It took a while.....
At the place I used to work at, my boss was an utter, utter twat. He would do almost literally no work – he’d doss about all day bollocking my colleagues and I to make sure that timesheets were updated correctly so that his teams time-charged figures weren’t lowered massively by his own dumping of time into “General Oversight”. He would arrange trips to Moscow, South America, Israel – pretty much anywhere that he could – theoretically to court potential clients, but realistically just to get a free holiday out of it. He was the type of guy that would bitch about others in your presence – real nasty stuff, then speak to them like best friends when they were around, and I’m pretty sure he did the same with me.

Anyhoo, it came to my attention after about 6 months of working with him that he was presenting my work to the board of Directors as his own. The Company I worked for was a mid-sized wealth management Company and one of my jobs was to keep a schedule of Assets Under Management – this was a pretty big job bearing in mind the number of clients with had with a huge amount of varied assets. This job kept me busy for about 2 hours a day solid, month ends took about a day and a half, quarter ends were close to three days and, well let’s just say that the year-end wasn’t very fun for me. What’s more, my boss maintained that this shouldn’t take as long as it did (even though I was working flat out) and continually moaned at me for not charging enough time to clients.

Every month however at the Company’s management/board meetings he would go ahead with this full schedule of assets and present it at his own. My pride and joy. My blood sweat and tears. Being a humble, lowly desk jockey I never attended those meetings, so it was quite a while before one of the other managers asked why I was working on “his” spreadsheet – the one that took him about 3 ½ hours a day and that nobody else was allowed to touch. Not happy.

I complained about it to no avail. The Directors of the Company didn’t give a crap about how it was run just so long as they got their bonuses – bonuses which were always paid before staff bonuses were calculated I might add. I went into a final meeting with them and told them frankly that unless he was dealt with properly, I would leave the Company. They called my bluff.

Two weeks later, having secured another job (along with promotion and 35% pay rise) I handed in my notice.

Long story short (yeah, right...) – six months after I left I met up with another old colleague of mine. My erstwhile boss had, very shortly after I left, been brought up repeatedly on the quality of his work, had actually stood in the middle of the office (about 40 people watching) and had a shouting argument with the head of the Accounts Department as to why his schedule was so completely FULL of errors and was very shortly after that fired, with prejudice.

Three years down the line now, and I am still massively happy in my current employ, loving the work and getting along great with my workmates. My boss is also a LEGEND.

Postscript - I also found out shortly after leaving, from his ex-wife that he also had a chronic bed-wetting condition.


Length? Far too long, I know, but just wanted it off my chest.
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Thu 10 Feb 2011, 14:24, 8 replies)

Problem is
all those despicable character traits you describe are pretty much universal in management*. That's what they do. It's their job to get people to do their shit for them.

Complaining that he is taking credit for your work probably caused a few chuckles up in the boardroom.


*Maybe not the bedwetting.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 16:26, closed)

Thing is, that's not what management's about. Management is the effective delegation along with, as the name suggests, efficient management of assets. A manager himself is an asset, and I would never expect a good one to be anything less than about twice as busy as their employees. They supposedly get their jobs through experience, qualification and expertise.

I know it's not the norm, but most managers in my field (Wealth Management in an offshore environment) are pretty damn good - the salaries and benefits are commensurate. I know that he was earning a little under a six-figure salary (again - offshore - tax is also pretty low in comparison).

Six figures to do nothing??
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Thu 10 Feb 2011, 16:59, closed)

Well, seems
you don't get it.

What's the difference between 'effective delegation', and 'getting your people to work their bollocks off doing what is required of them'?

You've said yourself he was geting it done. Your complaint is that it was you doing the work. Well, guess what . . . that's how it works!

Doesn't it occur to you that when they 'called your bluff', maybe it wasn't some catastrophic misjudgement that they are still crying about, it could be that they were slightly surprised that you were demanding some kind of extra recognition for doing your job (what - more money? Promotion? What did you ask for?), and thought 'this guys an idiot, let him go'?

Seems you started out with a manager as a boss, and still have a manager as a boss. In what way are you qualified to define what a manager is, if you have never been one?
( Not Pineapple anymore, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 17:12, closed)

How am I qualified to define what a manager does? The fact that I am one. I delegate work, but I do a damn sight more myself as I am more experienced and qualified than those below me. I also work on more difficult, technical work which justifies my employment and remuneration.

The issue that I had is that he was presenting the work of a subordinate AS HIS OWN. There's a bit of a difference in saying "Here's something that my team have worked long and hard to prepare" and "Here's something that I have done and it justifies me getting paid an exorbitant salary with not really much else to show for it".

Just because you may have had shitty managers in the past doesn't mean that they all are, or all should be.

Oh, and as for called-my-bluff - the managed department I worked in has since folded. A shame, as it had a load of pretty good clients, who are now getting shafted by the bank that we represented. Not all my doing I might add, but because the board stuck with him, they had called pretty much the entire team's bluff and they all ended up resigning whcih resulted in him being put back into the job market.
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Thu 10 Feb 2011, 17:28, closed)

A good manager supports his team
and makes their life easier to make him look good. A really good manager uses them to allow him to go forward and also in return pulls the rest of them up with him. Bit like climbing Everest.
A bad manager wants to step on the Sherpas to get the Glory, but doesn't think of the long term and sooner or later gets a nasty surprise when his team drops him in the crap.
In my career I've had one or two who have been the former, and many more the latter. Unfortunately for the latter I'm now in a position to make their lives "Uncomfortable" as I'm in a position not to abuse them, but to require that they do the jobs they said they would do.

There is a lot of truth in the phrase "Be nice to people on the way up, as they'll be waiting for you when you're on the way down"
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Thu 10 Feb 2011, 18:06, closed)

Hah.
Yes, that all sounds really neat and tidy, and probably actually happens from time to time. Meanwhile, in the real world people backstab, skive, climb all over each other and will laugh in the face of anyone who whines about it.

Your problem is you have a completely inverted view of how smart people are. You think your manager is dumb, and you think his bosses are even dumber. You are genuinely bewildered by this, and you think it's a good idea to go and get it sorted out. How can those bosses not realise what a wanker the manager is? They must be really fucking stupid.

Of course it works the other way. The manager might be a wanker, but he gets it done. They don't give a shit that he has managed to get you to do his work for him. That's why he's a manager and you're not. You'd just waste time diligently crediting everybody who did the work. They don't care, it's the managers job to worry about that.

You haven't got a clue.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 10:29, closed)

(a) I've already commented that I am a manager.
(b) Clearly they did give a shit about who did his work - they fired him for not doing it.
(c) Somebody's a bit fucking bitter there...
( Hunter Stockton was murdered by a bicycle wielding axolotl,.,.,.,., Fri 11 Feb 2011, 13:26, closed)

Dunno where you
got bitter from. I'm sitting on my balcony, eating a croissant.

Keep it up, next year they'll make you a vice president.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Fri 11 Feb 2011, 13:38, closed)