Document text
Who�s the worst boss? Mail Tribune photo illustration / Bob Pennell Patti Iverson says she once had a boss that required her to supply a half-dozen donuts every day, in addition to other duties like doing his laundry and organizing his garage sale. In honor of Boss� Day, here are a few candidates for most horrid employer By Mark Freeman Debbie Moshier, of Medford, once had a boss who fired her while she was in the hospital recuperating from emergency surgery. The worst boss Sharon Williams, of Eagle Point, ever had canned her for being four minutes late for work once. But few bad-boss stories could ever cap Patti Iverson�s tenure as the secretary for a Portland Realtor who believed secretarial work more closely resembled indentured servitude. At her boss� request, Iverson did his laundry, waited in long lines to gas up his 1972 Cadillac, bought him six buttermilk donuts a day, even organized and ran his garage sale. "It�s embarrassing, but I spent three years working for him," says Iverson, now 50. "I was young and stupid, and I put up with it because he signed my paycheck." Good or bad � or even horrible � bosses around the country are being recognized today during National Boss Day. While some may believe every day is their boss� day, this annual tradition of honoring good employers with a holiday of their own dates back to 1958, when North Carolina secretary Patricia Haroski registered Oct. 16 as National Boss Day through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Haroski, who worked for an insurance company, wanted the day as a way to show respect for her boss as well as others, and chose Oct. 16 because it was her father�s birthday. The day now generates more than $1 million in greeting-card sales to brown-nosers as well as those who truly like their bosses. But just as it gives good supervisors a day to shine, it has also become a day to remember the bad boys of the employment food chain who make sure their employees know that you-know-what flows downhill. "That�s what made mine the boss from hell," says Williams, recalling the man she worked for at a rock quarry 10 years ago. On her last day when she was four minutes late, the man threw a 15-minute tirade that included smashing the office clock. "I thought, he�s pounding the clock. I wondered when I was next," says Williams, who now works as a bookkeeper. "I asked, when can I get my check." Moshier�s worst moments with her old boss were more somber. After working two years for one Rogue Valley man, she was fired while in the hospital as she was recovering from emergency surgery, Moshier says. "When I asked why, he said, �covering my bases,� " she says. She also rented a house from the boss, who evicted her the week after she left the hospital, Williams says. "I lived in a van that whole summer," she says. "For years, I�ve always wanted to tell the public about my bad boss." There�s no simple answer to why employers and employees often don�t see eye to eye, says Joe Atkin, a Medford therapist who specializes in corporate and workplace issues. Bosses and workers all bring mental baggage to work, which sometimes makes the bosses overbearing or creates situations where employees make the boss a scapegoat, Atkin says. Factor in the military "just do or die" attitude toward following orders that remains prevalent in the workplace hierarchy, and it�s a situation ripe for strife. "It�s all about control, but more specifically, lack of control," Atkin says. "No one likes to be out of control, so there�s always a tug-o-war for control in the workplace." Iverson believes her old, bad boss at the Portland-area realty firm had the market cornered on control. He not only had Iverson do his laundry and gas up his Caddy, she also had to fill the tanks of his friends� cars as well. She baby-sat the man�s child, set up and ran their family�s garage sales and even illegally took sports bets for him � until the FBI questioned her one day. "He would never get away with all that today," Iverson says. Now 25 years later, Iverson still tries to contact her old boss whenever she�s in Portland, and there isn�t a bouquet available to say what Iverson would say on National Boss Day. "I just want to say, hello, I�m a grown woman now. Why did you do all that to me, you macho jerk?" Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.