My Boss Is MAD!

Everyone complains about their bosses and how crazy, unreasonable, rude or fussy they are. But nobody has a boss like my boss.

He was not always my boss. In the beginning he was merely a senior colleague of mine. But fate, fortune and, probably, a secret CIA experiment all conspired to eventually make him my boss.

I always knew he was a buffoon. A harmless buffoon, I thought. But you only get to know the depths of someone’s buffoonery when they get some power and are let loose on the world. George Bush? Bah! He’s nothing to MY boss.

Here are a few conversations I had with him recently:

Boss: I just received a letter from some charity for the homeless. In it, there is a blank Christmas card that I am urged to fill in and send back so that it can be passed to a homeless person and cheer him up during Christmas. I am planning to enclose some money with the card. It is nice to help the underprivileged, is it not?

Me: Giving to charity is always nice.

Boss: These homeless people are probably all hopeless drunks that have wasted their lives and chose to stay on the margins of society. But to help them from time to time, even though I do not agree with their lifestyles, makes me feel good about myself. Like Tony Blair always said, we need to give back to society.

Me: Hmm

Boss: I am going to write something along the lines of: hope this card reaches you in good health and that you spend next Christmas under your own roof. I have enclosed (with this card) a gift that Santa gave me (you know he’s busy at this time of year).

Me: What if the card is given to a Brazilian homeless man who does not speak English? He might not get your humour.

Boss: What humour? I was not joking. Beside, there are no Brazilian homeless men. They are all illegal immigrants.

Me: Hmmm

Boss: I am going to enclose five pounds with the card and a post-it note with the words ‘lucky, lucky you’. Five pounds is nothing to me but everything to a homeless man.

Me: This time you are joking, right?

Boss: What is it with you and jokes? Are you saying I am being offensive?

Me: No. I just think whoever receives your card might misinterpret your words and think you are patronising them.

Boss: We are talking about homeless people here. I don’t think they have the intelligence to read into things the way you do. You worry too much.

Me: I suppose I do.

Boss: Ok. Ok. I am going to add the words ‘I am not being offensive’ after ‘lucky, lucky you’.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from our Head Office asking me about some issue that needed clarifying. My boss was dealing with that issue and had all the paperwork for it. I passed him the e-mail and enquired as to what I should do next.

Boss: I have never dealt with this issue. You did.

Me: No. I have never come across this information before. In fact, I remember you telling me about it a few months ago. Are you sure you don’t have the paperwork for it?

Boss: No. Maybe the secretary was dealing with it all.

Me: But it is not part of her job.

Boss: No. No. She dealt with it. I now remember asking her to do so. She has the all the paperwork. I will go and get it from her.

He went to the secretary and she told him she knows nothing about the matter. He returned and spent ten minutes telling me how incompetent she is then went back to her to make sure she does not have the paper work. He spent the rest of the day running between her office, his office, the offices of other colleagues and then returning to me to tell me how incompetent they all were. He then went back to his own office and started searching. An hour later, he came back to me and said the following:

Boss: I found the paperwork. You know, it is lucky that I am so organised and file things methodically. That is the problem with this company, nobody files things methodically. I really don’t know how this office could function without me.

Me: Where did you find the paperwork? Was it the secretary?

Boss: No. I had it. If I was like you or the others I don’t think I would ever find it. Thank god that I file things methodically.

On the same afternoon, someone came to him to inform him that they will be going on Paternity Leave. They wanted to take the whole two weeks off and did not know what the exact rules were. After talking to them, he came to gossip about the whole thing.

Boss: You know Ian is going on Paternity Leave?

Me: Is he? No, I didn’t know that.

Boss: Yes he is. I tried to advise him not to go. He doesn’t earn that much already and cuddling a baby for two weeks is really not something that is worth starving yourself for.

Me: You told him that?

Boss: I like to look after the welfare of my staff. But what is it with the poor and sentimentality? He can see his baby when he returns home from work. You see your kids when you return home from work, don’t you?

Me: Err, yes. But I don’t think it is the same thing.

Boss: Rubbish. What does a new born baby need with a father? It is the mother that breastfeeds them and has a bond with them at that early stage.

Me: Yes, but the mother will be tired from the ordeal of giving birth and would need help.

Boss: What help? Babies sleep for 23 hours of the day when they are that young. The mother can sleep when they sleep then wake up and feed them when they wake up. It is this politically correct society that we live in that spoiled these people.

Me: I don’t think it will be a good idea to share these views of yours with Ian. He might misinterpret them.

Boss: There you go worrying too much again. I am sure Ian knows I am a caring boss and that I only have his interests at heart. I might even push for a pay rise for him when the time comes. He does not earn much you know. I really don’t know how he is going to raise a baby on his income. Do these people ever think before doing things?

Me: I am sure he thought about it and planned things before deciding to have the baby. You do realise that the average salary in this country is £25,000 don’t you?

Boss: Is it? How are these people managing?

Me: Hmmmm

Boss: I still think it is my duty to advise him on savings and other monetary issues. He will be a father soon and I’d hate to see him have money problems when he has such responsibilities and obligations.

Me: I know you mean well but to imply that he might not be able to look after his baby may offend him.

Boss: Why do you always assume that people will get offended? People are not as soft as you. Do you really think if Ian was that soft he would have been able to survive on his meagre salary?


Me: Hmmmmm

Boss: Exactly. Don’t worry yourself about these things. I know how to deal with him and even if he was offended at the start, I am sure he will forget all about it once he hears about the pay rise.

Me: What pay rise?

Boss: I told you, I am going to try to push for him to get a pay rise. When I tell him that I know he will realise that I am on his side and wont worry about this nonsense talk of being offended and what not.

Me: Sure.

Boss: I’ll talk to him on Monday.

Just to add here that Ian (that’s not his real name of course) hates my boss. This is because one day when this boss of mine was talking about the cleaning company we employ and how bad they were he said the following to Ian:

Boss: These cleaning companies are a joke. We pay them so much to wipe desks, clean and take rubbish out. Honestly, it is a job you or I can do. Actually, if you wanted to, you can supplement your salary by setting up one of these companies and get your wife to do all the cleaning.

Ps

Just to complete the picture, my boss is in his mid 60s, single and still lives with his mother. I always tell myself the only reason I did not strangle him yet, is that I am so cool I can have the globe twirling on a finger of one hand whilst picking my nose with the finger of the other. But oooh I’d love to kick the brown stuff out of this buffoon.