest in sensibly commenting on the types of personalities of people (especially the filthy ones), I have got to know that there exist a lot of seniors out there who have taken birth only to complicate your life with their abnormal behavior, skewed thinking, obstinate attitude, unhealthy prejudices, verbally incompetency, and suboptimum capabilities.
Below is a brief account of five types of bosses you should pray not to get in your life, or if you get, at least pray for them to get transferred or you to switch as early as possible:
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| Photo by kate.sade on Unsplash |
1. The Obstinate Kiddos:
These are the bosses who make you spend hours of effort and energy on most of the nonsensical things just to massage their absurd views and radicalized opinions. From as trivial as changing the font and color palette in an already tempting design to as big as tempering with even the elementary brand elements in a well-thought and intricately planned campaign for airport branding, they’ll keep ruining the entire designs and weeks-long planning with their mindless suggestions and remain adamant on them, no matter what!
It feels even worse when the boss without having a formal degree in say designing/creative writing/campaign planning and having the least knowledge about the basic tenets, suggests you, rather forces you to inculcate the changes of his/her choice only to give wings to her filthy ego. Doing this, they not only hamper the overall strategic communication but also make fun of the cardinal rules of the field (specialized ones, don’t even ask!) For example, they will keep on forcing you to complement a sans serif font with another sans serif of their choice, and then cry foul over the dull output; or they’ll go impatient on you taking creative writing liberty and using an oxymoron even in a creative piece of writing, the reason being their inability to comprehend the gist.
2. The Faulty Shatabdis (one of the fastest trains in India):
‘Get the work done in an hour. It’s a dictum from the Almighty!’ (While it actually needs to be done in the next three days).
Say, you have to give a presentation to the external stakeholders on Friday. And these ‘Local Shatabdis’ will start eating up your mind from the previous week only. They’ll keep on calling you and dictating in a tone as if it won’t be done in that very minute, they’ll be fired, the company’s shares will crash, and their promotion will be permanently suspended. This not only snatches all peace from your life but keeps you in a constant distressing hurry putting a severe toll on your work-life balance.
And you know the biggest irony? When it comes to the work that really needs to be done on a prompt basis, indulging in everything else but that mail/text/approval/proposal, they’ll keep overlooking it as long as it gets so late to eventually invite penalty and reprimand. And being my reader, I hope you are wise enough to answer ‘Who bears the blame for that’?
3. The Perfect Rascals:
Despite knowing the fact that not even a single employee will pay heed to it, they’ll keep on forcing you to invest all your energy into that one senseless thing, expecting flawed ‘perfection’, keeping all the actually important matters in the procrastination box. They’ll keep obstructing your way to feel content by directing you, that too at odd times to integrate a hundred trivial changes to the things that don’t matter a bit!
In their tepid pursuit for running towards perfection little do they realise that a good boss puts and makes its officials put dedicated efforts and channel all their energy considering the actual target audience and goal, and not one like a headless chicken running here and there stumbling with all but worthy!
You can also sniff a smothering sense of uttermost pessimism working with these people.
Focused efforts should only be put towards the things that garner or reap genuine positive results. Rest all shouldn’t even be given a backseat if you really want yourself or your organization to achieve laurels. There already exists a lot to be done, wasting time on redundant things is just a clear no, at least if you aspire to be the top gun.
4. The Incompetent Masters:
These are the bosses who themselves aren’t much aware of what and how exactly something needs to be done, and as a result of that, they’ll cunningly delegate all the herculean and kinda problematic tasks to you expecting you to get it done (when there doesn’t really exist a simple solution) anyhow, and exonerate themselves of any policy or procedural headache.
I still remember getting assigned with such not-so-difficult yet demanding a lot of prior experience kinda jobs during my initial days of working. Had I been properly briefed about the requirement and informed about the procedure, it wouldn’t have brought much misery not just to my life, but of the various stakeholders involved. Kind were they that they bore with me and didn’t resent considering my laymanship, else it might have taken a not-so-pleasing dramatic turn.
So, practice due diligence before being nudged by your bosses for putting your naked hand in a rat hole, especially when you are new to a job. They’ll convince you in the kindest manner that for years that hole has belonged to a rat only, but you never know when a venomous snake will find a place there. And once you’re trapped in there getting bitten by the snake, these bosses will provide you with fruits, apathetic verbal support, and expensive bouquets, but not the venom’s antidote.
5. The Nasty Sycophants:
These are the bosses who unnecessarily stay up late in the offices. Maybe yes, they have got a lot of work to do, and it’s absolutely fine on some days to even burn the midnight oil at your workplace. But, if you are only staying up late to show it to the senior authorities that you're working a lot (LOL), mind you, on most of the days there is no work so time-consuming that can’t be completed in the stipulated duration of office hours.
I had read a wonderful saying somewhere – ‘years later, the only people who gonna remember your late-night working hours will only be your kids, wife, parents, and yes...your ill-mental health; and not your boss, or anyone at your workplace'.
If promotions and recognitions will be given on the above principle, then the unfortunate day’s not afar when personal relationships of employees will go for a toss, and their personalities will diminish to a dysfunctional low on spirit and life.
If someone wanna get completely embroiled at his/her workplace and let personal life, family and hobbies go for a toss, it's okay, their life, their loss! But things get tensed up and take an ugly turn when they expect you to stay as long as they are there. As I said above, fine on a few days when there is actually some serious work. But if it’s otherwise, do stand firmly against that, and if any altercation arises solve it amicably, or else you’ll repent in the future.
Above are the five kinds of bosses that most of us have faced, are facing, or will have to. To alleviate the suffering, solution one is to pray as I put in the very beginning of the post, another is to be eternally grateful for not being one and earnestly committed to not becoming one in the future.