Ask Bing: Are we drawn to crazy bosses?

I love your blog, but maybe for different reasons than many of your other fans. Y'see, I'm a flight attendant and union spokesman at United Airlines. My flying partners come to me with all their horror stories of dealing with management, as do the union reps. And frankly, on its worst days, this work place is a walk in the park compared to the stories I read here.

Most of the stuff I see from your readers would result in firings of managers, lawsuits, etc. But not because of union contracts; it's because we can use the existing labor laws without getting immediately fired. These laws are available to everyone, but too often it takes the legal status of a union to actually use them. It's sad, but it's true.

So your blog is a bit of a balm for me in that I realize we ain't got it so bad. I refer lots of my co-workers to your blog. I don't now how many actually log on, as your blog is a drama deflator for them, and then, "Gee, what are we gonna talk about now?"

So here is my question to you, Stanley... "Are we perversely attracted to the crazy bosses out of our own need for drama?" I betcha don't get that question everyday.

No, I don't! And it's a great one. In fact, it's not really a question. It's an insight. Here's what I think: I think our bosses are stand-ins, in some fundamental way, for the authority figures that first challenged us when we were very small. This would include parents, teachers, clarinet instructors, karate senseis, other people who guided us, chided us, made us happy, scared, sad.

If you remember being a kid, emotions run very high. We are plunged into the depths, raised to the heavens with joy. We idolize them, hate them, pin our hopes and dreams on their fragile personalities.

Then we grow up and become adults. To some extent, we become the people we used to fear, love and hate. Inside, though, those little people still exist. They haven't gone away. We just hide them. Then we go to work and suddenly there is a boss there who's telling us what to do, is as irrational, demanding and authoritarian as mom, dad or Mr. Cavendish who taught us the ocarina. We react as adults to that bossing, for the most part.

But some tiny segment of our brain reacts not as a grown up, but as a child, and not as any child, either, as the child who we were those many years ago. So if we were an angry, resentful kid, we find ourselves reverting to that same solution that worked for us back then. If we were quiet and weepy, we suddenly find ourselves welling up when Mr. Roover is a jerk and doesn't let us take Friday off for our birthday.

After a while, the experience of being bossed, of having authority figures, for many of us, replicates the experience of being young, of having outlandish, huge reactions to the stuff adults do to us. When we don't have that, we kind of miss it, there is an emptiness inside where hatred, love, and the desire to please Authority should be.

So when it's not there, we paint it on a bit. Tiny tyrants become raging Stalins in our imagination. Little indignities become grounds for murder. And so we invest the workplace with the power to move us, change us, make us happy or miserable. It beats being alienated and bored, right?

Thanks for writing, and for being so good in what just might be the hardest profession on the land or in the air.

I was offered a position in which there was some entry level and some senior level type work combined. It turned out that the guys already there were better at the more entry level type of work, while the more complex projects were in tatters.

I had experience on the complex responsibilities from previous positions and could help out, but my boss repeatedly emphasized that I should be taking on the entry level responsibilities. When I did take those on also, he tried to transfer the more complex work to the coworkers that were already there and who had no idea how to get that type of work done.

I worked very hard for those skills and didn't want to have someone blame me for not assisting the coworkers properly as they screwed up. I also don't want to see them catch up to me so that I lose my comparative advantage. I opted to leave but he thought I would be doing him a disfavor if I did. What to do?

It's possible that your boss has two problems here. 1) He's a really bad manager and judge of talent and 2) he has political issues with people who have been at the place longer than you and don't know they're not as adept as they think they are. Both situations take patience and can be managed over time.

I'm interested that your boss doesn't want you to leave. He probably knows that you're a good player, one he wants to have around when things go south. At the same time, he's got Loser #1 and Loser #2 in his face, saying "Why does Al get all the tough stuff all of a sudden? He's a newbie!" and he doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to say, "Al's better. You could take a page out of his book. Now get out of my face, Loser #1 and Loser 2! And take Loser #3 with you!"

I would suggest, in addition to complaining (on a moderate level) about daily aggravations, and moping about (when appropriate), you also have a serious, no-hostility, no-pressure chat with this boss, at which you tell him, "Look, Mort. I know you may disagree here, but I'm more adept at some of the stuff that gets screwed up around here than Bob, Betty, Ralph and Freddy, and I think you know it. I'm willing to be patient and everything, but it just makes no sense to stick me at typing, filing, and hosing down the Men's Room. What do you think we should do about this over the course of the next six months?"

See what happens. If you're permanently on the grunge patrol, yeah, you gotta book.