Bad Boss of the Week: Arrested Development’s Gob Bluth

Gob (pronounced “Job”) Bluth’s colossal incompetence and complete lack of qualification and experience make him this week’s Movin’ On Up Bad Boss of the Week. Gob is a deficient magician who is briefly appointed – by his mother – to be president of the family business, The Bluth Company, on the sitcom Arrested Development.

Hopefully, you’ve never had a boss so incompetent, inept, and unfocused that they’ve managed to make their office into a pool room, turn their desk into a massage table, and cost the company $45,000 in damages – all within their first three hours on the job. But, if you’ve ever had a boss who left you wondering what dark magic they used to get where they are, here are five tips to help you manage the situation and successfully work with a truly bad boss. 

1. Manage up
2. Don’t undermine their authority
3. Support the strengths they have
4. Focus on doing your best job
5. Take responsibility for the things you can

Have you worked with an incompetent boss like Gob? How did you work through the situation?

Share your bad boss stories at www.worstbosses.com. For more information about 100 Worst Bosses – Learning from the Very Worst How to Be Your Very Best and the Movin’ on Up Bad Boss of the Week, click here.

Comments

[Heather]

I work for a Credit Union in the Recovery Dept. One of the bosses I have picks her favorite person for the week (it seems) and let them get by with anything, such as getting to work late, taking long lunches, and leaving early. The list goes on. At any given time she can change her feelings for this person and talk horrible about them behind their back. She is rarely at work on Monday's and Friday's and it seems that her children are sick atleast once a week. However, if you have a sick child or just need a couple of hours to take them to a doctor's appt then you are a bad employee. I work in an office of about 20 people and all the comments are as I have just written. Funny thing is, we have been told that we CAN NOT go to H.R. about our complaints. Amazing!!

[Kelly Curry]

I had a boss that although he taught me allot about construction and management was imposable to work with. He liked to do allot of yelling and was never wrong. There were many times when he asked me to get a job done and later when his instructions proved to be wrong would go back and say that he never told me to do it that way. I eventually had to carry a pocket recorder so I could go back and prove to him that those were his exact directions.

[James Thompson]

Bad bosses usually are mean and trie to test u on all sorts of levels. When a bad boss tests your patients it somtimes is to see how strong willed and dedicated you are for the job. Bad bosses on the other hand jus dont care about any of that dealing with one of theses bosses its best to think if, theres anything else out there but now days there isnt much so if you need to keep the job your at just bite your tongue let him or her be the way they are an tell yourself i need this job i need this job!

[Jon]

I had an entire upper management level that was all bad bosses, of course it was a family run business so they were all in the family.

This company was disorganized and people were made to fear for their jobs. Management was paranoid that everyone, including their employees, was out to get them.
It was impossible to complete a project because multiple 'bosses' would constantly shift priorities, every job was the most important job and all resources must be shifted to the most important job. This shifting would happen on a daily, sometimes multiple times a day, basis. Nevertheless deadlines would be set and heads would roll if they were not beat.

Raises were given only if more responsibility was taken, yet routinely more and more responsibility was expected without any offer of further compensation.
A typical review would go like this 'You have been doing a good job and working extra hard, so we are going to give you a raise in recognition of that, but in order to earn the extra pay we expect you to take on more responsibility.' That's not a raise based upon hard work and merit, it's a raise in return for more work.

Workers that fear for their jobs don't work hard for you, they do the minimum required to keep from getting fired. Make your employees happy and they will make you happy in return.