From Lama J…

Would you like to be the smart employee everyone at work admires? If you do, you may also have to be under appreciated by your boss and do the heavy-lifting around the office - but your job will be secured and your check guaranteed.

Or would you like to be the dumb boss who gets paid high wages, works less than anyone else and abuses staff? That’s always nice work if you can get it.

I’ve worked in a variety of fields for a wide range of bosses from different parts of this planet. Some were super smart and I learned a great deal from them. Others were big whales with money, but no brains – some even managed to lack both. It’s a question I’ve always asked myself - how does a unintelligent and or lazy individual reach the management level? What did upper management see in this person, an obvious idiot in some cases, to make him a team leader?

Isn’t it true that a leader is called on to do so because he needs to guide his group to fufilling their greatest potential, making the company as a whole better in the process? What if this leader is unintelligent, unorganzied and unmotivated, leading his team, and thus his company, to nowhere but dead-ends and mediocrity? And further still, and what drives me teh craziest – why are some of these people not only allowed to keep their jobs, but sometimes even get promoted to higher positions?

Throughout the current financial crisis, I’ve noticed some of my smarter colleagues getting kicked out while the incompetent ones were left alone. In fact I’ve seen this happen several times over the last year or so. Again I ask myself - what makes a boss let go a good employee and keep a lazy one during a financial crisis? Isn’t that a crisis itself?

Hard work doesn’t always count for more in some people’s eyes, as there are those who work less and still get to come to work everyday. In my own experience, I’ve worked for a boss that I indirectly insulted many times over, but he kept me around for 4 years until I eventually quit and moved onto to something better. Why did he keep me? Because I worked hard for him and did my job very well. Another boss I worked my ass off for, including nights and weekends, often bragged about my great achievements to others. With that said, when he needed to re-structure the company I was the first person to he booted out the door.

A former colleague of mine was very powerful at the company she worked for and rose through the ranks quickly, but got fired when one day she made the receptionist cry. A center-piece of the company and a driving force behind its success and she was fired, while others around her sat on their asses all day long. Worse yet, the big boss’s reaction was to hire someone totally unqualified, inexperienced and incompetent. Go figure.

A just plain stupid guy I used to work with who was routinely criticized by all the staff and his direct manager for his laziness, lack of organization and incompetence, eventually got promoted – a move that shocked everyone concerned.

Sometimes I ask myself if there is any kind of secret code for bosses we all need to follow in order to avoid their silly games or even just to simply impress them. As of right now, I still don’t know what it is.  I decided a long time ago to simply come to work everyday, do my best to play it smart and  let the morons be morons. In the end, that’s all any of us can do.