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Crazy Bosses: Fully Revised and Updated – A Classic Workplace Guide to Identifying Types and Concrete Coping Strategies
Jam-packed with new anecdotes, updated references, and modernized jokes, Stanley Bing’s seminal investigation of what makes bosses crazy is now revised for a new generation. Fans of television’s The Office and the cult film Office Space will love this classic guide to the universal workplace phenomenon of crazy bosses, now updated for a new century’s worth of insane supervisors. Bestselling author and business guru Stanley Bing’s Crazy Bosses identifies the various types of crazy bosses—the boss with the five brains, the bully, the paranoid boss, the narcissist, the “bureaucrazy,” and the disaster hunter—and offers readers concrete strategies on how to cope, and, most importantly, how not to become crazy bosses themselves.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
13 people are currently reading
421 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Bing
52 books42 followers Gil Schwartz, known by his pen name Stanley Bing, was an American business humorist and novelist. He wrote a column for Fortune magazine for more than twenty years after a decade at Esquire magazine. He was the author of thirteen books, including What Would Machiavelli Do? and The Curriculum, a satirical textbook for a business school that also offers lessons on the web. Schwartz was senior executive vice president of corporate communications and Chief Communications Officer for CBS.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 16, 2018
As a boss himself, the author acknowledges that bosses who don't start out crazy often end up crazy after being the boss for awhile. This book will confirm all your worst thoughts about crazy bosses. What's sad is that the guy is sort of proud of being a crazy boss. He admits to everything in a self-mocking way but seems to feel that it's just part of being an American businessman.
The edition I read was published in 2007, and the author identifies Donald Trump as a typical crazy boss on page 5. Here is his description of Trump: "Figure of fun for several decades known for outlandish and entertaining inability to implement impulse control. Now perhaps the most successful individual on the planet at marketing his own pathologies to a mass audience." That was written almost 10 years before he ran for President. Yikes! I guess there's a lot of crazy people who like having a crazy boss. The rest of us just want to run the other way.....
The edition I read was published in 2007, and the author identifies Donald Trump as a typical crazy boss on page 5. Here is his description of Trump: "Figure of fun for several decades known for outlandish and entertaining inability to implement impulse control. Now perhaps the most successful individual on the planet at marketing his own pathologies to a mass audience." That was written almost 10 years before he ran for President. Yikes! I guess there's a lot of crazy people who like having a crazy boss. The rest of us just want to run the other way.....
September 8, 2012
I related!
December 16, 2016
Eh. Not super informative. Some of the information is like "no duh". Not funny as other reviews may have said. I skimmed through most of it because it was boring.
August 12, 2024
A funny and blunt analysis of the psychology and history of horrible bosses i.e. George Bush, Donald Trump, Caligula, Napolean Bonaparte, etc. Bing provides examples of toxic behaviors by ethnographic, personal, and historical accounts. The sad truth is that most people work with bosses who deserve less respect for the abusive conduct they exhibit in the workplace. This book is helpful in providing solace and tips for someone dealing with a boss who may or may not exhibit 1. bully behavior 2. narcissistic tendencies, 3. excessive paranoia, 4. excessive fear (thereby lacking accountability), and 5. the worst self-destructive behavior, either singularly or collectively. I picked this book up for obvious reasons and am taking comfort in the fact that most American workforces are working based on the whims and egos of insecure and self-doubting bosses. A good read if you work for someone or just about to be one yourself. Highly recommended for management improvement.
May 15, 2025
2.5/5 okayish . Kinda vague .
October 24, 2012
I've had my share! Not only did I have them, I'm sure I was one, too - there's nothing like a corporate environment to bring out interesting tendencies in anyone. When I received an anonymous e-mail at work, with excerpts from this book, I had to have it!
Easy to read, written with wit and actual substance, this book (predecessor to the very popular "Who Moved My Cheese?" and "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses") helped get me through some difficult times.
If you can't just stop working to do something you really enjoy -- and not many can, aside from Dilbert's Scott Adams and me -- this book is like an emotional teddy bear with teeth. He defines different "Crazy Bosses" by behavior (most of us are a mix), reasons why they may be that way, and practical ways to work with them, because most of aren't likely to get away from them, even if we change corporations and bosses.
The truth most of us don't want to know is that the insanity of the business world is ours to deal with, not management's to fix. There is no one coming to the rescue - and we each play our own part to the madness, by our own responses. This book is a good aid with suggestions on what to do and what NOT to do, to survive.
We have to rely on our own emotional and physical health, friends, a sense of humor and a sense of our own self-worth (aside from work) so we won't feel like a victim.
The book I found the most helpful throughout my corporate life - and it was great in my real life, too - was M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled." "Life is difficult," and once we figure that out, we can get on with living! If you are feeling like a victim, read these books and start a discussion with a friend or two!
Good luck - and rest assured that there *is* life after work!
Easy to read, written with wit and actual substance, this book (predecessor to the very popular "Who Moved My Cheese?" and "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses") helped get me through some difficult times.
If you can't just stop working to do something you really enjoy -- and not many can, aside from Dilbert's Scott Adams and me -- this book is like an emotional teddy bear with teeth. He defines different "Crazy Bosses" by behavior (most of us are a mix), reasons why they may be that way, and practical ways to work with them, because most of aren't likely to get away from them, even if we change corporations and bosses.
The truth most of us don't want to know is that the insanity of the business world is ours to deal with, not management's to fix. There is no one coming to the rescue - and we each play our own part to the madness, by our own responses. This book is a good aid with suggestions on what to do and what NOT to do, to survive.
We have to rely on our own emotional and physical health, friends, a sense of humor and a sense of our own self-worth (aside from work) so we won't feel like a victim.
The book I found the most helpful throughout my corporate life - and it was great in my real life, too - was M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled." "Life is difficult," and once we figure that out, we can get on with living! If you are feeling like a victim, read these books and start a discussion with a friend or two!
Good luck - and rest assured that there *is* life after work!
August 29, 2013
At first I was hoping for more anecdotes but this book brings enough of them in each section devoted to a particular boss type that reading through the prologues and discussion of the insanity of office life in general doesn't get too tedious. Unsurprisingly, names are omitted to protect the innocent but not much has changed behaviorally since the original anecdotes were used in the earlier version. (Sure, we now have the terrors that can only be perpetrated through the veil of email but the patterns remain the same.) Plus, no matter if your boss is a bully, wimp, paranoid, or narcissist Bing's got some solid advice for you in each section on how to manage them, stay sane, and possibly advance your career despite their influence. Considering we're losing our craziest boss in a month, I wish I had read this a year ago.
May 11, 2009
Truly informative and entertaining, this book ROCKS. If you don't see yourself or some of your bosses in it, you're not reading carefully enough. Especially helpful are the little charts at the end of each section(though the way they are arranged is not visually convenient when the page changes) with "strategies" and "effectiveness" of said behaviors. Excellent bargain book quick-read.
September 28, 2013
Bing's humorous anecdotes about workplace personalities is entertaining & thought-provoking. He sounds a lot like actor Thomas Hayden Church. I bailed 2/3 of the way through only because my library audiobook kept skipping back to the beginning. I may check out the print version so I can peruse & skip around to different topics.
November 18, 2007
This book was interesting; and there were a lot of fascinating anecdotes about crazy bosses, but it took a LONG time to get to its point and actual advice on how to deal with a different variety of crazy bosses.
November 12, 2010
I love all Stanley's books, and they actually illustrate business and psychology in a way that even a geek can understand. I think 'Crazy Bosses' is a great book to read when you're weary under the regime of corporate culture.
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January 26, 2009 650.13 BIN
February 18, 2008
Bing is hilarious. If work in an office, any type of office, you have the type of folks he is talking about either above, next to, or below you.
This book is great.
This book is great.
July 13, 2008
I actually didn't finish this one. It wasn't what I expected it to be. I was hoping for something more "ha ha" funny...this book didn't live up to the hype in my opinion.
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August 17, 2009I am a Bing fan but this is outdated, written during the dawn of the technological boom. I believe it's be updated and re-published. I will have to check that out...
April 4, 2008
hey, i have one of these!
November 8, 2014
Funny stuff...essentially in a mad world, not only are the insane normal but revered.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews