Read this business article. There will be questions on the next page.
Complaining about your boss is a time-honored tradition amongst disgruntled employees. But how far are bosses allowed to go before their behavior is considered illegal?
Recently, jobhunter.com asked visitors to its website to write in with stories about bad boss behavior. Amongst the replies they received were the following gems:
Alexandra Newton reported how she once worked for a firm whose chief executive made promotion decisions based not on performance, but on astrological charts. He went through the motions of conducting a performance review for each employee, but secretly consulted a fortune teller before making his final decision. He was found out when he left a copy of an employee’s astrological reading in the printer.
Robert Sunter always knew that his boss was stingy. For years, his raises had been pathetic and he was never given a bonus. He was surprised, therefore, to receive an expensive watch as a farewell present upon leaving the company. However, his wife, a bit more savvy in matters of consumerism, spotted straight away that the watch was a cheap counterfeit - the brand was misspelled as ‘DKNW’.
In another case, a boss ordered each person in the department to contribute $50 for his own birthday present. There were 25 people in the department and he collected enough to buy himself a high-end notebook computer.
It’s fine to laugh at the antics of these bosses, but many employees really do suffer at the hands of their superiors. This can lead to health problems such as nervous breakdowns. It is for this reason that many countries are passing laws making ‘workplace bullying’ illegal.
So if you are being tormented by your boss it may be a good idea to check out what laws are on the books where you live. Even the threat of litigation is often enough to keep a bullying boss at bay.