Are bad jobs worse than no jobs?

When I worked night shift at the Albuquerque Journal, the guy across from me was a terrific editor and designer. Funny too, as smart guys have to be in this country. One night I asked what was the worst job he ever had (working in a fish cannery), then we went around the copy desk comparing horrible jobs. Talk about a lot of lessons in a few minutes.

Now I have sought answers to a new question: Who was the worst boss you ever had, and why was he the worst?

Here, lightly edited, are some responses. Most did not mention incompetence; they cited man’s inhumanity to man.

Reporter:  “I had a news director who didn’t say hello or acknowledge me in any way when we passed by each other in the hallway. This would happen for months at a time. In all of the years she was in the newsroom, she never complimented me or my work. She had zero people skills, and she was one of the reasons why I retired early.”

**Artist/bus driver: ** “When I was in art school in the ‘70s, I found a job as a school bus driver in a community that had just exploded in population. Want ads were placed and about 60 new drivers were added to the existing 40. Most of the new drivers were young men and women of my age (23-24). It was a great bunch, we all became fast friends and spent many a night partying together after work and joining softball, volleyball and flag football leagues as teammates.

“To rein us all in, they hired a new boss, a fresh-out-of-the-Navy disciplinarian who had no clue how to relate to his employees. He was a squinty eyed bastard, with no joy or good nature. He condescended to us and treated his underlings like misbehaving children.

“My fellow drivers hated him just as much. The culmination came during an election year: He demanded that we all place bumper stickers on our buses promoting a certain candidate that the school board was supporting.

“Thanks to the political savvy of a fellow traveler, we learned that the Hatch Act prevents public employees from actively participating in campaigning on the public’s dime. To cover our asses, in case he made us do it, we called in the media and they had a field day. One day we called a ‘yellow flu’ (for the school bus color) and half the force called in sick. Chaos ensued. He was called in and replaced — not for violating the Hatch Act — for not keeping the school bus crew in line. I loved it. Then I quit.”

(Lesson for bosses: You can break the law, and you can be an a-hole, but you can’t break the law and be an a-hole.) And speaking of breaking the law:

**Retired attorney: ** “When I worked at a carwash at age 16, the boss would make me punch out if there no cars to wash, and then punch in when customers arrived. So I quit.”

(This fellow went on to a distinguished career as a civil rights attorney.)

One of my former bosses:  “Oddly enough, I’ve never really had a bad boss. Some mediocre ones, for sure. I was never a good boss. I count myself among the mediocre ones. I was too lenient on people who needed bossing.”

(Interesting comment from a terrific boss, who treated employees as human beings, rather than checkers to push around. I wish I could have been as good a boss as he was.)

**My favorite boss, and how I became a bad one:  The first newspaper boss I had was the late, lamented Charlie Hand, at a chain of weeklies in Southern California. He was a great old-timer. I shall never forget this little pas de deux on my first day working for Charlie. He dropped a black-and-white horizontal photo on my desk and said: “Write me a cutline for that in 10-point Bookman and give it a 12-point bold italic kicker.”

And I said: “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Me and Charlie got along great. I thought that was how newspaper editors were supposed to act. So when I became a city editor on a daily, I acted like that. I did it every day, until it was no longer an act. And understandably, some o’ the young’uns didn’t like it.

They were right. I was wrong.

You can’t treat people like you’re the hero of a 1930s movie. In black and white.

But I was not wrong to orally wring the necks of reporters who fucked up bigtime. At one daily, I held up Page 1 for a lazy reporter who wandered in past deadline — rather late at night.

“So what have you got?” I said, hunched over my computer.

“Oh! Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing? Nothing happened at the city council meeting?”

“No, nothing happened.”

So to fill the news hole, I dropped a wire story onto Page 1 — which you never should do in a community newspaper.

Come to find out the next morning — from our competitor — that our mayor had punched out a city councilman at that meeting.

I called the mayor and asked if it was true.

He said: “Hell yes, and when he got up I decked him again!”

So …

When our — *ahem — *reporter walked into the newsroom that day, I pointed my right index figure at him, and said quietly: “You! There!” Then led him into what we called “the conference room.”

He never went to that city council meeting. He stayed home, smoking hash.

Yet I was not allowed to fire him, until the publisher said OK. All I could do was tell him to keep out of my sight until the boss came back.

OK, so I was a hard-ass. But some people need a boss like that. I didn’t. That guy did.

Musician:  “Worst boss? Can’t help on this one. I’ve almost always been my own boss. My proofreading job boss back in the ’80s was a nice guy, bass player who I worked with.”