Researching Prospective Employers – The Boss Insanity Factor

"Researching Prospective Employers – The Boss Insanity Factor

Abusive, opaque, tactless, cheap, and that’s just some of their better qualities. They walk the earth, trampling feelings and careers. And we’ve all had them, the supercilious supervisors, maniac managers, and legends in their own minds.

Almost every day, one or another of my clients will tell me a nutty boss tale.

One client, an administrative assistant, told me that her supervisor declared, "a sick baby is not a good reason to take the day off." Another boss, a restaurant manager, demands that his employees recycle used jellies, butter patties, dinner rolls, and other food items out of the garbage. Another reads everyone’s e-mail. Another boss leaves dirty underwear and spoiled food around his cubicle.

Then there are the shouters. I know a corporation general manager whose idea of a motivational speech is to bellow, "I don’t give a [tapioca pudding] what you’re [dingdong] job title is. You’ll do what I [by golly] tell you to do, the [happy] way that I tell you to do it, and if you don’t like it, there’s the [handsome oak] door." (Words in brackets changed.) A main, if not the main reason, why people leave their jobs is because of their boss. You can do the research - read a company’s annual report, scour its Web site, and pore over various directories - until your eyes look like cherry Jujubes. However, your well-meaning efforts will fail to yield the answer you need most – namely, is your prospective boss out of his or her tree?

Psycho bosses usually don’t slither, grunt, smell, or drool (all at once). Ostensibly, they are rational as me and, maybe, you. Behind many a charming smokescreen, however, lurks the power monger or the micro-manager, the manipulator, or the crud ball.

There is, however, one precaution a jobseeker can take – uncertain though it is. Arrange to speak to other employees who report directly to the boss. Don’t let the boss pick the persons whom you talk to, and try to meet these employees in a private setting away from work – say, over lunch or for coffee. Ask very simple, very frank questions such as, "Do you enjoy working for ____________? Is she a good manager? If you receive silence or evasion instead of direct positive replies, the boss is probably a lemon.

- Richard Tanski"

<Note from JobFairy.com: You will very likely never be able to chat up your future co-workers before you join a company. This is why we advise you to keep looking for a month or so longer when you first start a job. That way, if the boss is a lemon, you don't have to stick around. And you never want to work for a Toxic Boss.>