Tell me about the best boss you've ever had. Have had one that really inspired you? One that taught you a lot? One that gave you that job that started you in a years long career you loved?
Tell us about them here!
Posted Apr 11, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC
My best boss is my current one. I'm a senior-level web developer and team lead, which means I have the skills and experience to manage myself. He allows and encourages this, taking more of a buffer role to protect our team from the vagaries of other department's requests. He's gone to bat for the engineering team and for me in particular many times.
He knows your username, doesn't he?
That’s a tough one to answer. My current boss is really good to me. He is kind and understanding. He helps when I need it. He is now giving me opportunity that I didn’t have before. But I also feel like the job is meh.
An old boss of mine that I’m in contact with to this day is very friendly, outgoing, occasionally inappropriate but nothing I can’t handle. He’s just full of life. He’s an inspiration and has taught me a lot. In the beginning he stressed me like crazy. But we developed a natural relationship that I am glad to have.
It’s the bosses that give me freedom to do as I need without micromanaging. It’s also the ones who push me outside my comfort zone that I appreciate.
My first and only boss. I started working for him while I was a teenager and learned not just how to be a professional photographer, but how it is to be one in the real world, where your ability determines whether or not you earn enough to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. He was actually quite ruthless in that respect.
Having said that, I'm just as grateful for what he taught me about making the most of myself and growing and living as an adult. Of course, like all of us he wasn't perfect, but I like to think that I was also able to learn from his mistakes!
I had a great boss at the job I was at the longest, mostly because of her.
She let me do my job, had my back when another team began wasting our time and I didn't have the skills to not say "can you fuck off" so she diplomicied for me.
She let me excel. Not the spreadsheet... she didnt try to leash me because politics or 'it made others look bad'.. she let me learn everything, solve everything, take on massive projects alone so I could efficient the shit out of it myself.
I had one that was very much a mentor and a strong influence on me. I have known him since about age 10, he got me into my profession and taught me an incredible amount. I can say he's one of the few people that I miss working with every day.
I was 18, moved to the other side of the country, had a POS car, was fairly dysfunctional. The boss got my car up to scratch so I was mobile, welcomed me into a fairly closed workplace, and took an interest in getting me up to speed. Top bloke.
My best boss has to be my Jewish Momma. I took a job working for her when I was 26 - she was a 5 foot dynamo who had climbed as high as she wanted to, so she saw her job to encourage her team and support their growth. If I called in sick, she'd have homemade chicken liver soup waiting for me the next day. She always got me cupcakes on my birthday and brought me fresh flowers from her garden. If I struggled with a thorny work problem, she'd take all the time out needed to help me work through it. She would tell me directly, and privately what I was doing well, and when I was missing the mark. But even then, her words were kind and constructive. I'd been terrified by job reviews until I met her, as they were excuses for my previous bosses to vent, not provide help. She always, always managed to find the silver lining, and as such I flourished working for her.
When I transferred out of that job into another one at the company and I was notified I was a layoff risk, she was the one I contacted for a reference not my then current boss. She also sat with me for an hour in the cafeteria and calmed me down when I cried about my fears of being laid off.
She firmly believed that strong women support others, not tear them down. I've not forgotten that example and try to now lead the same way.