One day boss comes in and sees my colleague. Remarks how early he came in. He said he never left the previous day and planned to just keep working (salaried guy). Said he needed to take the day off, wouldn’t have him drive, and he drove his car and had me follow to take the boss back to work after dropping colleague and his car at home.

He consistently tried to break that guy’s incessant overworking. Had a lot of respect for him.

Unfortunately he got canned when he kept some stuff from upper management in writing that got upper management in trouble. Not enough trouble to remove their ability to retaliate, but enough to save a few other jobs of folks they were trying to throw under the bus for their mistake.

We talked about woodworking in our one on one meetings instead of my “career goals”

Chill and kind. If I said I didn’t want to travel, they took that into consideration.

He actually cared about us. Our wellbeing, our professional growth. He didn’t get too stressed about things. He was forever asking for help with his phone or Word or Excel, but it was so adorable when he decided he wanted to learn to do a thing and just wanted our watchful eye to give him confidence. He in turn built our confidence. He had our backs. He was the best boss I ever had. When I was given staff to look out for, it’s him who I tried to emulate. He passed last month, and the service is next month. I’m looking forward to seeing the old gang again even under sad circumstances.

Listened to me when I made recommendations.

Respected the work day ended at 5.

Planned maintenance windows.

Followed through on my advice in a timely manor.

Emergencies were actual emergencies and not caused by poor planning.

Had many great bosses. They listen, cared and gave help when I needed it. My boss today trust me doing whatever I am doing and every time I ask something I get help.

They asked me to do things instead of telling me to do things.

He was explicit about it. He said, I know I’m your boss, I can’t just say go do this thing, but I have found I get better results and have happier co-workers when I ask you to do the things I need you to do instead of telling you to do the things I need you to do.

A specific example would be, instead of, “please clean the lobby”, Saying, xwill you go clean the lobby for me, please?"

And it’s one of those things that’s really, really subtle and really minor. It only takes a small amount of adjustment in it in the way that you speak, and it yields excellent results.

Bosses that listen to their employees, take their issues, suggestions, and concerns into actual consideration, and who don’t have ego/dick-swinging personality issues are the best bosses. Also, they don’t yell unnecessarily.

• Worked for their local team, and was quite happy to challenge/push back on unreasonable top-down asks.
• Quite happy to admit they didn’t know stuff and asked for advice and ideas - and, of course, credited the appropriate team members for things that worked, but took responsibility themselves if things didn’t go well.
• Displayed authentic emotions and enthusiasm for the work, rather that present a bland corporate mask.

When there was a conflict between employees due to one employee being a complete jackass they dealt with the jackass instead of telling everyone else that they have to accommodate the jackass because ‘that is just how they are’.

I’m a worker that asks a lot of questions and gets frustrated when i don’t understand why things are done a certain way. The best boss/manager I had actually sat down with me and explained in a friendly manner when I had questions instead of dismissing me. They helped me when they saw I was just trying to understand to do my job better.

Shot me with a nerf gun.

Understood motivation and didn’t care about pointless bullshit. Helps he was the co-owner of the company. He cared about growth and revenue and having a team motivated to achieve all that. He didn’t care how or where or when I did the work, or having procedures for promotions.

The rule was - line goes up everyone gets a raise.

My best boss ever was a very involved and fair professional man (mostly) while on the clock and an absolute pimp the second he was off the clock.

The man drove a clapped out impala with paint chips and 200k miles. He always came in a little early and was always high energy. He was always listening to the different departments issues and he would side with us against customers when it was appropriate, but he would recognize when that wasn’t the best path and he would help explain it to the staff afterwards why he chose to bend the rule in that situation.

He understood human mistakes like randomly being late or forgetting to punch back in from lunch here or there, but he was also very firm with people who were repeat offenders.

One time we had a guy stealing stuff in the back corner of the store and security called it out over the walkie. I watched him sprint up to the front where the cameras were and tell the security to point them somewhere else for a moment. Then he ran back and FLIPPED this thief over his shoulder before telling him to get the fuck out. The guy scurried out and we never saw him again.

Then one day I saw him roll up to work on his day off to pick something up. I shit you not this man rocked up in a MINT black Escalade on huge mirror shined rims. He hopped out with a fur coat on over his immaculate white suit. He walked around and let out his GORGEOUS wife who was like half his size. She wrapped around his arm and he walked in like he owned the world.

We became good enough friends over the years I worked there that eventually I got invited to his house for a party. The man had a 300 gallon SHARK tank right in front of the door to his house. It’s the first thing anyone sees when they enter his house.

He was firm with people, but understanding. He allowed his staff to have fun as long as the important tasks were getting done. He communicated clearly with everyone. He took concerns about issues with other managers and leaders that worked directly under him seriously. He knew what he was talking about and he had a certain charm about him with both customers and employees. To this very day he’s the only boss I ever had where everyone I knew liked him.

When he left the company for a better paying job a lot of us transferred to other locations or just left the company ourselves as well.

I still have him on Facebook and it seems he’s got a beautiful family and that makes me happy. He deserves all of it.