Thursday, October 16, 2008

Happy Rank and File

We do not want to be the boss.

Even with Boss Day cards, candy and other rewards coming in today, the boss's job doesn't look like fun to most workers.

Only three in 10 respondents would take their boss's job if it were offered to them, according to a new survey for personnel firm Adecco. Perhaps that's partly because most of us think our boss is at least as smart as we are, with only one-third of the 1,152 full-time U.S. workers in the Harris Interactive online survey saying they out-think their manager.

A separate poll for staffing firm OfficeTeam found that an even higher proportion of workers say "thanks, but not me," to the idea of taking on their boss's duties. More than three-fourths of the 602 surveyed want to skip supervising.

Men were much more likely than women to want the bigger paycheck and bigger headaches that comes with being the honcho.

Although we don't want to take their jobs, we give our bosses good grades -- high Bs on a report card compiled by Adecco, based on survey responses. Bosses got a B-plus on being paid what they're worth and a B on watching out for our interests. So maybe we do want to wish them a happy Boss Day.

-- Vickie Elmer