Oh boy.
- lose your common sense and integrity; whatever your job description is, pleasing the bosses is the rule
- because if the boss is happy, the world could be burning and it wouldn’t matter
- directions and policies that don’t make sense, or even in contradiction with the wider company. Why? Because your direct superior says so
- branding above substance. Endless campaigns to gloss over facts that bosses don’t like. Damned is the fool who speaks out
- blame culture. A natural consequence of people scrambling to please their bosses. The worst of these scum would rather make a scene about who should he crucified instead of solving the actual problem
- too many glorified postmen. The same gutless people who can’t contribute to the solution will forward emails with their life motto, “please advise”
- regional vs local hypocrisy. If you have the good fortune of working with both regional and local teams, you’ll see that regional direction is a joke, because every local team is out for themselves.
In all seriousness, a lot of these cons come from the same problem, “boss culture”. I joined because I met colleagues who are genuinely trying to make a difference, and I thought I could too. I watched those people leave one after another, and I eventually learned why. You’ll be lucky if you get to work under a leader that pays attention to what is actually happening, informs you about higher management’s directions, and is willing to convey unappealing information to them. So far I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing people turn into spineless sycophants when they join management.
