What To Do When Your Boss Is An Idiot

Everyone who’s ever had a boss has experienced frustration, but most of the time managers earn their position based on intelligence. And sometimes the disgruntled employees are right — some bosses can be truly incompetent. There are as many types of bad bosses are there are bad people, but here are some common types, and the best ways to deal with having to work for them.

The Corporate Bully   

Characteristics: Rude and drunk with power, corporate bullies will go out of their way to humiliate you in front of clients, colleagues and, of course, their own superiors. Their management strategy consists of making condescending remarks during performance reviews and threatening to fire you every time there’s a problem, whether or not you’re at fault.

How to handle this incompetent boss: Dealing with incompetent bosses like the corporate bully can be challenging. The trick is to fly under your supervisor’s radar while drawing attention from the higher ups. Always stand up for yourself, but be subtle about it — a disapproving look can go a long way — and find a mentor who can expose you to new opportunities as well as shield you from your manager’s temper tantrums.

The Micromanager   

Characteristics: Everyone is familiar with the saying: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Micromanagers live by it, nitpicking every aspect of your work, including the number of seconds by which you deviated from your scheduled break. Granted, they provide great support if you don’t mind having someone constantly checking on your progress, but if you value your independence, you’re in trouble.

How to handle this incompetent boss: When dealing with incompetent bosses of the sort, it’s important you never appear as if you’re trying to usurp their authority. Micromanagers are typically insecure, so it’s best to keep them apprised of all your actions. However, only do so after the fact. The idea is to give your supervisor the illusion of control while remaining reasonably autonomous.

The Office Politician       

Characteristics: Cowardly and duplicitous, office politicians always put their needs over those of the team. They may act like your best friend, but they’ll stab you in the back the minute you get too chummy with senior management. Broken promises, misinformation and stolen ideas are all par for the course when dealing with incompetent bosses of this kind.

How to handle this incompetent boss: The best way to protect yourself against an office politician is to communicate in writing. That way, all your questions, requests and proposals become official record. If your boss tries to finalize the agreement verbally, follow it up with an e-mail confirmation, making sure to CC at least one other person in the company.

The Senior Enforcer   

Characteristics: Usually promoted because of seniority, this type of boss is devoid of common sense, following procedures to the letter and shutting down every effort to innovate. Terrified of making a decision, senior enforcers also have trouble with the notion that maintaining employee morale is among their duties, so don’t expect any sort of flexibility.

How to handle this incompetent boss: It’s important you remain solution-minded when dealing with incompetent bosses, especially those lacking initiative. However, keep in mind that senior enforcers are notoriously resistant to change, so don’t bother introducing any groundbreaking ideas until you have a few allies ready to back you up. It’s also best to wait for a large meeting before making your proposal.

The Drama Queen

Characteristics: The term refers to managers of any gender who spend most of their day complaining, turning every mild inconvenience into a full-blown problem. Self-centered, disruptive and incapable of forethought, they reject the most obvious solutions just to prolong the situation and make every confrontation personal. Drama queens are never satisfied.

How to handle this incompetent boss: Don’t let yourself get sucked in by all the negativity. It’s crucial you remain positive and solution-minded, offering your counsel in private, so as not to offend your supervisor. Another way of dealing with incompetent bosses like this is to ignore their tantrums. Avoid eye contact whenever possible, and schedule your breaks according to their peak complaining hours.

The Silent Strategist       

Characteristics: Silent strategists often make the workplace unbearable because you can’t tell where you stand with them. They rarely provide feedback and tend to make important executive decisions without informing their staff, relying on a select few to carry out their master plan. As a result, the left hand never knows what the right one is doing.

How to handle this incompetent boss: Dealing with incompetent bosses of this sort can be unnerving, but it’s important you keep your paranoia in check. Silent strategists usually don’t realize what they’re doing wrong, so don’t be afraid to voice your concerns and share your innovative ideas. You may become part of your supervisor’s inner circle and bring about real improvements.

It’s easy to feel powerless when dealing with incompetent bosses, especially when they’re running the office into the ground, but it’s crucial that you assert yourself and try to affect change. Denouncing your supervisor can be delicate, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t suggest ways to streamline the company. When all is said and done, it may well save your job.

The Real Relationship Between Money And Happiness

Did you ever get a job offer, promotion or pay increase that brought you up another level in status and made you feel really good about yourself? Maybe you went out and bought a new car or splurged on a few electronic gadgets or took everyone out for a night on the town. It sure felt good for a while. And you gladly said goodbye to the days of brown-bagging your lunch.

But what happened a year later? You felt pretty much the same way you did before the big jump in pay. Your income was up, but so were your expenses. You’re really not that much happier or unhappier since you started making more.

What’s That All About?       

It’s called the hedonic treadmill, and it means that we humans have a tendency to revert to a normative level of happiness even after undergoing major positive or negative life changes.

Psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell (who coined the term in a 1971 essay, “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society”) claimed that as people increase their income, they also increase their expectations and what they want out of life. The result: The giddy feeling you had when you first got the bump up in pay doesn’t last forever.

How Much Money Buys Happiness?       

But we thought money doesn’t buy happiness. That’s true after achieving a certain income threshold — $75,000 per year, that is.

“If you want to enjoy life, focus on relationships and health once you make more than $75,000 a year,” wrote Edward Diener, Ph.D., a University of Illinois psychology professor who studies well-being. Of course, $75,000 might not give you financial security if you live in New York City or L.A. or if you have a wife and three kids to support, but you get the idea. Everybody at least needs to keep the wolf away from the door.

Reversed, a lack of a certain amount of money or financial security can buy you terrible unhappiness. A recent Princeton University study shows that financial security is important (that is, people with very low incomes are unhappy because of their lack of security), but once you reach a certain “comfortable” threshold, factors other than your finances become more responsible for your happiness.

And If You Don’t Make More Than $75,000?   

Are we doomed gerbils senselessly running on a giant spinning wheel? Is there no point in our trying to “get ahead” and strive for that big promotion? Maybe not. But maybe there are a few things you can do to get off the treadmill and out onto the open road, where at least there is fresh air, and the view is a lot better.

No. 1 – Stay Positive   

If you feel like you’re not getting ahead, you might try focusing on the good things you have — though it’s more powerful to imagine what life would be like without something you value very much (a relationship, your family, your legs).

No. 2 – Give Gifts   

Don’t you get annoyed when people tell you it’s better to give than receive? You’ll be even more annoyed to discover that those people are right. Studies show that happiness is less dependent on things like your income and more dependent on day-to-day activities. That means giving gifts makes you feel better and strengthens relationships.

No. 3 – Don’t Compare Yourself To Others   

“Compare and despair,” goes an old saying. People really do make themselves miserable when they focus on their “relative” well-being. That means how they think they’re doing compared to everyone else.

Fantasy woman: dominating   

It might sound gross, but if you are the youngest child in your family and you have at least one older sister, you may be more likely to fantasize about a woman who, sexually speaking, likes to be in the driver’s seat. In real life, too, you would be drawn more toward a mate who is the oldest child in her family and has a younger brother, or is simply older than you age-wise.

Though this all sounds incredibly incestuous, you have nothing to fear; research has shown that women give 40% higher ratings in terms of how much they like a conversational partner if he is a last-born child (Ickes & Turner, 1983). Alternatively, if your parents have a relationship in which your mom wears the pants, you may also fantasize about dominant women because the woman-in-charge relationship was the one that was modeled to you as a child.

Fantasy woman: model or actress       

An intense desire to be with an extremely beautiful woman for her exquisite looks rather than who she is may signal that you have narcissistic tendencies. If in real life you refuse to date women who are not drop-dead gorgeous, the possibility that you have a narcissistic bent to your personality goes up as this behavior suggests you may view your attractive female companions as trophies.

As a full-blown psychological problem, a recent study reported that 7.7% of men meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) at some point in their lives (Stinson et al., 2009), and it is estimated that up to 75% of people who suffer from this condition are men (Source: DSM-IV-TR).

Fantasy woman: alpha female       

One interpretation of repeated fantasies about an alpha female is that you are engaging in projective identification. Not uncommon among couples, projective identification occurs when one person projects their own fantasies or desires onto another person and the other person, in turn, begins to behave in a way that conforms to these fantasies.

For example, if you grew up in a family where talking about money or appearing greedy in any way was a huge taboo, you may feel badly about wanting material things. By dating or fantasizing about a financially successful woman, however, you can have your cake and eat it too because you don’t have to own up to being a greedy person yourself. Projective identification may especially be at play in your fantasy life if you’ve noticed that in your real life you tend to fall for seemingly regular women only to find out that they turned into power-hungry animals at some point over the course of your relationship.

Fantasizing about a porn star? Find out what that says about you.

Fantasy woman: porn star or stripper      

Mind-blowing sex in a monogamous relationship with a woman involves getting to know each other’s likes and dislikes, as well as sharing sexual fantasies and mutual eroticism. And while it may involve penetration, sex in a romantic relationship actually begins in the mind rather than below the belt, particularly for women.

One recent study, for example, found that 35% of women who were given a placebo pill and told it would augment their desire reported feeling more turned on and that their sex lives were enhanced (Source: Bradford & Meston, 2010). In contrast, sex in porn focuses largely on the genital organs and is most often about penetration in some form or another. Fantasizing about having sex with a porn star may, therefore, mean that you fear intimacy as this scenario is typically devoid of seduction and mutual mental foreplay, two factors critical to the sexual satisfaction of non-celluloid partners.

what your fantasy woman says about you       

At the end of the day, fantasies always have deeply personal meanings. The explanations presented here are, therefore, simply possibilities about what certain types of fantasies suggest about your character. If you didn’t find your favorite lusty daydream on this list, or you didn’t think the description fit you but you want to know what your erotic thoughts are all about, consider what your childhood was like, what position you occupy in your family, what type of personality you have,  and your early sexual experiences, and the hidden meaning behind your fantasies should become clearer.

This evening, like any other, thousands of men will head out on romantic encounters with someone about whom they know little, each seeking to blaze a new path in the boundless frontier known as “convincing someone to touch my boner.” They’re armed with psychological studies, advice columns, dating gurus and human sexuality textbooks. They know what to say and the best way to speak (always from the chest). They understand body language and know how to position themselves, both physically and in conversation. They’re prepared to discuss a variety of topics that their female paramour can relate to.

Welcome to the age of the over-informed dater.

We live in an information-based economy, and our personal lives are becoming increasingly information-oriented, too. In a way, it’s almost become a currency of sorts, and like any other currency, it can be used to project (or stand in place of) status. It makes sense if you think about it: No longer is there social pressure to prove our worth to women through our physical prowess. Looks will only get you so far. A great personality can work wonders, but only once a woman has let you get close enough to charm her. Conspicuous wealth isn’t fashionable right now, and even if it was, guys with tons of cash might want to avoid the kind of attention that comes with flashing assets around. But what if you have none of the above? What if you’re an out-of-shape, unattractive bore with a negative bank balance? Simple — you just start making it rain with the hottest commodity on the market.

Everyone, almost without exception, wants to have intimate relations with someone else. The problem is, not everyone is equally suited to do that, or at least not with the quality of women they think they deserve. As a result, we’re constantly on the lookout for information that will give us an edge, a leg up on the competition. Those who don’t entirely understand something always assume there’s some “secret” to success (I heard it all the time working at a golf course). The thing is, we want to believe that the most frustrating things in life have a “secret” to them, because it’s a convenient excuse for why we can’t master something that seems to come naturally to others. The same applies to our sex lives.

Before widespread broadband internet, those seeking specific information related to women and dating didn’t have a lot of options, nor did those looking to supply it. There were advice columns in newspapers and magazines, but those have to appeal to a broad audience (and good luck getting your question selected). You could have found your way into the pickup artist community, I guess, but you still had to find them, and, besides, when they were starting out, most PUAs were glorified snake-oil salesmen. I suppose you could have gone to the library to do some research in psychological journals, but, man, how desperate would you have to be?

Fast forward to today, and dating advice is everywhere. If you’re a self-proclaimed dating “guru,” it takes very little to produce and sell an e-book, and there’s a ravenous market for this stuff. You can’t make it through a news day without seeing articles about gender relations/behaviors, because news aggregators know that those stories draw the most hits. There are approximately 80,000 advice columns online, all of them free and only a click away.

I really wonder if we’ve reached a point of saturation. I mean, there are guides available that will tell you how to dress before you go out. Other guides will help you approach strange women in a way that endears you to them. If you’re looking to seal the deal on the same night, you can find help with that, too. Not that kind of guy? No problem, because if you manage to get her number, there are plenty of people who will tell you what and when to text her. Your ensuing date is sure to be a success, because you’ve planned it out to the letter (based on some helpful tips you read online).

Do we need all that? I really doubt it. There is such a thing as “paralysis through analysis.” What’s more, all of the self-help stuff out there seems pretty short-sighted. Sure, it might help you get a date or even get laid, but what about beyond that? What happens if you decide you like a girl? How do you explain to her that you don’t really dress that way, don’t enjoy the things she does and aren’t nearly the big spender you made yourself out to be? I know that most guys aren’t dumb enough to change their entire personas and that few sources of advice even advocate that, but I bet there are plenty of guys out there who get so wrapped up in doing and saying the right things that they start to lose their sense of self.

Self-improvement is a noble goal. Self-obsession is not. At its core, dating and partnership are about two people (or more, if you like to party) finding someone that they like to be with, be it for one night or the rest of their lives. The only way to find happiness in that is to ensure the best version of yourself you’re presenting to the world is indeed a version of yourself. Sometimes, you just have to play the hand nature dealt you.

I just came from the dog park, and what was an otherwise sweet spring day was marred by more than a few moments of terror as two dogs fought over a toy. While there was something funny about near-bloodshed over a squeaky rubber ducky, couldn’t one of them just have settled for a stick? No, that doesn’t seem possible now that I write it out like that. That rubber duck was to die for.

In the human world, most of us dudes still have our nads, so the alpha-male toy dynamic is something that you see often. Entire industries are built on male pissing contests (I’m looking at you, sports car). When you work in media, you build up a sixth sense for seeing through marketing directed at male egos. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the rest of the world has developed that radar. I think testosterone is solely responsible for the success of the colossal Samsung Galaxy Note. If you don’t know about the Note, it’s a phone so big it can only be palmed by Yao Ming, and its crowning technical achievement is bringing back the pen stylus that no one wanted the first time. Next week, I’ll tell you what I really think of the Galaxy Note (for legal reasons, I must disclose that I hate this phone and think it’s dumb).

I probably look like one of those guys who has the biggest tech for the sake of showing it off. Since my demanding graphics work and tech writing forces me to upgrade hardware pretty often, I’m the guy in the cafe with the 17” MacBook Pro that you think is a douchebag because you think “Who the hell needs a $3,000 laptop?” It turns out that I do, but maybe I should refrain from yelling, “Eat it, bitches,” as I draw it out of my bag like it’s Excalibur. Sometimes I wonder if I’m into graphics because it gives me an excuse to buy the latest and greatest in the “Oooh, shiny” aisle. I’d say there’s a good chance that’s a motivator. I just got the new iPad ostensibly to see how my self-published e-book, 101 Autodesk Maya Tips, would look on the retina display. Tax deductible, sure. Wholly necessary, probably not.

It could be worse, I guess. You could go the opposite route from having the latest and greatest tech to becoming one of those guys still rocking a Commodore 64 or a Newton because you’ve convinced yourself it never got any better than that. Yeah, because the only thing better than a Galaxy Note is having a thicker black-and-white version without internet. I’ll take two.

The trailer, meanwhile, is rumored to open with an interrogation sequence that will see Her Majesty’s best-loved Secret Serviceman play a word association game under the watchful eye of senior agent Ralph Fiennes. It should then kick into a blistering series of snippets from the movie’s action sequences, including the explosive chase through the London Underground. Keep an eye out for all the action on AskMen this Monday.

One massive sequence that won’t be appearing in the trailer, though, is the Bond movie’s traditional pre-credit scene; it was still being filmed this week in Turkey. The action involves Bond on a carnage-filled pursuit of a dangerous villain across the Istanbul skyline on a motorbike, culminating in a desperate ruckus on the roof of a train.

Footage from the Skyfall set shows a dapper Dan dangling precariously from the moving train. Spy video taken earlier this year showed the stunt team working out a brutal dustup for Craig to get his teeth into. The use of Istanbul is a nod toward Bond creator Ian Fleming’s favorite city — another of the movie’s many touches to celebrate 50 fabulous years of Bond blowing up the big screen.

Skyfall opens across North America in November.

We’ve got the world exclusive, brand new version of the half-time trailer which will be televised for the first time during the Champions League – but you can watch it here, right now – ONLY on AskMen.

Don’t forget to tune into the UEFA Champions League final on Sky Sports 1 to see the full length gameplay trailer at 8:30pm, this Saturday May 19th. For more info head to the official Medal Of Honor Warfighter site.

French researchers developed Metapaper, which blocks Wi-Fi signals from escaping the home, ramping up security for the same price as traditional wallpaper. The paper, which still allows TV and radio waves to pass through, will hit the market next year, distributed by Finnish company Alstrom.

Even though setting a password on Wi-Fi is cheaper than installing yards of wallpaper, this innovation demonstrates the rising concern about connection security, and may appeal to consumers looking for added protection as they redecorate.

Wi-Fi is the most common Internet access point for mobile devices, and unsecured connections open up their hosts to a bevy of security threats. Hackers can sometimes dig up personal information just by accessing the same network connection, as the case was when Android endured a security breach on unsecured Wi-Fi networks.

Tech companies such as Google and home goods retailers like Lowes are drumming up “smart home” systems, using the Internet and mobile technology to make appliances and home devices work better. These smart home technologies can incorporate Wi-Fi into the way appliances like dishwashers, TVs and stoves work, making network connections even more crucial to domestic life, and possibly creating a market for a slew of new products to stylishly protect the home’s network.

As different parts of homes become increasingly reliant on network connections, products like Metapaper offer home protection, so keeping Wi-Fi secure may also become more important.

For homeowners looking for added protection, this wallpaper may have massive appeal, and as home connections are increasingly used to monitor expensive gadgets more protective measures like this may hit the scene. Along the same lines, people who steal Internet from their neighbors are probably going to have to contend with products like Metapaper in the future.

Meanwhile, Nokia tried to wrest the title of “Worst Music Video” from Rebecca Black, and Amazon tempted Harry Potter fans with a new promotional deal.

IPads Are a Hit With Orangutans  

The frenzy for Apple’s latest tablets has surpassed humans and moved to primates — orangutans at a Miami zoo are using iPads to talk to one another.

Twin 8-year old orangutans at Miami’s Jungle Island use the tablets to answer questions, identify body parts and let their keepers know what they want or need.

Other zoos are looking to get in on the act, and they may set up video conferencing to let far-flung orangutans keep in contact. The animals can’t hold the iPads themselves, as they will likely break them, but trainers are working to come up with a sturdy case to let the animals spend more time using the tablets to chat and learn.

Want A Pizza? Log On Facebook  

Domino’s is testing a new pizza-ordering service in Australia and New Zealand, letting hungry social media users order their tasty slices on Facebook.

The service doesn’t work with Facebook’s mobile app, so users will need to be by their computers, but it is a hit in New Zealand, where over 100,000 people used Facebook to place their orders.

No word yet on when this app will hit the U.S., but since Facebook is prepping an App Center, it may not be too far off.

Amazon Targets Harry Potter Fans 

Accio Amazon Prime! All seven Harry Potter books will be available for free through Amazon Prime’s Kindle Lending Library, a move sure to lure Hogwarts aficionados to the e-reader service.

The Potter series generally runs customers around $87, so this deal may help bring the magical series to budget-conscious readers.

Although the service only lets users take out one of the books a month, it is still an exciting deal, and may help Amazon stand out from its competitors.

Nokia Drops a Terrible Rap Single  

Finnish phone maker Nokia is struggling to revive its brand, but its most recent attempt to woo the younger demographic struck a sour note, as the company released an embarrassingly bad rap video.

The Nokia Lumia Rap includes the lyric “I want a Lumia in my pocket so I’m ready to win,” and makes several references to apps.

Nokia pulled the music video shortly after releasing it after an onslaught of negative press, but the lyrics are still available online — and the clip is likely to pop up again soon, as there’s nothing Internet commentators like better than ridiculously cheesy music videos.

Turn Your IPad Into an Etch-A-Sketch  

Etcher, an Etch A Sketch case and app, promises to turn iPads into old-school sketching toys with a bright red slip-on cover and knobs that work as the app’s controls.

After a sketch is finished, users can publish their art to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a variety of other sites.

The team behind Etcher made sure the slip looked authentic, and users might forget they’re doodling on an expensive piece of technology instead of a popular drugstore toy. Ohio Art, the makers of the original Etch A Sketch, are on board with the project, and there’s still time to donate to the team’s Kickstarter page.

Nate Lewis, a Caltech professor of chemistry, created the “eNose” to alert law enforcement officials of potential threats. ENose, which is being considered for an iPhone app, may also diagnose medical and bomb threats, and is ideal for use in dangerous areas as well as home security systems.

Doctors and nurses are already adopting mobile technology to assess patients, and researchers just found a way to detect autism using Microsoft Kinect’s gaming technology.

Since hospitals are already experimenting with iPads to replace traditional medical check-ins, putting eNose technology in the tablet could send information to doctors about patients’ potential diseases as they fill out their paperwork, serving as an added diagnostic tool.

In the future, doctors may install eNoses in all their waiting rooms, to get a head start on treating their patients by identifying diseases early based on the information relayed by the sensors.

For police officers, the eNose can complement their canine forces, or replace bomb-sniffing dogs when dangers are near. In buildings identified as potential terrorist targets, for example, police can discreetly set up eNoses to keep abreast of threats.

In home security, eNose sensors placed around the home or office may work as an alternative system to carbon monoxide sensors, since they can detect a range of potent toxins. With “smart homes” catching on, connected appliances and accessories are linked to networks and mobile technology, and eNose can offer comprehensive coverage to different parts of the home.

ENose isn’t ready for commercial use yet, but when it is, the technology offers an excellent system for people concerned about lethal fumes, as well as medical and law enforcement professionals.