Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with PHB

Beware. PHB lurking ahead.

Jonsnews — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 10:45:03 -0800

Help me prevent my Pointy Headed Boss from implementing a daily required karaoke session. Theres definatly Ok.. Well my boss has it set in his head that we need to do some daily activity at some point in the day to boost morale. His current idea consists of MAKING everyone in my office sing a song together.
Words cannot express how horrible this sounds to me.
So what can I counter propose as a fun (to everyone, even introverts) activity we can all do for 5-10 minutes a day.
I have been searching google on team building activities, but I think this is more of a attitude adjuster then team building..
I wish I could convince him how much fun a 10 minuite networked game of GTA would be, but alas, I'm the only gamer..

How should one pointy-haired boss deal with his own PHB?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:01:10 -0800

I got dumped with a project where I am out of my depth and area of expertise, and it won't go away. My boss (CEO) assumes that it will take no more than a day to complete, and considers it very high priority. Initially, I agreed with his estimates -- obviously I have PHB tendencies. After all, it looked easy enough!

He constantly assigns me other (higher priority) projects which crowd the monster project out, which have meant that there is never any uninterrupted block of time to allocate to this project.

And, each time I give the monster any time, it becomes more and more clear that it is probably a ten day task for me. Or it might be two. Who knows? Because it's so far outside my comfort zone, I have no idea how to estimate it, and while doing the task, my productivity is extremely low. The result is that other projects have been on time and well executed, but this one is very behind and risks being low quality.

The original plan was to spend $100k on outsourcing this project, and the current approach was an attempt by PHB to reduce it to a quarter of the cost.

Each time he asks, "Will it be done by end of today?" my best faith answer up until now has been, "Most likely". But now it's blindingly obvious this is not so.

It would be job-terminating folly to admit to my boss now that the reality will require ten more days (maybe). Both of us want it off my plate. PHB wants me to complete it despite my unease with the project. Hence, giving it to someone more qualified is also not an option, and would be job-terminating to request.

I'm not defending my performance on this task -- except to say that I was the wrong person to give it to, and shouldn't have accepted it. Except there was no choice in the matter.

What to do, apart from get another job?

What should I do about my PHB?

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:33:52 -0800

My boss is the classic PHB (pointy-haired boss). He knows little about what I do every day and comes up with random and often dumb tasks for us to work on. What should I do? I work at a dot-com as a programmer. There has been a lot of turnover in the management here, thanks to the VCs. My latest boss, the director of engineering, has no clue about how to write code or use any of the tools we the worker bees use on a daily basis, such as CVS. As such, the policies and procedures he puts in place are sometimes strange, misguided or just plain wrong. He is also unable to judge the quality of our work. This leads him to reward the people who write the best looking word documents, as opposed to the people who write the best code. Let me give you an example; Can you view the source of this webpage? If you can, congratulations, my boss couldn't.

My question is, what should I do about this? Should I just do what they tell me? After all, they pay me to do what they say, regardless of how dumb I may think it is. And I do get paid handsomely, even for the silicon valley dot-com industry.

I could also find another job, but in spite of my boss it's kind of nice here. Having a dumb boss also has it's advantages, he has no idea how hard I'm working, or if I just surf metafilter all day. You could say I'm comfortable, but sometimes get frustrated. Also, while the job market is picking up for dot-commies, it's still hard to find a position that would pay me what I'm making now.

I could talk to the CEO, but I don't exactly know what I'd expect him to do. I think these managers were hired by the board of directors, so he can't exactly fire them. Aside from that, it isn't a very nice thing to do. My boss is an OK guy, and I don't wish him harm, but it would be nice if I didn't have to work for him anymore.

Finally, I've thought of getting him a job somewhere else, but I can't figure out how to do this without him knowing that I'm involved. Perhaps I could post a copy of his resume to various job boards and hope someone gives him a better offer?

Any advice on what I should do about my little PHB?