2 STRATEGISE: your options
In the 2011 movie Horrible Bosses, starring Jason Bateman and a raft of other Hollywood actors, three mates share a problem: they work for a boss who is making their life miserable. They feel trapped, because quitting their job doesn't feel like a viable option, so they come up with what they think is a cunning plan to rid themselves of their horrible boss.
Fuelled by alcohol, bad advice from a career criminal and a serious lack of judgement, they devise a complex and harebrained scheme that gets them into a whole heap of trouble. As their plan for revenge unravels, they dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole.
While the story makes for an amusing way to spend an evening, it offers little in the way of good career management advice.
Boss-revenge schemes as a career enhancement strategy never work.
Sure, you may not enjoy the work environment or like working for your boss, but there's nothing to be gained by plotting revenge, cooking up crazy schemes of one-upmanship or sticking pins in a boss voodoo doll every evening. Such plans will come back to bite you, big time, as they did in the movie.
No matter how good it feels thinking about it, retribution won't help your situation. In fact, it's likely that you will be the one to suffer. You may come out looking like the ‘bad employee' with a poor performance record, tarnishing your reputation and damaging your career advancement prospects. Also, people talk — all the time — and you never know ‘who ...
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