Good bosses

The previous post prompted me to make a few comments for wonderful bosses and mentors who can change and advance your life. This is a non-discriminating blog. It is not my intention to create bitch sessions and chaos. There must be substantiated accord to move forward and offer insight for direction to the end of the rainbow.

Good bosses exercise respect and self-control at all times. Good people lead good people. It is the same example as great parents raise great kids. As a leader of the division, corporate giant, Dari Queen or account payable group, you are the standard set for those awaiting direction and guidance.

Any Funk & Wagnall, Merriam Webster or your reference of choice will offer the definition of a manager as one who directs to succeed and accomplish. A professional will respect your experience, your knowledge and your dignity. You are a valuable company asset – bought and paid for. The copy machine does not deserve more respect than a human being. It seems that when the copier breaks down, four people jump on the phone to get an expert in to soothe and console it into functioning without the weird noise. An employee can drop dead on the floor and most will walk over them, complaining about the impediment. A good boss will call the coroner and order a ham (unless the deceased is Jewish, substitute corned beef brisket) and broccoli cheese casserole to be taken to the grieving employee’s family.

Good bosses do not demean or insinuate you have the same behaviors of past subordinates. They read your resume and should know a person with a doctorate already knows to answer a ringing telephone. It is belittling to be told over and over to do something you are in the process of accomplishing and completing. Great bosses respect your conflict solutions, being proactive to avoid train wrecks and knowing you will take responsibility for what the job requires and beyond.

Your actions are a direct reflection on the accomplishments of management and the profits and success to the company as a whole. It is a team effort. Every position requires equal appreciation.

A wonderful boss creates a positive work culture. You are happy to get there, on time, and eager to delve into the routine and challenges of the day, with vigor. You know you have a capable and refined manager when you have left the workplace with more knowledge than you entered with. A manager moves people forward with experience, education and training. This is what makes companies and corporations and small business grow steps further.

Appreciation for your skill or ability to capture new technologies enhances managements position. Telling you how stupid you may be only drop kicks you into a dark abyss. The division leader, associate assistant temporary manager or interim president knows positive verbiage creates positive efficient outcome. Assignments  adversely directed, such as, “Don’t take all day like the night crew did”, kind of pisses you off before you even get started. A hands on boss is even more effective than the one sitting behind bullet proof glass waiting for the limo to pick her ass up. Even if the hands on boss is looking for a photo op moment, they are at least trying to act interested and committed to your compliance and successes.

Especially new or young employees benefit from a mentor boss when starting a career or highly trained specialized position, such as “surgeon”. An employee asked me once, “How did you become the boss?” My response was, “Walk like the boss (please don’t take this literally), talk like the boss, dress like the boss, (again, use your common sense. I don’t want to hear everyone is badly impersonating drag queens), take initiative, arrive early, stay late, speak with confidence, know your product, know your competition, know your staff and most importantly, know yourself.

Thank you, Bernie V. Easley – you were a great mentor and a great boss.

 

 

Bad bosses

Hand your bad boss a mirror and they probably still will not recognize themselves. This has been a situation encountered for generation after generation. In fact, it started with sweatshops in the 1800s. Desperate economic times exacerbate working conditions and leave employees feeling hopeless.

Examples of bad bosses:

  • A vice-president at a local Houston bank repeatedly refused to contact the insurance agent for the death claim of an employee’s child. The life insurance premiums were paid by the bank as part of the employees benefit package. The employee was positive the child was included on the policy but the vice-president refused to file the claim. A formal complaint took 2 years to process before the insurance claim was paid to the employee.
  • A sales team working for a Houston, Texas company was constantly being berated and demeaned by a boss who frequently ran the company in an intoxicated state. Multiple weekly meetings subjected staff to instantaneous employee terminations, conveying to the staff how inept and stupid they were, referring to employees with racial slurs and numerous additional violent tirades.
  • A major home builder in Houston, Texas employs a sales team who are required to work a set and specific schedule and at times at remote locations. They are required to follow a strict dress code, present specific and detailed sales presentations, work as real estate agents without credentials, clean and vacuum model homes, drive customers around in their private vehicles without compensation and attend required meetings. These sales representatives do not receive an hourly wage. They are paid commission only. Sales meetings are an emotional beating. Employees are told they are not allowed to leave their assigned locations to eat lunch. Schedules many times exceed 50 or 60 hours per week.  They are constantly informed they will be terminated if they are over a minute late for work. They are expected to use their personal mobile phones, without compensation, and answer it 24/7 to accommodate customer’s needs.
  • A retail store in Paris, Texas is managed, term used loosely, by a woman conveying her religious convictions through visual, verbal and administrative means. Each meeting is a 2 hour lecture for “achieving your superior self” and “listening to the voice that does not speak”. There is never any two way communication at these meetings. The staff sits in silence while receiving the sermon from the front seat. Most meetings include the sermon on each employee being dispensable and easily replaced. Is this why there is a continual ad for help wanted for this establishment?
  • A major retail chain in Pittsburgh, PA had a long tenured credit/collection staff. They had successfully driven off each manager within a year of service. The general manager was oblivious to the practiced behaviors of referring to the first female credit manager as a “white prince-ass” and 100% of the staff calling off sick on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. They came in late – if they showed at all and left early. The general manager did not want to exercise his right to terminate them because they had been employed there for many years. He was also afraid to reprimand or call them out for adverse verbal outbursts for fear of racial bias accusations or a lawsuit.

Most managers break federal/state employment law because they are untrained or simply do not care. There is a broad circle of bosses on a control trip and exercise their ignorance of the law because they can. Desperate times create desperate employees. There are the under employed out there now enduring untold humiliations at the hand of taskmasters knowing there are few places to turn to.

Bosses compensated for keeping expenses “under control” create maltreatment exercised through frigid or intolerable heat exposure within the work environment. OSHA requirements are ignored due to not providing necessary safety equipment. Employees are now “paying” for the privilege to be employed with desk fees, providing their own office supplies, cell phones, vehicles, occupational insurance, uniforms, mileage, land line use, cost per copy of work related materials, postage, and customer related entertainment expenses. These are not necessarily 1099 employees.

The blue collar employee community is subjected to extensive verbal abuse. Construction workers, service staffs, domestic labor, retail and industrial rank & file are constant targets for denigration. There is a prevalent attitude that the workers don’t know enough to report discrimination, oppression or mistreatment. Management may be positioned from within the in-house force without the benefit of formal education for the advancement. As in families, we do what we know. If the example was poor, the abuse continues.

The first step is recognition. If you find yourself in a derogatory work environment, try your best to get the hell out. Continuing to subject yourself to money monger predators will certainly change who you are. Be tenacious and patient during your journey. There are great places to work and wonderful people to learn from. God speed.

Cultural diversity can change who we are

Cultural diversity takes on many faces from the observers perspective. I have come to the conclusion, cultural diversity is dependent on elements making you, the observer, uncomfortable. It is all encompassed by our upbringing, attitude to change and acceptance. We make ourselves the “odd man out”.

Travel is the best education but only allows a superficial glimpse of different menus at McDonald’s worldwide. Let’s face it, when an American travels to France, they are going to hit McDonald’s. Familiarity is a magnet. Rationalize you just want to see the differences. It will provide a homecoming speech repeatable to your audience of how the Parisian McDonald milkshakes are nothing but a milky substance with a few shards of ice floating around in it.

Immersing yourself in a culture is more than prancing around Saks in New York City or limiting yourself to the city bus tours. A true cultural experience is meeting a young man in Spain who introduces you to his friends. You attend a wedding with them. You eat at their homes and learn how they live without a car or a refrigerator. You get sick and the young man takes you to a doctor, who happens to be his uncle. You realize the world is so much bigger than you will ever be. Their lives are so rich and full without the glitz and gizmos.

If you have never lived outside a major metropolitan area, you have no idea what life is like in a small town. It is a major culture shock. You lose your need for immediate satisfaction because the solutions are far-reaching. A trip to a major retailer is over 100 miles away. You learn to plan and improvise. People in, what you may think is secluded communities, have always lived with the resources they have available. If you grow up with an outhouse in the backyard and a wood burning stove in the kitchen – you don’t know you’re “poor”. There is no comparable.  If the area has no cable or satellite available and you never had it – how would you know what you’re missing? Money changes everything. Broadband access opens a new dimension for how farmers run their businesses and schools educate our children. It takes funding to change their way of life. Is this our way of making them more like us? Whatever “us” is.

The Amish community survives without modern convenience. Through the last century they have had to make changes to conform to modern society. Buggies must have reflective triangles and/or tape to travel on Pennsylvania public thoroughfares. As minor as this life saving measure appears to be, it was fought for religious and cultural reasons. “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed….” Romans 12.2 Knowing societal differences does not make one jump up and applaud the change.

If you have never been outside the county or parish you were born in – take a walk, grab a Greyhound, find a bus station, share a ride and see what is happening in the world around you. It makes a better you. The observation may not affect you immediately. It will assist you through later stages in life. Cultural diversity can change who we are. You become compassionate, understanding and appreciative. As a very young person, I fought being dragged through every art museum across the United States and Europe. It has proven to be one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. The journeys and the gift of gab enabled me to truly immerse myself into other people’s lives and learn so much more than what the tour guide had to offer. By the way, Paris, Texas is very different from Paris, France.


Truly good people

How many truly “good people” do you know? I am not referring to people who are cute or put smiley faces on every text. I am referring to those folks who will get up in the middle of the night, after working all day. They haul ass to your house to do laundry, clean up after the dog and get your kids ready for school because you have pneumonia. That kind of “good people” is what I am referring to.

Everyone has experienced the one hit wonder. You drop a bag of kumquats at the store and everyone around you assists with picking them up. That is a good deed. Someone holds the door open for you. They are being polite. A good Samaritan is one who finds your stolen wallet and returns it with at least your Charming Charlie discount card still in it.

“Good people” are your friends from the moment you meet them until forever. They like you when you’re an ass. You are forgiven for all faults and your neurotic habits are overlooked.

You look forward to hearing from them even if they repeat the same story over and over about the winning pass during the varsity football game in high school. The story had a kick until everyone had celebrated their fortieth birthdays, but you listen patiently. After a few cocktails, you may ask them to “hold that thought” and move onto talking about yourself!

“Good people” are difficult to find. You may think a newish friend or acquaintance is slotted for this title, only to find out they are too tired to help you shovel the avalanche of snow in your driveway. They don’t care if you have a broken leg. They have to have their 8 hours of sleep. Disappointment follows their failure to attain “good people” passage during the initial interview process.

Work friends rarely fall into the “good people” category either. Yeah, y’all go out for happy hour on Thursday nights and pour each other into a car for the designated driver ride home but that is the law and not “good people”. They’re worried about liability and their own ass. “Good people” would assist with the police interview if you had been dropped off at the wrong house and woke up on someone elses couch.

If you called them in the wee hours of the morning because you were in labor or someone was peeking through your windows, not so good people would tell you to call 911. They would go back to sleep and then tell everyone at work you were friendless and they don’t understand why you called them. “Good people” would have been at your side, wrapped you in their grandmother’s handmade antique quilt and made you hot chocolate – unless you were in the labor situation.

“Good people” are brave and forthright. They are able to tell you when enough is enough. They teach you how to fish instead of handing you a fish. They are critical without judgement. They suggest the right direction, keep you out of the slammer, know how to do artificial nails, drive all the way to Dallas when you have car trouble, tell you your favorite suit makes you look lopsided (that’s nice for horrible) and love you for who you really are.