Her first week on the job, she could smell the insanity. But when he hurled a chair past her nose, she knew for sure. ”He terrorized the staff,” recalls Julie Jackson, 31. ”I was terrified,” she says, even after she learned the flying furniture was not aimed at her. ”He was mad at someone else.”
The ”he” in this case was a crazy boss. Loony employers are a hardy lot, causing tough people to cower, quiver, cry, scream or scram.
Jackson (all names have been changed) eventually did the latter; she quit.
Like rats, batty big cheeses are everywhere, says Stanley Bing, author of the upcoming book ”Crazy Bosses: Spotting Them, Serving Them, Surviving Them” (William Morrow, $20). The book goes on sale this month.
Bing (his pen name) speaks with authority. He says he is a crazy boss, an executive who supervises eight people. When did he recognize his problem?
”When I became annoyed at my assistant for not noticing my nice new haircut,” he confides, ”and when I yelled at a subordinate for losing key documents that I had really lost.”
Short of madness, what would move him to pen a survival manual for his victims?
The magnitude of the problem.
”Everybody I talked to had a grievance with one or more of their bosses,” he says. ”It was one bottomless font of bitterness.”
There`s no trick to spotting a bozo boss, says Bing. ”Anyone who makes more than $125,000 a year is probably a crazy.”
Although there is much overlap, there are five basic types-Bully, Paranoid, Narcissist, Bureaucrazy and Disaster Hunter.
– The Bully: Bullies live to make others suffer, to humiliate subordinates, especially in the presence of their peers. ”I had one bully tell me he liked to slam-dunk `the mothers` and let them know who`s boss,”
Bing says. Another often assigned two staffers to the same project without telling either. Why? ”A little brain matter on the walls never hurt anyone,” he told the author.
How do you avoid being mauled? Use TLC.
”Ostentatious loyalty is called for,” Bing counsels.
– The Paranoid: When self-doubt gets the best of bullies, they turn into paranoids. Moody beasts, they tend to have tantrums, while getting
sentimental, even weepy, at other times. Convinced everyone is plotting against them, they often avoid human contact, choosing to use memos.
Martha Smith worked for a classic bully/paranoid. ”He intimidated one woman by staring daggers at her for extended periods,” Smith recalls.
How do you deal with this degree of pathology? Don`t suck up, Bing warns. ”Paranoids respect people with a little backbone.
”You can have fun with paranoids-destroy them with their own craziness,” Bing says. For example, say within earshot, ”I`m hearing such bad things about our third-quarter financial plan.”
– Narcissists: Narcissists can be a joy to serve. ”They generally exist in a bubble of self-congratulatory happiness and are unwilling to take any action that will make them look bad in anyone`s eyes, including yours,” says Bing.
Problem is they believe the world exists to exalt them, and there may be hell to pay when things don`t go their way.
To work harmoniously with narcissists, you must attend to details, laugh at idiotic jokes, let the swell-heads take credit for your brilliant ideas and generally kiss up big time.
– Bureaucrazies: Hand-wringing bureaucrazies, which come in two shapes-the wimp or organizational fascist-are the bosses with which Bing is most familiar. He confides he`s closest to a wimp.
Wimps hide behind the organizational structure, never making decisions and loathe to have the buck stop with them. They are cautious to a fault. Organizational fascists can make decisions, but demand obedience.
In dealing with both creeps, cover your gluteus maximus. Bureaucrazies love documentation, so put everything on paper.
– Disaster Hunter: They tend to be addicted to something-work, sex, drugs, alcohol (fill in anything). They may be overtly racist or sexist, flirting with anything that will cause their fall. Bing says you should expedite their demise.
Cozy up to managers a level immediately above the disaster hunter`s. They`re probably as fed up with the reptile as you are. Most important, remain composed when the hunter`s world begins to disintegrate.
”Remember you want the facts to come out. The only thing you should be caught enabling is the honest disclosure of your soon-to-be-former boss`s craziness.”
