Bosses: the one where you don't have Friends

The one with the pet peeve

I'm a forty-something corporate guy, an individual contributor reporting to a bald old jolly clown but I am also an immigrant. And the funny part of being an UK resident whose native language is not English is that you always learn new words and concepts you had no clues they existed.

I knew what pet means and I have one as well, yet I was as exciting as a child getting a new toy can be to hear about the pet peeve concept. Eventually the novelty of the concept started to wear off like any novelty until... until I realised that I actually have one.

I want to know what you're doing

My pet peeve is a question that might be a simple one but nevertheless annoying: What are you doing? Well, no, not with the meaning of How are you? or What's up? I don't mind that. It's more of the What are you doing now when I expected you to have done this and that? Although the person asking might have meant something completely innocent, yet they'll still see the worst of me. That's what a pet peeve is after all. Something that can be minor issue but that can cause a major annoyance.

Where has it all started to become a pet peeve? I don't know but as any terapeut (or shrink if you are from America) might say, the origin can only lie in one's childhood. Imagine that. I'm 15, I'm in my room doing my trig homework for hours until I decide to pick up The Sun and have a quick (that becomes long) look at the page 3. Fair enough, might have been Blikk or Bors or even Ripost instead of The Sun but that's not the point. The point is that my mother enters the room saying What are you doing there?

?#!!#??

Or picture that. I'm about 30, I am trying to be a modern bloke that cooks in the weekend, yet I still try to keep up with the football scores. Gerrard scores, I hurry up to the tele to watch the replay at which point my significant other enters the lounge shouting What are you doing there?

?#!!#??

Or picture that. I'm 40-something, I just came back to work after two weeks of holiday with a nasty cold and I'm just catching up with emails while struggling to breathe. At some point I can see the old bald jolly clown sitting next to me looking intensely at the table watch on his desk just as the small hand points to 10 and the big hands point to 12. It's usually the weekly time for a team meeting but all the members of the team other than the clown and me are on holiday. Yet the jolly old guy wants to have a meeting in the claustrophobic room 307. I want to know what you have  on your slate, says he to my desperation. Well, the only thing I had on my slate was Covid-19, as a lateral test indicated later in the day. And, being a generous guy, I shared it with my boss in that cosy room that he chose. He kept sharing it with the other members of the team in the weeks to follow.

Yet that's bad but it can be worse when I find out 'bout Alys and her micromanager bad habits. I guess she's got her reasons but I just don't wanna know but for twenty four months I've been living next (office) door to ... Alys.

Alys? Who the **** is Alys?

Alys, also known as the Welsh Dragon, also known as the Iron Lady, is my Boss' Boss. She is also Charlie's Boss, as well as the Boss of Gabriella (the Shakespearian Shrew from Company Secretariat) and the boss of Jack (the Smarty Pants from IT Change) and finally the boss of Johanna (the Mummy from Tax). But above all this, she is the great author of the Book. The Book of Work I mean.

Book of Work? What the **** is The Book of Work?, asked every new joiner the moment they saw it on Teams. Well, it is a spreadsheet reviewed by the Dragon and filled in religiously week by week by Charlie, Gabriela, Jack, Johanna and by the old jolly clown who is my Boss. What does everybody in the department do, when, how and with who?

There's only one question left: Why? Why? Well, said my Boss, the Dragon would like to know at all times what you're doing!

?#!!#??

The brackets

Jennie has just turned 23 and she is studying to become a Chartered Tax Accountant. Until then, she has to put up with Johanna, the Key holder of all Tax aspects of the firm since 1997. What she does, when and how can of course be found in the Book of Work, but she is ok with that as being interrogated on her work is not her pet peeve. Unlike mine.

What she doesn't like is petty. Petty criticism I mean. Especially if it comes from Johanna and especially when it involves brackets. What do I mean? It takes only a brief look on Johanna's report review to notice loads of brackets and arrows. The reason? In Jo's mind, the numbers in the brackets (I.e negative) are not properly aligned in the table. And in Jennie's annual appraisal, that's the only thing that will stand out. Not that Jennie stayed up many nights to provide all the silly reports, not that Jennie was proactive in getting some data that Jo has not the knowledge to source, not that Jennie was technically brilliant. The annual appraisal was something like that:

I had to spend a lot of time in raising review notes about formatting numbers time which could have been spent in actually reviewing the numbers.

At which point Jenny went ?#!!#??

Evasiveness

Niamh and Alexa are both 26 and they keep hoping for the past three years that their boss Jack will eventually teach them eventually some IT related notions. Unlike me, they would love to be asked what they're doing, except that they wouldn't know what to answer.

Why? Their boss Jack feels a bit threatened by people who know IT things hence he makes sure that nobody else learns stuff. Which is perhaps why Niamh and Alexa have evasiveness as their pet peeve. The evasiveness of their manager, that is, which can be observed each time they ask him something that can teach them something useful.

When the rebel yells

Ioana is 24 and she is a Company Secretary trainee who just started a few weeks ago. Her pet peeve are rude people but she never thought she'll have to worry about that when she was interviewed by Gabriella who seemed to be such a nice lady.

Fair enough, someone on Glassdoor rated the Company with 1 star out of 5 and wrote My manager is the worst ever. Yet Ioana genuinely thought that must be a joke coming from someone rude who just couldn't settle in. Later she found one that the poster is actually her predecessor who lasted only 4 months on that role.

She was also told that the predecessor (a nice lady called Sam) actually lasted more than her predecessor Mark while Mark also lasted more than his predecessor Victoria. Yet there was a thing Ioana hasn't found out. Why? Why did they last so little time?

All questions got an answer when her boss Gabriella had the tiniest opportunity to rise and shine. Which came when my direct report Greg (the one that my boss Nigel stole from me and who acted following Nigel's advice) chased Gabriella for a deliverable before the deadline. It was then when the Head of Co-Sec yelled on a higher pitch than the lead primadona from the Bucharest opera.

At which point, Ioana went  ?#!!#??

And we could go on and on and on and on. We all have pet peeves. At least most of us. And we all have bosses, though there is a very small percentage of lucky people who don't have one. Yet, as I found out, even if the bosses are aware of your pet peeves, they won't care. Just like bosses.