When bronze turtles can't save you: Surviving small business management

Horror stories about some managers who thought they were gods.

- Iohn Lui

Years ago, I worked in a series of small publishing firms, each more determined than the other to hire good people, along with at least one manager who was a monster. When confronted with reasonable behaviour, normal business practices and common courtesies, these managers, like chimpanzees seeing a rubber snake, react with poo-flinging rage. One man made it a habit to creep into empty conference rooms to steal coffee and cocoa powder from a dispenser, then scurry, mouse-like, back to his office.

As he gathered the team to talk quarterly targets or some such serious issue, our eyes locked on his spoon as it dipped into a styrofoam cup, then came back out loaded with brown dust moving towards a glistening, outstretched tongue that, once cocoa'ed, would snap back into his head. It's hard to focus on one's responsibilities when the person telling you about them eats like a lizard.

In another company, we had a manager who never put aside a budget for new staff computers, despite us working with PCs so old they ran on hopes and dreams. When we hit a sales slump, he saw that there was only one way to save the company: fengshui statues. More money was spent on bronze turtles and water fountains than it would have cost to replace everyone's computer twice over.