BOSS GURU

Got a workplace gripe? Or just need some sage advice? BOSS Guru is your boffin on hand to help you navigate through the unwritten laws of the workplace. Please send your questions to boss@afr.com.au. Updated monthly.

Q. How is it that bosses manage so effortlessly to make an art form of ignoring their staff? I’ve made it my life?s mission to try to please the boss but all he does is give me the brushoff. “Not a good time”, “Not now” and “Just keep going the way you are” are the only phrases I ever get from him. He’s always busy. The previous boss also said this, and the one before that. In fact, in my eight years with this company, a total of four bosses have given me the brushoff. I am starting to think it is me. Where am I going wrong – or is this a wider problem with the workforce?

A. It is a little admitted but universally known fact that all too often we slave away for people who despise the human race and flunked people management. Impressive research from a bigbang American university whose name we’ve forgotten found at least 10 years ago that one in two bosses are duds and one in four are outright megalomaniacs. With that comforting thought, remember also that you will spend at least 1.3456 million hours slaving away for someone who finds the very sight of you invokes an attack of shingles or a nervous tick. The road to the top is long, hard and paved with broken glass and capsicum spray. Most bosses are manic, driven, narcissistic AAA personality types who – for all their talk about teamwork – would eagerly run over their staff rather than give an encouraging pat on the back. They enjoy their dictator powers and can’t for the life of them understand why staff require four weeks’ leave a year or the odd day off to care for a sick child. The good news is that not only do these bosses not offer pleasantries, they don’t notice them either. So feel free to stare straight ahead in the lift, refrain from commenting on the weather, and keep it strictly business. No one ever said you had to be friends. That’s what your real life is for.

Yours, BOSS Guru