What would you do if you really liked your job, but really disliked your Boss?

Can I ask what you do not like about your boss anymore?

Depends on the way in which I disliked my boss, and how often I had to deal with my boss. I might try to see if I could avoid having to deal with my boss in bad ways. But if the boss is bad in ways that are bad and unavoidable enough, I would start looking for a new job, and/or start looking for other ways to improve/fix/replace the boss.

Is your boss simply someone you don’t like, or is he/she creating a work environment that’s untenable? Does this person merely cause you to roll your eyes when he/she walks away, or do you dread going to your job and loathe the hours you spend there?

It’s not possible to like everyone you meet. Each of us has reasons for disliking certain people; sometimes, we can’t even articulate why. You don’t need to be fond of your boss to stay with your employer and do a good job. I’ve had superiors I really couldn’t tolerate; I just kept a professional distance, minimized interactions, and didn’t socialize or fake any friendships.

If this person’s attacking or belittling you, and making it impossible for you to succeed or sustain your job, that’s another matter. In those situations, about all you can do is look for another position, while you’re still employed, and leave. You can’t change your boss, and you can’t count on that person leaving anytime soon.

We had a mantra when I was working:
What is the best way to fuck the boss? Do exactly what they want.
If we liked a boss, we would fix his mistakes, and make him look like a star!

Fortunately you’re not around him 8 hours a day. There must be other opportunities to push a rig over the vast Canadian landscape. You have a job all boys (and plenty of men) dream about.

I work for an organization that advocates for employees (without me saying what type of organization it is, you can guess). It is my job to advocate for them when they have disciplinary issues and other problems with management. Much of what we do is negotiating or just listening to gripes and trying to find a middle ground so there is no disciplinary issue and there are no hard feelings. I’ll tell you what I tell many people: There is no perfect job. There are no perfect employees (I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect, nobody’s perfect). There’s no perfect boss (in other words, even the best boss in the world is not everything to everybody. I’ve had wonderful bosses and yet there would be some things they did that still got on my nerves. What irritated me might not bother another worker, and what didn’t irritate me might irritate another worker).

So only you (You, @SQUEEKY2), can figure out what you can tolerate. Only you know, based on what other jobs are out there and mitigating factors and how annoying your boss is, whether or not it’s something you want to put up with. What I might find annoying about a boss is not what you will find annoying about a boss, and maybe if your job is wonderful in all other ways, you might want to try to tolerate what the boss is doing that’s pissing you off. Try to get past it. Maybe you can’t get past it. Maybe it’s so very irritating you want out of there but then might be on to the next job with a wonderful boss but awful working conditions or bad pay or a pad payroll person or whatever.

Buy the fucker out

Work closing. No boss, no one telling us what to do. Just me and another coworker who get the job done together without anyone to boss us around.

He seems to be becoming more clueless every day as to winter conditions, he tells us safety is paramount , but doesn’t want to pay for winter driving, sticks to the set time, which is fine in good weather NOT so much when it’s bad.
Get tired of putting in an extra 2 to 3 hours a day without being paid, because conditions dictate it.
And having to lie on our log book just to get back so the nightshift can roll.
He says he doesn’t want us lying ,but then we would have to shut down 50 to 80 miles from home for 10hours, and he still wants night shift to go. We ask how if you want us to shut down once houred out?
If we go out in horrible conditions and end up doing damage or getting hurt then we were negligent for being out in those conditions, if we say we are not going to run in these conditions then he freaks about how much we need the load in.
See we can’t win.

If I were you, I wouldn’t lie on books. If he doesn’t like it, let him deal with it.

@jca That’s just it he doesn’t want us to lie, but still expects night shift to go, and how is that possible when we are shut down 50 to 80 miles up the road??

Now that I know the why it helps because initially I was going to say share your feelings with the boss as I am the owner of my company and would want to hear from an employee if there was something I did or was doing that affected their happiness here. I don’t see how talking to the boss about having to do things you and he know is not right while he apparently feels he has to fudge the hours of service in order to keep the trucks on the road. The only real options are reassignment and sounds like that might be the night shift or find a different carrier to drive for and it sounds like you have already thought that option through. Winter won’t last much longer and then this will be behind you for a bunch of months. I would hope that the boss would at the least pay your fine if you were ever ticketed for fudging your hours of service records at his behest.

In the conditions that you have described in the follow-up post, I can hardly improve upon @filmfann‘s response. In fact, that response is so much a part of labor management that the entire body of “how to do that” has a name: Work To Rule.

Do exactly what the contract rules state. Never – ever – violate speeding or other driving regulations or laws. Never lie. Never do a thing that isn’t specified in “the contract”. (This works best for union workers who have a printed, formal contract agreement between the union and the employer, but if your boss is the verbose type who will write things down, then follow his instructions to the letter. And when there is contradiction, confusion or error in the instructions, then stop work immediately, detail the type and manner of the confusion or error in writing, to him, and make sure that everyone else understands what you are doing, and why, and will go along with you, and will also stop and wait for clarification. That last part is sort of key.)

Trucking companies are under constant pressure, and have been a long time. I have heard similar complaints over the years from drivers I know. It is difficult to find a company where you don’t have exactly those same pressures.
Fudging logs, use of stimulants are pitfalls many find themselves resorting to.
You must stick to keeping yourself legal. It will come down to changes having to be made by somebody. If you change anything in a way that has you doing wrong, you are the one who takes the fall.
I imagine your boss is under a lot of pressure to make things work, and the numbers don’t fit, so he is frantic. My heart goes out to him, but you can’t let that cause you to do anything you shouldn’t.
It sounds like you have a real pickle going there. If I were you, I would be checking with other drivers about their work conditions, and see if you can find someplace where the numbers are working well and conditions are more tolerable.

.

As I said he doesn’t want us to lie, but still expects night shift to roll,and how is that possible if the truck is 50 to 80 miles up the road,and legally won’t be in for another 10 to 12 hours?

I’m not clear on what role lying has in this scenario. Are you saying that you feel pressured to drive much longer hours than are deemed safe by your company in order to get paid, and that you have to lie in order to reconcile those hours with the safety regulations? I think that’s what you’re saying, but would rather give you the benefit of the doubt.

I’m sure you realize that no one here is going to find it acceptable for you to not take breaks when your safety rules demand breaks. If that leads to a shorter paycheque for you, then your boss is an asshole, yes, but your options are between taking the shorter paycheque, finding another job – or perhaps forming a union with the other drivers (if you don’t have one already).

Contact The Minister of Transport if you feel really strong about this, but you will probable need to have new career direction afterwards.

It was my understanding from my days with lorry drivers (don’t ask) that they always kept two books – one that jived with safety regs and one for what they really did.

Is your boss middle management? In other words, is he being squeezed from above?

Never compromise your safety, honesty, or integrity for any employer, it will only come back to haunt you. If there is not an escalation point beyond him – either inside or outside the company – and you have no other alternative except to risk your safety or falsify records then you need to get out. He is reading from the rule book so that if ever anything happens he can blame you for breaking the rules. Be safe

No the boss is top, as for lying it is easy this time of year, you just log a lunch break that never happened so you have the time to get back.
Easy to hide but not totally legal, but the boss doesn’t want us doing that ,but still expects night shift to go out.
Legally here we can drive 13hours a day, with one hour for loading, fuelling, pre and post trip for a total of 14hours once at the 14 hour mark we are supposed to be off for 10 hours, and because of highway conditions we seem to hour out legally about 50 to 80 miles from home base, and but putting that fantasy lunch break does give us the time to get back so night shift can go.
@BosM of course he is reading from the rule book by telling us not to lie, but still expects night shift to go, and you are right if anything should happen he can say I told them not to lie type thing.
For winter we get stuck between a rock and a hard place.

@SQUEEKY2 Well, the bottom line for me is always going to be: Don’t break the law.

I don’t want to be on the road with overtired truck drivers any more than the next person does.

What if you told the truth and said you expected to get paid overtime?

@jca I don’t think they csn pay him, he is OVER the hours for driving for a 24 hour period.

Ok gotcha.

My guess is that if he started making trouble or becoming demanding, he’d be out the door.

@jca it’s mainly this time of year, and with highway conditions make it hard to get back in a legal day,and would you really want to shut down for 10 hours and sleep in the truck when in just over an hour you’re home and in your own bed?

@SQUEEKY2 Do you think it would be different working for another company? Are there other jobs available? If the answer to both is yes, then maybe you should start looking.

@janbb Trucking and depending on moving product is a big part of what I deal with in my biz.. Winter just adds a lot of “what if” scenarios companies like mine are very aware of and go out of our way to remind customers that it is anything can happen time when winter is in the mix. @SQUEEKY2 provides a unique perspective from the man behind the wheel where I have to deal with not only the drivers at pick ups and deliveries but his dispatchers as well And I try to play my cards just so to keep me happy with my suppliers and my customers happy with me and getting my products to them as expected.

In a nutshell not only is @SQUEEKY2 and his boss bending the rules for their sake to do their expected jobs…they are under immense pressure from companies like mine to meet ours and our customers expectations and why @SQUEEKY2 and his boss so willingly bend the rules. If they don’t do this you can bet your bottom dollar their competition is.

@Cruiser So, basically there should be no rules about how long a driver should be behind the wheel? Because pressure? That makes me feel really safe.

@dappled_leaves No….what I am poking a stick at is there are all sorts of laws you need to consider when making a statement of fear or safety on the road. 1 in 10 people are depressed in the US and on serious prescription meds yet get full use of our roads no matter what scripts they take. Drivers vision are compromised and yet the DMV is the sole determiner of who’s vision is suitable to drive day and night. Based on my current vision abilities and I get a free pass to drive….I am very afraid. Add in DUI, DWI, texting, screaming kids in the back seat….I feel truckers trying to make their lanes are the least of my worries.

Once again we have a whole other segment of our lives where we have oooodles and oooodles of regulations that are not enforced and somehow someway our lives go on.

@SQUEEKY2
It doesn’t matter what the jerk does. It’s not going to change- the boss or the situation. If you do a superlative job, what usually happens is that you get a larger share of the workload to be done in less time. Some reward, huhn? By contacting a third party, you can, but nothing ever happens quickly, and you have to still maintain at work, with even more scrutiny. There are no gold watches at the end anymore, either.
If you start looking for the kinda of bullets by asking for the ones that “really, really hurt!”, it’s too late.
But how do you feel now? You. Now. Is it enough to keep you going? There are no definites in risk-taking. None. But let’s say the company cuts back, for whatever reason, and you are kept on. Would it be good thing? Or are they taking absolutely all you’ve got left? (Even that you need to keep for your own self, personally.)
Nothing is definite. Starting over sucks. Trust me. But. Wouldn’t it feel nice not to have to spend so much time constantly carrying this issue with you 24/7?
Only you know. Don’t take poison and wait for the boss to die.
Can you talk to others in the business on line, or lunch stops, private carriers who contract, anyone?
You will jump when you need. Will you still be doing this in a year? Five years? Retirement? Will you have an ulcer, heart attack, stroke or life-sentence if you stay?
You are most important. Take care of you.

@Cruiser: If there were no regulations for truckers’ hours, the boss would have them going 36 hours to beat the competition. That’s probably why and how the regulations came about in the first place.

@jca Exactly and I am totally for that, my point is I am not talking about lots of hours, we are falling short about 1 to 1.5 hours in the winter just to get back and having to be a touch dishonest to accomplish this,if it were more I would shut down for the night.