Here's one more reason for bosses to treat their employees well.
CareerBuilder.com launched a viral web site where people can send anonymous messages to the bosses and co-workers who drive them crazy. The Anonymous Tip Giver tool is billed as allowing people to offer "constructive criticism or fun advice" for those bosses who take credit for their work, use sarcasm like a weapon or make workers stay late on their kid's birthday.
On the site, announced Tuesday by CareerBuilder.com, people can choose from four different characters and then choose a voice that will deliver a worker's message to his boss. Users can pick from a list of messages or type out their own, which will then be anonymously delivered via email, with the character reading the message aloud.
"You can write up your own advice or select from a list of pre-made tips such as 'One out of 10 people think your barking dog ring tone is funny, that one person is you', said CareerBuilder in a statement. "You can even record your message over the phone. Without revealing your identity, in an instant, the fully animated tip is delivered right to the recipient's e-mail box. Voila! Bad boss problem solved."
The new viral site will officially launch during the Super Bowl football game on Sunday.
A little more than a year ago, Mozilla launched a viral marketing campaign to push its open-source Web browser to new users. The campaign included a Web site, an anthem, a link to Firefox's download and an enormous list of statistics that purported to compare Firefox users with people who used rival Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.
But the campaign didn't work out so well. Within hours after kicking off the campaign, Mozilla shut it down and apologized to users.
Regardless of how a viral campaign works out, plenty of people are unhappy with their bosses or their co-workers.
According to a Harris Interactive online poll of 8,038 full-time, US employees, 43% said they have quit jobs simply to get away from a bad boss, according to CareerBuilder, which commissioned the survey. The poll also found that 48% of the women surveyed would quit their jobs because of a bad boss, compared to 39% of men.
And age also is part of the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go decision. CareerBuilder.com reported that 48% of workers between the ages of 35 and 44 quit their jobs because of their boss, while 40% of workers between the ages of 18 and 24, and 41% of workers 45 to 54 said bosses pushed them to quit.
In the survey, reports of real-life bad boss behavior included stories of one boss who used a taser on a subordinate, one who tap danced on a worker's desk, another who showed everyone a kidney stone that he had passed, and another who mandated a 'talk like a pirate day'.
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