Wednesday, October 04, 2006

"On a Scale from One to Ten," How Crazy is Your Boss?

Let me start by saying that I really like my boss a lot. I respect him and he does a good job and things could be a lot worse. There's just one thing that makes him a bit crazy.

My boss loves the "One to Ten" scale. I admit that the scale can be quite useful for a variety of circumstances, but my boss takes it to a whole new level. He uses the scale for every situation and seemingly in every aspect of his life. It's as if his mind doesn't know how to process information, unless it's processed through a scale from "One to Ten." For example:

Boss: "How useful do you think that content would be for our 24 hour live training course?"
Me: "Oh, I don't know. I could probably squeeze a few hours out."
Boss: "So on a scale from one to ten, how useful is the content?"
Me: "Uh, five?"


He also loves to set parameters for his scales. Now, this can also be quite useful. "On a scale from one to ten, one being the lowest and ten being the highest, how good was 'Snakes on a Plane'?" Once again, my boss goes further (the following discussion took place in our interview):

Boss: "So, why are you looking for a new job?"
Me: "Well, I feel overused and underpaid and I'm tired of being lied to. And my boss is crazy."
Boss: "So on a scale from one to ten, one being that you absolutely hate your current job, ten being that you love it, three being that you don't like it but want a new job, and seven being that you really like it but want a new job anyways, how would you rate your current job?"
Me: "Uh, what does two mean?"


Another example (when deciding whether or not to go with a particular service):

IT Director: "I'm kind of leaning toward a yes for this one."
Boss: "Okay. But on a scale from one to ten, one being a 'no,' ten being a 'yes,' and five being 'I'm leaning toward yes,' what would you give it?"
IT Director: "Wouldn't your definition of 'five' actually be a 'six'?"
Boss: "You're fired."


So, in honor of my boss I am posing the following question: On a scale from one to ten, ten being "I think my boss is an absolute nut and should be admitted as such and be fired," seven being "I think my boss is crazy and should be fired," five being "My boss probably isn't crazy and should be fired," three being "I amazingly have a sane boss who should be fired," and one being "I am the boss," How Crazy is Your Boss?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My boss gets a six. That means he's a racist chauvinist bigot who needs to be fired. Luckily, I am the same sex and race, so it's a six instead of ten.