MY BOSS IS BONKERS

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?’ The man below says: ‘Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.’

You must be an engineer’ says the balloonist. ‘I am’ replies the man. ‘How did you know.’ ‘Well,’ says the balloonist, ‘everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s no use to anyone.’

The man below says ‘you must be the boss of your company.’ ‘I am’ replies the balloonist, ‘but how did you know?’ ‘Well,’ says the man, ‘you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.’

The Role Of A Boss

Dumb knows no borders, and being the boss seems to bring with it an obligation to make idiotic pronouncements, execute illogical decisions and basically wreak havoc on organizations, most of which would probably run pretty well without the boss. And this is done while finding ways to blame the disastrous results of their obtuse strategies on convenient subordinates. Why? Because it’s what they do!

They Must Go To Some Secret School To Learn This

Over the 30+ year span of my career, I have worked for a number of companies. Most had very little in common and were strikingly different in areas such as corporate culture, structure, purpose and business approach. Unfortunately, having not been born the quintessential entrepreneur, the one thing I always had in each job was a boss - a divisional or corporate number one, numero uno, head honcho, big guy, leader (as in “take me to your”) and various other endearing names describing their position at the top of their department or the company.

After working with each of them for just a short while, it became very apparent that several other names might be more appropriate in describing them - “Nuts” or “Bonkers” immediately came to mind - and every time they made what I believed was a decision which bordered on absurdity and was made without regard to rhyme nor reason, I started thinking of them not as the Head Honcho but as the Chief Nut; the proud possessors of a coveted Doctor of Illogic degree.

Flipping A Coin Would Yield Better Results

At times, the decisions these people made were truly mind boggling, and went a long way toward confirming to me that all of these very smart people were not so very smart after all. I remember early in my career, I had a boss who was very kindly preparing me for management, and bestowed on me the following words of wisdom; “Always remember that no decision is a decision”. I assume that was his way of saying that making no decision leaves a fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong (mighty sage advise I must admit).

Well, just look at the situation we are facing in America right now. We had all these smart people, these great financial minds, in powerful positions both in and out of government, making “our” decisions, executing their strategies in “our” best interests and guiding “our” futures. And where did that leave us? At the current moment, with a financial system in shambles, with more bailouts needed than it would take to re-float the Titanic, and mired in a very nasty recession with unemployment rapidly rising. It has only reconfirmed in my mind that all of these really smart people are no smarter than if either you or I made the same decisions by simply flipping a coin.  In fact, making no decision would probably have left us in much better shape - since the educated decisions of those “experts” appear to have been wrong most of the time.

What’s The Deal Here?

So again, what is the reason for this website? It’s two-fold. First, it will allow you, the harried, under appreciated and over blamed employee an opportunity to fight back, by letting the world know just how dumb your boss really is. Second and somewhat related, I am on a quest - to find the dumbest boss on the planet. We all have examples of dumb decisions made by inept superiors who never own up to the messes that they create. I have many examples (the two static postings are just the tip of the iceberg), and I am looking for examples of yours. This is where you get to vent. Providing readers of this site with details of stupid decisions, dumb statements, inappropriate comments and anecdotes showcasing the overall ineptitude of your boss, whether past or present, will make them feel like they are not alone. After all, misery loves company.

Periodically, we will have the readers vote on their favorite candidate, and ultimately, we will narrow it down to one - just one nut who will claim the title of the planet’s dumbest boss.

Please take a minute to read the Ground Rules. They are important and you must understand them before you post.

Then, enjoy adding your two cents and reading what others have to say.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE GROUND RULES

Never Confuse Nuts With Dumb

Simply add a comment below to tell YOUR story.

You are not limited by space, so be as creative and complete as possible.  Try adding as much humor as you can (people like to laugh and in this case, they will be laughing with you, not at you.)  Give a bit of the background, state the issue(s) involved and how your boss messed things up, or if bad behavior or bad language was the issue, describe it.  Whatever their stupidity, get it off your chest.

If you need any assistance, please feel free to email me at headnut@mybossisbonkers.com

Have fun,

The Head Nut

The following incident took place during my tenure as VP Sales and Marketing for an International resort . In addition to being a beautiful property, the resort I worked for also had wonderful facilities; a casino, shopping plaza, multiple restaurants and bars as well as the only golf course at the destination.  Having the sole golf course would ordinarily have been a great competitive advantage.  In addition to our guests, we drew golfing visitors from the area’s other hotels.  This gave us an opportunity to showcase our hotel and facilities even to those who were not staying with us, thereby creating a potential for future business. Read the rest of this entry »

I became the Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for a major offshore resort. With 15+ years of experience at that time, I was chosen because my track record was one of consistent success.

So, what exactly is a Contrarian?

I quickly found out that my boss, the President of the company and someone with NO experience whatsoever in the hospitality business, was what we termed, “a Contrarian”; a person whose thinking always runs counter to conventional wisdom.  If a subordinate suggested Red (even if Red had proven successful 100% of the time), he insisted Red was too conventional and picked Black instead.  His thinking was simple -  “If you do the conventional, you will never be any better than the competition”, he was fond of saying.  My counter argument was simple; if we combined conventional techniques with new ideas (a hybrid approach), executed the conventional more skillfully than our neighbors, and added a differentiating element, we would trounce the competition.  Unfortunately, this argument fell on deaf ears.  In fact, we were often reminded by the boss never to use the term, “competition”, because he truly believed that we were so unconventional, different and unique, that we had no competition.

Read the rest of this entry »