The Office’s Michael Scott and the Word “Boss”
by Matt Monge
I was thinking the other day about the verbiage we use in the workplace. Now admittedly, I’m a bit of a nerd about this stuff, and I have a thing for studying the origins of words, phrases, and customs in the workplace. So bear with my nerdiness…
I don’t really have an issue with the word boss. It’s just not a big deal to me. But I know folks for whom it is a big deal. For some, it invokes mental allusions to an uber-hierarchal workplace environment. It conjures images of borderline tyrannical managers who rule with an iron fist and aren’t hesitant to wield their power when it suits them to do so. They picture bosses as people who are quick to remind people that they’re…well…bosses. And superior. And all-powerful. And all that jazz.
For me, that word doesn’t do that. I’ve got a boss at my primary job, but my CEO doesn’t act like a boss in the sense described above. We’ve all had a boss or two of the variety mentioned above, and it’s not a fun experience. It’s a story for a different post, but in some ways my interest in organizational culture and leadership sprung out of working under a boss that was pretty awful to humans. From the moment she hopped off her broom in the parking lot to the moment she hopped back on it to ride home, she made my life (and the lives of everyone else she interacted with) miserable.