We’ve all had bad bosses. You know what I’m talking about. There was the one who scrutinized your every move, and the boss who claimed to want something else after you followed her instructions to the letter, and the one who expected 12 hours of work every day for eight hours of pay.
I recently realized that I have a worse boss now, though, than any of the bosses who tortured me in my past, and that boss is me.
It turns out that, upon closer inspection, I make my past with other bosses look like super happy fun times. How do you measure up at being your own boss?
QUIZ: Good Personal Boss or Bad? Which Are You?
Score 1 point for A, 2 points for B, and 3 points for C answers. A score of 5 means you’re the best personal boss, and a score of 15 means you seriously need to lighten up.
1. You forget to check pockets and manage to coat an entire load of laundry in kleenex. You:
b. Grumble in irritation and make a mental note to check the pockets next time.
c. Burst into tears over your failure and inadequate ability to love your family.
2. You are low on groceries, so you invent a new casserole to avoid going shopping. You:
b. Wish you could do better but know that tomorrow’s another day.
c. Burst into tears over your failure and inadequate ability to love your family.
3. You accomplish 43 of 50 things on an impossible to-do list. You:
b. Think you should learn better time management.
c. Burst into tears over your failure and inadequate ability to love your family.
4. The birthday cake you ordered says “Happy Hanukkah”, but you don’t have time to get it fixed. You:
b. Worry that you’ve inadvertently screwed up some kid’s Hanukkah.
c. Burst into tears over your failure and inadequate ability to love your family.
5. Your kid loses a tooth and is excited about the tooth fairy, but you’re out of cash. You:
b. Start a fund for your kid’s future therapy.
c. Burst into tears over your failure and inadequate ability to love your family.
I scored a solid 12 out of a possible 15 points for being an awful boss to myself. This is proof positive that I’m an emotionally abusive micro-manager who needs a holiday.
Are you a good or bad boss to yourself? What’s your score?
About Schmutzie
You cook, do laundry, buy cake and kick butt on a huge to do list. A+ in my book. All those are labors of love!
You’re the kind of boss I need to learn to be :)
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I can relate….more than I care to admit to myself sometimes. Wouldn’t it be great if we always chose option A?
It would be fantastic. This is one of my goals.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I also scored a 12. I knew before I took the quiz that I am treat myself horribly most of the time. I know why I do (dysfunctional childhood). I hate myself for the fact that I can’t move past the way I was treated as a child. My children, friends and remaining family all treat me so much better than I treat myself. Not giving up – 4 years of doctors, 2 1/2 years of therapy, a new doctor on Friday – somewhere out there is the answer.
We can do it! It’s hard to come to a place where we value our own work and contributions, especially when it is such an ingrained habit not to, but we’ll get there.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I only scored a 6! Now I’m afraid I expect too little!
Twitter Name: scattered_joy
No! That means you are wonderful to yourself! You need to share the secret :)
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I scored a 6. The thing is, there was probably a time in my life when I would have scored a 15. But something happened to me. I think yoga teacher training re-wired my brain. I’ve learned that it’s OK to do less. But I’ll tell you, that whole “OK to do less” lesson is a daily practice. Doesn’t always come easy.
Twitter Name: elephantsoap
I keep getting gentle nudges from the universe to look into yoga.
Twitter Name: schmutzie
I scored lowish, but it is because I have low expectations of myself. My reactions on a question-by-question basis:
1. It is easy to kick myself over laundry incidents, but something innocuous like Kleenex would only slightly irritate me. It is when I do something that stains or shrinks or otherwise damages the clothing that pushes me into self-loathing territory.
2. Low on groceries? When we’re low on groceries we go to Taco Bell and are happy about it. When we have groceries we’re more likely to settle for a bologna sandwich than actually cook something. Throwing together a makeshift casserole results in me preening like a peacock!
3. You’ve accomplished 43 of 50 things on a to-do list? That’s outstanding! Congratulations! Really! Enjoy the doughnuts; you earned them! I feel a sense of accomplishment when I do one thing on a list. If I get through three things I feel like I’m finished for the day. And my list rarely gets longer than five items because I don’t like using both hands to keep track of things.
4. The birthday cake scenario is a little hard for me to feel bad over. I mean, if it were for my wife, a sibling, a parent, or any of my friends, I could definitely play it for laughs. If it were for someone who would really be bothered by it, then I’d just be pissed at the bakery.
5. I don’t have kids so I can’t honestly say how I would react to the being out of Tooth Fairy cash. I’d definitely kick myself and try to work something out, eventually falling back on the IOU or some other story of “fairy holidays” or something. It is more likely that I would forget about it altogether until I found my child in tears the next morning, with the end result being the Tooth Fairy delivering a mini bike. I was going to say pony, but I never really wanted a pony as a kid so I would be confident that a mini bike would be much better option. And then I’d be pissed when my imaginary daughter burst into tears because SHE wanted the PONYYYYYY! BWAHHH!
Oh dear. I scored 13. That explains an awful lot.