#6 - Casting Doubt on Your Abilities

This is a weird one to categorize, but basically when someone you are working for doubts that you really had the ability to gain your license in the first place.

Recently, I passed the PE exam for my home state. BB seemed to love to throw that back into my face, particularly if he was too lazy to go over something he wanted drafted.

The phrase of the day was usually, "...well, you're a PE, how would you do it." "I don't know, aren't you the PE?"

Another BB in my career, years ago, openly wondered in front of me, "how did you ever pass the FE exam??" This was in regards to his company's calculation standards, again someone who was either too busy or too lazy to tell me what they wanted to see. At that point in my career, having an EIT meant that I should also magically know how his company sets up drawings and calculations because that was all common knowledge, so someone that just got hired would totally know the inner workings of a company that's been established for, oh, 50 years or so...*sigh*

The mark of a bad boss is someone who will not teach you. Period. End of story. Whether you are an engineer or an architect or a cashier, you have to be taught how things work. That's how experience works, you learn from more experienced others either directly or through a manual of some sort. Don't ever let a BB make you feel stupid for not knowing something.

#5 - Getting Personal

I can go at length on this subject. Good bosses can gather how far they can delve into your personal life, bad bosses go too deeply or simply don't care that you are another human being. It can go both ways. BB cared much too deeply and it was very offputting.

I had picked up BB from home and brought him to work one day. While on the drive there, he kept saying I drive as if I don't have any confidence and that he seems to attract women with low self-confidence. Mind you, BB has always bragged about having a marriage for 29 years, so this seemed a bit odd to bring up in a close situation such as a car ride. (He did also brag about his many "girlfriends" as well, but would later claim that he meant "friends that were girls," but I digress.)

I then tell him that I like to hug the curve in a turn because it makes me more comfortable and I know that I won't be swinging off into the lane to the right and possibly alarming the people in the car in that lane.

We then start talking about cars and I was going on about how compact my car is to my older one and that it made parallel parking much easier. He then proceeds to ask "oh, do you want to park?" I ask for clarification and he goes, "oh nevermind..." Eww...

In another exchange, I was letting him know that I may need some time off because my boyfriend was having some surgery. When I told him about the location, he proceeds to intimate that my boyfriend is lying to me and is really going to that part of the world to cheat on me.

"Are you sure he's going for surgery? I don't think he is. That's a wild place down there. I'd want to go there and tell me wife I was having surgery too?"

#4 - Name Calling

We were all looking over a building, BB, Coworker and myself. BB points out that I had a beam in the wrong place. TECHNICAL WARNING: We consult the architectural section and determine that the beam, instead of being supported by the ends of cantilevered beams out from a group of columns, the beam should really be supported by the columns themselves.

In front of Coworker BB proceeds to chide me for "making a kindergartener mistake." "This is just stupid, how could you send out sh*tty drawings like this, you should know better." "You're making us look like *ssholes!"

So let's recap that:
- yes, I made a mistake on the load path
- I am now a kindergartener
- and have humiliated the company as a whole
- I also release sh*tty drawings

So, for the grand scheme of the building, I made one mistake and somehow that invites a complete criticism of my abilities as an engineer.

However, when the mistake was on BB's end, he would just demand his way was going to happen regardless. I had overheard an exchange with BB and Coworker. I didn't agree with BB's load path on another project and told him that we didn't need to have attachments in a certain area because no load was being resisted. He then takes the project over to Coworker, who after looking through everything agrees with me.

"BB, you don't need attachments here, the load is being resisted here."
"Coworker, I don't care, I want attachments here."
"But these are costly connections, they aren't needed?"
"I don't care."

#3 - Everyone Makes Mistakes...

...except you BB, right?

I had been given a set of markups for a set of floor plans. BB's corrections consisted of "12-14 inch floor trusses @ 2'-0" oc." So I used 12 inch trusses on the floor plans globally.

About a month goes by, I'm deep into another project with Coworker. I hear BB on the phone confirming 14 inch trusses with some entity, I have no idea who. BB proceeds to run out of his office and demand why I put 12 trusses on plan. The exchange goes like this, All Caps denoted yelling:

"WHY DID YOU USE 12" TRUSSES?"
"Um, because the markup had a range and..."
"YOU NEVER ANSWER MY QUESTIONS PROPERLY. WHY DID YOU USE 12" TRUSSES?"
"Because the markup says '12-14 inch trusses..."
"WHERE DO YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES MENTIONED!? POINT TO ME WHERE YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES!"
I proceed to point to his markup that says "12-14 inch trusses @ 2'-0" oc."
"WHERE THE F*CK DO YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES MENTIONED!?!?"
"Right here."
"NEXT TIME YOU HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SOMETHING, ASK ME INSTEAD OF SENDING OUT DRAWINGS LIKE THIS."

Meanwhile, previous to this, he had said he looked over the drawings...

#2 - Conversation Derailment

If I'm having a conversation with Coworker about something and you, BB, do not understand what we are talking about, that does not give you the right to butt into the conversation and derail it into something you understand.

You are getting into the way of us working, you are costing us time away from actual work.

#1 - Everything is your fault...

...except, if anything good happens. If anything good happens, it was because of me (bad boss, BB).

Case in point: I took the end of last week off to spend time with my Monkey (her name is A and I like to call her that :-) ). BB had promised something to the building department by the end of the week after I had discussed taking those days off with BB. He did not clear this with Coworker nor tell Coworker. When I greeted Coworker the day before I would be leaving, Coworker had no idea and I could tell that the work that was left on the project far outweighed an 8 hour day which was all I could offer Coworker. He had that far away engineer's look of "oh crap...I'm going to be here a while..."

I come back today (Monday morning) and we get delivered the set of prints of the project that was submitted. Coworker opens them up and sees that in those two days I was off, somehow the date was never changed on the titleblock. It reads exactly one month previous to today.

Somehow, even in my absence, BB will make this my fault. He has the uncanny ability to twist situations and cast blame away from him. This is the definition of a BB; throwing blame instead of quelling blame because, regardless, this bad thing happened, we can all choose to fix it and move forward or we can dwell on it and blame the new girl since she has already given notice and it would be convenient to blame her since she's leaving anyway and probably sabotaged the drawings. It's not the fact that, in my absence, BB and Coworker were left to their own drafting abilities and simply overlooked the titleblock in their haste. But no, everything bad that happens is my fault.

Updates to follow if the mistake is even caught by BB or if Coworker brings it up to BB behind a closed door or when I go out to lunch.

The Bad Boss Chronicles: A Random Series

As I've had quite an interesting work experience these past few years (and I'll need to start wasting some time on the train as I'll be enjoying a longish commute into the city everyday), I've decided to recant some of the baddies or goodies-failing-at-bossing that I've had the unfortunate privilege of working under.

I will not name names, I will not name companies; however, I do need to write this stuff out of my head and my heart. For some reason, writing things down always repairs the little part of my soul that's been affected by something. (Is that Affect of Effect?? *sigh* I used to know these things...)

This will be a random posting of weird things/situations/badly spoken words that bosses probably shouldn't do/say to their employees, at least from my view point. If you happen to be a boss, yes, I do know how hard it is to "boss" and because of that, I'm just going to lay everything out there and let the Fair Reader decide for themselves.

Again, this is more of an ambition enema then anything, it's not meant to gossip or badmouth anyone. I just need to get these experiences out and onto "paper," so to speak. Maybe they won't seem so crazy if I type them out and read them from an outward-looking perspective.

I could also be entirely too sensitive...meh...we'll see.

*waves* Hello again!

Hey there! Yes, it's been quite a while. *blushes*

Well, coincidentally, I am off to Arizona again and will hopefully use my downtime to start an actual travel journal, you know, an online blog of some sort... /sarcasm

Sarcasm because I have my cute little blog and just don't really find the time to use it anymore. *sigh* But life is throwing curveballs once again; life changes have happened and I think it's time I start to log those, if not for posterity, just to release them from rattling around in my head.

On the job front, I've been working from home for a few months now, but have been coveted by a business associate's friend recently. So we're going to give this whole office work outside of the home thing a go again. *crosses fingers*

As an aside, a few great websites to check out job postings in the area are indeed.com and jooble.com. I remember trolling as many as I could to see who was out there actually hiring people. So if you are still on the market, give them a clicky or two. :-)

As another aside, oh jeez, I just realized that I never really tagged any of my posts...hmmmm, there's a good activity for the plane, if they have wifi of course...

Buckle Stores Near You

I've talked about this store a few blog posts ago and I absolutely love the jewelry and accessories they have, so check it out and maybe there's a store near you. :-)

http://local.buckle.com/

Me and the other half will be training out to Arizona next month, so hopefully I'll be able to check out the AZ store. Pics to follow, just need to get wireless internet figured out for journey.

Quick Update

(as I wait to meet my new hope-to-be boss for coffee, HA!!)

- had a great time playing Mommy with Abbey, hardest job in the world by far, but it's all worth it when your little monkey gives you a hug.
- I had my phone interview finally with the people I thought blew me off (re:shortly post) and they called me back and said they would hire me! WOOOOO!! Need to sign paperwork and such, but the first day should be 1/11/10. 011110 for you palindrome and binary fans out there.
- we also adopted our cute Blueberry from the Newington Humane Society. Expect kitteh picspam shortly