There’s an interesting psychological analysis of Rod Blagojevich in today’s NY Times. In it lies a case study of which we should all be aware, with implications for each and every person who still has the privilege of going to a job each day and working for a person who, for better or worse, they call their boss.

For a long time, we have known certain things about the people we work for:

• As all people are, they are bent and warped in certain ways unique to their characters, with each individual sporting warts, zits and lumps all his own;
• Common personality traits of bosses include narcissism, anger, inability to concentrate on details, failures in compassion and empathy, grandiosity and, in later stages, delusion, addiction and career death;
• In good times, these characteristics are often modified by the overall positive mood of the operating environment;
• In bad times, the warts grow hairs and sprout like tumors from the head of the beast.

These are not good times. Hence the usefulness of any investigation into the kind of decomposition we might come to expect from those we serve.

Some aspects of Blagojevich’s character, according to the Times:

• A person he worked with told him his stepfather had just suffered a stroke. Blagojevich expressed momentary regret, then went on to ask whether the man’s family could contribute money to the campaign. Lack of empathy.
• He was obsessed with his own personal brush from Paul Mitchell, which he referred to as “the football,” a reference to the bomb codes always within reach of the president in case of nuclear attack. This might have been funny at one point. Even narcissists make fun of themselves when they’re feeling particularly flush.
• Even as his world started unraveling in the last few weeks, Rod can still be heard on tapes speaking about his ambition to run for president, perhaps in 2016. Who knows? With that kind of grandiosity he just might make it.
• He also reportedly had a lot of trouble showing up, being on time, dealing with the actual details of business, while demanding perfection from others. I read that as depression and anxiety, which I know a little something about from, you know, personal experience.

So… how do things look around you? The economy is throwing off blue smoke and headed for the side of the mountain. Heads aren’t just rolling, they’re flying through the air like cannon balls. People are talking about more of the same until 2010.

Every day another former captain of industry explodes into criminal malfeasance, in what seems to me like the most massive collapse of leadership in all aspects of public life since… what… Grant?

How’s your boss bearing up? Look for the signs. And be prepared, fellow Scouts. Keep those matches dry, and your own personal compass in good working order. It’s a long way out of these woods.

Yes, once again it’s time for me to answer some of the interesting and weird questions that all the interesting and weird people who drop in on this space offer me now and then. Today there’s a guy whose company makes him work holidays and weekends for no extra money. This coming weekend, he has a couple of weddings he wants to attend, he’s already paid for the transit and the tux, and his boss won’t assure him that he’ll have the right to go. What do you do when you work in a Stalinist environment like that? I have a couple of ideas.

Beyond that, a reader asks which is more important: great sex or great money? What do you think?

An interesting letter in today’s Ask Bing grab bag. It’s been a while since I’ve looked over your questions – I don’t know why, that’s just how I roll.

Have you noticed that, by the way? “That’s how I roll.” It’s very big. That and the ironic fistbump, first pioneered by Mr. and Mrs. Obama on a national scale.

Anyhow, take a peek at the questions today. And send yours along to bingblog@gmail.com. I’ll be waiting there for you.

It’s an Ask Bing day today. I admit it’s been a little while since I stepped up to the bar and answered some of the many questions that pour into my digital mailbox every day. There are several reasons for this, I think.

First, a lot is happening every day that needs scrutiny, and Second, most of what’s going on makes me feel somewhat ill equipped to give advice. I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going on half the time anymore. What kind of directional guidance is worth anything in a sandstorm?

That was how I was feeling anyway. Then I dipped into that trove of trouble, anger, humor and resentment that is my e-mail. There I found peace and solace, because you know what? Some things are eternal. GE (GE) may disappoint. Sharper Image may close. But some stuff never ever changes.

There will always be violent, abusive, insulting and infantile people who rise to be our bosses, and people to ask Why?… There will always be young folks trying to break into the life of challenge, misery, sleeplessness and glee that is the full-blown business career, each of them with questions on how to kill their elders and move into their ergonomic chairs… There will always be those who allow their jobs to invade their hearts and souls, Prometheans chained to the rock of their employment, condemned to eat their own entrails (or drown them in vodka) for eternity.

Thank God for such people! They show us an underlying truth of all human life, one that actually makes me feel good in times of raucous change and confusion like these. And here it is: The more things change, the more they remain the same. To which I say: Viva consistency!

Take a look at some other people’s trouble today. You’ll be glad you did.

Word comes from Megan in Chicago, one of our most valued and assiduous correspondents, that this humble blog has been blocked by the IT police of her company. Megan writes:

I can tell you one thing that is going the wrong way. Bing’s Blog page has been officially blocked at work with a code of “Social Networking”… Stanley baby – can you pull a few strings and help the numb nuts in IT understand that I need this site in my daily work life? How can I possibly put in a full 10 hours without a spoonful of delicious irony! I’ve explained that this is a very useful site which quite often covers business related topics. I’ve stated my case that while the site is not essential to doing my job, it does help me do my job better. They’ve claimed that they will review and let me know – *sigh*. I’ll miss you sweetheart…

I’ll miss you, too, Megan! It’s all so unfair! A social network? Us? Could that be? Every day we have as serious a discussion of current business-related events as the facts warrant! Sure, a lot of the time we focus on the ridiculous and outrageous, but that’s a direct effect of the times in which we live, right? Just look at the following issues we’ve dealt with in recent months:

• Guys who play golf and bridge while their city-states are flailing, and are then super-compensated upon their departure;
• The collapse of huge banking institutions that stupidly gave loans to people who couldn’t repay them when belts tightened even one teeny notch;
• The most aggressive Fed in living memory, moving dynamically to do who knows what?;
• Utter confusion on the part of experts and pundits of all stripes, and a general sense of incapacity and weirdness from all over;
• The usual insanity pertaining to mergers, acqusitions, divestitures and other organizational hooey in organizations from Apple and AOL to Yahoo and whatever companies that start with the letter Z you can think of;
• Intense activity in the digital arena, including the geometric growth of online retail while brick and mortar stumbled;
• The worst performance by the airlines industry since Howard Hughes attempted to commercialize the Spruce Goose;
• Other (your peeve here).

We’ve covered these terrific business trends and stories just like a responsible information source should, with aplomb, sagacity and no little amount of sang froid. We’ve also looked extensively at your bulls**t jobs and crazy bosses, and even occasionally offered some advice in our Ask Bing sector. And if, in so doing, we have also attracted a witty, savvy, saucy, snazzy, slightly snarky group that get together with some regularity to comment on the general situation? Does that make us a social network worthy of blockage? Well! All I can say is…

Thanks for the promotion, IT dudes! Now come on! Free the blog! Lift the blockade! Let freedom ring!

Some poor goofy fellow writes me to ask about whether, in the current economic environment, I prefer an investment in stocks or in bonds. This raises several interesting questions. First, what kind of reader, after spending any time on this site, would ask this kind of information from me? And second, how can I live up to his expectations. I believe, after an appropriate amount of thought, I offer a cogent piece of advice for this individual. See if you agree.

There’s also another guy who works for a boss who acts like he’s running a mob instead of a corporate function. Anything he can do about it? What do you think?

Today at Ask Bing, I answer a letter from one of my pals. Actually, I don’t know the guy. But he could certainly be one of my scotch-swilling, cigar-chomping, joke telling buddies around the table at my now all-too-infrequent poker games. He wants to know if he should take a raise and accept a new job, the caveat being that he would have to work for a woman, and be surrounded by a female version of the Ole Boy’s Club. This is not an easy question. Can a person in mid-career profoundly change his act? Take a peek and see.

Beyond that, it only remains to say have a nice weekend… and to get that started, don’t read the business news today. What you don’t know can’t bum you out.

I am particularly amused this morning by a question from a reader who works for a large financial institution. It seems that on payday the company had a small glitch and a bunch of people not on the direct-deposit program didn’t get their checks… for five days. One supervisor, approached by an employee who needed the money to live, gave an interesting piece of advice: Go to the guy responsible for Payroll and ask him to lend you the money. The guy in charge of Payroll is our correspondent. Of course, he’s ticked off. I think he has every right to be, for sure. Unless…

Several other matters of import are discussed. Check it out.

On another front, keep an eye on the debate now ongoing in my prior post on silver linings. You may want to weigh in. What’s better for the world? Gigantic multinational corporations whose brands define consumer activity worldwide? Or local businesses which are are a lot less efficient but do have a certain charm and utility?

Global? Local? Price or service? We may not have any choice, ultimately, in the way that story goes down. But we might as well talk about it while it’s happening, huh?

Sometimes my gut absolutely mirrors the Market. Yesterday I was all freaked out. By the end of the day, I felt better. Now I actually smell a little bit of hope in the air. Things are marginally back to normal. The sky did not fall. The sun will come up tomorrow. If every cloud does not yet have a silver lining quite yet, there are patches of blue among the gray. So I think I’ll get back to business and usual and do what I said I was going to do last Friday and offer 10 things you can do if you’re too busy.

1. You can cancel all meetings with aggravating people right now unless they are your boss. It’s amazing how many meetings we create with people we’d rather not see for reasons that, once we are at them, are unclear. I believe many of us whip up activity to prove to ourselves and others how non-fungible we are. A little fungibility never hurt anybody, particularly the terminally busy who are already essential in quite enough areas, thank you. Be less fungible. Share your funge.

2. Never write a long e-mail if a gnomic BlackBerry message will do. It’s incredible how many chunks of work can be tossed over the side with a short electronic piffle like, “OK, let’s do that. Can you handle?” If you’re a big player, that’s called delegation. If you’re not, it’s called passing the buck. Either way, it results in less bussitude.

3. Close your door and tell your assistant that you will only be disturbed by a) your boss or b) somebody who is bringing you a hot pastrami sandwich, and nobody else. Your door has to have meaning if you are not to lose your sanity.

4. Take lunch. You won’t be less busy, but you will FEEL less busy. Let me ask you a question. When you eat lunch at your desk, do you end up with less to do after lunch? I’m betting the answer is no. So if you’re going to be screwed up anyhow, why not enjoy a nice, peaceful hour away from the office? Have somebody join you that presents a legitimate opportunity to use your expense account, if you have one.

5. Don’t go on conference calls unless your boss is on it. Isn’t there somebody junior to you in your area? Somebody ambitious, who still believes they get some kind of juice from being on a big ratpack event? Put them on the call. They can be the ones who sit there and twiddle their thumbs while you’re out generating non-fungibility.

6. Schedule an occasional offsite for yourself. Every city has conventions, gatherings, symposia about new technology and other BS you can glom onto. “Where’s Ambruster?” people will say. “Oh, he’s at the global streaming thing at the Hilton,” will come the answer. Smart Ambruster! To be interested in such an arcane issue!

7. Don’t be so friggin’ reachable. A few years ago, I noticed that everybody in LA starts calling New York at exactly the time when we all want to go to lunch. For a long time, I answered their calls and upset my circadean rhythms. Then I thought, “The heck with them,” although perhaps not precisely in those words. “I’ll return their calls tomorrow morning while they’re in the shower.” The bottom line is, just because your phone rings doesn’t mean you have to answer it. CONTROL, guys. It’s the sense of losing it that makes you lose it.

8. At about 4:15, take a look at your To Do list. Anything on it that can be put off until tomorrow? Hold on! Can’t, like 80% of it be put off until tomorrow? Or even the day after tomorrow? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. It’s called procrastination. It’s divided into three parts: PRE-crastination is all the things you do before you start your serious PRO-crastination which comes right before a good session of POST-crastination. Then you can do whatever it is. Or not.

9. Schedule a meeting with your boss to “go over things.” Anything you do with your boss supercedes in importance anything else you could be doing. If your boss is going out to play golf, accompanying him or her is actually “working” smarter and harder than constructing that spreadsheet you’re supposed to be showing to the Controller next Tuesday.

10. Work faster. Concentrate harder. Clear your platter aggressively. Then rest. Rest is work, too, particularly for those who take it seriously.

By the way, the picture you see at the top of this posting is of Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for eighteen months with his head cut off between 1945 and 1947. Proving, I guess that our kind of lifestyle can go on for a while, but in the end does take its toll.

Today is Thursday. It is also Ask Bing Day. Take a look. The first question is a really juicy one that afflicts just about anybody who works for a living. An ad guy writes in and complains that he has an idiot for a client (see graphic, right). What to do? Listen to the fool who pays the bills and do the wrong thing? Refuse to be a co-numbskull and maybe lose the account?

There are stupid people everywhere mingled in with the intelligent ones. A lot of the time we have to work for the former, report to them, keep their business, make them happy. If you can’t manage a client who has cheese for brains, how are you to keep your bosses in line, let alone your children and spouses?

I’m not in advertising, but I’ve had my share of people who I thought should listen to me instead of marching off a cliff into the ocean. Some of them did and some of them didn’t. Only members of the first group are still around to tell the tale. For while mean people flourish in this world, it’s harder for the operationally dumb. They need our help. And when they don’t take it, well, that’s just a crying shame.

How about you? Seen any stupid clients lately? I’m sure some of you are in banking. You might have a few stories to tell.

Hi there. Today we answer a few of your questions you’ve been kind enough to Ask Bing. Today’s batch includes a question that is without doubt the most disgustingly amusing I have seen during my time here on this digital planet. You may want to check it out. It’s the kind of thing that makes you see your problems in a whole new perspective.

Oh and by the way. We’re working on getting the technology in place so that you can comment on these Ask Bings in situ, but until then, why not use this space? Operators are standing by.

A few really interesting questions today, one in particular that takes me off my usual turf and into a more emotional subject for most people, a crucial, transformative business issue often confused with a personal matter: divorce. There’s an old saying that a person who represents him or herself in court has a fool for a client. In this situation, that goes double, I think. See if you agree.

Tomorrow I will discuss the feeling of being stalked by a large financial institution. By then, I should have received at least one and perhaps two additional solicitations in the mail. It’s an interesting feeling, like being held in the grip of a fate that you cannot change or avoid. I don’t like it. But I will enjoy telling you about it.

See you then.

I say “dudes,” dudes, because I have noticed that, far from fading away, the use of surfer lingo in middle-aged business executives is flourishing. You haven’t really lived until you’ve seen a guy in a $2000 pinstripe, $500 wing tips and one hair artfully arranged on his shiny head say, “Dude, awesome weekend.”

My favorite comment of the day comes from M. Smith of Colber, Georgia (unless she’s M. Smith Colber, of Georgia), who reminds us that, behind all the headlines, all the business manuals, all the economic analyses of this supposedly rational sub-strata of society, organizational life continues in its eternal dance of madness and complaint.  She writes:

Wow, are you sure you’re not in Georgia? My boss takes the cake on bullying. I have gone home crying so many times that it is pityful. My boss can take you into her office and make you feel like dirt and then come out smiling and telling everyone that you are the best thing ever. She is insane. She picks on people for stupid little things that don’t even matter. She is a principal and she has 3 spies or like I call them (pawns) that run around and get all the dirt they can on people and run back and tell her just to get things started. There noses are so brown they look chocolate covered. She would never believe anyone over them, even people who have worked there for 30 years. She has a new lil spy now who she is treating like gold for this year. Just wait till next year and she will be in the same boat as everyone else. I’m just glad I found the articles on corporate psychopaths and now I know how to deal with her.

I’d be interested to know how M. plans to “deal with her.” And I’m hoping that our ongoing discussion of Crazy Bosses, and the requisite purchase of my book on the subject, helps smooth her way.

Beyond that, I’ll just say so long for now. I’ve got a lot on tap today. A subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of ours has a product coming out of China that may have a few wrinkles to iron out. I can’t be more revealing than that, except to say that I have every confidence that our Chinese suppliers have operated with nothing but the most rigorous integrity in the matter.

Have a good day, dudes!

Visitors to the Fortune website today will be treated to the brand-spanking new look and feel of the premier business destination on the planet. It’s clean. It’s sharp. It’s as fast as approval on a low-cost ARM.

No, wait a minute. At this point, it’s faster. A lot of people worked long and hard behind the scenes to make this elegance and simplicity a reality. Think one of those James Bond movies where a huge team of people swarms an underground complex, each with a white jumpsuit and digital clipboard. It was sort of like that.

To kick off the launch of this beautiful new baby, I’ve answered a passel of questions from you guys which will be featured in the Ask Bing section for the next couple of days. Keep those queries coming, by the way. I love to hear about your problems. They perk me up when I’m low.

Finally for this rainy, crispy autumn day in New York, I’ll just say Welcome Back to whatever it is you do after the enforced four-day retreat into family life. It’s interesting how much worse Sunday night is than Monday morning. Right now, I’m at my desk, the mail is done. It’s halfway to lunchtime. What was I up at 3 AM about, chewing on the inside of my cheek?

Don’t you have that Sunday anxiety meltdown thing? And if not, tell me… why not? Like, how do you keep your mellow from being harshed on a daily/weekly basis? Without booze, I mean.

You’re just a click away from another batch of answers to questions you’ve tossed over my transom in the last weeks (and to tell you the truth, months). I’ve got hundreds of pages of your questions and darn it, I intend to answer them all before I dematerialize from the form I now occupy and reformulate in a different time/space dimension sometime in late 2011. Today’s are a good sampling. I hope you enjoy them.

Me, I’m headed off on another insane, frenetic, inhuman whirlwind tour of one of our business locations. Get this. Tonight at 9, I head off for London. I’ve got my passport this time. We land around 9 AM, Greenwich mean time. Why they’re always on mean time there I have no idea. Usually we’re not like that except on Mondays and the occasional earnings day.

Anyhow, myself and young McTavish will then repair to our hotel, where we will freshen up and await our first meeting. In this case, “freshen up” means to collapse into a pulsating ball of hair and gristle while our bodies attempt to ascertain in which time zone they are attempting to exist.

At 2 PM local time, we have our meeting somewhere. At 5 or 6 PM, which is around noon in our regular universe, we will have a bunch of drinks and go to dinner with some other dudes, or in this case blokes, at about 8 PM. Dinner should be over by 11 PM local time, at which point we will go back to our respective hotel rooms and faint. We’ll be up at 2:00 in the morning New York time to have breakfast and take a tour of London operations. At 4 PM at Heathrow, I’ll head back home, landing when it’s 3:30 AM on the Thames. By then, it will almost be Friday. Friday!

I’ll try to blog at ya while all that’s going on. If I don’t, have a ripping good week, mates.

Hi there. I’m in Philadelphia to speak to a group of supply managers. I believe the discipline used to be called “Purchasing” until, like stewardess, waiter and fireman, the job designation got upgraded. Anyhow, I’m sure they’re very nice people and I can’t wait until it’s over. FYI, I’m generally the guy who answers a) to all the questions I offered in yesterday’s quiz. The thing is, on stage I transform into d). So I get myself into gigs and then I’m very nervous for months before and then I do great at them and then I want to do them again.

It’s called neurosis.

At any rate, today we have a number of amusing and thoughtful Ask Bings for your consideration. So go there.

For tomorrow, I’m going to tip my chapeau to my reader, Sukardi, who writes in from somewhere called Terengganu, Malaysia. (See yesterday’s comments). I’m interested in investigating the idea of a Killer Quotient that functions as a workable predictor of business success, aren’t you?

Elsewhere on this teeming site, you will find a nice bouquet of Q&As that I offer this week. One question of sorts did pop out that I thought would share with you here. I say “of sorts” because while the writer does pose several philosophical queries in the body of his missive, his is not really a question that can be answered, at least by me. It is, however, a helluva good story and more uplifting than you might think at first glance. It also verifies my general contention that inhuman, stinky management does eventually get punished. 

I was initially diagnosed with prostate cancer last year at age 44. My company went through a huge re-organization last year as well and I had a new boss. After 16 years as a top sales engineer I was forced to re-prove my abilities. But what’s more, I had to approach my boss about my medical condition.  She told me, “This is a place of business, if you need to take time off then take time off.”  Then she hung up on me.  (She is located in Denver and does not directly get involved with day-to-day business as she should). 

In fact, she immediately turned up the pressure with aggressive behavior like calling me every fifteen minutes, sending me emails that changed my daily priorities two or three times a day.  I tried to contact our HR team and no luck.  They basically were surprised by the new bosses callousness, but they offered no help and said she had her right to manage the way she felt. 

I decided to leave the company to fight for my health.  Some would say I should have gone on disability, but that’s not me.  I quit and after surgery joined the competition, selling the same product lines.  My new bosses are tremendously supportive and have helped me back to prominence. My sales are good and even though I have treatments every day they don’t want me to overdo it.  I know my old company won a large project I helped with even after my departure, but after that, their sales are flat.  In fact I keep beating them in deals and have taken accounts that just were P.O.’d at this new management team. 

How the heck can she still be there?  She is terrible for morale and does not have enough numbers to show for her behavior.  I could have sued the old employer I think.  But again that’s not me.  Instead I stay between them and their business by simply staying true to the customers and my adherence to integrity. 

Why did my new management think this was the way to do better business?  It’s not even close.  They are not fooling anyone and I love it because my old customers are new customers to my new company.  So the commissions are better too.

What a happy story. As for his questions, in my view there are no answers as to why organizations sometimes find themselves run by mean, unhelpful people. But when they do, the rot starts from the head and goes all the way down through the ranks, passing through the HR department before it exits the system and hits the customers.

The good news is that in general, I believe, what goes around comes around. It’s nice to see evidence of that working thesis now and then. So keep those uplifting cards and letters comin’ in!

Good morning from Los Angeles. It’s fabulous here.

I’m up kind of early because they seem to have this time-zone thing where it’s three hours earlier? Yeah, right. Not in my head it isn’t! Anyhow, I thought I’d kick off this morning with a bunch of Ask Bing’s, which you will find in their usual silo on the site. One question from a reader was so charming and alarming I thought I’d get you in the spirit. “Here’s one,” she writes:

I have a passive-aggressive paternalistic boss. I’ve read a couple of your questions-and-answers, but not all, so maybe you’ve covered this already. I have a boss of the classic “everyone knows he’s bad but hey, just put up with him because the management likes him” type. But instead of bullying or yelling directly, he’s passive aggressive. A typical interaction might be him asking “What is your goal for this work?” I give a thoughtful answer. He replies “That’s not a goal”, and then just sits there looking at me. Or he might be reviewing a plan I have submitted, and says “This is not what I asked for. Do you think this is what I asked for?”

Interacting with this guy, I keep feeling like he’s asking me if I am still beating my wife. He poses questions that are unanswerable without coming right out and saying “Yes, you’re right, I AM worthless.” He’s also a master of the awkward silence. He will simply stare at you. BTW all of this aggression is delivered with almost no emotional affect … perhaps a small Mona Lisa smile playing ever so subtley about his lips.

This man is evil, I tell you, evil! Any advice on how to counter it? Thanks!

Dear reader: I have a little advice, although your insight into the guy already has given you a leg up. My thought is this: two can play this game, especially since this operator isn’t even admitting there IS a game. Silence is a powerful tool. He gives you the eyebrow? You respond, “Well, what IS a goal, Murray? I need some help with that.” And then just sit there. After a while of you sitting and looking at each other, he will break and say, “I would hope you knew that.” And you can say, “I thought I knew. But clearly your understanding is different than mine.” And then just sit there. After a while, he will kick you out. Later, go back in and say, “I need a bit more guidance on what was wrong with my deal there.” And then just sit there. As for emotional affect, he’s got it right. Give none. Be pleasant. Out-zen the mother. Good luck.

And good luck to us, each and every one. And to all of you who keep on writing to Ask Bing this and that. I know it sounds kinda demented, but your problems brighten my day.

As for me, I think I’ll have a martini this evening. There’s nothing like a martini at the Four Seasons bar. Last time I was there, I saw Verne Troyer sitting on the lap of a supermodel.  That’s L.A. at its best, don’t you think?

Should you tell a job interviewer your current salary? Is the fact that the boss is a woman change your strategy if you are, you know, ever so slightly sexist? Are not-for-profit organizations a haven for bloviating nerds at the highest levels?

For answers to these and other questions I refer you to today’s Ask Bing section of this site. I try to get them done by Wednesday but if you remember this was a short week and blah blah blah and so forth.

Take a look! You’ll be glad you did!

Quite a few of you wrote in yesterday to comment or complain to me about the use of the word “bipolar” in my current Ask Bing posting.

One reader from Virginia made a very good point. “I have to say your answer on how to handle the bipolar boss was mostly good,” he writes.

… except for the highly offensive reference to “crazy people”. Bipolar disorder is a serious ailment with significant stigma. Your reference perpetuates this view that keeps people in the closet and from getting help they need. It also further inflames the situation the questioner asks about because he can just dismiss her as crazy anytime he doesn’t agree with her. This will not help him. Or her. Maybe you can take out the crazy reference before this article cause more problems than it resolves. Otherwise, your no BS answer is on top of things.

This made me feel bad. I bandy the word “Crazy” around a lot, particularly in my excellent and highly useful and readable book on the subject. And I guess the reason I feel justified in doing so is that in using the term I mean no specific insult to anybody. In fact, some if not all of my best friends are crazy. I, in fact, am considered quite crazy by many of those who are nearest and dearest to me, let alone the people who work for me. I, of course, consider myself to be sane in the highest sense of the word, even if that sanity is not immediately obvious to the naked eye at first blush.

For me, there are two kinds of crazy. The first kind involves people who see things that really aren’t there, are afraid of invisible microbes/little men who hide in the phone lines/people listening to them outside their 15th-floor window, etc. , talk to themselves when they are not on a Bluetooth earpiece (and get a response from nobody visible in our everyday light spectrum), and so forth. I have nothing against these people, but they should not be managing a business unless they own it, and then, as you know, they can do pretty much whatever they want.

Then there’s the second type, which I believe includes, to one extent or another, all of us. There’s my friend Dworkin, who cannot stay still for more than two minutes for any conversation, no matter how leisurely, without popping up and down like a runaway bobbin. There’s my pal Brewster, who makes obsessive, extensive plans down to the minute, none of which he ever lives up to. There are all the bigtime moguls I know, most of whom have to operate on a daily cocktail of pressure fueled by a tremendous anger. I could go on. But I believe you all know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you and me and the people we work for and who work for us. They put us in suits and uniforms so we look standardized in some way. But underneath? Who really knows what lurks in our hearts and minds.

So back to my reader from Virginia. He’s right, of course. The person we refer to as “crazy” in my Ask Bing headline may very well be no more “crazy” than you or me. And by all means that individual should be held to account for her actions just as anybody who is not “crazy” — if that person could be found — should be. And there’s no real use in slinging around a pejorative that muddies the water and allows the moody boss to get off the hook. Actually, we don’t even know if that boss really is bipolar. All we know is that the employee who wrote me experiences her as such.

And that’s what it’s all about. Craziness is not an objective thing. It’s subjective. The experience of craziness, except in those with extraordinary illness or insight, is most often in the person who is receiving that behavior, and it DOES help us to understand that the problem lies not in ourselves, sometimes, but in the stars around us.

Bob the boss is happy! Five minutes later, Bob the boss is angry! How about Ned? He usually dresses in three-piece suits. Today, on a Wednesday, he came in in a tee-shirt and jeans! Doesn’t he have a meeting with the Chairman? What’s up with him? Freddie is a trustworthy and efficient employee. Except all of a sudden, during a very big fire drill, where is he? Gone? Gone where? To Fresno? Now? Why? And why is Doris, who is usually so cheerful, so quick to burst into tears at the drop of a hat all of a sudden?

How can people be so inconsistent? So weird? So inexplicable to others? One thing this? Next thing that? It it bipolarity? Anxiety? Depression? Paranoia? Rage? Grandiosity? Delusion? Grief? Or are people just kinda crazy, whatever the heck you call it?

Who wouldn’t be, with all the stuff that’s going on around here?

Okay, I lied. I thought the last post, in which I told you I had gone fishin’, was my final word for a while. But then I got on the JetBlue plane from New York to San Francisco and suddenly I had about eight hours on my hands. Don’t ask. Anyhow, I got a chance finally to go through a huge stack of letters that a lot of you had sent to the Ask Bing portion of this site, and answer some, and just marvel at a bunch more. I particularly like the guy who told me I should exchange the cigar in my portrait for a turtle.

So for the next couple of weeks we’ll split up the trove a little and feature a bunch of Ask Bings, and I bet while I’m supposed to be relaxing I’ll have a chance to deal with a whole bunch more.

I hope as you read them, you’ll get fired up about something I got wrong, or right, maybe, and shoot me a whole bunch more of your stories, observations, complaints, ideas and vapors about crazy bosses, bulls**t jobs you hold or someone else does, insane and frustrating peers, and organizations that either crush the life out of you or make you totally enjoy whatever flavor of Kool-Aid they are serving.

You can even send a picture of your turtle if you want.

Today we roll out the newest in our series of Ask Bings. The previous group is still available on the lower righthand corner of the home page for those who are nursing the same problems they were a few weeks ago. I sympathize, by the way. My problems don’t seem to go away, either.

Shooting me questions this time was a guy who works for what he calls an “ultra-wimp,” who not surprisingly is to be found in academia. My dad worked in that dry and flinty bureaucratic soil, and I can tell you that brand of limp manipulator can be particularly thorny and vicious. Another question comes from a fellow who wants to leave one bulls**t job for another, more prestigious one. Again, a reasonable request, and achievable if one deploys the right strategy. A third inquiry finds a young woman who is dealing with that most ubiquitous of crazy bosses, a mean little bully who exploits her work and denies her the respect she deserves. They just don’t seem to go away, these guys, do they? Until, you know, they do. That’s the good news.

There are some other cries for help, including one person who is wrestling with that most hairy of issues for any working person: how to get a raise. We could spend a long time on that one, and maybe I will one day. There are many schools of thought on the subject, most of which go at it rationally. Since like many core business issues it is not, in my opinion, a totally rational one, I tend to veer to another approach, some of which is touched on in today’s Q&A.

A note to all of you who take the time and trouble to write in to this portion of the Bing website: I read every one of your letters and always marvel at how essentially the same major torments and uncertainties play themselves out in an infinite variety of ways. Each job has its very specific cultural milieu, its own cast of leading and supporting characters, its own pains and gains. Each boss is both the same as every boss and completely different than any others. Thank God. As long as the world stays the way it is, I will never go out of business.

So keep writing. I’ll keep thinking about the things that bother you. It’s certainly better than obsessing about my own situation all the time.