Bosses and Other Problems

(March 18, 2008)

My boss is a nutter. Totally bonkers. And I am smack out of ways tell him. Can you make a crazy person understand that they're crazy? I think not. OH and I have tried. I think it may be why he keeps me around, so that someone un-related to him will tell him when he's behaving like a loonytoon. Not that he'd suddenly start doing things the way normal people do; just as a kind of, you know, reminder.

Indulge me:

Cast back to January. My boss invited all our regional guys for a three-day Boston summit meeting. That means dudes from Paris, London, Brisbane, and Pittsburgh. On Jan 7th I emailed my boss saying "Hey, when everyone's here on the 21st I think it's vital for building worldwide camaraderie that you take everyone out for dinner." I thought it would be excellent team building. Nobody from the Boston office was invited to this three-day offsite meeting, so after-hours, dinner, would have been nice. We Boston people work with these regions on a daily basis, but rarely ever get the chance to see them in person. They're HERE. They're nice people. We're a team. Let's party. Right? Get to know each other. Yeah? Isn't it obvious?

But the boss rejected the idea. Why, I still don't know. He didn't respond to my Jan 7th email, and so I brought it up in person about a week later, but he rejected it. "Nah." Some days I swear he just feels like saying "no" and doesn't even listen to the words coming out of my mouth.

It's very, very frustrating. Especially when, LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of the 21st he stops by my desk to mention something like "...should we...try to get everyone out...can we make reservations?" What I can't say is "Reservations? Now? You mean like what I asked about two weeks ago? That thing you said 'no' to, not once but twice? You want to make...reservations...now, when it's already dinner time? No. We cannot. Do you know why? Because "reservations" means having planned in ADVANCE, just like I requested two weeks ago on the 7th. Remember that? "Reservations" would have meant informing your eight busy Boston-based people to not-make-plans for the night of January 21st, which was two weeks away back then, because they'd be invited to embark on an after-work outing. You're saying this now, at five o'clock on the day-of? Did you look around? Do you see that some people have already left for the day because you had specifically declared that you would NOT be hosting any after-work activities today?"

But I didn't say all that. I just said, "It's too late. People have left."

Jump ahead to today, Tuesday March 18th. We have visitors again. Only this time it's three field technicians who work for our dealers. These three guys, nice enough fellas, are here for two quick days for techie training, how to install and config our product. We've never met these guys and they don't work for us -- the most we'll ever hear of them again is, every so often they might call for tech support and will therefore speak with the only two (out of eight total) Boston-based employees who do tech support. The rest of us will probably never encounter them again. We're not even sure of their names.

So, it's after six o'clock and most of our staff has left for the day. The boss is still in the next room with the trainee visitors. He comes out. "Where are the tech support guys?"

"They've been here since 8am, they went home."

"But I thought we would take these trainee guys to dinner."

"...well, you need to plan that kind of thing in advance. They'd have had to tell their girlfriends, bring a fresh shirt, and plan for rides and stuff."

"Well you would THINK it would be OBVIOUS!"

...WHAT?

How do you manage such a fellow? I mean, he's brilliant in many ways, he's got a lot of talent, but this...this kind of thing...and adding to my gray hair and stomach aches: he won't even understand me when I try to tell him that it was WEIRD to squash the idea that we take our own dear company people for dinner back in January (when we all wanted to), and that it's equally weird to insist and expect we take these passing-through trainees to dinner now. "Obvious? NOTHING is obvious with you, sir."

Note to all nutty people: if you're gonna be weird, can you at least be weird in the same consistent direction every time, so those of us at your mercy might have some idea what to do with you?