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Annoying Boss Traits?

S

Stuxnet

Diamond Member
I've worked for my biggest client for quite some time - better part of a decade - and we get along great. Regardless, there are a few traits of his that drive me up the wall:

- Will answer his cell phone no matter what. Compounding this problem is the fact that his wife calls incessantly throughout the day about the most mundane crap. Scenario: Senior Software Architect (me), Senior DBA, Senior Programmer/Analyst, and Software Development Manager all sitting on the other side of his desk for critical meeting. *ring ring* "Hold on a second guys, I gotta take this... ... yeah honey, the chicken sounds good tonight... yeah, with the thousand island... kettle popcorn? Sure, I'll pick some up on the way home."

Srsly?

- He has a very difficult time seeing the product from the customer's point of view. He's actually one of those guys who doesn't quite "get it" when it comes to why things are done the way they are on the Web and he doesn't approach using software like most people do. Because of that, things that are usually consistent from one site to the next can actually throw him through a loop. If he looks at a feature of our product and doesn't grasp it immediately, he'll start hacking away at the design to suit how it would make sense to HIM. This causes major consistency issues from one page to the next in our product. One page will have a button that does XYZ in one place, and then the same button that does the same thing will be located somewhere else and it will be glowing orange on another page, all because of some kneejerk reaction he had the very first time he saw it.
 
My boss in my last position was exactly like that.

He would interrupt any meeting to take a phone call, and his phone rang constantly, and he was incredibly inconsistent to his reactions to just about any decision making. It appeared that he would take a contrary approach just to create the drama.

He would also play one person in the office off against another. For instance, he would give someone a small bonus or perk for no real reason, but then he would make sure that others in the office would know he gave it, just seemingly to make them angry that they didn't get the same perk. He somehow thought this was motivating, when it had the opposite effect.

The only good thing about the experience of working for him was I learned so much about how not manage or motivate my employees.
 
i hate boss's that take phone calls in meetings or such. OK if its a emergancy yeah. but for bullshit?

it's even worse when its a client or such. I have walked out the office once because of it. we were talking with a client. after the 3rd phone call i just stood up while he was on the phone and motioned to those with me and we walked out.

being rude to a potential business partner is not a wise idea.
 
"Copy everyone on everything all the time". I like being informed, but I'm not going to read everything that is going on, that's what the company meetings are supposed to be for.

Let alone cleaning up the email mess left behind.
 
What's really funny is when, regarding the second point in my post (boss making unfounded kneejerk design decisions) is that he'll occasionally look at something in our product and yelp "wth... why does it work like this?"

A few of us will gaze at each other until someone finally has the guts to say it... "because you said so."

I consider it part of my job to steer him away from bad decisions and help him see the light of sticking to orthodox web development (no, I will not negate the user's back button or force the user to use the site in full screen mode), but I don't always succeed. When I don't succeed, I take solace in knowing that there's a very high probability (seriously) that he'll eventually come to the correct conclusion on his own... it will just be a little painful for all involved (devs, users) while he thinks things through.
 
Boss is yes man Asian from Canada. Says yes to everything asked of our department even when he shouldn't. Then we tell him its not our job and he always ends up doing it himself. He is always stressed and it caused him to get bells posesy so bad on half his face that he looked like a Batman villain for two months. Management abuses him and people under him laugh at his requests and have lost respect for him. He is the ultimate yes man. He is a nice guy and I worry about him having a breakdown or heart attack.
 
can't say I've ever had a boss like that.

usually I hate micro-managers, but my biggest problem with my last boss (before he got fired) was not enough micromanagement... he'd assign giant projects to people and then never follow-up to make sure they got completed (and more important, completed correctly) until something went wrong or a higher-up complained.

when my new boss came in, he ended up firing like 25% of the department because of shit they had royally fucked up, that had been ignored/unnoticed by the previous boss.

pro-tip: don't run long-term retention backups to a RAID0 array.
 
When I worked on-site for one of my clients, I had a micro-manager type constantly looking over my shoulder. Instead of assigning me a problem to be solved, he'd spoonfeed me his idea of the solution, one half-fucking-step at a time. After a few months I lost my mind with him and quit. They didn't need a software architect for that nonsense... they needed a desperate college intern.
 
Stuxnet said:
When I worked on-site for one of my clients, I had a micro-manager type constantly looking over my shoulder. Instead of assigning me a problem to be solved, he'd spoonfeed me his idea of the solution, one half-fucking-step at a time. After a few months I lost my mind with him and quit. They didn't need a software architect for that nonsense... they needed a desperate college intern.
Click to expand...

You were a software architect for them and they had someone telling you the solution? What was the guy's job title? Did you have anyone working under you on that project or were you working alone?
 
KingGheedora said:
You were a software architect for them and they had someone telling you the solution? What was the guy's job title? Did you have anyone working under you on that project or were you working alone?
Click to expand...

I had a DBA, two consultants, and an SPA working for me. I reported to the Software Development Manager (not same one as in my OP). The project just didn't call for an architect. The manager could have put his specs together on paper and handed it to the DBA and SPA. Regardless, that was his nature anyway (micro-managing).

I was bored to tears.
 
Stuxnet said:
- He has a very difficult time seeing the product from the customer's point of view. ...
Click to expand...

My boss is like this. He hates anything with color, style, or statement. We're a tech company and have a logo that looks like it was made in 1990 with MS Paint. He thinks websites we design should be white backgrounds with text. He thinks customers should know how to do coding. This guy is very smart, but he's very left brained. Anyone that is right brained drives him crazy, but he needs them to balance him out.
 
^^ LMFAO

Fritzo said:
My boss is like this. He hates anything with color, style, or statement. We're a tech company and have a logo that looks like it was made in 1990 with MS Paint. He thinks websites we design should be white backgrounds with text. He thinks customers should know how to do coding. This guy is very smart, but he's very left brained. Anyone that is right brained drives him crazy, but he needs them to balance him out.
Click to expand...

Mine is the exact opposite. We maintain a very application-esque product (it's tailored not to the general public, but to a very specific, technical-oriented audience). Real-estate on any given page is severely limited due to how much data we're working with.

He's not happy unless the font size is 16 pixels, all of the primary colors are used on the page, etc. Every element on the page has, at one point in time or another, fallen victim to his attention: "I really want THIS to stand out and draw the user's attention."

Yeah, well, when you do that - draw attention to EVERYTHING - nothing gets your attention and it all just turns into disgusting noise.

He'll view artists' websites and in meetings say that we need our product to look appealing by modeling what we do after them. Totally lost on him is the fact that our products aren't trying to achieve the same goals as an artist's or musician's. They don't have to display gobs and gobs of data to people who will be staring at it for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, and need it to perform exceptionally well.

ARGHHSH!!!!
 
had one who would pick fights with people in morning telephone meetings then disappear in the afternoons when they would show up ready to chew him out, leaving me to clean up his mess and "cover" for him. where did he go in the afternoons? the mall, the gym, whatever.
 
Stuxnet said:
^^ LMFAO



Mine is the exact opposite. We maintain a very application-esque product (it's tailored not to the general public, but to a very specific, technical-oriented audience). Real-estate on any given page is severely limited due to how much data we're working with.

He's not happy unless the font size is 16 pixels, all of the primary colors are used on the page, etc. Every element on the page has, at one point in time or another, fallen victim to his attention: "I really want THIS to stand out and draw the user's attention."

Yeah, well, when you do that - draw attention to EVERYTHING - nothing gets your attention and it all just turns into disgusting noise.

He'll view artists' websites and in meetings say that we need our product to look appealing by modeling what we do after them. Totally lost on him is the fact that our products aren't trying to achieve the same goals as an artist's or musician's. They don't have to display gobs and gobs of data to people who will be staring at it for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, and need it to perform exceptionally well.

ARGHHSH!!!!
Click to expand...

We should put my boss and your boss in a room together. It would be like matter and anti-matter. KABOOM!!!!! 😀
 
gophins72 said:
had one who would pick fights with people in morning telephone meetings then disappear in the afternoons when they would show up ready to chew him out, leaving me to clean up his mess and "cover" for him. where did he go in the afternoons? the mall, the gym, whatever.
Click to expand...

Fire in the hole!
 
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