I hear the pain of the person in today’s blog who spoke of it being unethical to take a bullet for a bully boss in a meeting and I epmathis with your assesment that this should be a smal part of a larger scheme to dodge what might otherwise be a negative situation, however let me suggest that both are correct, what is really needed is a sort of Jack Sparrow (from the Pirates of the Caribbean)effort of explaining things so that one doesn’t actually end up taking a bullet or other shrapnel and its also all part of a larger scheme to accomplish what you want in the end, there is a lot of good material from the like of folks like Tom DeMarco which can help you come up with explainations like ‘it doesn’t cost too much, you’re actually getting a huge bargain for your IT budget’, or ‘those people don’t have to be busy 100% of the time, we have to have some slack in the system to be able to react fast to market conditions’, you just need some really good material ready when the situation comes up that would otherwise leave someone taking a bullet, take inspiration from the Jack Sparrow character

Can relate to the monsters. Yet- one wonders how these companies stay in business with so many of these “crazies” in the organization-which results in the loss of the many talented looking for a better job elsewhere. There sure seems to be a lot of this in the technology industry. One thing that wasn’t mentioned-or I missed it somehow- can perhaps be put this way:
The monsters stay where they are because they have the “goods” on the other monsters. Who has a “secret” relationship with whom… Secret “deals” with the funding department “golf” buddies… Family vacations to the Bahamas (all expenses paid via the vendors-if the “monsters” purchase their particular equipment)etc. The list goes on…
Also-the total lack of any accountability when things affect the business seems to point back this direction as well- they all are tangled in the web with each other, yet none of the monsters ever seems to leave the web. I can’t say I agree with the notion that this might change when the business is in financial or other trouble. Come the layoffs-(we’ve had quite a few over the years) the monsters seem to stay. Many of our co-productive colleages get let go–and those of us that remain get worked to death to take up the slack. Are things better at our competitors? I’m hearing pretty much the same from former colleages now there. American Business: Spacely Sprockets vs Cogwell Cogs. Were the “Jetsons” that far off the mark?

Crazy bosses aren’t fired because their bosses are clueless. With very few exceptions, the truly crazy bosses don’t get more from their employees, but less, and only produce the appearance of being effective by bad-mouthing employee competence and implying that they (the boss) are holding things together in spite of such incompetence.

Truth be told, most bosses in large companies are irrelevant and unnecessary — good employees will do good work with very little supervision. Where a good boss shines is in picking employees in the first place and putting each in a position where they can be free to achieve.

Why don’t crazy bosses get fired? Because their bosses don’t see them from the same perspective that their underlings do.
Bullies and other whack-jobs have an acute sense of when they can unleash their bad craziness (on subordinates) and when to pose as a sane person (with peers and superiors.
If the crazy boss is (a) making his/her numbers (b)handling a load of stuff that his/her boss would otherwise have to deal with and (c) good at appearing sane when dealing with upper management, said crazy boss looks pretty good to the uber-boss.
It’s not a precise parallel, but consider the Don Imus firing: The guy had been saying whack offensive stuff for years. He only got canned when a public shitstorm erupted over the “nappy headed hos” comment and it became evident that he could no longer bring in the ad bucks. There was no moral dimension to the decision whatsoever. Sorry, but that’s how it is.

There are lots of broken people in the world. Some of them get to be bosses, some don’t. People who never had the life experiences that would make them empathic tend to become bad bosses because they are selfish. Maybe someone told them that they can’t be capitalists without being selfish, that they haven’t made it until they express their selfish whims. Again, just broken people.

Stanley’s advice is for people who are putting in their time at work, punching the clock. If you find yourself in this situation, leave! It isn’t the only job in the world. You have to believe you’re overpaid or unskilled if you don’t leave. i.e. I won’t be able to get a job as good as this. Talk about low self esteem. Another type of broken people.

So, crazy bosses are crazy because they are broken in a certain way, and their employees are broken in a way that requires them to put up with it. Addicts and codependents, abusers and victims.

What a weird dream this is.

I always find it amusing, as a rather low level employee, how much more humiliating it gets as one ascends the ranks. I also think it amusing how one loses more and more of your spine as one gets higher (I guess that comes from the “kissing up” that one does). It also explains why corporations make such bone-headed decisions sometimes, because the people who are promoted and survive are so cravenly and unoriginal, that they lead themselves into disaster after disaster.

People focus too much on the small things like being a team player, having a good work ethic, producing valuable and tangable results, and other goody-goody stuff. Work is for one thing: money.

In order to be successful in your career, you need to remember and apply the Golden Rule of Work:

“The money made from the job is more important than the job itself” – © Yadgyu

so much of this dialogue rings true in a large work environment, it could be said that these situations form the entire philosophy of the comic strip Dilbert. only way to avoid it is to be an entrepeneur or find a good progressive little company.