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Author Topic: CBC-Venture wants Bad Boss Stories
Toedancer
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posted 28 November 2005 02:41 PM      Profile for Toedancer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
From my e-mail,

The CBC program Venture is looking for some Bad Boss stories that they can use to illustrate what management should not be doing. They will not use names of workers, managers or the employer. If you have a story to tell, be sure to get it to Damien Fairless at the CBC at [email protected] or 416-205-7846. Thanks.

From: Daemon Fairless [mailto: [email protected]]
Subject: VENTURE bad boss stories

Thanks for your help with this. I think it's an important story. Everyone seems to have a bad boss story so I think just about everyone can relate to it. It's also important because there's a lot of evidence that work-place stress (among them poor managment) accounts for the rising rate of mental illness in the work place, namely depression and anxiety. This affects worker and, inevitably, it affects business--all to say, it's no small matter.

We're looking for people's stories to punctuate the show. That is, people who are comfortable talking on camera. We've talked to a number of experts (including a reformed "bad-boss," and a managment coach) but we want people's real-life stories to illustrate the points that our experts make. We've got some good stories from people in the high-tech industry but, as you know, this problem exists in all sectors and it's important to illustrate how pervasive it is. We'd like to hear stories from workers in various industries.

So, we're not looking to get anyone fired or sued: we won't be using bosses names or the company names. Nobody should feel vulnerable in doing this. All of the people we've talked to so far are no longer with their "bad boss."

We're looking for people who want to share their experience on camera but who don't have a hate-on for a boss, don't want to drag their name through the mud. The whole point is to create awareness and, hopefully, give some advice to how people who ARE working under bad bosses can deal with them. But we don't want to support a hate campaign (keeping in mind that a bad boss can be a good person who just really sucks at his or her job).

As an example, here's my own personal bad-boss story. It illustrates a story without using too many specifics:

When I was in my early 20s I used to work in a restaurant, as a cook. The owners were total micromanagers and would come in and tell me how to cook dishes I had served a million times. It made me question my abilities even though, objectively, I was doing a good job. (I knew that because they gave me lots of hours). Once, I cut myself quite badly peeling apples for an apple crisp. I went out to the bar and asked one of the owners for a band-aid. Instead of giving me a band-aid, she looked at me and said: "see what you get for standing around, doing nothing!" I thought it was such a bizarre thing to say--if I had actually been standing around doing nothing, I couldn't possibly have cut myself with that knife, could I have? I think she just liked making her employees fear her. I think it was her way of maintaining control over people.

The worst part of the job was that they used to make me take the hot grease out of the deep-frier while it was still hot. I'd pour it out of the frier into a huge pot and lug it out to the alley (yes, even in the winter when the alley was icy) and pour it into a big oil drum. They made me do it at night because they didn't want to pay the extra wages to have someone come in an extra hour in the morning to clean the friers. How unbelievably ridiculous! Luckily I was never burned. I was too young to really think about the consequences, but my bosses weren't.

So, my story is generic and anecdotal. It tells a story, relates my feelings and experience (and, as you said, a pretty common scenario in the restaraunt industry) but doesn't burn anyone.

Please let anyone who is interested have my email and phone contacts. If they want, I'll call them back to cover any long-distance charges.

Thanks again for your help.

Daemon Fairless, Associate Producer--Venture, CBC News, [email protected], 416 205 7846


From: Ontario | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged

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