Disorganised boss woes

Acc72

jfh7gwa wrote: »

In your scenario, I would start looking to move.

Not urgently, and pick the roles I would consider wisely - since there's no real time urgency.


So emailing myself enabled me to prove I was in the right, but it didn't fix the real problem (me looking disorganised to external clients, say, and his crappy organisation skills!).

The above is good advice.

If anything, if you start e-mailing/writing things down this will make things actually worse as it is unlikely to change your bosses behaviour, and will only highlight the things that are currently winding you up anyway !

The only thing I would add is that if/when you start to look for a new job never critisize either your boss or the company - just focus on "looking for a new challenge" type response (sorry if this is stating the obvious !).

jfh7gwa

Acc72 wrote: »

If anything, if you start e-mailing/writing things down this will make things actually worse as it is unlikely to change your bosses behaviour, and will only highlight the things that are currently winding you up anyway !

That's exactly what happened to me. Basically it became so obvious between me and my supervisor that this was a problem, but even though it was driving me nuts - my boss' boss was based at another office branch. So the person who really had any power to force change didn't know and didn't care - my boss' work still got done, it was just me that had to deal with the sloppiness, crap communication and inefficient stuff (if the team had worked better, not perfectly but better, it would have reduced the amount of stuff to deal with in your average week by a half - we're not talking an insignificant impact here).

So the only outcome of me documenting this stuff was almost to prove that I wasn't going mad myself. Because my boss had been in his role for 15 (maybe 16 by the time I left) years, it's not like his shortcomings were obvious. Ho hum.

It was only about 6 months after starting this documentation trail that I left - you can only fix other people's working habits up to a point, and if it's your boss you're even more hand-tied than in other scenarios.

The best longer term outcome is to bail and do what is best for you - let the next poor chump try and cover the boss' self-induced chaos... it's not your problem.

Acc72 wrote: »

The only thing I would add is that if/when you start to look for a new job never critisize either your boss or the company - just focus on "looking for a new challenge" type response (sorry if this is stating the obvious !).

This is really good advice to note. In interviews my primary motivation was to get rid of having to manage my own boss, but I had to stick with something more acceptable to a new employer. I chose the "looking to move on to a role with more of a challenge" line too! Rather than what I was really thinking - "my boss is driving me crazy because he's so disorganised, and I've come to the end of my tether after 5 years of working for him!". :rotfl:

hoo

I can sympathise with your situation OP. Myself and three of my coleagues are a Senior team in a LA dept our manager was a lovely person but just a terrible boss totally out of her depth bluffed her way through - ignore priorities, too afraid to deal with problem staff, take credit for our projects instead of asking for help with doing it herself and some major serious issues. We all tried on seperate occasions to talk to her about the situation but she would never aknowledge the problems. In the end we had HR involved cos we were all at the point of leaving cos of all the stress. Best decision we made, they did this bespoke mediation which sounds all hippy but it was really good with an outsider seeing the issues we all had- it was definately hard at first cos she took it as a betrayal of trust but she realised in the end that we had tried everything else- then she retired!!! New boss is brilliant and the confiming of tasks conversations etc by email is spot on

Savvy_Sue

There are times when I email a list of 'the things which I plan to tackle today' to my boss, or even 'a list of all the things you've asked me to do in the last week, please tell me which I should prioritise'. It's interesting to see what I no longer need to do ...

getmore4less

My first though reading the OP was as you have a small team is it time to try to isolate yourself and the team with projects eventualy reporting elsewhere.

Is there enough self contained stuff that can create new roles and perhaps a position at a similar level tot he boss.

at some point you need to move sideways and up or you will just continue to be "under " this person for a long time which unless they are ambitious and capable will be very career limiting.


One stratagy might be to look for opportunities to deal with the origninator directly rather than through the boss.

CFC

If it's driving you nuts then leave. He's your boss, he is who he is, he's not going to change, and a paper trail is going to mean absolutely peanuts.

pug_in_a_bed

Thanks for all the replies, some really helpful suggestions here and seems I am not the only one with this type of situation.

I did broach the big incident the other day with my boss, he just brushed it off so that has kind of cemented my resolve to start seriously looking for another post I think, either sideways or in a different company.

For the time being I am going to record everything he asks me in my task manager so that I can track what he has asked me to do. I'm forever picking up his loose ends, and find that I'm doing pieces of work which he then regurgitates as his own, happened yesterday in fact during a planning meeting for potential fuel strikes!

CFC, you're right, I think its just so ingrained with him that anything I do is unlikely to change him but hopefully I can avoid any further big mix ups.

He cannot let go of work that's been given to others to do and this makes him even more stressed out. He will call me to say he thought of something that needs doing at 4am and have I done it, only for me to say it was done 6 weeks ago...

Thank you all for the opportunity to moan and glad I am not the only one!

OH reminded me that in my last job with him, I was on holiday abroad and he rang me to ask me a load of work stuff!