One advantage of working from home is not being physically present when bosses behave badly. Like the boss who used a taser gun on a subordinate; he didn’t have a shot at hitting a teleworker that day. Off-site employees were also spared when a boss played show-and-tell with his kidney stone and another held a meeting from inside a locked bathroom.
These bad-boss anecdotes surfaced in CareerBuilder.com’s most recent survey. Some other doozies? The boss who kept his lunch in a freezer intended for human organ storage, or the one who brought a gun to work and cleaned it in an area behind employees. For some drama, there’s the boss who tap-danced on an employee’s desk, or the one who broke down during a meeting and cried, “Why don’t you like me?”
The career site recounted these stories while also announcing the launch of its Anonymous Tip Giver tool, which is designed to let people vent at their bosses or co-workers. Here’s how CareerBuilder.com sees it:
“By logging onto www.anonymoustipgiver.com, users can select from one of four outlandish characters and choose a unique voice to deliver a tip for the recipient. You can write up your own advice or select from a list of pre-made tips such as ‘One out of 10 people think your barking dog ring tone is funny, that one person is you.’ You can even record your message over the phone. Without revealing your identity, in an instant the fully animated tip is delivered right to the recipient’s e-mail box. Voilá! Bad boss problem solved. Annoying co-worker situation addressed.”
I can’t say it sounds like a good idea to me. But I’m sure there will be folks who try it out.
Meanwhile, others simply opt to quit rather than put up with a terrible boss. Roughly 43% of workers said they had quit a job to get away from a bad boss, CareerBuilder.com reports.
Harris Interactive conducted the survey on behalf of CareerBuilder.com, polling 8,038 U.S. employees between Nov. 12 and Dec. 1, 2008.
