Have You Ever Wanted to Convict Your Boss?

So far, he’s portrayed Blagojevich as a combination of Michael Scott, Mr. Spacely and Major Major, the shy officer in Catch-22 who went in and out of his office through the window.

 

Greenlee testified that Blagojevich only spent two to eight hours a week in the office, preferring to work from home, that he once hid in the bathroom to avoid discussing business with an underling, that he “reacted negatively to those who disagreed with him,” and that “the best way to maintain good relations with him was … to tell him what he wanted to hear.” Greenlee also said Blagojevich was so disengaged that he once had to meet him at a bowling alley to force him to discuss legislation.

 

Frankly, Blagojevich sounds exactly like my last boss, except that my boss was obsessed with finding a husband, not advancing her political career. And probably a lot of your bosses, too. Walk into any office building in Chicago, and you’ll find an employee who thinks his boss is vain, demanding, plays favorites, promotes yes-men and spends too much time at lunch. Most of these employees are also certain they’re more competent than the guy in charge. And they’d love to dish on their bosses’ faults in a public forum where the boss was getting a performance review.

 

Greenlee stuck a thumb in his boss' eye, and it's another example of testimony that makes Blagojevich look like a deluded fool, a buffoon, a fop, and an incompetent, spiteful, envious politician. As Maureen Dowd just wrote of John Edwards, “If character were elastic, he wouldn’t have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.” That doesn’t make him a criminal, though.

 

I never wanted to see my old boss in jail, but I would have loved to see her get fired on Celebrity Apprentice. Unless Greenlee comes up with something better than “I had to drag him to a bowling alley to get him to work,” he may have to settle for that punishment, too.