‘My Five Worst Bosses’

‘My Five Worst Bosses’

The service industry sucks, that much I know. And, from my experience, I know retail work isn’t any better… Sometimes it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with your manager, sometimes it’s blindingly obvious… I want tell you all about my worst bosses, and for you to consider yours, and hopefully we’ll all work out how to be better people along the way! Happy National Boss day everyone!

Me and my hardworking friend I met earlier this week taking his lunch break, we talked about his overbearing boss...

So my first boss was head chef in a male dominated, pseudo nice, kinda grotty, kitchen. We served roasts, and chips, and other stuff I’m not so sure on, I was really only acquainted with the potatoes - peeling buckets full daily... and washing dishes too. They made me wear this tight white t-shirt as a uniform, no apron allowed –‘just for chef’s, sorry’, and while I’m washing pans intentionally splash water on me, so my shirt went see-through. And it makes my blood boil now. if I could speak to that young girl… and let’s just pause, I was young, I was 15-16 at the time and working for pennies. If I could speak to any young girl, many no doubt experiencing similar sexual harassment in the workplace, I’d say tell someone, then leave. Money’s tight sure, but get the hell outta’ there!

Then, there was this one boss who I told short notice that I had to take the weekend off, to visit a dying and quickly deteriorating relative. It was a weird one if I’m honest, she refused. She’d been pretty nice and calm up until that point, but when I told her this she refused to let me take ‘unplanned holiday’ and proceeded to tell me about the importance of proper planning… anyway, I kept my calm, and quit right then and there. I was young, and people love to lecture kids to make themselves feel more important.

There was this other manager who kept implying that I was stealing from the till, just joking, sure, but still! And every day when I would be drinking a coke he would say, ‘I hope you’ve paid for that! Haha!’ – like, of course I’ve paid for that, please don’t try and embarrass me daily for your own entertainment. I was still young, and it did embarrass me.

Another time, it turns out I’ve got the same name as my boss, and she takes an instant disliking to that. I think she thought she was special… and damnit she is special, and a unique person, which I can now appreciate from a distance. But I needed to grow - good bosses don’t inhibit their employees growth.

I was working in a kitchen again, and I had this one boss, now this guy was young, but he’d blagged it to the top of a young kitchen run by an inexperienced business owner, anyway this guy was head chef. I was mainly washing pots and cleaning down after service, helping out in the rushes with the easy dishes. And Mr Boss was fine, I was a couple years younger than him, but he treated me fairly. I could wear black t-shirts and aprons, it was fine.

But the head chef was angry, like seriously had a temper on him; a huge ego made worse by a drug problem. This one day, the guy’s taken Xanax the night before, so his hefty opioid comedown has really set in by the early afternoon. Anyway, he’s super tired, he lives in the flat above so he goes upstairs to lie down. He’s like ‘ you two just make the food, let the washing pile up, everything else is calm, see you later’. So, it’s OK, by this point I do vaguely know how to make all the menu.

Anyway we get a rush on, we’re crazy people, frying peppers and onions while wrapping up burritos each one slightly different, like crazy people. The line’s cooling down after a couple hours when the head chef walks down the stairs yawning, notices that a pan of sauce has burnt on the back burner of one of the stoves. It’s important to note this guy had made the sauce then put it on the back burner without telling anyone, and then gone upstairs to sleep. The guy empties out the burnt sauce, see’s it’s stuck like hell on the pan’s bottom, and throws it down on the floor. Then the he proceeds to shout at us for fifteen minutes straight, in front of customers, detailing just how and why we were such morons to have left the sauce on, all while we’re still serving a line of embarrassed hungry people who can’t leave because they’ve already paid and are still waiting for their food.

I quit that job soon after and with the money I saved I went to Barcelona, and I didn’t think of the head chef once. Sometimes I feel the best way to deal with an annoying boss is to think about them as little as possible. There’s some satisfaction to be had when the person occupies as little of your mind as possible. Work always seems to get me down most when I think about it in my time off. Like when you’re a kid, dreaming of going to school, then getting up and actually going to school. When work’s already draining, it drags so much more when it occupies your free time as well.

I think that a lot of the time, a big ego is a reason why bad bosses become terrible ones. I’ve noticed this most in the kitchen, where people wear their ego on their sleeve. But it’s certainly the truth in other jobs too. Take for instance any job where you’re pressured to sell anything as much as possible, so, all jobs really…

As well as making bad leaders worse, ego can also get in the way of really good management. Think back to your old, bad, bosses, where they went wrong, instances where they treated you badly, and then don’t replicate that behaviour with your staff! Are there any turns of phrase that particularly annoy you? -Don’t use them. Try to keep your personal opinions and frustrations away from your management. Simply, just don’t bring gender, sex, race, or politics into your management. Don’t embarrass your members of your team, don’t take your anger out of them, and don’t unnecessarily lecture them. And I don’t want to think I have to tell anyone this, but don’t sexually harass your employees. Try to think when your behaviour and language might make someone feel uncomfortable. If you’re a boss now, try to take something positive away from your old, awful, bosses – learn from them; treat people better and teach others to do the same.