Quote:
Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
He inherited the business - and is completely techno-phobic - getting a call from him to 'fix his computer' generates chest pains ..
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I worked for years for an SVP at a mid-sized company a bit like that, It wasn't that he was a techno-phobe, exactly. It was that machines
broke when he used them. You hear stories about people with "black thumbs" who are hopeless with plants because stuff they try to grow dies, and he was that way with machines.
My office was the computer room, and several times he showed up at my door about something, and I said "Larry, get out! Everything is up and running smoothly. If you come in here, something will fail!" "But I just wanted to ask a question..." "Get out. I'll come and see you."
The saving grace is that he didn't understand the technology, knew he didn't, and understood it's what he paid me for. He would come to me and say "This is the business problem I'm trying to solve. Do the research, and tell me what hardware and software I need to get to do this." He trusted me to make sound recommendations, and didn't try to second-guess my judgement. His only concern was getting the President to sign off on the budget. (We had a silly meeting at one point discussing various upgrades, and was foot dragging till the CFO said we were a technology driven business, and had to invest. This meant the funds required wouldn't come from my boss's budget, and his attitude changed from foot-dragging to "How soon can we do this?" in an eye blink. I managed not to laugh aloud, but it took doing.)
He wasn't a bad boss, but did take getting used to. I learned early on that he was a stress puppy. He needed to be in a nervous tizzy to function, and if there wasn't anything to be nervous about, he'd unconsciously create something so he could behave in his accustomed manner. I didn't
quite say "Larry, take two Xanax and call me in the morning.", but it was tempting.
______
Dennis