I always wanted to be the boss.
As a kid it certainly looked better than the alternative – course, that's based on years of watching hapless protagonists George Jetson and Fred Flinstone suffer the whims of Spacely Sprocket and Mr. Slate.
But it's hard work. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a very good one. But it's not for a lack of trying. I just don't have much experience. It's a tough – if not risky – place to learn on the job. But I muddle through, keeping things slightly cleaner than a Yahoo! board meeting.
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So imagine the boost to my ego when I came across this "horrible bosses" story last week out of New Jersey.
Cecelia Ingraham, an employee at OrthoMcNeil Pharmaceuticals, lost her teenage daughter to leukemia. It devastated her. She hung photos and other mementos of her daughter in her office space and quietly mourned her passing.
Two years later, her supervisor steps in, tells her to basically get herself back together and advises her to "pretend her dead child never existed."
Obviously, she sued. Maybe not so surprisingly, a New Jersey court backed the boss, calling him "insensitive," but not in violation of any laws.
(Now I can't wait for our next staff meeting.)
Anyway, if you get past this boss's particularly harsh handling of a sensitive issue, it presents a valid question. How long do you allow for grieving? And at what point does it begin to hurt productivity or impact the morale of effectiveness of everyone else at the office? Wouldn't most of you agree a single year is enough, let alone nearly two?
And if this boss had just handled this like a decent human being, would it have even made the news or raised this issue for a broader examination?
Either way, maybe there'll be something sitting on my desk for Boss's Day next month after all…
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