What is the worst boss you can have? One who belittles you, embarrasses you, sets you almost impossible tasks, puts you in the path of physical harm for fun, berates you, swears at you and makes you feel useless.
What is the perfect boss? To me it is the one who you learn most from, who makes you up your game, makes you approach every task from the perspective of being a problem that you can solve, if you approach it correctly. One who when they are no longer your boss, you feel that you can rise to any challenge.
Let me tell you about the worst boss I ever had. He was called Micky. I worked for him for a couple of years on and off after I left school. I worked as a painter and decorator for Micky. He was Hungarian. He was a refugee who had come over after the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union. He would entertain us with stories of Russians he'd murdered as they approached Budapest. How they only ran when they ran out of bullets, or their machine gungs became too hot to fire. He told us how, when he arrived ithe UK, he was paid by the UK Secret services to dispose of people. He explained, they would be paid cash and ask no questions. I have no idea if it is true, but he said they employed people like him, as they could claim that it wasn't the UK murdering people. He also got work redecorating places where people had been murdered and a mess had been made. I had no reason to doubt him. His mates would laugh about some situations, which were truly stomach churning. Initially he worked in a restaurant and would hide weapons in the fridge.
When I first worked for him, I was 18 and I finished when I was 20. Micky delighted in humiliating me. Even if it would cost him money, he would set traps, that meant I injured myself. On building sites, he'd get me to do dangerous tasks, with no safety gear and scream at me when I screwed up. If I was painting a window frame too slowly, he'd swear at me and call me "f*****ng Picasso". When I had a haircut for a gig with my band, it was "f*****ng Lochinvar". When I nearly cut my finger off with a Stanley knife it was "Are you a f*****ng girl, but some masking tape on it and get back to work". When I refused to help him nail a pigs head to the door of a local Rabbi's house, who had refused to pay him for work, he sacked me and called me a "Jew Lover". Micky liked the Nazi's, because they had been anti Soviet. He wasn't anti semitic, and worked for most of the Rabbi's in Golders Green, but if you didn't pay Micky, he'd take a terrible revenge. I heard from one of his other guys that after the Pigs head incident, the Rabbi paid and got him to do more work. To Micky, it was simply business and he would do what he needed to to get results. When I worked for him, I hated him most of the time. He would not let me drink tea, insisting I drank Nescafe Gold Blend coffee, as he said the smell of tea made him feel sick. He'd encourage his mates to nick my sandwiches, which only stopped when I put a disgusting filling in one. Another of his mates used to physically bully me. That stopped when he surprised me by punching me in the back of the head. I punched him, knocking him clean out, resulting in him falling down the stairs and being off work for a week. Micky thought it was hilarious and the bullying stopped. There was a French guy who also worked for Micky. I got off lighty compared to him. Micky didn't like the French at all.
But in many ways, Micky was also the best boss I had. All of the belitlling of my work made me up my game and work quickly, which meant I earned more money. All of the setting of traps when assigning work, made me think about what I was doing and take nothing for granted. The bullying taught me to stand up for myself. I learned to always have eyes in the back of my head. The insults made me resiliant. I never lose my temper at work, even when faced with the most obnoxious of behaviour. I came to respect Micky, he'd come with nothing and made a lot of money. But the biggest lesson was in the ten minute tea breaks, where I was forced to drink Gold Blend. Micky would feed us rolls made with Hungarian salami "the best salami, not like that Italian s**t". Micky read the papers every day and listened to the news on the world service. He'd give us a monolgue on the news of the day. It was 1981-83, the cold war was still going on. He predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. He explained that when he took his family to the USA, he realised that the USSR simply could not compete and it was slowly falling to bits. He explained that none of Russia's Warsaw pact allies would fight for them. When they invaded Hungary, the Poles accompanying the Russians were not given bullets, as the Russians feared they'd join with the Hungarians. He emphasised that every time we go to the shops, every choice we make in buying products is supporting someone. He would only buy products that aligned with his world view. He refused to put a penny in the pockets of anyone he felt were not aligned with his views.
When I knocked his mate out, his only comment was "I thought you were a girl" and he used to tease his made that he'd been beaten up by a girl. After I was sacked, he told a mate who worked for him "I had to sack him, he was catching on too fast". Micky didn't want workers who thought for themselves too much. I couldn't understand why he picked fights and sacked good people. I came to realise that it was all about control. Once you started to question him, he felt undermined. If he was undermined, he couldn't keep the jobs running on schedule. Many of his Hungarian mates were alcoholics with severe PTSD and some were clearly psychotic. If he let his guard down for a second, they would cause mayhem.He simply wasn't suited to managing people like me in what we now consider a reasonable manner, but I can honestly say that it gave me nearly all the tools I need to be successful in life.
Years after, I met his son by chance. His son was four years old when Micky died. He had been told stories of how heroic Micky was, how he was perfect in every way. Micky's wife presumably either never saw the side we saw, or didn't pass it on. I told a couple of the more tame anecdotes and realised his son was deeply shocked by them. He hadn't realised what Micky had done to get himself on his feet in the UK, when he arrived as a refugee. He'd just assumed he was a successful immigrant businessman.
It was not a pleasant experience working for Micky, but it was a massive education. The best side of it was that he made me realise that you had to rise to the challenge and think. The abuse and the bullying was unpleasant, but of all things he said, the most important was one sentance "We are all only here to make money, so stop f*****ng around". That is the essence of running a successful business.Micky would say that to staff. To customers he'd say "I only have two rules in business, one is that I do the best job and the second is that you pay me what you are supposed to. If you understand that we will be friends". When it came to business, you wanted to be Micky's friend.
Such jobs no longer exist. I don't suppose many of todays British teenagers would last five minutes with Micky. I am not entirely sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
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This is the first in a series of blogs detailing my experiences working in various industries etc, over the course of my long career. I thought I'd start with the most extreme example
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