On Love and Bosses

B and I were talking about bosses the other day. She can’t wait to get out of her office bcoz her boss is lazy and another boss is overbearing. I’ve always believed that laziness, like stupidity, is contagious. And so I’m rooting for her to be able to get da hell out of that office already.

I’ve had my share of bad bosses. There was the boss who made me sit beside him so I could see as he edited my work on his computer. I could have taken it if he was correcting my legal arguments or whatever on our audit findings, but no, he was just making sure I was 100% compliant with Strunk and White. Whaddahell. And he’d be like this even if it was already way past midnight and the last thing you could care about is whether you properly used semicolons. Aaargh.

Then I had the boss who was as notorious for her big, untamed hair as her absolute lack of people skills. During working hours she went to the salon to get a rebond or visited houses she wanted to buy, leaving you alone in the office to slave away – and then she passed off your work as her own. Sheesh. That woman so deserved her Edward Scissorhands hair.

And then there was the boss who was not only kiss-ass, pompous, and over-all grossly incompetent, but who also told me, when I wore my Mango navy jersey dress, that I looked ‘ravishing’. Eeeooowww. This person is The Embodiment of All That Is Horrible In Bosses.

But it’s all ok, coz they're in the past now, and I’ve also had two good bosses who totally make up for all the bad seeds.

There was M who, despite his stature, took the time to mentor me and take me out for long, chatty lunches. He remains one of the most brilliant lawyers I know, so I didn’t mind one bit if I could hardly recognize my draft after he was done revising it – it became just this big blur of red tracked changes (hahaha). He didn’t take it against me that I didn’t go with him to Beijing bcoz I couldn’t bear to leave having heartaches and all.  Best of all, he lawyered for me so I got these perks that made me stay just when I wanted to bolt the office already.

And then there was N, who is entirely in a class of his own. He’s brilliant, hardworking, and all cool and savvy when I least expect him to be. No other boss has ever made me feel so trusted and valued as this guy. He listened to me as if I made sense all the time, and talked to me like we were old, enduring friends. He shared my causes, watched my back, and singlehandedly did everything – everything – to make me stay in the office.

And there lies my one problem with good bosses: it is so, so hard to leave them.