The Prairie spy

According to Forbe’s magazine, in an article entitled: “Jerk Alert—Bad Boss Walking,” bad bosses are everywhere.  Before I go any further with this, I live with a boss. There. Just so you know.

Any man worth his spot on the bell curve, which is a measure of intelligence, will strongly say that the woman with whom he is living is his boss.

In the “Jerk Alert” article, estimates as to how much bad bosses are costing the national economy because of their behavior’s effect on productivity is $375 billion dollars a year. Here’s another bit of the picture: In a survey, 2/3 of people would take a new boss instead of a pay raise. Add to that the fact that almost 2/3 of the survey respondents said they had a bad boss, and you have a very dismal picture. Chances are, I’m not telling you anything. With those odds, you’ve got one.

The very first boss I had was Bob. He farmed several miles away from the farm upon which I grew up. In a fit of juvenile acting-out, because I thought Dad was a bad boss, I left home the summer between junior and senior high school years and went to work for Bob, an old farmer, thirty bucks a week and board. No more bad boss for me. Oooof-da! You talk about your learning experiences, this was one for sure. Dawn to dusk, six days a week.

But the one thing I remember the most? He wouldn’t let me listen to my new six-transistor radio while I was shoveling hog manure. I don’t hold the hard work against him; don’t in fact even really remember it. But I remember the radio thing. Exactly how was that affecting my ability to load a shovel with watery hog poop and get it out the door?

He thought it did, and that’s because he was a bad boss. Perhaps he thought listening to a radio was a stepping stone to even worse evils. Like? Well, maybe like, well, watching television? Wanting my own movie projector while working? Who knows. I’m sure most bad bosses don’t know why they do what they do, either.

Years later, after moving up here, I ended up in business for myself when it became clear to me that bad bosses were the rule, rather than the exception.   I went on my own because of the last boss I had. So that was okay, that particular bad boss. Once in a while, you can thank a bad boss for being a horse’s hind end. Once.

Then I took the teaching job, after thirty years working as my own boss. Then I found out that academia wrote the book on bad bosses. Bad bosses came and went through some rapid-revolving-door hiring process, each new one with great references. (Because the last place wanted shed of him, likely.)

I suppose one cannot leave this “bad boss” thing without mentioning the U.S. Army. You talk about bad bosses, picture a large organization where promotion is based on how long you’ve been there. I was pretty excited about my first assignment out of basic training, when they attached me to the Pershing Missile Battalion at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Oh, boy, all my civilian electronics and engineering back ground, we’re gonna shoot missiles. This belief that good things were in store for me was reinforced when my C.O. assigned me to the Project Control room. Wow. I was excited.

“Do you know how to make coffee?” the officer in charge asked my the first day of the exercise.

And I spent long days watching other people run the booth, while I changed napkins and filled coffee cups.

Bad bosses are everywhere, I guess. When I run into one of my HVAC program graduates, I ask them two questions: 1. Are you bored? And 2. What kind of boss do you have?

The covers a lot of life, right there.