2024, Uncategorized, work

Don’t Be So Bossy!

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Today is Bosses Day. I have been quite lucky in my work having, for the most part, good bosses who did their best to protect us and make our psychology department as functional as it could be. That isn’t an easy thing to do in State government. Over the years we had some upper level administrators and directors who weren’t so great, and who were eventually walked out of the building in the middle of the day by State HR people from Bismarck and told not to return. That was sure something to see! I also always have got along better with male rather than female bosses. I am not certain why that is. (Probably something to do with my relationship with my somewhat overcontrolling mother!!)

I don’t remember an official boss when I worked as a corn detasseler for Dekalb when I was in high school, just middle aged women who detasseled with us and yelled at us if we worked too slowly. My first real psychology job was at the local hospital. My immediate supervisor was a great guy, but the CEO of the hospital was a heavy drinker who liked to party with the nurses in local bars. That wasn’t exactly the image that the board of directors wanted for a Catholic Hospital. He was eventually replaced.

There used to be six psychologists in our department. Now I am the only one left. I am supervised by the psychology supervisor at the Human Service Center in Bismarck. We only meet via the internet once a month. I never wanted to be a boss or a supervisor. I just do my own thing here and try to keep up my productivity and follow the rules without having anyone looking over my shoulder.

Who were your best and worst bosses? Were you ever a boss? Who was the bossiest person you ever knew?

24 thoughts on “Don’t Be So Bossy!”

  1. My best supervisor was a RN at the medical hospital where I worked. He was the best RN I ever worked with. He was the most patient, kind person I could have met at that time of my life. I really admired him, his quiet composure, and his skill. I learned a lot from him, and I really wanted to do as good a job as I could because of him.

    I’ve mentioned the worst supervisor I’ve ever had before. He was the cause of a lot of personal trauma, and the bad taste I have in my mouth for the MN DNR. It is indeed gratifying to see that person escorted from the workplace by an officer of the law – and then to never have to see that person again, ever. It’s even more gratifying to hear that he was deported back to Canada and can never return to the US again, for any reason.

    There have been a few co-workers who were pretty bossy. I was told that I was bossy, but only by unlicensed co-workers who thought they knew all they needed to know. It’s hard to accept that kind of criticism from someone for whom you have little respect, although in retrospect, maybe I am.

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  5. Rise and Go Finish That Task, Baboons!

    I had two bosses who were quite good, both psychologists who were clear about what they wanted from me, fair, and quite steady from day-to-day. They let me do my job without micro-managing. The worst boss award is between two of them, but the worst between those two was a woman at Scott County Human Services. I can hardly describe most of it, but I finally filed a harassment complaint with the union, then transferred to another department, then later I just moved on to a different job. The strangest part was that she started harassing me after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I asked a friend, why? Her assessment “Because you were suddenly vulnerable, and she could.” Wow.

    I was the boss at my mental health clinic. Over 13 years only one person quit, and I fired one person. I was far from a superior boss, but I was good enough.

    My mother was the bossiest, most controlling person I have ever known. Once I told her that she missed her calling as a Marine Corps Drill Sergeant. That did not go over well!

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  7. I had good supervisors/bosses for the most part.

    I was a supervisor briefly at the Uptown Veterinary Clinic. I was a bit too chummy with the staff, didn’t require enough of them, etc. I’m too accommodating to be a boss, I think.

    Be back later about the bossiest person.

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  8. The best boss I ever had is now a good friend, even with us both being retired. She was highly observant and excelled at understanding each of her employees strengths and weaknesses. She was almost always able to use our strengths to the best advantage and provide training or mentoring to help the weaknesses, or team one person’s weakness with another’s strength to form a powerful team. She was very fair but not in a way where everyone got the same treatment. Everyone got the treatment that was best for their unique situation and personality. She was a joy to work for.

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  9. I don’t think I was ever exactly bossy, but I was often right. I remember hearing that when I was quite young, my grandmother once asked my mother why she let me “rule the house.” My mother told her that I usually had the best idea of how something should be done.

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  10. i have the biggest jerk boss in the world
    i work for myself. always have. some of the companies i work with assign good or bad people to be my colleagues and we either make it work or we dont. i used to be a sales rep but every time i would get the company up to where they were paying $100,000 they would feel like that was too much for a damn salesman to make and the would replace me with the brother in law, the biggest rep firm of the day or simply hire a saleied guy who earned a fraction, so i became a company like addias who has already existing companies make stuff for them . i liked that. then when one of the bosses at that company wanted to get ugly i would simply move to a different supplier making stuff to my specs. i had a good guy as my right hand man until his wife who was an ugly miss bossy pants made life so difficult for him he asked for a mental health sabatical. i gave him a year checking in periodically and then halfway through year two limping along with less than perfect replacement i got a call to use me as a reference for him new job. i told him i was surprised by the call but he was a good worker i had been holding a job open for at his request for 1 1/2years and maybe that should factor into consideration. didnt get any referral calls after that.
    i had a guy i loved working with. i became his right hand man and told him he needed to hire a sales manager to do what i wasnt willing to do and another to oversee his operation and when he sid the two guys he hired wanted me out and made up lies and made life difficuult with wrong prices, late sample requst shipments and unbelievably costing the company miillions to be certain i was acknowledged as a success. i got the hell out of there
    im ready to begin again
    at least 3 new companies
    my boss says its time

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  11. Before I retired I was at my company for 33 years. 32 of them were with the same boss. I’ve had bosses over the years and she was the best one by far. She was pretty strict and by the book and there were plenty of times where I wished she’d manage a little more “situationally” but it wasn’t a massive problem for me. I understood her style and where she was coming from and managed to live with it the few times that it was irritating. The thing that I appreciated most about her was that I always knew that she would have my back … always. And that meant everything to me. I sent her a text this morning saying happy bosses day and telling her she was the best boss I ever had. Not the first time I’ve told her that, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to repeat it.

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  12. I was a manager early on in both my bakery career and my book career. And I didn’t enjoy it at all. In fact, I enjoyed it so little that at my last company, although I was encouraged more than once to apply for a managerial position, I chose not to.

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  13. I had a good boss at the bookstore where I worked when I was in my 20’s, and several good bosses when I was in public radio. About equally divided between genders. Probably my all time favorite was one of the bosses I had in public radio. He was always actively looking for things to compliment me on. During that time I felt more valued than I’ve felt before or since.

    Four of those bosses are still Facebook friends. One still sends me a Christmas newsletter every year, and I send her a card.

    In my more recent work for the big name tax company I’m employed with seasonally, I have managers, but they’re not so much bosses as people who are there to deal with the day-to-day issues that come up, approving expense reports and that sort of thing. I’m almost a solo operator most days. They have pretty thankless jobs, but I always try to express my appreciation when I have an opportunity.

    I like being my own boss. In that capacity, I am very easy to get along with.

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  15. Favorite boss memory was of an e-mail exchange I had with the above mentioned favorite boss, when I sent him an e-mail letting him know I planned to take a day off. In the e-mail I said something like “I’m planning to be out on Wednesday for the state fair, if it’s quite convenient”. This was in the days before you could just google something instantly. He didn’t respond to the e-mail till the next day, when he’d had a chance to find his copy of A Christmas Carol, and compose his response, which was something like “No. it’s not convenient, And it’s not fair! A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-ninth of August! If I was to stop a half a crown for it, you’d think yourself ill used, I suppose.”

    Of course, getting the day off was not a problem.

    A few years later, when we were no longer in the same office, I found a postcard that had a picture of a Scrooge character with a thought bubble that said “Bah…humbug”, and a caption that read something like “At some point as you grow older, it’s impossible to believe in the existence of Santa Claus. But it is never impossible, at any age, to believe in the existence of Scrooge.” I sent it to him at Christmas time.

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