Did ya ever have a Boss

Did ya ever have a Boss who continually touts that he doesn't want nor intend to micromanage, but who then reads every one of your emails incoming and out going, and comes to talk to ya about it all each morning.

reads your e-mails? :wtf:

Often also brings me printouts of coworkers emails as well. Technically subordinates, but we are small enough they are also coworkers. To ask why the are not in the file system yet. I dunno... Cause I had nothing to do with that email, and have never seen it until right this second?

In the mean time, I have to forward him all outgoing mail. Even though he reads it via command of the email system, and has intimated that he used the system to automatically forward him copies of every single item in or out, I still have to manually CC him on everything.

Plus all communication with anyone, no matter how trivial, must be printed out and put in the hard file so that he can go look for them there at any time it strikes his fancy.

think I'd deactivate the spam filters and let him have some more reading/filing material.
He sounds a little unhinged!

He is the owner, and at least on some level, its all his personal property. And official written policy is that its only for company use, so as far as I know there is no legal expectation of privacy.

Its difficult, because he has a lot of good qualities as a boss. He is generous in a field not known for generosity. He has grown the company in ways I would not have expected to be successful since he bought it. He keeps people hired long past a point when I would have let my irritation with mistakes long outweigh my sympathy for their personal situation.

But he has downsides.

I wish there could be a balance.

Then again I don't have a boss either.

I had the chance to buy the company, be the boss. I passed it up, and even now I believe I would do the same again.

I happen to love my job, which is what makes the whole situation so annoying. I could see myself working here doing this for a whole life time, happily. Minus the current weirdness.

I near got fired over a similar situation once.

:scared:

At least its not a secret, its right out in the open. Plus I stopped using company related resources for anything private way back in October, when he suddenly got a bee in his bonnet about another distantly related issue. Anyway, its like he thinks this is normal.

Though he did at one point tell another employee that he did not do this. She was irked to learn he does.

I learned being mad and raising hell about it only stopped it for a li'l while. I guess "they" have the ok to do that.

:(

I do believe he would get his ass kicked.

Years ago I was working for a medium sized law firm on Wall Street in New York City. One day, middle of the afternoon, I walked out of the paralegals' office to go to the library to research something and smelled smoke. Not just smelled it, but realized I could see it in the corridor. I went back to the office and mentioned it to the other legal assistants. With that, one of the firm's equity partners walked in and told us to evacuate. Our supervisor, an older woman with no life except the office, looked up from her work and informed us that anyone who left the office would be disciplined and that the partner in question was a known joker. So, like idiots, we all stayed in our cubicles because all of us needed our jobs. The smoke smell got heavier and so did the visible smoke. One of the legal assistants went out to do something and reported back that there was nobody left in the office. The supervisor just grunted and went back to work.

About 45 minutes after we had been told to leave, a fireman in full turnout gear suddenly appeared in our office. He was as startled to see us as we were to see him. He demanded to know why we were still in the building (a small by NYC standards 25 story one) when the order to clear out had been given. He escorted us to the elevators, took us down in one, then escorted us out to the plaza in front. People were milling about and most were drifting off. I started to leave and the supervisor angrily called me back and demanded that I stay right there, so that "If they let us back in soon we can finish the work day.". One of the fire marshalls heard her, turned around and said that they weren't letting anyone back in the building anytime soon and maybe not even by the next day. You should have seen the look on the supervisor's face - it was one of bleak desperation.

The next day, the fire department told the law firm's management that they had found us in the building. One by one we were called into the managing partner's office and questioned. We all told him that the supervisor had refused to let us go, promising retribution if we did. Next she was called into his office and from what his secretary told us later, reamed a new one. She came back into our office really made - at us naturally. She apparently had tried to make it out that she had been kidding, but for once management didn't buy her story. 6 of us versus 1 of her and all of us telling the same story. After that the firm kept her on a much shorter leash, and she in turn made life as miserable for us as she could. I left about 4 months later for a new job.