Table of Contents
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy
To be super successful, read 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy. You will understand how to do the things that will drive your boss to promote you, give you a raise, have your future earning power expanded, and have a better life and future for yourself and your company by creating massive value for everyone.
Mark Victor Hansen, cocreator, #1 New York Times bestselling series Chicken Soup for the Soul, and coauthor, Cracking the Millionaire Code and The One Minute Millionaire
Reading this book might just triple your chances of being promoted.
Tom Rath, bestselling author of How Full Is Your Bucket? and Vital Friends
45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy is like an armchair coach in a book. Anita Bruzzese not only identifies where our blind spots may be, but she also provides us with clear strategies for addressing them. A must-read for everyone!
Judith E. Glaser, CEO, Benchmark Communications, Inc., and author of Creating We and The DNA of Leadership
Anita Bruzzese presents her readers with rare gifts: the tools and the coaching to take control of their own careers. Employees will prosper and bosses will smile wherever 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy is required reading.
Mark Wiskup, author of Presentation S.O.S.
Peter Drucker once told me that half the leaders he met did not need to learn what to dothey needed to learn what to stop doing. This is a wonderful what to stop doing guide. Practical, useful, and fun, it provides great coaching for employees of all levels.
Marshall Goldsmith, top executive coach and author of What Got You Here Wont Get You There
Acknowledgments
I once had a boss who told me publishing is often like giving birth. After having two children, I can tell you that giving birth is easier.
Writing is something that comes naturally to me, and something I love to do. But putting a book together takes a village, and I would not have been able to do it without the supportboth professional and personalof many people. First, my thanks to my friend and colleague Joanne Gordon, who encouraged me from the beginning and brainstormed and proofread early drafts. She not only gave me confidence to write this book, but offered lots of good advice and ideas. Second, I want to thank my agent, Stephanie Kip Rostan, who I affectionately call my master sergeant in book boot camp. She got me in fighting shape, always with encouragement and a little tough love thrown in. Third, my editor at Perigee, Marian Lizzi, who got the book from the beginning, and whose steady hand made this book even better. Fourth, my editor at Gannett News Service, Craig Schwed, who has always believed in my column and encouraged and supported my efforts.
Finally, I must thank the man who always makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. My husband, Len Bruzzese, who never loses faith in me and what I can do no matter how nuts I get. This book is dedicated to him and, of course, my boys, Nicholas and Ethan. Both make me proud every day.
This book would not exist if not for the hundreds of readers of my column who have shared their stories with me over the years, and an equal number of professionals who have shared their insight and wisdom. All of you have my respect and thanks.
Introduction
L ets get this straight right off the bat: Bosses do not hire you to fire you.
It costs money to recruit and train someone, from the lowest position at a company to the top brass. It takes time and energy away from current employees every time someone has to show a new worker where the bathroom is or how to use the computer system.
So, it makes sense that your boss hires you to keep you. But after nearly twenty years of covering the workplace as a journalist, I think we have a problem.
Based on hundreds of letters I have received through my syndicated workplace column for Gannett News Service and USAToday .com, and hundreds of interviews I have done with company managers and career experts, something is seriously wrong here, folks.
The reason I say that is because Im always getting letters from employees who are bewilderedhurtthat things have gone wrong or are going wrong in their careers. They dont understand it, they tell me. Why are they not successful at work? Why did the boss give them a poor performance evaluation? Why did they get passed over for the promotion or the raise?
The answer is usually the same: Because they didnt do what the boss wanted them to. (Duh.) And this, I have found, seems to confound many people. (Double duh.)
Let me be clear here: A boss expects you to be the best and the brightest you can be. That means you cant cut corners, or try to get by, or whine about what you deserve. Bosses give you a paycheck and they expect certain thingsmany of which they do not believe they should have to tell you. That doesnt mean you wont get the training you need for certain tasks, but it does mean that youve got to stop making some pretty dumb workplace blunders.
Its sort of like the robin that came to my house last spring. Not unusual, of course. But this robin had a problem. He continually flew himselffull tiltinto my window.
This was alarming at first. I worried the poor bird would at least break a wing, and at worst kill himself. I wanted to help but didnt know what to do.
So I watched helplessly as the bird flew over and over into my window. It happened about every ten minutes for a couple of hours. He would sit in a nearby tree, fly into the window, then return to the tree.
Unfortunately, not only was this disturbing to watch such a misguided bird, but it seemed the impact would literally jar the poop out of him. My window was covered with bird droppings and the bird showed no sign of stopping.
But finally, it did stop. He simply flew away, leaving me no wiser as to his reasoning.
The next morning at daybreak, I was awakened by a thumping noise. Every few minutes it sounded as if something would hit the side of the house, then stop. After lying there bleary-eyed for about ten minutes, I got a sneaking suspicion of what it might be.
The robin was back, and this time, he stayed. After a couple of weeks, after placing netting over the windows to try to keep him away, I was nearly crazed with that stupid bird. He was no longer a beautiful harbinger of spring but a nasty piece of ruffled feathers who was covering all my windows with poop, driving me from bed in the early hours and just driving me mad the rest of the time.
Finally, for no reason that I know of, he left for good. I dont know if the other robins did a kind of robin intervention to correct his self-destructive tendencies or he simply tired of the window assault and left.
Just like that bird, people in the workplace do things that make no sense and end up hurting themselves and driving those around them whacko. You may or may not be as stubborn as this bird, but Ill bet you have some bad habits that could be cleaned up.
My Milk Crate Overflows
Ive covered the workplace from all its angles and bends. After all, Im an employee myself. I work for a living and have since I was fifteen. Ive even been an employer, subcontracting out work for various projects. As a business journalist, Ive interviewed hundreds of top managers and workplace experts. Ive heard from readers of my syndicated newspaper column on workplace issues over the years who ask me everything from how they can get along better with coworkers to what color they should paint the spare bedroom in their house.
