Unknown Editor

July 2003

King George was in love with himself and look where it got him!

Seven Signs Your Boss is in Love with Himself

First of all, why is this study important? Because when a boss is in a love affair with himself, he sure as heck doesn't have any leftover love to spread around to those below him. He might appear to be in love with people above himself, but that is merely a symptom of self-love, since it's clear that he wants to be promoted out of the pain and suffering of engineering.

Second, the characteristicss described below are not attributed to one person living or dead. They are merely a compilation of traits of a-holes that have crossed my path over the past twenty-odd years.

1. Not only does he pay $29.99 to have his bio listed in "Who's who in America", but he pays the extra $35 to purchase this five pound boat anchor.

2. He is constantly reading books like "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. Or taking courses in management training. Even though he is a section head so in theory is only one molecule up the food chain from a shlub like you.

3. He dresses way better than everyone else. In a company where the casual dress policy is taken as Levis and golf shirts, your boss wears starched shirts, wing tips and the latest Joseph Abboud homo necktie. In other companies, he may be wearing $500 alligator skin cowboy boots.

3. He has pictures of himself in his office. This doesn't include family pictures with him in the middle, we're talking "me at the marathon finish line" pix.

5. He frames and hangs every two-bit award he ever received. Like awards for "completing four hours of purchasing training" which are awarded to "recipient" and signed in a nice Helvetica font by the human resource co-op student.

6. He spends way to much time and effort on his hair, or lack thereof. Is a toupee a warning sign? Yes. Blow-dried hair? Yes. A perm? But of course. Unless you are working in California, where none of these traits would gather attention.

7. Manicured nails. Nuff said. What a dork.

8. Did we say seven signs? Hell, it is hard to stop writing on this topic, let's throw in a few freebies. Your boss opens meetings by discussing his new Corvette. Or his third wife's new boobs. Look around when this occurs. Note your co-workers that participate in this line of crap. Fear them.

9. Speaking of meetings, he does weekly status reviews that are mandatory in attendance, but every attendee is working on a completely unrelated task. So for seven eights of an hour you have to remain bored out of your skull hearing about the material properties of radomes, when your task is to develop a new VCO. Obviously everyone's time would be better spent if the old man had eight separate conversations with his workers, casually during the week, but that can't stroke an inflated ego like a status meeting.

10. He name drops, all the time. Conversations like "I was golfing with (insert name of VP here) and we started talking about (insert name of CEO here)..." Notice he never drops your name.

Does your boss exhibit even half of these traits? Look out. What are you gonna do with a boss like that if you have nowhere to go? Start practicing now for the next Christmas party... "this lovely young lady can't be your wife, it must be your daughter!"

Do you have a warning sign that your boss is in love with himself? Send it in and you will receive a free gift!!!

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