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Here's what People are saying!! We're still laughing here at work, after hearing your radio show, especially the part about how to mess with the Boss's brain using our 'ol MS Windows! You guys are amazing! I hate to say it, but actually, after we did our own special "Boss File Search" , he came in actually laughing WITH US, and broke some very old and thick ice. Because of that we were able to actually start a discussion about some of the things wrong in our company, and it's been a 180 degree difference here. So besides being bent and crazy, I guess you Off The Boss-er's really know what the hell you're talking about! For you and the other readers of your great website, here's a little fun thing back that's been making the rounds. We noticed another reader sending a "Window's parady", so I thought you'd all like this one as well! Enjoy, and a billion (that's with a "B") thanks! All of us at "FDJM" Here's our little "water cooler" contribution:
Hey water cooler! I can't thank you enough. Between your website, manual, (which my boss gave me, if you can believe it, and didn't even charge me!), and listening to your radio show, things have changed enormously! It doesn't help that we're in this insane illegal war, with brave great service men and women are being killed for Chaney and his thugs' checkbook (I have four friends, and my favorite niece over there, and I pray every day for their safe return), and being from California, I'm watching this recall circus... so when this attached "Word for Window's" parody came to me, I didn't even see the humor! But now, I'm getting a grip... thanks to you guys! And someone even said they heard me laugh yesterday! Thanks, thanks, and double thanks! Here's the attachment. I know you all will find it funny, and if someone reading this doesn't... then get yourself an off the boss manual, or just read the great advice on this here website and you'll be laughing your head off in no time! J.R.W San Diego, CA
Hey J.R.W., You have no idea how much we apprecite letters like yours! It makes all this Boss-offing worth it! And more important, we'll send some extra special prayers to your neice and friends "over there"!
Don't want this going to your head, guys... but you really have kept me and a lot of co-workers sane! We listen to your radio show, in the lunch room, with the door locked and a "boss alert" at the ready (don't ask!)... and you keep us all both able to keep on working, and more important keeping anything "postal" happening with our boss! Keep it going... work is like sex... you never get tired of talking about it... and in most cases they both are more trouble than they are worth! The gang: Boca Raton, FL What with the nightmare of that horrible crime of an election, which then brought in unemployment and the end of my savings... then the tragedy of 9/11, and the incompetence of our leader(s) to do a thing about it, then turn it around and use it to make us look more like Germany in 1939, then America in the 21st Century... all creating a job situation that's a bit like walking through a mine-field blind and drunk... OFF THE BOSS is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel! Every time I think of jumping out a closed window (we work on the 16th floor!), like the guy in that movie with Tim Robbins... I quickly open up my "Survival Manual", or go on-line and read another page... or the every growing advice of your Mystery Bosses... and suddenly, at least for a moment all's right with the world! Where'd you get so smart, damn it, and why can't I work for you!!!!! Jamie, Bellingham, MA
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Just
wanted to say thank you for making me feel better. I just about
had a nervous breakdown today and thought I had to make a trip to the
hospital-if it wasn't for my husband being a caring, funny man who told
me that he would call my boss and tell her to shove the labels that she
has me make for her (please note I am not her secretary) up her ass!
I had to stop crying and laugh at that point. I was feeling pretty
terrible again until I stumbled across your web page. THANKS!
Dear Christy, You are most welcome. We can't tell you how much e-mails like yours make OUR day... so you gave us something back! The whole purpose of OFF THE BOSS is exactly what you so nicely stated in your e-mail... to help people who are feeling overwhelmed by the "boss-dumb" of their every day work life... and need some place that will get them not only laughing... but help them get back to the real priorities in their life... and not letting the boss or the job rule them!
Keep on offing, Christy... and be sure to let your friends know about us, when the time comes (and it comes to all of us!), that they need a little "lifesaver" from their own bosses from hell!
Thanks for the Great site. I need a manager evaluation form to fill out for all of my fellow employees. You see we have the most stupid, air headed, idiot for a boss. She has no self esteem. Is very fat 350 lbs. !! The poorest boss in the world. Do you have a contest for the worst boss in the world?? She makes terrible decisions, is dirty, is very impolite, Mean with customers, rude to all of us. Thanks for your wonderful site, a good place to vent ! Thank
you guys for this incredible website. I have been looking for that for
a while, and I am so happy I have found
it here ! Your website should be recommended by doctors !!! It is really
the funniest site I have ever been to.
Thanks again, GREAT web site. The humor through Part One, had me realize that you can actually relate to my experience, and then your insights in Part Two were on target and helpful. You reminded me that, sometimes it just helps to step back and take a look from another perspective. JJ,
Dublin, Ireland I couldn't have found your site at a better time! I myself have been feeling very let down by my boss lately. I've even considered moving on and checking out a new career. After completing your course on how to "Off My Boss", You can't believe how much better I feel ! Coffee Cally, Sully, IA Guys.....You gave me just the thing I've lacked these past few months. A way to look at it all and laugh. I read every single word there was to read and had to wipe the tears away more than once. Thank you so much for showing me how to find some humor at a time when I was beginning to think there was No such thing. I can assure you that when I go into work tomorrow I'm going to find it very hard to keep a straight face. I've sent a link to your site to a few of my co-workers. Hey....share the wealth ya know? I'm sure we'll all feel a bit better about our "Little Complaints" now. Once again Thanks so much for bringing a little bit of laughter to what I was considering a Lost Cause. QZ I think that this website is one of the ultimate website's of all....Keep it up! B. KAT Subject: The boss is REAL employee Yes, I am a dreaded boss.. the curse of Middle-Management in a large hospital. I take great pride in building relationships with the employees and breaking the rules and regs to suit their life. When I employ someone, I employ the WHOLE person. I believe that ANYONE should follow the order of Priorities of God, Family, Self and then Work. If you respect those values, you get a much better PARTNER, NOT just an employee. The threat of termination is very idle.. If that's the way you are managed, why did the boss hire you in the first place. Remember, we too are employees... but the difference is we should work to SUPPORT the employees, NOT have the employees support us. It is Ying/ Yang for all of the existentialists out there. We middle managers are on yearly contracts and are in constant fear of termination. I empowered my inner boss LONG ago. I no longer live in fear of my unemployment... and more importantly. I don't pass my paranoia onto my co-worker employees, because I don't have any. I have all the job security I need... Right between my ears. Just like everyone of my employees. We just have different jobs.. but we have the same mission. I would suggest that employees not only shop for their next job.. but shop for their next boss. Don't work for the putz ! Demand more of yourself and look for a partner not a boss !!! I've had many offers for more money... I stay with the boss I have because I am treated fairly.. and she allows me to treat others with the same respect and level of dignity. That's what really matters. C.B., Ypsilanti, MI
Woesome! I find it (your site) wickedly fun! Remarkably well put together and thank God, my own boss informed me of it! No Doubt, I shall send her some brutal messages. She will stand in awe in the illusion that her employee is a genius! Good work. --N. H., New Haven, CT
Subject: Why things don't work/fall apart/quality stinks... Next time a part you order doesn't fit, a shirt collar falls off with the first washing, the handle of your new car's door comes off in your hand, don't blame "shoddy workmanship" or "lack of pride in the American worker," blame the BOSSES who put arthritic old ladies on two production machines at once, deliberately do not train temps or new hires because they "don't want to waste the time on somebody who might quit within the week," pressure workers with dirty looks and snide remarks to keep them nervous while pushing out product faster and faster instead of better, etc. etc. Get the picture? Around here, somebody in a Union shop has to die for somebody from outside to get in--meanwhile, in non-Union shops around here, turn-of-the-century-era "sweatshop mentality" rules. And products sure look it and perform to this "standard," don't they? --Keith B., Salina, KS
Beautifully said, Keith! ! All I can answer to that is: You betcha!
--Love your Site!! Still laughing because I just sent the link to my boss! Thanks a whole bunch... Donna, Crawfordville, LA --I’m an account assistant at a large firm here in the capital of “Redneck Heaven”! You think the boss’s you describe are bad... you should take all of the horrors you talk about in a boss, and add three parts tobacco chewing, two parts Chevy's and gun racks, and one part “let’s see how long I can wear the same overalls to work before they walk away on their own” contests! Seriously! And they are the ones in charge! Everyone thinks of boss’s as at least washed and well dressed... but not the group of power hungry “hygienically challenged” road-kill I have to take orders from! I just bought your second edition of OFF THE BOSS, and see that you’re going to add chapters with each new edition. How about a chapter on Redneck Bosses in the next edition? D.D., Harrogate, Tennessee
--I work at a tiny (and I mean tiny) mail order company. It’s so small that there’s only me and my boss. A lot of what you and your readers talk about have to do with bosses with many employees and lots of departments. At least more bodies pulls the focus away from you for a few minutes each day! At my job, my boss sits at a desk facing me in a room that even Superman would have a hard time changing in... and he’s at me all day long! Is there anyone else out there who has a situation like I have... where it’s just you and the boss and four walls? Please let me know... so I know I’m not alone in this two person living nightmare version of hell! C.V., Regina, Saskatchewan -- When you have a hot head for a boss, sometimes kindness is the key. I have a boss who yells at you every chance she gets and who makes you take the blame for everything even if you are not the one at fault and she is. I am the admin. in our department and on secretary's day she sent flowers to another admin. in the company who is not in our department. I got my laugh, when I sent her an email thanking her for including me in the decision to send this person flowers and for informing me I was no longer the department admin. She received this email and became irate. She wanted to know what it meant and I told her in a very kind voice, it meant just what it said and she dismissed me from her office in a hurry. Two days later she sent me flowers and wanted to take me to lunch. At lunch she admitted to yelling at me for the last few weeks. --J. C. - San Jose, CA
-- Hey! You guys are better than Viagra (and a whole lot less expensive)! I felt totally “impotent” for years in my job until I discovered your Website, and bought your Manual! I thought it was just a great “novelty” book at first, but as I read it I discovered that you actually give some amazing advice that I used to “rejuvenate” my “libido” so that I could stick it to the boss (so to speak!). Since you showed me how to take my boss’s power away, and to make him invisible (and it works!), I find myself actually looking forward to going to work every day! L.G. Chicago, Illinois --Just a thank you for being the perfect “gift store”! We have a new regional manager at our company, and I swear if she ever cracked a smile it would kill her. No one knew how to get to this woman. She’s really not all that bad a boss, I have to admit, but you never know what she’s really thinking, or where she stands... or more important... where we stand with her! On her birthday the men in the company were going crazy trying to figure out what to get her. In this age of “say their hair looks nice and go to jail”, no one wanted to send her flowers, or candy, or anything that would smack of some kind of harassment or worse! Then I came across your catalogue, and saw the OFF THE BOSS SURVIVAL KIT. Since my boss has several boss’s above her, who frankly are making HER life a living hell, I thought this would be the “political correct” gift from all of us who work for her. Sure enough when it came in the mail, she opened it immediately, and I swear she couldn’t stop laughing! She came in to thank us, and gosh-oh-golly, I felt like I was in a production of “Good-bye Mr. Chips”! I mean, she actually got a little teary-eyed! Now, she smiles more than Marie Osmond on laughing gas, and our workplace has improved immensely! Thank you all! M.P. (and company), St. Petersburg, Florida
-- Well not only do you keep me smiling each day I log onto your Website... but you helped my date life as well! When I bought an OFF THE BOSS sweatshirt, I received a free OFF THE BOSS bumper sticker as well. I immediately put it on my Jeep’s back bumper and the first time I stopped for gas a total babe in a Honda saw the sticker and spilled her guts to me about how much she hates her boss! Well, one thing lead to another, and we’re planning a trip to Atlantic City in two weeks! Thank you... and if things go as planned, you’re all invited to the wedding! - P.C. Denver, Colorado -- Love your “Emergency Website”... it came to save me just in time. I’m working in Hospital Administration, and my boss has her head so far up her butt she seems to digest her tongue every time she licks her lips! We’re being taken over by a large chain HMO and I can hear the grinding stones spinning as axes are being sharpened for cutbacks. At first I thought your site would be just a few laughs to get me through the day... but there’s some really good stuff in there to help me deal with whatever's going to happen! Thanks... J.D. - Globe, Arizona Help! Anyone else work in a college bookstore (I’m a student there), with a boss who knows less about books than the cockroaches that live under the coffee pot in the breakroom? It’s driving me crazy! And she thinks she’s a genius! I need this job, plus I get a great discount on my books... but she’s giving everyone bad advice, talks all the time, has opinions on books it’s evident she’s never even read, makes huge mistakes, and thinks we’re so dumb we can’t catch on! Any other hard working student\slaves out there who can help me, or at least will write and let me know I’m not alone in this Kafkaesque nightmare I’m living??!! MT - Westwood, CA
-- Hey, to that New England Paralegal ... Believe me, you’re not alone. I could pass the bar with what I know (though never did have the money to go to law school... such is life)... and I’ve had my “boss lawyer” make me write up papers for them, and I’ve actually drafted contracts... then their clients are charged their $150’s an hour, rather than my $18’s an hour! And I’m a single mom! But what I’ve found to keep me sane is that I keep a nice neat record of all the “goings on” here. One day, I’ll have a great time seeing them get their comeuppance (remember Tom Cruise, in “The Firm”?), or hey, come to think of it... I could always write a book like you people did! Thank you Off The Boss... you’ve given me the courage and vision to keep on going, and to know there are other options in life! Hey... did you know we charge our clients two dollars a page for a damn Xerox!? MS - Lake Oswego, OR
I work in a wallpaper manufacturing company, and my exciting job is to
cut the huge printed rolls (they come in four ton rolls!) into four foot
rolls for sale. We keep a copper wire on the cutting table so that I don’t
get a static-electric shock as I cut the paper. My boss who knows about
as much about wallpaper manufacturing as I do about operating the space
shuttle, came up to me this morning and noticing the copper wire, wrote
me up for not having cleaned up my work area! And... he wants it
removed! I can’t wait until I send his complaint form to my
union rep! Just thought I’d share that with you. Hey, love your Website...
and wouldn’t “dumb things bosses who don’t know their job
do at work” BV - Watertown, NY
-- It’s great to see you guys online! I bought a copy of the “Off The Boss Manual” over a year ago, and kept it with me all the time. I’m a salesman (yes, the kind all the jokes are made about!), and it was right next to my “Thomas” guide on the passenger seat. Lost it somewhere in Ohio some time ago, and now, thanks to an old laptop and your Emergency Website, I can read it all again! Just ordered two copies and some postcards to send to some of my least favorite distributors! Hey... you guys need a salesman by the way? AM - Lima, OH
-- Just had to vent this. I’m a waitress at a truck stop (we call them Highway Rest Havens) in Barstow, California, and this morning my boss came up to us and informed us that we were now going to have to pay for parking, since we were taking up room from the customers! Oh, did I say that our parking lot is about fifty acres!?!?! Oh, and did I also say that I take the bus to work, because I don’t have a car... let alone a parking space!?!??!? And, oh, did I say that when I informed my boss of this tiny fact, he just said: “Well, you’ll have to pay for a space anyway, it’s only fair to the others!” Fair?! Yeah...right. AF - Barstow, CA
--To
the waitress or anyone else who has had a boss make such a ludicrous demand.
(She was told they would have to pay for parking, because they were "taking
space" from customers...despite the fact they are on 50 acres. And
that though she took the bus to work she had to pay too, because it's
only fair) ASK THEM TO PUT IT IN WRITING....that usually scares them.
Say, I understand that I am going to be billed/charged for parking. It
is my understand that I will also be billed/charged even though I take
the bus. Can you please put that in writing for me. It is always hard
for a boss to deny such a reasonable request. And since a request from
them for you to do anything, is in a way a policy, why not get it in writing.
Usually that will scare them enough, you shouldn't hear anything more
on the matter. Especially if the waitresses boss is the owner. He'll be
afraid you are fixing to sue him. Just remember to ask them calmly and
nicely. If asked why, just say that I want to be sure of the instructions
and/or policy and would like a written copy to refer to. Do not at all
be insubordinate. You can get fired easily for insubordination, so be
polite. And don't be surprise if the matter gets dropped all together.
-- Hey... to that lady (I think it was a lady) who works in Hospital Administration... I’m in Denver, in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. My “boss” is on the Today Show every time five people get the chicken flu! His ego’s so big he has to hook his head up to a construction crane to give his neck a rest! I think all the hospitals right now are in such flux and limbo that EVERYONE is running scared! So just to let you know... hang in there... you’re not alone!
RH - Denver, CO
-- Dear Off The Boss! I see you had a whole thing in there about a cashier! (See our latest "Inner Winner") And I thought no one cared about us! Wow... a whole chapter. Who would have “thunk”! God bless you! Is this my fifteen minutes of fame?M.M. - Johnson City, Tennessee
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