He filed for bankruptcy eight years ago and apparently has not learned any lessons from that ordeal.   Filing for bankruptcy is very similar to debt consolidation.  You are basically using your Get Out Jail Free card with little consequence or learning involved.  It’s like a grownup’s version of a “do over” from childhood.  With no pain involved what’s from stopping it from happening again?

On a more day-to-day note, he lives paycheck to paycheck.  Actually he does not quite make it to the next paycheck.  Once he told me how he writes himself a check for cash the day before payday.  He found an ATM that surprisingly allows funds to be withdrawn immediately after a deposit.  When money runs tight, he’ll withdraw the funds from this “deposit” to make ends meet before payday.   It gives him the much-needed cash infusion before he gets his paycheck.  Some of you might have heard another term for this act:  kiting checks.  It is classified as check fraud and playing the “float” between the time of the check being cashed and the deposit of the check itself is illegal.   In some instances, he did not make it in time and had to pay overdraft fees.  He was on the phone complaining with the bank so many times they almost knew him on a first-name basis.  If he just built up an emergency fund none of these cash shortages would have come into play.

Next,  I’ll discuss his car purchase fiasco.  He went to buy a minivan for around $20,000.  Unlike most car purchase stories, negotiating with the dealer does not even come into play here.  When he went to trade-in his old car, he learned that he was $5,000 in over his head on that one.  The dealer also somehow managed to tack on $8,000 more in an extended warranty, underbody rust protection and a bunch of other junk.  Bottom line:  he paid $33,000 for a $20,000 minivan.  This is quite remarkable.  Just on that deal alone he came out $13,000 more in the hole than needed.

If he woke up today and decided to fix his money problems where would he start?

• Make some big lifestyles changes quickly.  Sell both cars and pay cash for very cheap cars.  Or live with one car.  Driving a junker car is only temporary to get him back on the saddle.
• Cease to use credit cards – permanently.
• At each job change or pay raise, bank that money.  Do not change the lifestyle.
• Recognize that these changes today will make for a much happier tomorrow

I’ve oversimplified the remedy for his issues but the above items are great starting points for my friend to begin to enjoy that six-figure salary.

1. Alarm clock. Nearly all of the phones sold in the last several years have a built-in alarm clock. Unlike the alarm clock at your bedside this one is far more portable since it’s part of the phone. Use the alarm clock to wake up just 30 minutes earlier each morning and you’ve just bought yourself 3.5 hours a week of free time. Or perhaps you can use this 30 minutes of extra time to arrive at work early or on time if you are perpetually tardy. If you travel often most phones today will auto-sync the phone’s internal clock with your arrival city. Use this alarm clock to wake up 30 minutes earlier no matter where you are.
2. Calendar function. The built-in calendar on the phone may be more cumbersome to use than a traditional PDA but the odds are likely you have your phone with you more often than your PDA (unless it’s a Palm Treo which is both in one). You can use this calendar for the traditional needs of remembering appointments, birthdays or special occasions and it will beep or vibrate a day, an hour or minutes before the event. A second more creative use is to have the phone become your “personal trainer” or “mental motivator” by setting up dates and times that will notify you to stay on target with your goals. How about a daily calendar alarm at 5:30 am to get you out of bed and exercising? How about a calendar alarm at lunch to remind you to run those errands you’ve been dreading or forgetting? How about a weekly alarm to remind you to weigh in to track your weight loss goals and fitness plans? Or a monthly alarm to check the progress of your cash fund for that big purchase? The sky is the limit with the calendar function for notifications to keep you on progress with your life goals.
3. Integrate your phone with an online calendar such as one from Google or Yahoo that have easier interfaces to enter more data. These online calendars will send email notifications to you before the event as a reminder. Why not send it to your cell phone’s email address? This is the same as step 2 above but with an easier interface to enter your event. Email addresses for the major carriers are
   1. Verizon – phonenumber@vtext.com
   2. Nextel – phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
   3. Sprint – phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
   4. Cingular – phonenumber@cingularme.com
   5. ATT – phonenumber@mobile.att.net
   6. Alltell – phonenumber@message.alltel.com
4. Notepad. Many of the phones have a simple notepad for recording notes to yourself. Use this while waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting at a restaurant or waiting anywhere. I’d bet you have nearly 20 minutes a day of wasted time waiting in lines. Use your phone’s notepad to write down to-do lists, ideas for personal self-growth or at a bare minimum the grocery list of milk and diapers from your spouse.
5. Voice recorder. Nearly identical to Step 4 with the Notepad feature. Only this one is far easier and safer to do while driving. Record a message to yourself about a great new business idea, a phone number someone just told you or an address you’re likely to forget. Or better yet use it to record verbal landmarks while driving through a part of town though which you’ll likely get lost upon your return trip. Use it to remember the pronunciation of a future sales prospect’s name or the wording of a difficult medical term.
6. Train Your Subconscious Mind. Whether used by you or not most phones sold today have a built-in camera. Do what I did recently with a slip of paper. I printed out two goals in a large bold font on the paper. I then took a picture of those two goals just so it’s legible in the phone small screen. I then set that photo to be my wallpaper background. Studies have shown we look at our watches between 30 – 50 times per day, but cell phones have replaced watches as the timepiece of choice. You can see where I am going with this. You will now be looking at your goal 30 – 50 times per day! I came up with this idea about a month ago when I was struggling with two goals of mine (waking up at 5am during weekdays and losing a certain amount of weight). Seeing those two goals several dozen times per day has trained my brain to make these goals part of my subconscious mind. Once they are permanently etched into my head I’ll replace them with two other goals. It’s amazing how well this one has worked for me. Get creative with it. If you are in sales take a picture of your monthly sales quota goal. If you have a fitness goal take a picture of an optimally fit person or some text of your physical goals like I did. Who would have thought a cell phone could plant seeds of goal accomplishment in your head?
7. Train Your Subconscious Mind, Part 2. A simpler solution than the photo idea in Step 6 is to merely change what is called the “banner” on your cell phone. Many carriers make it display the company’s name in text at the top center of the phone during its normal usage display. Go into the “display banner” setting and change it to say a 20-character goal. Some examples:
   1. Weigh 175 lbs.
   2. Close $ dollar sales.
   3. Bed by 10pm.
   4. Read a book a week.
   5. Eat low-fat.
   6. Don’t smoke.
8. Call yourself. If it’s too difficult to use the Notepad or Voice Recorder try calling your home, work or cell phone itself voice mail system. Leave yourself a message about that important idea that just popped in your head or an item that must be done before you go to bed tonight or start work first thing in the morning tomorrow.

Use these creative ideas to think of your phone as more than just a communication device. It’s a portable goal-setting, goal-achieving machine.

• Seniority promotion – this happens when a person has worked for a company for so long they almost have to promote the employee. The employee might not have any management skills whatsoever but the company feels it’s time to promote him or risk losing him to another company. Basically this person became the boss by default.
• Technical promotion – this person is either a workaholic who got promoted by working 60+ hours per week or has such a strong technical acumen for the position upper management figured he’d make a good manager. Many times the person lacks the critical balance between people skills and technical skills. This boss may be a technical wizard, but he’d rather spend his days alone in a lab or in front of a spreadsheet than deal with employees.
• Job transfer – this person came to be your boss either from another department or division or another company all together. His management style is not entirely known initially.

Regardless of how your boss came to be, I’d like to share a couple ideas on how to cope with working for a bad boss. In some cases this person may actually be affecting your productivity and you need to figure something out or risk losing your own job. In other cases it’s a matter of finding a way to get through eight hours each day without losing your mind.

One of my first jobs out of college I worked for a bad boss. In the years I worked for him I never once heard him admit he was wrong. He fit into the technical promotion category of bosses. Technically he had strong knowledge of our company’s products and services, but dealing with people was a leftover task into which he’d put little effort. In another instance I had a boss who would come and go randomly throughout the day. He’d take vacation days or handle personal matters without any notification to his employees. I’d have his boss come to me now and then asking where he was and none of us in the department had a clue. Finally I had one boss who would make lewd, sexual comments forgetting that he was in a management role and not just an employee (as if the comments were acceptable either way). I’m amazed he never had a harassment lawsuit filed against him or the company. I’m sure you could add your own bad boss stories as well (email me at mattREMOVEIFYOUAREHUMAN@matthutter.com) and I’d like to hear from you.

Now that I’ve laid out what creates a bad boss and ones for whom I’ve worked let’s discuss ways of coping with it. Below are five ways of handling working for a bad boss:

1. Keep a log of his actions you think are either inappropriate in the workplace or actions your boss has taken that are not in the best interest of the company. When you feel you’ve gathered enough evidence of poor management skills present it to your HR or personel department or possibly have a “skip-level” meeting where you skip over your manager’s head and meet with his boss. Be aware that corporate “whistle-blowers” sometimes get hit by a backlash from upper management from being a snitch. However, if you believe it’s in your company’s best interest for you to make these actions known then act on them.
2. Discuss with your colleagues their professional opinion of the boss. Once you separate the kiss-ups from those who tell it like it is you can then assess whether your experience with your boss is on par with the rest of the department or if you are the only one who sees it this way. Once you have several employees agreeing with your view of the boss you have several options. At a minimum you can commiserate with each other on how this boss hurts the organization and others. Working together you can all decide whether to go forward with item #1 above and make this manager’s action known.
3. Visit our friends at WorkWorries.com and visit the articles on how to work for a difficult boss.
4. Don’t overlook the obvious: speak to your tough boss directly on how you see things going and what are some suggestions to improve things. Don’t put him on the defensive. Tell things in the third person rather than saying “you always do this” or “you never do that” which could come across making him look bad. If this person just cannot be reasoned with you should have a sense of how it is going early on in the discussion.
5. As a last resort, develop a game plan to get yourself moved to another department or another company all together. It’s a draconian measure, but if you are to the point where you cannot sleep at night or this boss’s belligerence is affecting your after-work life then it’s time to move on.

Bad bosses are part of life that many of us experience from job to job. Hopefully the lessons you learn working for a bad boss teach you what not to do once you become the boss.