Sanity over profitability

It’s not everyday that a nice boss or employer comes along.

There are some bosses who are mean and rude. There are some bosses who takes all the credit for work that was done well but treats you as the scapegoat when shit happens. There are some bosses who cannot be bothered with anything. There are some bosses who shout at you constantly. There are some bosses who work you like a dog. There are some bosses who are selfish. And the list goes on. I am pretty sure that everybody has their fair share of bosses from hell to deal with at least at one point in time in their working lives.

Me? I have encountered bad bosses before. Fortunately, these people who made my life hell at work never stayed long and I was eventually spared from further anguish. This time around in my new job, I am rather lucky to have a good boss.

Why would I say that he is good? After all, I have only been working here for a month plus and it is still too soon to come up with a concrete conclusion. The reason is simple, boys and girls. This is one boss who cherish his staff’s sanity over profitability on any chosen day! Tell me, how often do you come across a boss such as him?!

To cut a long story short, I recently had to managed some really difficult clients. Not only did they asked for discounts, they gave us ad-hoc jobs to do which were out of the agreed scope and expect no extra charges on top of that. The timeline was short and when the materials cannot be delivered in time due to their constant irrational rejections on the mocks that were sent to them, my company had to take the blame and bear the extra costs that were incurred along the way. There were malicious attack and many of us had to stay late for a week and half so that we can complete the work in time. Yet, the client kept asking for changes, despite my checking with them time and again to ensure that everything has been approved before we proceed to the next stage.

All these extra ad hoc work and the numerous changes had made me put some work for other clients on hold. Managing this one account has literally taken up all my time. The phone was ringing off the hooks every 5 minutes and I cannot peacefully instruct my designers to make the necessary changes because every phone call was for me!

The stress from handling this one client, plus a careless mistake that my predecessor made (which I have to managed even though I know shit nuts about the head and tail of the campaign), was slowly taking its toll on me. I started venturing into Fluffland ever so often that the whole office can hear me muttering to myself and going, “La, la, la, la, la“. Come to think of it, I am surprised that not one of my colleagues has given me a weird stare at all.

Towards the end bit of the work for that difficult client, the boss asked my colleague and myself into his room to discuss about this particular project. He informed us that should the same client try to engage us fo some other project in the future, we have no choice but to take away our flexibility – both time and work wise – privilege from this client and impose more processes. We are not trying to be difficult to work with here but the client has clearly taken advantage of us due to our flexibility and does not appreciate us at the same time.

There were a whole lot more that was discussed that day but at the end of the discussion, he told my colleague and I that although he tries to strike the balance of sanity and profitability at all times, when push comes to shove, he will also choose sanity over profitability any time.

That was a huge  relief! It just made me want to work harder for him! LOL.