Once you've become a transcendent idiot—one who can reflect upon his personal condition and circumstances—you can no longer wander back into the idiot population and disappear. Your intelligence, such as it is, will torment you night and day. You'll suffer from sleep deprivation (which will exaggerate your idiosyncrasies), begin experiencing psychotic episodes, be involuntarily institutionalized, sprung by an A.C.L.U. lawyer without your knowledge, put back on the street, and worry your family to death until your clog finds you sleeping in your garage. The only reasonable alternative you have left is to accept the inevitability of stupidity in the form of idiots. Welcome to the real world. You can sooner change the weather than have any effect whatsoever on the number and distribution of idiots on this planet. Sometimes it seems as if idiots in human bodies have invaded Earth. Maybe it's a cosmic conspiracy to keep us from extended space exploration beyond our own neighborhood, which occupants of neighboring galaxies have written off long ago as depressed real estate. You're here. I'm here. Wherever they came from, idiots are here. They're the only ones who don't know it. Can't we all just get along? I say yes...sort of. Our focus must be on our personal journeys toward recovery, enlightenment, and enrichment. Genuine idiots won't be reading this article, so it's kind of like a private conversation. The good news is that we can live fulfilling lives and have rewarding careers in spite of the idiots we work for. The bad news is we must do all of the work. Don't get mad at me. The idiots don't even know what's going on. How can they help? But isn't a fulfilling life and a rewarding career worth the effort?

I say yes...absolutely. With that, I take you to step one of our journey to idiot-proof (so to speak) nirvana. Don't let this first step depress you too much. Stupidity might not exactly be a disease, but it should at least be classified as a syndrome. We can't begin our journey of recovery until we first confess how much trouble we're in. Feeling, much less admitting, powerless is intolerable to some people. It implies a loss of control (which they never had anyway) and they just won't go there. Meet the living dead. These zombies walk around thinking that they can change the idiots in their lives. I say we need to succeed in spite of the idiots in our lives. Life is unmanageable if you try to control stupidity other than your own. Do I need to say it again? It's too big. Let it go. God can handle it. You and I need to invest our resources in managing our own stupidity. Now we're talking manageable. Maybe. If we keep the whole universal idiot thing in perspective and context, there is hope. Trying to manage our own stupidity issues without deference to the stupidity around us is like driving the wrong way down the freeway. You're asking for trouble. Driving in the right direction, minding your own business, even driving defensively doesn't guarantee that some idiot won't run into you. Each one of us is a single car in heavy traffic.

Keep one eye on your rearview mirror. Confession is good for the soul. Even if the confession is somewhat of a stretch, go with the flow. It's easier to push off toward the surface from the bottom of the pool. Admitting powerlessness is the first step to recovery. Subsequent steps will reveal who has the power and how you can tap into it to achieve your own serenity. Think about what I've said in the context of managing yourself. You are ultimately your own boss, even if you report to someone else. Are you your own I-Boss, as I am? How effectively you interact with your boss is your choice. Will you be a monkey see, monkey do kind of person? Or will monkey see, monkey think better of it? Will you be able to give yourself an emotional break, even if others won't? In the articles ahead, we'll get down to brass tacks and examine the whole idiot issue and the roles we play in it. It makes dealing with your I-Boss at the office much easier if you can see the parallels to your own experience. I don't suggest the type of reflection that leads to regrets. But changing your thinking and behavior doesn't happen naturally or effortlessly. Contemplating your past will serve only to predict your future unless you consciously decide to follow another road.

Will the Real Idiot Please Stand Up?

Not every boss is an idiot and not every idiot is a boss. Idiot Bosses are not all bad. Most every one of them is good at something. They're just no good at being bosses. Even though not all bosses are idiots, once you learn more about some of the other boss types, you might be grateful to have an Idiot Boss. It's a mistake to assume your boss is an idiot if she is not. Using idiot modification techniques on a non-idiot will prove about as effective as snorting Vick's Nasal Spray to pass a kidney stone. Depending on the type of boss you work for, using the wrong approach might leave you wishing you were passing a kidney stone just to brighten your day. I have organized the world of bosses into eight sub-categories:

■ Good Bosses.

■ God Bosses.

■ Machiavellian Bosses.

■ Masochistic Bosses.

■ Sadistic Bosses.

■ Paranoid Bosses.

■ Buddy Bosses.

■ Idiot Bosses. As we examine each boss type, arrange all of the bosses you have ever worked for in their appropriate category, including your current boss. You might find out that your boss history reveals a disturbing pattern. Having been both an Idiot Boss and an Idiot Employee, I have found if there are prominent boss patterns in your professional life, it could mean:

A. You are attracted to a certain type of boss to fulfill a subliminal desire for self-punishment.

B. There is a dominant type of boss in your industry.

C. You are chronically unlucky.

D. You are the idiot.

E. All of the above.

Good Bosses

As hard as it is for some to believe, there are Good Bosses out there. If you see a coworker leaning back in her cubicle with her eyes closed and a silly grin on her face, chances are she is taking a vacation of the imagination in which her thoughts have drifted back to a happier place and time when she worked for a Good Boss. Those who have worked for Good Bosses often wax nostalgic. Those who have never had that pleasure of working for a Good Boss can only imagine. It's surprisingly simple to be a Good Boss, which makes me wonder why more bosses don't get it. I'll wager you know at least one I-Boss who hasn't done anything right since the Carter administration. Then again, it took me a long time to get it. The ways in which we humans think and act are like the tires on your car. You never give them any thought until one goes flat. For Idiot Bosses to change, and they can, some incident or series of incidents of sufficient magnitude need to occur before they will know there is a problem. Once they are aware a problem exists—and they are it—they can begin making the transformation from Idiot Boss to Good Boss by adopting the surprisingly simple yet profound golden rule of leadership: Lead the way you like to be led. Simply put, that's what Good Bosses do. In most human interactions, the simpler something is, the more effective it is. We all want simple answers, the easy road, and the easy money. If we are convicted, we want to do easy time. Have you ever heard an ad on the radio that said, "...in just three hard payments?" Good Bosses have the self-awareness to understand how they like to be treated and the common sense to figure out that other people probably like to be treated the same way. How we communicate with one another is a good place to start. Good Bosses provide a constant flow of clear and concise information and encourage you and the rest of your team to do the same.

Good Bosses don't like to play 20 questions in order to discern what you're talking about; they don't want to read your mind in order to learn what you're withholding; and they don't expect you to read their minds as to what they expect. If you make your boss play a round of Jeopardy in order to learn what you're doing, you have a problem with that person and vice versa. Making someone guess at what you want or to gain important information you have in your little clutches is passive-aggressive behavior. It's resentment playing itself out. We tend to be passive-aggressive with people we want to punish. When was the last time you gave the silent treatment to someone you were happy with? The concept is easy to test. Just reverse the situation and consider how you feel when your boss withholds information from you. Your imagination starts running wild. Doesn't she trust me? Does she think I'm too stupid to let me in on the big secret? Is she afraid that I might do something I will get praised for? All kinds of thoughts might run through your mind—none of which produce warm and fuzzy thoughts about your boss. If your boss is likewise filled with doubt, how warm and fuzzy can you expect her to feel about you? Uncertainty always leads to uneasiness. How often do people go to lunch together and speculate about what's going on around the office? How often do you hear whispered conversations with hands cupped over the telephone mouthpiece? Have you ever found yourself sitting in a bathroom stall when your boss came in with another of her management level? You kept very still, hoping you might overhear some tidbit of information that would affect your job, didn't you? Are you aware of how often you strain to overhear what is being said in a conversation in the next cubicle or around the corner?

Adjoining bullpens

My first office at Disneyland was not a conventional cubicle. It had tall walls, but no ceiling. I could easily hear one end of telephone conversations in adjoining offices, as well as full conversations. I didn't give it much thought at the time, but looking back, there were certain people who spoke up robustly as if they didn't care who overheard them. These were the open personalities who didn't make it a point or policy to be secretive. I always felt relaxed around those people. They spoke positively about others, which gave me the feeling they probably spoke positively about me in my absence. The same principle holds when reversed. Disney was the first big corporate atmosphere I ever worked in. The human dynamics of the workplace were a fascinating and frightening thing to behold for a single young person with delusions of grandeur and no polished skills to achieve it. Through experience, I learned that people who habitually speak positively of others tend to do so in all circumstances. Those who criticize others in your presence and recruit you to agree with their cutting remarks will probably criticize you when you're out of the room. There were those who always had muffled and subdued conversations in their ceilingless offices. Someone would come into the office, the door would be closed (which was a cue that some secret information was about to be exchanged), and the whispering began. I don't remember ever being able to decipher what was being said, and I didn't want to be caught standing with my ear pressed to the wall or tippytoed on top of my credenza, straining to hear what was coming over the wall. Those conversations will forever remain private. But they piqued my paranoia and sure sounded important at the time. The whisperers might have been trying to cloak their conversation from any number of people in the surrounding, ceilingless offices. Perhaps they were aware that the apparent secrecy of their conversation made the information, whatever it was, incredibly enticing. Maybe they knew the effect of whispered conversations and didn't actually say anything—just whispered to bust the neighbors' chops. None of this is a problem if people are open and honest. There was a secretary for one of the other Disney executives who took secretiveness to an extreme. Whenever anyone, not just me, walked near her workspace, whether to talk to her or just pass by, she dove on top of the papers on her desk to hide them. I had to pass her desk on my way to the restroom.

The next nearest restroom required walking downstairs, out the door, and into another building. Whenever I walked past her desk, I repeated to myself, Say nothing. Don't slow clown. Don't look in her direction. It didn't matter. The moment I rounded the corner, I heard the papers rustle and a dull thud as she landed on the desktop. She lay there, sprawled out, glaring at me, until I was out of sight. I always wondered what was so important about her boss's work to warrant such secrecy. He was a good person, a mid-food-chain manager, like me. He seemed to be an open communicator. The effect of her sprawling performance was curious, though. It created the illusion that whatever was contained on those papers was top secret, which it probably wasn't, and that she considered me a threat if I found out what was there. Maybe I should have been flattered that she thought I had so much power. I felt like she had some reason to be suspicious of me, even though I knew she didn't. Obviously, she felt she had reason to be suspicious of me. Other people had similar experiences with her and she spent a lot of time on top of her desk (especially an hour or so after the first pot of coffee disappeared). Yet, I only worried about what I might have done to warrant such treatment. Good Bosses are aware that sharing information in a thorough, timely manner makes people feel included, respected, and acknowledged for their ability to contribute. They make open communication a priority. They keep everybody informed all the time. And they are receptive to feedback. Not just between 3 and 4 p.m. every third Tuesday, but all of the time. It's so remarkably easy that bosses who don't do it should undergo psychiatric examination and electroshock therapy if necessary. The equitable treatment of all team members is nearly as important in the workplace as communication. I say nearly as important because, if people are going to be treated inequitably, it's better to be told up front about it than to pretend it's not happening. The real sting from preferential treatment of some at the expense of others comes from the charade that everyone is being treated equally. People don't mind being Cinderella before her run of luck as much as they hate being promised the whole prince and pumpkin thing with no followthrough.

Good Bosses are fair

Fairness in the office simply means applying the rules fairly, equally, and without regard for workplace political alliances. Even if the rules are stuffy and cumbersome, applying them fairly across the board builds good relationships. Holding some people's feet to the fire while giving others a pass produces hostility, resentment, and payback if it goes far enough. Communicating openly and honestly with people and treating them fairly is no more than treating them the way you like to be treated. It sounds overly simple, but it works. It's not hard and it doesn't cost anything. It also works on everybody, regardless of where you are on the food chain. Good Bosses treat those with more power the same way they treat those with less power. People are people. Yet, how often do you encounter a double standard? Worse, how often do you practice a double standard? Good employees tend to make Good Bosses and Good Bosses make good employees to those above them because the same factors apply to both. Positive behaviors that produce good relationships work in all directions. Self-indulgent employees usually make self-indulgent bosses. People who screw the little person are just as likely to screw the big person, given the opportunity.

If you're not a fair person or you don't communicate openly, you're not going to be the person the cubicle daydreamer with the silly grin on her face is dreaming about. Managing in all directions is an important concept to comprehend because the implications are so far reaching. If you have a Good Boss, chances are she is also a good employee. The values she demonstrates in your presence are likely to be the same values she demonstrates when you're not around. Being a Good Boss is so easy, it makes you wonder why anyone would invest the extra effort and energy required to be a bad one. I guess it all could come down to not knowing any better, monkey see/ monkey do, or choosing the wrong role model out of the available options. As much as go-along-to-get-along social butterflies around the office want to believe that animals and small children, left to their own devices, never hurt each other, there is always the ever-present hidden agenda or the ever-popular ulterior motive. When you have a bad boss, chances are that somebody is up to no good.

Thicker Than Blood

When the owner's kid is working for the company, you'd be a dim bulb indeed to not figure out she is special-rules material. I knew a guy once who drove a limo in New York City for a wealthy business family. Specifically, he worked for a father and his two sons. He was sure his employers liked him so much they were going to cut him in on the family business one day. That day never came. I tried to warn him it would never happen. Just because somebody likes you, with or without good reason, doesn't mean they're going to adopt you. You don't have to study much history to learn, blood is thicker than water and family money is thicker than blood. I've seen heads of families bypass talented, capable, loyal, dedicated, lifelong employees to hand their businesses over to a son or a daughter whose mental faculties have been significantly reduced by generations of inbreeding. The diminished capacity often contributes to the demise of the enterprise. Typically, the first generation establishes the business, the second generation grows it, the third generation barely sustains it, and the fourth generation destroys what's left. Not just mom-and-pop shops, but big firms, with hundreds of millions in revenues. Go figure. There are exceptions. I know of several fourth generation owners who are still growing their family businesses. Like so many things I once rebelled against, nepotism is now on my 'Get Over It and Get On with Your Life' list. Even when nepotism is the order of the day, open and honest communication, along with fairness in everything else, takes away much of the sting. Working for a familyowned business can be a rewarding experience.

God Bosses

There are people who think they're God. No one is sure how or why some people come upon self-deification. It could be an extreme case of choosing a role model. There is nothing wrong with emulating God-like qualities, but to imagine you're the big guy Himself—to think you are the voice from the burning bush—now you're scaring me. A God Boss is not an Idiot Boss in the classical sense. Somehow, thinking you're God transcends cluelessness. It's like believing you're Napoleon Bonaparte and then some. For their own safety and the safety of the population at large, God Bosses should be locked up, with the key dropped in the deepest river. Fortunately, God Bosses appear most often in church settings or in missionary organizations where the real God is considered boss to begin with, so the whole thing winds up as a power struggle with youknow- who coming up short. The misguided mortal in such cases merely tries to usurp the authority. God probably doesn't consider God Bosses a threat as much as an annoyance. You should take a deep breath and do the same, unless you work for one. If you have a God Boss, I hope and pray that he is a loving and gracious lord. Fire and brimstone in the wrong hands can ruin your day. Hopefully, the lunatic doesn't expect you to put on sackcloth and sandals. Then again, the more powerful the God Boss, the more important it is to find a way to coexist. If you find it is expedient to appease a God Boss, pray for pardon from your real Higher Authority and then play church. Upon seeing your God Boss for the first time each morning, bow slightly. When he acts down or depressed, take up a collection around the office and deliver tithes and offerings unto him. If your God Boss indicates you have disappointed him, don't argue. Beg forgiveness. Use the Old Testament as a guidearticle to making him happy. Old Testament antics are as a rule more over the top than New Testament behavior. When your God Boss is angry, find something or someone to sacrifice on his desk. Johnson, the internal auditor from Accounting, will make a decent burnt offering. Just be careful not to grind ashes into your boss's carpet. Use your imagination. One of the many reasons God Bosses annoy you might be that you can't believe the real God would create such a megalomaniac. Believe it. Leave room for the possibility he is playing God to compensate for a tremendous lack of confidence. In either case, it pays to consider what will please him and deliver. Trying to subvert or compete with a God Boss will invariably leave you the loser.

■ Make sure you address your God Boss as he wants to be addressed. If he wants to be called Mr. Smith instead of Joe, do it. Resistance will only cost you peace of mind and whatever influence over your working conditions you hope to achieve.

■ Follow his rules. Even if his rules conflict with company policies, find the middle ground and present him with the illusion that you are doing things his way—from formatting e-mail to the types of pictures you hang in your cubicle.

■ Lose the battles and win the war. God bosses are about power, usually because power hides incompetence. Your goal is to create a pleasant and rewarding working environment to the best of your ability. Battling a more powerful foe over the little stuff will leave you unhappy and resentful.

■ Offer him sacrifices. Seriously. It might cost you less than you think. If he likes donuts, as I mentioned in article 1, show up at his door and offer the whole box. If he likes granola, bring him granola (and eat it yourself around him). These are silly little things, but God Bosses firmly believe that, if you're not for them, you're against them.

■ Ask forward forgiveness. It's not that hard. By saying things like, "If it's okay with you..." or "Would you mind if...?" What your God Boss will hear is, "You have the power to grant..." and "It's your will that matters most around here."

■ Acknowledge his presence. God Bosses don't think of themselves as invisible. Don't make the mistake of ignoring him. When he comes into a meeting or the cafeteria, welcome him verbally. If you don't have the floor at the moment, make eye contact and nod your head to let him know you noticed his arrival. Your comfort in professional situations begins with your boss's comfort. Your attitude, if it is sufficiently positive, will put him at ease. His ease is your ease. If your attitude is resentful, he will bring thunder and lightning on your head and the heads of your coworkers. I won't go so far as to advise fearing your God Boss. He doesn't wield that much real power. But it's worth your while to respect the power he does have. Not to do so is to bring a plague of locusts on yourself.