Whats your boss like

engineer_amy

My boss is great, and I love my job. He is very generous to those that work hard for him, and he does expect a lot in return. He puts a massive amount of trust in me, considering the amount of money that passes through our business on a weekly basis.


On the things that I would change, Point 1 of Dawyld's post could have been written by me. Its easier for him to pick up the phone and ask me at 9pm on a Friday night, rather than looking for the email I sent him earlier with the same information.

dawyldthing wrote: »

1) for them to realise work time is work time and home time is home time. If you can't find the files/ don't know who is on shift/ wonder when the next appointment is it can generally wait until I'm next on shift and I shouldn't feel like the human directory enquiries for the company. I also get fed up of the texts for covering shifts half way over the county and phone calls about general rubbish as most of the time I come off the phone and don't have a clue why they rung me.

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2. He is very moody, there are times you have to try and gauge his mood before broaching certain subjects with him.


3. I wish he would put his phone down for 5 minutes. there are times when I ask him to sit down for half an hour with a list of business items we need to discuss. within a few minutes his phone is ringing and he is away to take the call, wandering back in a few minutes later. Sometimes he just disappears completely and I haven't got half the items on my list discussed. No point emailing it to him, he will just get distracted by the phone again.

GlasweJen

My boss is only the boss because she's the oldest person in the shop.

She struggles to manage and chooses favourites - to the point where she has people young enough to be her kids round to her house for drinks after work... if she was a man it would be seen as creepy.

The company have tried to send her on courses to improve her management skills but every time she returns she has another pea-brained idea that she's picked up and in the year she's been promoted she's managed to take a great team and fragment it to bits. People are leaving in droves (me included) and we've not managed to recruit anyone who lasts more than 2 weeks under her.

Senior management are scared of admitting that they've made a mistake so keep trying to change policy to work around her leading to long term staff feeling like the carpet has been pulled from underneath them.

The only thing that could make an improvement is to either demote her or sack her and replace her with someone with a few years experience managing troubled teams. It really is that bad.

skintpaul

My line manager changed a few times, in last job- all very competent, knowledgeable, and very supportive.

One was rather inward though- never came out on social events. Their loss!

skea56

I love my job, great hours, most of the people are dead on and I actually enjoy the tasks I do. However, I would like to see some changes, not necessarily with just the MD but the entire Management Line:
1. If someone isn't doing the job right SORT IT OUT - our purchasing and accounts colleagues are heavily linked, with respect to order placing, stock control and invoicing.
Every day I would see over 100 invoices on my desk and only about a third of them able to be processed, due to either the incorrect order number, order not filled out, delivery not accepted in, or copy of delivery note not left with accounts.
Disputing and leaving them with Purchasing agent was useless as he wouldnt bother doing anything about them and just leave them back as Ok without ever looking at them. Polite requests to him and his boss were ignored and even the MD would comment on it in passing but never actually do anything about it - same every week leaving accounts hands tied. Used to drive me batty before I changed roles.

2.Tell me how much you want to spend on stuff before you ask my to source it. More times I have been asked to research certain items often at last minute, the latest of which was branded T-Shirts, I told him it would be more expensive than our normal supplier who could not guarantee delivery within 2 days, but he said go ahead with it anyway.
I did eventually source a company who would deliver in time, but with next delivery, new logo design and a minimum order charge, the T-Shirts were going to end up costing £30 each. Thankfully I ran it by him before I hit the button and he couldnt justify spending that amount on polo shirts.
If he had given me a figure to work with, i wouldnt have wasted a whole morning trying to source the impossible.

3.Tell me where you are going to be - this is for all the management team, and to the wider admin circle.
Thankfully now there are 2 of us manning phones but it still gets busy with call every few minutes and its very frustrating to be trying the same line over and over, only to find out at lunchtime that they're meeting with suppliers all day and wont be in.
Drop us a line, it takes 2 seconds, and give me a rough idea of your timetable for the day if you intend to be out.

I could give you 3 more ideas, but I promise I do love my job.....I just think it could be bettered so much more.

sk56

DigForVictory

Just changed bosses, so will grin at previous one.
He has an epileptic son as well, so if I need to bale in a hurry - no fuss. I keep a pad of leave just for this, but he's very much of the "sort family first, do the paperwork after" type, hurrah. When I was off & ran out of flexi leave, he sorted the issue with a single quiet ruling - "you had work at home? Working at home, then." He's also great for sorting things by text. No audit trail but you feel bombproofed.

If I could change 3 things?
Get him to use the calendar so we know Where he is, when.

Get him to trial the latest policy-show-&-tell he's doing around the business on us first as we've not a clue what he's on about & everyone expects us to know.

Get him to stand up for us a bit more. There's a bunch of us sent to a callcentre because he didn't tell those above him to pick a different target for a change. We're good & we'll be missed, in either location, but if he'd just develop a spine to sheild us from the Higher Powers...

Give me a couple of months & I'll doubtless have views on the new gal. Who so far appears to be clear, competent & in possession of a sense of humour (all good) so we'll just have to see how managing us lot wears her down...

InsideInsurance

Never met them, timesheet is done online monthly and it gets approved by her or one of her direct reports within an hour or two normally.

Was supposed to be invited to some team events and her birthday etc but those invites never materialised

Gettingtherequickly

A mega pain in the rear, but with a huge heart of gold so that over rides anything!

3 things I would change

1: Send him to the front of the patience queue
2: Send him to the front of the patience queue
3: Send him to the front of the patience queue

Do you get the impression he was nowhere around when patience was being handed out?

TBagpuss

My Boss is perfectly splendid and appreciates my hard work.

(Why yes, I *am* my own boss..)

missindecisive

My boss is a two faced, unprofessional stress head, gobby , insulting, and on a huge power trip.

It's very difficult to find positives when your constantly walking on egg shells . I'm looking for a new job but doubt I'll find anything that's so convenient in terms of hours, travel, and money,..so I might have to put up with it a while longer, although it's all starting to grate a bit now !

Fireflyaway

Work shy ! She is hardly ever there and when she does come in she makes all sort of excuses to leave early. The range of excuses is incredible. She must think we are all very simple if she really thinks we believe her. She is also a huge gossip. Anything said in confidence will be repeated to everyone within 5 minutes.
Having said that, I get no hassle and a lot of freedom!