Why A Bad Boss Can Be Good For You

The old adage that “people don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad managers” rings true to 55% of people surveyed in a recent poll by Yahoo! HotJobs. That means that over half of us are dealing with poor performances by our managers on a daily basis. I don’t argue with the fact that a boss can make or break a job, no matter how high-paying or engaging the work is, but I also know that working for a less than stellar performer can afford unexpected opportunities that prove valuable in the long run.

Here are some examples of bad bosses and how you can turn working for one to your advantage:

The Incompetent Boss

The incompetent boss is one who, for the most part, has absolutely no idea what to do. They contribute nothing. They do nothing. But manage to skate along on the backs of a constant stream of quality workers.

How this works to your advantage:

The incompetent boss survives on the work of others. This means that as an employee, you are often given decision-making powers and responsibility beyond your station to fill-in the gaps your boss is creating. You’ll probably get a chance to attend upper-level meetings, have a large role in projects and gain valuable management, and administrative experience without having to directly manage a team.

The Over-Demanding Boss

The over-demanding boss comes in early, stays late, and expects his/her employees to do the same. They command the latest data reports and they wanted it yesterday. The over-demanding boss boasts high profits but is plagued by high employee turnover.

How this works to your advantage:

Unless you’re an extreme Type-A personality who thrives in a 24/7 work environment, working for an over-demanding boss usually leads to burnout. However, in the interim, you will learn to function at the top of your game, putting you well ahead of the competition when searching for a new job.

The Jerk Boss

Probably one of the most unpleasant bosses to work for, the jerk boss shows no respect or empathy toward others. He/she prefers to motivate by fear using verbal abuse and shame which in turn makes employees scared enough of retribution to perform.

How this works to your advantage:

Sadly in most companies, if a boss delivers good results, they are often left in their positions in spite of poor social skills. I recommend looking for new work if you are saddled with such a boss, but in the interim the strategies you devise to deal with the day-to-day abuse will help you develop a thick skin and make any future boss seem less awful in comparison.

Starting A New Job Is Much Easier The Second Time Around

When I took my first job out of college a few years ago, I remember spending my first day mostly feeling overwhelmed, anxious and insecure. It felt like I was the new mid-semester transfer kid in high school who had no friends yet, didn’t know where anything was, and had to eat alone in the cafeteria (which I actually did for several months when I started at my first job). I recall being frustrated because I didn’t know when or how to set the security alarm or enter through the back door instead of walking half a block around the street to the front.

While I eventually got over all of these minor hurdles, I do remember it took several months before I felt truly comfortable with the quality of my work and my relationships with my co-workers. When I recently decided to move to a new company, I mentally prepared myself for the “new kid on the block” feeling. However, after just a few days on the job I was surprised to feel nothing but calm and assured with almost no anxiety at all.

What made starting my second job so much easier than the first?

Confidence

Even though I had completed several internships while in school, I still felt ill-prepared for the rigors of working in a corporate environment. It was my first opportunity to do “meaningful” work and, being the perfectionist that I am, I felt immense pressure to be perfect in every way.

Unfortunately for me, it’s common and expected for new employees to make lots of mistakes and their work is far from perfect. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I eventually accepted that I could only do my best, even if it wasn’t up to my expectations, and as I got better at doing the work, my confidence in myself and my abilities increased greatly.

I think the major difference between starting my first job and starting my second, is that this time around, I’m much more confident in my capabilities, especially now that I have a proven track record of performance to fall back on. I felt like when I was hired the first time after graduation, I was hired for my potential. The second time, and every subsequent time, I will be hired for my expertise, making me feel like I earned the job rather than having just lucked into it, which is a great boost to my self-esteem.

Transferable Skills

Lots of career literature deals with getting people to identify their “transferable skills” or basic knowledge that is applicable across a multitude of jobs and industry, things such as writing or computer skills. When I graduated from college, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of MS Office applications such as Word and Excel. But I quickly discovered that there was a whole other world of advanced functions and options that you never learn about in school.

Since MS Office and Windows are popular programs in most corporate offices, upon starting my new job I was able to change around my email settings and internet preferences on the first day of my new job with no help at all. It sounds like a little thing, but it was rather empowering to be able to do it myself without suffering the embarrassment of having to ask someone how to change my calendar color from yellow to green.

*I also want to note that I’ve seen many an interview candidate claim to know how to use Excel and Word only to have their incompetence revealed after being asked only a few simple questions. I urge everyone to take an MS Office training course even if you think you know how the program works. Listing an Office certification on your résumé will make you look impressive and you’ll be more productive in the long run because you’ll know the secrets and shortcuts that a normal user won’t.

Relationship Savvy

When I entered the workforce for the first time, I really had no idea how a business worked, who the major players were, how decisions got made, or how to execute a project. After three years of sitting through endless meetings, dealing with office politics and navigating the murky world of interdepartmental co-operation, I have obtained a basic map of any corporate structure and a strategy to integrate myself into it.

Through months of observation I learned how to relate to executives and managers, identify the “go-to” people in each department that will help me get what I need, how to deal with different types of people and more. While no business is exactly the same, most companies will have an accounting and IT department as well as upper-level and mid-level managers.

Even though the people and titles might be different, the types of people drawn to these positions are usually the same. Recognizing the various worker personalities (the micromanager, the procrastinator, the super-star, etc.) and having experience dealing with each lends me a feeling of familiarity in a new situation so I feel less like a fish-out-of-water in my new company.

The moral of this story is that each job you have, no matter how miserable or seemingly pointless, allows you to learn and grow both personally and professionally. Each job forms the building blocks that lay the foundation for the rest of your career. And I can only hope that as I move on to my third, fourth and fifth jobs that the transitions will only continue to get easier.

Excessive Traffic Keeping Women Out of the Workforce

According to a recent analysis of U.S. census data, New York City has the lowest proportion of women in the workforce, with only 49% participating, and Minneapolis boasts the highest, with roughly 80% of the female population holding down jobs.

A detailed analysis of the data by economists finds that the most influential barrier to having more women in the workplace is not social pressures, day care costs or family unfriendly corporate policies but rather the biggest bane to all workers–high-income, middle-income, male and female alike: traffic.

Married women in New York and Minneapolis seem to be taking into account some things that are specific to their cities when deciding to work or not. Surprisingly, the economists argue, the most important specific thing seems to be traffic.

Time spent in traffic is costly, so as congestion increases there may be a certain point where married women decide to either drop out of the labor force or not join it in the first place. The data seem to back this up.

Looking back over time, “Cities in which commuting time increased most rapidly generally also experienced slower growth in female labor force participation,” write the researchers.

With transportation being as crowded and expensive as it is in New York City, can you blame a woman for choosing to opt-out of the daily grind?

And for women who do choose to work, longer commute times tend to equate to longer work hours overall:

As for the women who are employed, rising congestion seems to go in hand with working more hours. If commute times increased by one minute, the researchers found that married women spent an additional three to six hours working per year.

The same thing happens for men. If the commute time is longer by 20 minutes in one city compared to another - that’s close to the difference between Nashville and New York — then a man in NYC is likely to work an extra week each year.

With working men and women spending ever increasing hours at the office, is it any wonder that personal relationships are suffering and that divorce rates are high?

Studies have shown that ambitious women (in the case of one study, specifically women who earned advanced degrees in professional fields such as business, law, or medicine) tend to divorce at higher rates than men with advanced degrees and women with only an undergraduate degree. Conceivably, these women are more focused on their careers and spend more time outside the home.

But is this the woman’s fault? Should she feel guilty for wanting to pursue her own dreams instead of supporting those of her husband?

If cities had better public transportation or there were more jobs located in the areas in which we live, would women have more time for domestic duties and therefore create happier, more stable marriages?

Having endured a 75-minute commute for several years to be closer to a boyfriend, I can definitely attest to the impact a commute has on job as well as overall satisfaction. Not to mention the resentment and toll the long travel times placed on my relationship. The last thing I’d want to do after my 10-hour day was come home and wash dishes or do the laundry. And several studies of marriages have shown that balanced-sharing of household chores is a main factor in marital satisfaction and success.

What is so intriguing about census data analysis is that it suggests that simple urban planning changes, such as bicycle lanes, increased bus service, or strategic zoning laws stitch together the very thread of our cultural fabric. Building so-called “urban villages” that incorporate commercial services, office parks as well as residential communities in a central location could ultimately be the secret to success for the working woman, who would spend less time in a car and more time building important personal relationships at home.