The Worst Manager

Put some stories about terrible managers here.

I was surprised he wasn't punched in the face more often. He had one of those perfectly round faces. He was fat enough, but that wasn't what made his face round. He just had a round face. In fact, he resembled those inflatable punching bags so much you expected someone to punch him by mistake and leave him rocking back and forth. When I got to know him better, my surprise turned to annoyance that people didn't punch him on a regular basis.

He had been at The Company for as long as anyone could remember. The odd thing was that for as long as anyone could remember Andy had not actually done anything useful. As his contemporaries were promoted for distinguished careers and accepted lucrative retirement packages, Andy remained unremarkable. He had a philosophy that made him a long-term survivor but nothing more.

Andy persisted in his middle management position as if invisible. It seemed unlikely Andy would ever find himself mistaken for someone deserving respect and promotion. It was equally unlikely that anyone would mistake him for being eligible for a position that required real work. He had no discernible skills. He claimed he used to be a computer programmer. His complete inability to do anything on a computer made me discount that claim as preposterous. I suspected he had somehow used someone else to do his work.

Andy didn't actually need to do any work to survive. He had stumbled onto The Company's dirty secret. Andy knew how the company was run. The engineers at The Company all thought the company was run on new ideas and successful product designs, not so. The executives and board members thought the company was run on strict budgets and sensible spending. Andy's pay check was proof that money wasn't it either. Andy had discovered early in his career that The Company was run on blame.

Once, while working for Andy, my team found themselves one week away from a project deadline with exactly one week's work to do. Most managers would consider this the perfect position to be in. Andy was furious. Successful projects attract attention and produced no blame. He forced us to stop immediately and begin producing evidence that the project was late because of someone else. Andy used projects as weapons to assassinate foolish managers who were successful. Andy was determined not make himself a target this time or any other time.

The most important thing for Andy to avoid was making a decision. Decisions are blame magnets. Andy made no decisions ever. He always made sure someone else made his decisions and then documented it so that blame could be properly assigned later. I first noticed this odd behavior when I was told to attend a meeting for him because he had a conflict. During that meeting, an important decision needed to be made on behalf of my department. After the meeting, I went to Andy's office and found him sitting there. He immediately asked what I had decided during the meeting. He didn't have a conflict and knew very well how important a decision it was.

My hatred for Andy really started when Anuradha got pregnant. Andy was from the old country and didn't like women at work to begin with. Andy decided that Anuradha should be fired for getting pregnant, but didn't want to fire Anuradha himself. He knew that would not be a popular action and there could be considerable blame in such a decision. He decided I would do the dirty work for him. We had numerous discussions before and during Anuradha's maternity leave. It was always the same, Andy would try to convince me that we must fire her and I would remain firm that we should not. Several times Andy became red in the face and threw books around the office. I knew his game and wasn't going to play. When Anuradha returned and began working again, Andy announced at a meeting how generous he was to support Anuradha during her leave and how lucky she was to have such a good boss. I despised him after that.

For years, I tried to escape and learned another secret in the process. It was not Andy's in particular; it was The Company's secret. The Company had threatened all the vendors that supply contract people that if someone was hired from The Company all of that vendor's contracts would be immediately terminated. Every vendor in the area had more than a few people at The Company so none of them were going to risk getting caught. I realized then I was trapped. Andy knew it too and used it to his advantage. He would often berate us while taunting us to go ahead and try to get another job. He knew that we wouldn't even get an interview and would be afraid to leave.

I heard once that pimps manage prostitutes by preying on their lack of self-esteem. Andy did the same thing. He would constantly tell us how terrible we were. He would tell us we wouldn't have a job if it weren't for his generosity. He often mused out loud why he shouldn't just fire us all and get better people. Then he would reassure us that he liked us so much we could stay. Everyone was depressed knowing we could not leave and constantly being criticized for being inadequate. For me, the turning point was when Andy explained that at times I would have to accept the blame for something he did wrong. That was the only thing I was good for, he explained to me.

I thought about this new insight for a day and decided I didn’t want to be Andy's fall guy anymore. I walked into his office and announced I was quitting the very next day. I couldn't take another week. Andy tried to persuade me to stay in his own way by asking what my family would do without money. He even called my wife later that day and told her what an awful thing I had done. It wasn't because he cared about me of course. I had been doing his work for him and he had not prepared someone to take over. Andy tried all of his tricks on me then gave up suddenly as if he had been reading from a script and came to the end. As I walked out of his office I couldn’t understand why he wasn't punched in the face more often.

More often? Did you, or someone else, give him ParkingLotTherapy?

I assume he must get punched in the face now and then. I never saw any and that made it surprising.

Given that ParkingLotTherapy is a criminal offense in most places that will not only get you fired but likely prosecuted as well (and given that violence in general is an AntiPattern, no matter how much you might think someone deserves it), not surprising at all.

I've run into lots of morons on the job. I've never been tempted to punch one, however...

As an aside, lots of fantasies about ParkingLotTherapy seem to be based on the belief that it would "teach someone a lesson" - as if a good thrashing will suddenly cause enlightenment in the obnoxious. "Geez, he punched my lights out! Why could that be? Could it be that I've been an egregious asshole all my life? I had better clean up my act straight away! I'm saved!!!". Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way...

It's probably predicated on AversionTherapy? - if X gets beat up every time he does Y, he'll stop doing Y.

It is the erosion of one's self-esteem by a person in authority occurring over long time spans measured in years that causes people to become violent in the work place, not just occasional contact with idiots. If you have not experienced your own Andy you will not be able to understand the depression, desperation, and self-loathing that accompanies this management style. It has nothing to do with teaching anyone anything.

If I ran into my own Andy (at least if I found myself working for one), I'd start looking for another job. (Which you did eventually.) And the issue with contracting firms smells funny to me... unless you are specifically looking for contract work, you should be able to find one without use of a contracting firm. (And if you do find another job, your current employer has no legal right to know with whom...)

I intentionally didn't use the company; if I had, you would know we are talking about an automotive company. In this area of the country, you do not get jobs without a consulting company. The automotive companies have a list of vendors whom they will do business with. Losing your position on that list puts you at a significant disadvantage. Hence indentured servitude does still exist. It is true that the company has no right to know whom the new job is with and yet they often do find out and punish the vendor accordingly. Vendors don't move people around anymore.