Jerks at Work

Although we rarely, if ever, engage in executive recruiting in the course of our consulting engagements, I’m always surprised at the number of requests we get from folks who are unhappy in their present capacity and are anxious to relocate to what they hope are greener and happier pastures.

And make no mistake, we’re happy to do what we can to help and on a personal level, I can certainly sympathize with inept and unappreciative management, people I would barely let park my car, never mind entrust with my and my family’s future.

Lately, I’ve noticed an influx of what I call workplace “litmus” tests in newspapers and online blogs on whether you basically have a jerk for a boss and by proxy, work for a jerk company.

This is an area that sadly, I have more experience than I should.

Far more.

I worked for a publisher whose culture was so predicated on meetings, that we would actually have meetings to schedule other meetings. Had the CEO not inherited the company from his founder father, he would no doubt have enjoyed a lengthy career asking customers if they’d like to see that in a size 9. He once sat straight faced and pontificated that giving annual performance raises to employees wasn’t a key to motivation, so he went out and hired a motivation expert (at $10k a month in 1990). In order to analyze why his employees were unhappy, we had to complete workbook exercises and then, of course, have a meeting to discuss the results.

Astonishingly, they wondered why turnover was nearly 30 percent during that period.

Moving on, my next post saw my company suspend raises and 401(k) contributions during the economic downturn but somehow had enough resources to remodel one vice president’s office by annexing two offices into one and throwing in a 50-inch flat screen TV.  In successive years, they forked over hefty consulting fees to a pair of companies that were in theory supposed to drive growth strategies. Not one idea was ever adopted.

My direct supervisor, who basically served as a sock puppet for management, once emailed me during the onset of a hurricane to ensure we had people who could work remotely and keep the websites current should there be widespread power outages and damage. Yes, that was my primary concern, not my family’s safety and surely not that 80-foot oak tree that threatened to crash into the house or the downed utility pole with sparking wires.

In the meantime, raise your hand if you’ve been on the receiving end of one of these management gems:

• Remember who pays your salary!
• Bonus? You’re lucky to have a job.
• We’ve always done it this way! (my personal favorite)
• That’s none of your business
• Hey, isn’t your review coming up soon? (hint: this is never heard after something spectacular happens)

If you frequently find yourself humming a certain song by Johnny Paycheck, then I think that answers the question of whether you work for a jerk.