Okay so many people believe their boss is incompetent, or a jerk, or maybe just plain lazy. I just can't decide about my boss. Mainly because he is a pretty decent guy. So he is not a jerk. At least I have that going.

A few quick details about my boss:

*He is Japanese (not Japanese american, full japanese) and he works in an American company. His grasp of english is okay but limited. I know a little japanese but it is not even as good as his english so there can be communication issues.

*he is older than my dad.

*he has personal problems

So I am #2 in command where we work. Okay? He is the manager I am the supervisor and we work in a small clothing sales store. I may or may not go into more detail about where we work and all in a later blog. Let's just focus on my boss for now.

Well, first of all our work ethic is completely different. I arrive 10 minutes early most days, complete my paperwork, make a list of TO DO items and prioritize that and then go through them one by one with all consuming passion. I also actually interact with customers when needed, running the register and doing customer service. He, on the other hand, seems to have no real plan whatsoever and hides in his office most of the day seemingly doing paperwork though I have caught him playing some kind of videogame on occasion or more frequently, napping. He rarely interacts with customers (even though he is REQUIRED to do so by our company policy for managers) and when he does it's the same old lines. But -- the poor guy he may just be uncomfortable dealing with Americans. Then again, if that was the case, why not find a job or position where you could be comfortable and do your best?

Number Two why do I do 80% of the work? Well, I have to tell you I love my job and I love the store and I want to see it clean and well-stocked. Therefore I take on a lot of tasks. In the real world I do this thanklessly. Nobody notices or even knows, except my wife and my employees, that basically the reason the store functions at all is because of me. After I took over as supervisor in May, we had three straight record-breaking months AUG SEPT AND OCT right in a row. We had never had sales so high. I am inclined to think I had a lot to do with it since my boss has been manager for 6 years with many different supervisors under him and never managed to have sales so high.

Number Three : He is incompetent. I cannot tell you HOW many times a customer has had some kind of error with an order or something and HE was behind it. A big part of my job is mediating between my boss's failures and the customers' expectations. One thing I do NOT do (unlike the supervisor before me that I trained under) is LIE. I do NOT lie to the customers. I am honest with them. I say "oh it looks like we (never HE) made a mistake. I will fix this today I am terribly sorry. Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?" Most customers are very understanding and when they aren't, I take a passive-aggressive approach and get my boss out there to talk to them, knowing that they are going to be a little uncomfortable dealing with a manger who is foreign and obviously uncomfortable dealing with them. His explanations are incomprehensible and they usually let it go while I inwardly CACKLE WITH GLEE.

Oh yes and also I've lost track of how many times he has called in late or sick for the whole day. Like the day it was an hour and half past opening and he still wasn't there so I finally broke down and called ( I wasn't too concerned, what do I need him for, I do everything) and said "uhm, are you coming to work?" and I must have woken him up and he said "oh I have not decided yet." I am HOPING that it is again the communication thing that made him choose this strange statement. I said "well why don't you take the day off." And he did.

But the best part is how two things drove the last supervisor to QUIT. Number one was a customer came in to pick up an order that he had placed a few months prior. My boss was like "oh I don't remember that order. I don't know what happened to your order. etc" and the supervisor at the time was incredulous. She said " I just cannot stand this any more". THEN he called her late one night and told her he had overdosed on sleeping pills and would not be in in the morning.

She put in her two weeks notice.

I'm willing to stick it out unless something much better comes along. The hours are good, the pay is good, the stress is low (except for dealing with my boss, and hey, I've got JoeUser to blow off steam with!) and so far there have been no late night phone calls----