The Weird Bond I Share With My Boss

Zeeshan Contractor

7 min readAug 2, 2020

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‘Could you please review the artwork pack before I forward it to the client?’

The Boss

‘You think it’s good to go?’

‘Yeah!’

The Boss

‘Then send it across, I trust you!’

This

The

Kind

Relation

I share with my boss

It seems based on nothing but trust

Now

Here’s

The

Thing!

For every 99 tasks that he can count on me, there’s that 1 dreaded task that he can’t!

We’re responsible for everything digital which counts in the website and mobile app + the social media platforms.

As much as my boss can trust me to keep everything smooth with the brand’s social channels, he can’t really trust me with keeping the website and mobile app in check. I’m just not into it and the truth is –

I’ll never be into it!

An automobile website requires the following to be in check!

- Service / contact us / brochure / book a test drive / recall forms are functional

- Submit buttons are in order

- Countless links spread across the website are working

- Security is up to date

- Plugins and widgets are not expired

- Emails are being received for all the queries

- Thank you notes are up for all enquiries

Now

Repeat

All

This

For

The

Arabic

Language!

Now

Tell

Me!

After reading the previous 5 stories I’ve published here

Does

Any

This

Sound

Me?

Absolutely Not

And this is just the website’s checklist I’ve sketched out –

There’s that dreaded mobile app with the same pointers!

Now

Here’s

The

Sick

Part!

Even though I’ve been making the same mistakes with the website and the app for the past three years

OVER

AND

OVER

AGAIN

The boss still continues >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to H O P E one day he’ll be able to trust me with these platforms, which is ohkayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

For the most part

But it’s the disappointment in his eyes that gets me every time he pin points an error before I can.

It’s the disappointment that makes someone question the overall competency of another individual even though that individual proves he’s competent in multiple other domains over and over again. It’s how a human brain is wired to work.

You start trusting someone with a particular job and once that someone proves he’s good enough, you start stacking up responsibilities until that individual fails to impress with one of the tasks lost in the stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack

stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack stack

You begin to wonder if it’s only a matter of time

Before the individual fails to impress with another one, predicting the eventual collapse of the whole stack, making you question whether it’s better to lower the stack before the crash happens

This is not the kind of loop I’m stuck in with my boss.

He continuously +++++ the load on my two smaller than life shoulders to manage the growing digital team –

Boost Their Creativity

Delivery Time

Follow Ups

Trainings

Cross Team Trainings

Delegate Misc Tasks Very Carefully

And

Finally

Deal

With

Any

Crisis

That

Sooner

Later

Comes

And when the dust settles –

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Inspire them to be better than the guy who teaches them and the guy who taught him.

In the midst of these, he puts on and off the load of the technical platforms once he realizes on and off how I’m not gonna be able to pull it off based on my hectic schedule and the distaste I have for the platforms which is not exactly a distaste, it’s just that maybe I’m a bit disappointed with how we’ve managed the content on the site so far and given no particular reason for the users to come back and that’s just not okay.

I’ll be soon sketching out a content proposal on how to make the site exciting and keep it that way, hoping to God the boss jumps on board and if he doesn’t, I’ll make another one.

But that is all work and no play!

Once we both leave the office for our homes, I regularly receive funny videos and jokes from him as he always tries to make sure I know that he’s in my corner not just in great times, but through my failures as well.

He always tries to blur that line of discomfort that’s drawn between an employee and an employer, but it’s my own RIGIDITY, I insist on maintaining that line as I believe in getting not too comfortable so that when the time comes he can scold me because believe it or not, in my long journey with him, there was only once that he raised his voice over me and guess what the problem was pertaining to –

The mismanagement of a third party tool

The

MOTHER

EFFING

WEBSITE

Other than that –

He always insists on keeping things informal, casual, cracking as many jokes after jokes and laughing your ass out through the schedule while making sure you get your tasks wrapped for the day.

I’m a lucky SOB to have such an employer who’s always in a leader mode as opposed to the boss mode and the key to pleasing such a mind is to constantly show them your strong suits, requesting for a greater WORK LOAD that you’ll be managing smartly.

Now there are those brutally ugly days when I feel like absolutely punching him down as sometimes he assigns a task, but fails to communicate what exactly is required due to keeping up with the millions of things he manages daily.

And when the task is done –

He’s disappointed with the results and the time it’s going to take for revisions.

To some –

This may sound like a small thing to be mad about, but trust me –

It stings in all the wrong places with no medicine discovered in the history of mankind to ease the pain –

But in the light of the bigger picture here –

I’m just tremendously glad he took me under his wing and through all the good –

Bad

Miscommunication

Ups

Downs

Jokes

Awards

Appraisals

Growth

Beat Downs

Reality Checks

The inspirational speeches to get back up again

The growing frustration

And

The tools to manage it

I’m just glad I found him

Whether you’re in an early stage of your career or a late one, you should be looking for such a leader to work with and the best way to get to one, is by cold emailing companies or recruiters and requesting a meet up with the man responsible for driving the company.

Once you score a one on one, you can begin judging the set of values the person in front of you carries and if those set of values are something you would like to adopt –

Then you’ve found yourself the kind of leader you already should have!

P.S. being kickass at my job description is not the only thing my leader wants from me, he wants me to have a company of my own in a partnership with him which is going to show us who I really am because if you need to find out who you really are –

Then

Fight

Become

Entrepreneur!

My fight is at very really stages for the time being which I’ve sketched out here –

The Weird Bond I Share With My Boss

Written by Zeeshan Contractor