My boss and I went away on a business trip earlier this week. I had more client meetings, so I went down a day before him. He flew down that night and only attended the second day of meetings. We took the same flight home and arrived around 11 at night. The next day I went to work at a normal hour because I had a lot of work to do. My boss unexpectedly did not come in until noon…. I guess rank does have its privileges.

Dear MyBossisDumb readers,

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon at work lately; employees are not being help accountable for coming in late.

I consistently see employees walk in 5,10, 15, or more minutes late every day.

I, on the other hand, leave my home early to ensure that I arrive on time.

I do this for two reasons:

1. I have a lot of work to do and I would rather not have to stay late to accomplish it
2. I am dedicated to the company and want us to succeed.

I talked to my boss about this issue, and he said that it was of no concern of mine how others behaved and that I should just mind my own business. I did not talk to him with the desire to get others in trouble, but was instead just trying to determine if defined work hours really applied at my company.

Maybe my boss was just worried that I noticed that he was one of the ones who was regularly late.

-Matt

I have a new coworker. Very nice lady. Seems decent at her job. However, she already has proven to me that she is not going to be a superstar. This employee has the annoying habit of listening to her iPod and humming/singing along to her favorite songs. When I brought this up to her, she responded with shock, as if she didn’t know what she was doing. Let’s just hope that she develops a better taste in music.

One thing that has been annoying me a lot lately has been when coworkers begin a sentence with “At my old company” and then proceed to suggest how we should operate.

This would be fine if these coworkers were intelligent or if they were the ones who set the policy at their old companies.

However, these individuals can barely read a procedure, let alone implement one.

I hope that these individuals all get to say very soon “At my old company” in reference to my company.

Today, I walked into work after not having been there for two weeks due to the holidays. The first thing I heard from my boss was “Did you miss me?”.

Of course I didn’t. If I missed you I would have called you over the holidays. I was not thinking about work and I was definitely not thinking about you.

I do not want to be my boss’ friend. I just want him to respect the work I do.

We found out our schedule for Christmas week on Friday.

All real companies give their employees the benefit of a half-day or at least an early dismissal, but not mine.

My boss informed me that we would have to work a full day on Wednesday. This was great news as our normal day runs until 6:30 PM. This means that I will not be able to see my family on Christmas Eve until like 8 PM. That is crap.

I have a feeling that I will be giving my boss a lump of coal for Christmas.

From a recent email forward:

This might sound like simple paranoia, but I assure you this is based on a real situation.

Talking about work while in the restroom is an unnecessary risk.  If any of the stall doors are closed, you have no way of knowing who is listening in on your conversation.  It could be the boss, your employee, or even a client.

Let’s say you’re standing at the urinal and a coworker walks in and says “Hey man, how’s your project coming along?”  You can only ever respond with “Fine thanks.  I’m staying busy.”  

If you were to respond with “Great, I’m almost done,” then you run the risk of your boss overhearing the conversation and assuming you’re ready for more work.  Or even worse, the boss could assume your project is ready for deployment and start dropping hints with clients.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you were to respond with “Terrible.  I’m sick of this project,” you run the risk of insulting any key stakeholder who might be listening in.

So, this actually leads to two pieces of advice.  1. If a coworker asks about work while you are in the restroom, simply respond with a vague answer and leave it at that.  And 2.  Never ask a coworker about work in the restroom.  It’s rude because it puts them on the spot.

My friend told me about her company’s Employee Performance Review process.

Like most employees, she gets reviewed every year. This year, her company has decided to increase the formality of the review process. This gets them a round of kudos in my book because everyone wants to know where they stand and deserves accurate feedback.

Some of the changes that her company has implemented this year:

• 360-Degree Feedback – employees are reviewed not just by their boss, but also by their peers.
• Job Growth Paths – provide a road map that lets employees know how they can grow into the positions above theirs.

Both of these changes are on the surface steps in the right direction. The problem is in the implementation.

360-Degree Feedback – At this company, many employees are in their first job and have no idea how to review anyone. One question that arose when they rolled out the plan was “What happens if I get asked to review someone and I don’t have anything nice to say?” No structure has been created to guide employees on how to review their peers. This will inevitably lead to worthless feedback.

Job Growth Plans – These plans assume that job growth is linear at the company. Below is my computer-generated rendition of this assumption.

However for most employees at this company, growth is not so linear. My friend drew me a picture of how she would be able to get to her boss’ position if she were to stay with his company. Below is my recreation of her sketch.

I told her that she is in an interesting position and that I wish her the best of luck. Let’s hope that she at least gets a good review from her manager. Or that she is already looking for her next job.

Spend a few hours in my office and you’ll hear “can’t we just” at least a dozen times.  Okay, maybe not a dozen – but still, it’s a problem.  My coworkers tend to oversimplify every situation.  Here’s an example:

Coworker: “My client keeps telling me they want to make Friday’s meeting interactive and fun.”
Me: “Okay.  So what did you have in mind?”
Coworker: “I don’t know.  I was thinking maybe we could run some interactive trivia games – like on computers.”
Me: “That sounds like it might be a challenge.”
Coworker: “Can’t we just bring laptops for everyone and set up a LAN in the hotel ballroom?”
Me: “Yeah I guess so.  If you want to double the client’s budget, extend the timeline, hire additional staff for the session,  and order 40 more laptops.”

Now, I realize people shouldn’t be punished for thinking creatively.  And I know there are “no stupid questions, only stupid answers.”  On the same note, I don’t want people to waste my time.