Your post made me reflect on my career, looking for examples... I realized I've never really had a boss or colleague from hell...

I did have a board chairman, once, who had a PA who's only job seemed to be to hand him one of five or six mobile phones. He would answer, say "talk to _______" and send the phone skidding down the table. Sometimes phones would collide and you'd get the wrong phone, but that didn't seem to matter. It was very disconcerting.

But he and his PA were good people, so I am not sure how I can work them into the book.

For various reasons, I'll stay out of this one.

Except to say, think ego without results, pride without accountability.

Yes, that's a good one, Allan, but at our horrible company we can't afford that much whimsy; it might make people happy, causing them to behave better toward one another and causing a chain reaction that would undercut the hideous culture we're working so hard to create.

I just thought of another possible hire: An employee communication manager I once worked with as a consultant. As I was commissioned to do, I wrote a critique of her employee publication, which was one of the worst I'd ever seen. And she screamed at me in front of her colleagues and mine because the report was too candid. (Even though I had bled through my fingertips for days to make it as diplomatic as it was possible to make it and still deliver an honest message.)

She was cruel and she was wrong and she deserved to be slapped in the face, but I could say nothing because there was too much money on the line.

I thought I'd held up well until I got out into the windy parking lot and realized that tears were streaming out of my eyes.

Does anybody have a better candidate for employee communication manager, or should we hire this woman for our worst-class company?

Don't know where you want to stick these, but I have three candidates from over the years:

1. A colleague who later ascended to VP Marketing after I left from a very well-known online information company who was found of saying, "I'm the perfect person to be in marketing...I don't have a clue how our service works, so I'm just like our customers!"

2. Our boss at the aforementioned online company who was the reincarnate of Dilbert's Pointy Haired boss and who bestowed favors based on the marketing events he was invited to and how much fun they were. Another colleague, a blond bombshell, won since she was able to offer both political conventions, "Camp O.J."s Trial of the Century," MTV recording sessions and cast parties to name a few.

3. The CEO of an early stage internet company who was adament that the most important aspect of marketing was execution and not strategy and/or research and who claimed the epitome of was the "Wonder Bra."

I personally know a HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER who, instead of sending routine emails to all 11 of her employees, sends them to an office assistant and requests that SHE forward them to the remaining 10 because "that's her job."

A huge corporation in town promoted the HEAD OF LEGAL to VP of Communications. There were several stellar candidates, but this woman got it because she was the favorite of another VP and because she had taught English for a year or two in the distant past.

Now we're cookin' with gas!

So far we're focused on corporate staff positions, which is good. We need serious dead weight there, and keep it coming.

But what about frontline people? Perhaps we should bring in the McDonald's employee I heard the other day telling a customer his meal was ready by saying only, "Nuh Fi."

"What?"

"Nuh Fi."

"What?"

"NUMBER! FIVE!"

Dear Heaven! Where to even begin?! I'll just pick two, though I could go on this one for DAYS!!

1) Boss for the Company from Hell - Jane: I'll see your putting the Legal VP in charge of Comm's and raise you putting a Director of IT in charge of it. The woman couldn't speak to a a meeting of her own (three) direct reports without stuttering, she couldn't imagine why I would ever possibly be sitting quietly at my desk for any period of time (because gee, when I need to write a complex, sensitive and likely to be received negatively message to our 600 call centre employees I don't need to THINK or anything!) or out on the floor TALKING to the employees I was responsible to communicate to, and yet she though she was qualified to edit my copy (I swear to god she once put irregardless into a message - I never said a word - just removed it replaced it with regardless and moved on). (Rebecca - if you are reading this - it does NOT apply to you!)

2) Employee from Hell - This is a composite but I know everyone will recognize him/her. This employee has been with the company since "god was in short pants" (that's a quote - I wouldn't make that up on my own), has never changed jobs, applied for a promotion, or even considered taking on any additional responsibility that would in any way assist in the success of the company. However this person feels more than qualified to tell you why all the messages you create and share are "a bunch of crap management wants to shove down our throats so we'll keep making money for them, heh, heh, heh!" and how he "can't understand how they will pay you to just write down what they say - anybody could do that, couldn't they?" Not only does this person not read anything that goes out to employees, but also makes it his or her business to tell everyone they meet in the hallways, the smoking area, etc, how much crap that stuff management is saying is, and that nobody should believe a word of it.

I know of an senior executive--not sure where to place this person in the corporate hierarchy, but since we're going for incompetence, anywhere will do--who asks the employee communicator at staff meetings to "tell me what you're hearing from employees," then responds to anything negative with, "Well, then they can go across town and find a job somewhere else if they don't like it."

David, you should have named this post "Shooting Fish In A Barrel." It's too easy!

Yes, Jane, but our standards are very low. Not all the people named here will be hired, for some of them are too narrow in their incompetence. We need REAL FUCK-UPS here if this company is truly going to grumble to a halt.

We've seen how many companies go on for years based on their size and despite low-grade incompetence, complacence and an outdated business model. (There are still Kmarts out there and United Airlines is still flying.)

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! THIS COMPANY MUST TRULY BE BUILT TO COLLAPSE!!!!!!!!!!

I disagree. In my experience, a company truly built to collapse must have both generalist and specialist fuck-ups. The specialists work in the lower echelons and are the real hands-on folks, superb at what they do. They're supported by the generalist fuck-ups in management. If if one or the other of these pieces isn't in place, there's a good chance that the business will survive.

I'm overwhelmed by the rigor of this discussion.

>>(There are still Kmarts out there and United Airlines is still flying.)

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! THIS COMPANY MUST TRULY BE BUILT TO COLLAPSE!!!!!!!!!!<<

A bit of an aside, but it warms my heart to know that there are others who recognize the incompetency of UAL. It's noting short of malfeasance that it is still operating, not that I haven't tried my damndest to bring it to it's knees by diverting and estimated $150,000 of fees to its competitors over the years.

(Sigh), there's only so much one can do.

Its competitors ... like American Airlines or Delta? My experience tells me they're just as bad. Only foreign carriers and Southwest still offer an outside chance of anything but a gate-changing, tarmac-squatting, connection-missing, equipment-failing, line-standing, customer-service-worker-sneering disaster.

It makes me sad; UAL used to be a brilliant airline that others went to to learn about safety. My aunt and I would fly no other, and always had great service and flights. What happened?

How about a CEO who gives internal communications (intended for employees only) to industry reporters when they come to call?

How about IT executives who appear to recognize the importance of the comm department and ask for assistance in writing a message announcing a fairly major organizational change - but provide NO information, including the nature of the change or the reason for it?

How about HR reps who send the comm team a poorly crafted message announcing a major organizational change and say that it needs to go out in an hour, rather than providing the message in advance so that it can be edited properly, approved by the proper people (including the person the message is from), etc.?

Let's hire 'em!

How about a consultant who called in a coworker she had met only two weeks before and who was to report to her, and to whom she had never yet spoken more than, "Hello" who began the initial conversation with, "I don't like you. I don't like you but I have to work with you. Bleh."

Ah, a consultant! No Company Built to Collapse could be complete without an arrogant consultant. Robert Holland, you need not apply.

Andrea, you touched way too briefly on a serious problem: "How about a CEO who gives internal communications (intended for employees only) to industry reporters when they come to call?"

Probably the most demoralizing event in any employee's life would be to hear about layoffs in his or her plant on the 6 o'clock news or read it in the morning newspaper. I think Andrea's post should be a wake-up call for all communicators to educate their executives on this matter.

First of all, the media trend on something like that would be to sensationalize it: "How many workers at XYZ factory will end up on the unemployment rolls? Find out at 11." And, although I hate to generalize, the media often get their facts wrong or skewed. Straight scoop straight from the horse's ass (oops -- I mean mouth) is always the right way to go.

Will

Will - I agree that's definitely a huge issue. Being in the metro Detroit area, I see this kind of thing happen with the auto industry and it makes me cringe every time.

My company is actually extremely good at delivering important company messages - layoff messages delivered directly to affected employees by their managers, to non-affected employees by the managers as soon as all affected employees know; in the case of messages that must be announced publicly first - a carefully prepared news release followed within the hour by equally carefully prepared messages to employees delivered in the most appropriate manner for the particular message. I'm actually quite proud of how we handle imporatant messages like layoffs, reorganizations, new CEO announcements, etc.

So maybe the CEO I suggested we hire for our "Built to Collapse" company isn't right for us after all. Sure, he'll give the company newsletters to every newspaper or industry magazine that comes calling, but when it comes down to the really big news, he won't spill the beans.

That said, *I* actually found out I was laid off from my job via the internet six years ago. The company had prepared the usual carefully-drafted plan, and all went well until 6 a.m. the day of the announcement, when the New York Times saw our CEO and the CEO of our arch-enemy at the same hotel and put two and two together. Media stories ensued. Now, the employee communication part of the plan was set to begin at 8 a.m., so the vast majority of employees heard it first at work anyway. My problem? I was three days into maternity leave. When I heard the news (a friend e-mailed me with "I just heard that ABC is buying your company" - not quite true, but I quickly found the correct story on the internet), my VP had apparently been trying to reach me all day - but I'd been in the hospital trying to give birth to a stubborn baby who didn't want to be born yet. Needless to say, it was a shocking message received in an entirely inappropriate way.

Oh, and for our "worker bees," we need lots of un-engaged employees who are there simply for the paycheck. We need to ensure that they aren't paid well and don't get good benefits. No open door policies or anything silly like that. We'll tell them only what they are required to do - they don't need to know how their job contributes to the success of the company. They really don't even need to know anything about the company's goals or strategy. Just do what we say.

The resulting turnover rate should help us collapse in no time.

Andrea--

I'm troubled by your implication that we have goals or strategy.

David