How can I deal with a boss who is in a foul mood?

Timing is everything in human relations. PHOTO | BD GRAPHIC 

By DR FRANK NJENGA

In Summary

• Whatever you do, you must try to understand the human beings you work with better.

I am a manager in a hotel in Mombasa and we serve diverse local and international customers. As part of the company’s policy to get feedback from our customers, we receive both positive and negative reviews. But the negative reviews usually feel personal and hurtful.

When we are reviewing these with the proprietor, it is me who is put on the spot and this demoralises me. I cannot argue with him. Part of the problem is that the owners do not want to make necessary changes, invest more in the business and we are forced to operate on a low budget.

I want to speak to the owner, who is always in a foul mood, and pinpoint to him the problem areas. What is the best timing?

When you ask about the best time, do you want to know whether morning, afternoon or night or do you mean this week when the hotel is full or when it is less busy and therefore more time to “talk”.

You might also be wondering whether to pick a time when his wife is away for the long summer break to be with her mother in England, or perhaps soon after the death of his bother with whom he has had business disputes over the past 10 years.

As you can see, the concept of timing can have many possibilities and before you pick the time, you might have to think about some of these possibilities.

This aspect of timing is critical to all human relations and not just the employer-employee relationship. Let me explain.

If, for example a husband wishes to pay his wife a compliment about something, say her dress, hair, cooking or flower arrangement, it does not make sense to tell her weeks after.

To point out that the dress she wore three weeks earlier seemed to fit her very well or that the hairdo the week before last was very good, is nonsense beyond measure, and is taken to mean that what she has now is worse than what she had three weeks earlier. Any protestation or explanation makes a difficult conversation impossible.

Wives who choose to tell their husbands off for coming home at 3am soon find it to be an exercise in futility. A drunk man at 3am is tired, irritable and unlikely to remember a word (good or bad) spoken by anybody, let alone an angry wife.

Such a scenario is as bad as the father who goes out drinking to gather courage to come home to give his adolescent son “advice” about his falling school grades and the fear he has that drugs may be contributing to the poor grades.

Teachers who drink heavily and smoke have no moral authority over the children they purport to advice on these vices, or for that matter any other vice. One could go on, but the bottom line is that timing is everything in human relations.

The other component to your question relates to you feeling personally hurt. This might have a bearing to you as a person. Different personality types relate to their jobs in different ways.

There are some employees, for example, who treat their jobs as a bother. A few weeks ago, I saw an employee who said that he keeps the job only because it pays his medical bills. He feels the employer is unfair, unreasonable and does not deserve a person of his calibre.

Another employee, perhaps like you, goes to work to do a good day’s job. For them, a job is not just a place one earns a living. It is a source of pride and at the end of each day he examines himself to see if he deserves the kind of employer he has.