Don’t Believe Everything Your Boss Tells You

I had a disturbing conversation with a friend recently. I asked him how things were going with his boss. I knew things had deteriorated between the two of them over the last six months. I was interested to see if there was improvement or a deepening chasm forming between both of them. The latter has proven to be reality and so it is time for my friend to spread his wings and fly.

He knew it was coming for months now. So did I. And now it has reached critical mass. This is where many of us make the biggest mistake. We let things fester and mold. Time lures us into thinking that the impossible will become possible. We know if it is too good to believe, it probably isn’t real.

My friend’s boss has succumbed to the call of the corporate gods and has let his recent promotion to an executive level position go straight to his head faster than a Martini. I have seen this happen many times over the years. As I get older and more seasoned I get more compassionate for someone who sells his soul to corporate life. I was there once and I have nothing to show for it.

One day he will regret the time away from his family physically and emotionally.

This boss told my friend that vacations were not really something earned, but just a gift. Now any of you who work for HR and have a firm understanding of the legal issues, you are screaming “Noooo, you can’t say that.” Too late, it was said and meant. Even if vacation time was not accrued (earned), how would a manager profit from such a statement? I can see the title of the book now, “How to Demoralize Your Employees in 30 Seconds.”

It gets worse. The next thing out of this young manager’s mouth was the “We don’t work 40 hours a week here” line. “If you think this is a 40 hour a week job, then you do not understand.”

My friend is an exempt employee. Again, HR would be running furiously towards this manager saying “Stop, Stop, please be quite until we train you.” Sure as exempt employees we work more than 40 hour weeks sometimes. That is really okay. However, if you get the impression that exempt means 70 hours a week, think again.

If your boss is young and inexperienced you should be on guard. I can say this because I was a young manager years ago and I asked my staff to do things that were ridiculous. I expected my top performers to put in long hours to prove their worth as an employee.

I am not knocking my friend’s boss. He is young, aggressive, and hungry. He is also misguided. If he is lucky, he will learn this a little later in his career.

You can listen to what your boss says without taking ownership of it. Don’t own something that goes against your standard of living, ethics or moral code.