While we may not have an everyday definition of a Good Boss, Everyday provides us with numerous examples of bad ones, and I am just about to relate to you, the reader, of my very interestingly insufficient boss.

Not too long ago I was placed under the charge of some department head to work on a project, one many would be familiar with – NDP. As this boss of mine, (let’s just call him “Mouse”), sincerely believed that a person’s age and experience with the organisation is directly proportional to one’s intellect, he conveniently placed me in a position to do the menial jobs like gathering data, (he calls it “leg work”, no actually the exact description of my job went like that: “Because myself and my deputy would be busy with the planning of the event, I wouldn’t have time to take care of the gathering of minor details, therefore I would require you and your team to do all the “leg work” for me”).

Now dear Mouse, please note that you have just made the first fatal mistake in Human Resource Management – ruling out the possibility of another’s intellectual contributions and presenting a task in the most demeaning manner possible. Of course, perhaps our dear Mouse friend did mean to have it this way, for it probably boosted his ego somewhat to make him feel that he was still all important and elite (the truth is people of the same age as himself have already progressed way ahead within the same organisation).

Of course, Mr Mouse did not stop his ego-blaring then, and other comments made, which were even more ridiculous, included the following:

Situation 1 –

Mr Mouse: “Jerome, could you tell me what kind of career advancement are you actually looking towards?”

Me: “Sir, I would be considerably interested in the human resource career track, I think it is both fun and challenging to deal with the tangibles and intangibles of people matters.”

Mr Mouse: “Ha! What do you know about Human Resource? It’s not as easy as you think!”

I kept quite… oh come on you ego-smitten son-of-a-bitch! YOU asked me a question, I answered accordingly, and you slam me for that???

Situation 2 –

Mr Mouse requested I help with some design work for the NDP project. I consented and he proceeded to introduce me to the people in charge of the text for the magazine.

His introduction of me went like that: “This is Jerome. He is a little artistic. See what he may do for you.”

Hey you piece of shit, what’s with the “little”? Alright I know you have a flare for caricature, but that doesn’t seem to empower you with the right to label me this way, and mind you, I know my own standards well enough. I was once on Art Scholarship, and have done adequate freelance designing to allow me to charge a minimum of 6k per job. I have been sufficiently exposed to corporate design jobs for product covers, magazines and advertisement posters, and while that’s not a lot, I think that does not equate me to being only a “little artistic”.


The most recent incident, I would say, gave me the largest satisfaction. After “Situation 2”, I proceeded to work on the design of the Media Release Kit. Along the way Mr Mouse had to pop in to my office to continue to slam my design. I fondly remember the last statement he gave me the evening before the day of design selection by the Big Boss “Eh I tell you, your design is too colourful! Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, but you mighty have to be disappointed tomorrow. Your background is so colourful it will definitely outshine the important text we are supposed to inject.”

I shut up and gave him the opportunity to fly his head like a kite (Yeah it’s so light it could fly, cos there’s probably nothing in it anyways). But at the back of my head, I was smirking: “I’ll show you the pinnacle of design standards tomorrow :)”.

I worked till 3am in the morning to complete the full design with injection of text and pictures, and here’s how the presentation went.

Mr Mouse to Big Boss: “Sir, this is a design produced by XXX company”

Note: As Mr Mouse was frantically slamming my design; he was extremely supportive of the design of an external company he engaged some time ago to work on the same piece of work. Wonder if he had some arrangement to scoop a part of the profit if the company got the job contract?

Big Boss (commenting on 1st design from that company): “why can’t they come up with a different design? It looks the same every year.”

Mr Mouse (enthusiastically): “What about this design, they feature stars!”

Big Boss: “It’s worse! It looks like I-Weekly!”

Mr Mouse let’s out a squeal of disappointment and curls into a ball…

MY TURN!

I proceeded to explain the rationale and significance behind my design, as well as the graphic, political and social considerations.

Big Boss: “This is a very nice design, and it brings out the feel of the event with a common theme, we’ll take this design.”


Hahaha, victory, you goddamn bigot who knows nothing about design. I think Mr Mouse had to find a paper bag to hide his head :)