Bosses can be like abusive parents

In her excellent book The Stone Age Company, Sally Bibb makes a point that hits home to anyone who's had a terrible boss. She says, "It is like living with an abusive parent or husband; there are periods of calm where they are happy and not picking on you, but you always know that at some point it will start again. The price of putting up with it is high, and it is constant."

Sally makes the other point that HR is of no help either: "It is a commonly held fallacy that if you have a problem with your boss you can go to HR and they can help. Most focus on policy and policing, and the majority haven’t got the courage to stand up to badly behaved bosses."

This echoes what I read somewhere: That HR is designed to protect your boss from people like you!

More on Sally's book later.

(email me your comments at cvdhruve@gmail.com)