When I was an assistant, my entire day consisted of organizing my boss’ life. I had dozens of phone numbers - for his wife, his accountant, his lawyer, his best friend, etc - committed to memory. I spent hours arranging his travel, buying his kids’ birthday presents, keeping him on time for appointments, and prepping him for meetings. If you’d seen me at work in full on assistant mode, you would have thought I was a really organized person. The thing is, though, that I was so good at being his assistant that I had absolutely no energy left over for myself.
At home, things were really different. I would go to the grocery store without a list, only to come home realizing I’d forgotten some important ingredient. My room was a mess. I let dishes pile up in the sink until my roommate had to flat-out tell me he wasn’t going to do them for me. I was often late to meet people because I couldn’t keep my own schedule organized. It’s a sad and scary truth: assistants spend so much time running another person’s life that they often don’t have the time, energy, or incentive to run their own.
Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been so good at your job that your own life faltered or had to take a backseat? Tell me your stories.
Having an evil boss doesn’t just hurt morale and your will to live - it’s also bad for the economy. A new study from USC’s School of Business finds that bad bosses cost the US economy about $300 billion a year. That is a lot of money. Where does it come from?
Lawsuits - wrongful termination, harassment, creating a hostile work environment… you name it.
Lost productivity - people bitching about their bosses, hiding from them, crying in the bathroom, etc., instead of working
Retention/hirings and firings - employees are more likely to leave jobs with unpleasant working environments (note: the Evil Empire went through about ten assistants a year. That is a lot of time devoted to reading resumes, arranging interviews, making offers, training new people, and the like.)
Morale - not just unhappy employees, but if clients, vendors, or customers get wind of how unhappy a place is for workers, they are 80 percent less likely to continue their business there
In other words, you now have a really strong case for getting your boss fired. Good luck!
So, tomorrow, October 16, is National Boss’ Day. I know you can barely contain your excitement. In advance of the ‘holiday,’ I have a question for you: