Are you not a fool if you take pride in doing something that imprisons you, that belittles you, that curtails you, that is detrimental to your interests?

If your agree, then let’s check if you are a fool or not. Imagine you are a middle management guy, with a team of 5-6 people reporting to you. Among the following statements, which ones do you agree with?

1. I am proud of working late/ weekends often. I respect those who stay late at office.
2. I am proud of being a doer. Thinking is for pansies, let’s just do it.  I don’t like it when people ask too many question. I like when they do as they are told.
3. I am proud for being available to my boss and subordinates, 24×7. I like it when people are accessible at all times for the smallest of queries or requests.
4. I am proud for not having taken a holiday in the last two years. I don’t like people taking holidays.
5. I don’t like hiring women, because they get pregnant.
6. I am proud for taking care of things in the nick of time. I like people who are flexible, who can take additional duties at any time.
7. I am a shoot-from-the-hip, on-the-fly decision maker. I don’t like these new-fangled things called plans, strategies. Who thinks ahead in time, anyways. I react!
   I like enterprising young talent who can make sense of my chaos. I hate taking decision or thinking ahead in time. Which means you will have to be ready to respond to escalations, unexpectedly long reworks, expensive detours, deadend meetings, scrapped projects…
8. I like people who ‘hit the ground running’, who would start working on day one. Training is a waste of time and money.
9. I don’t like giving feedback. Too much work to think about someone else. Just do your job.

And so on. you get the picture. So for how many of these statement were you in agreement with? and now imagine how many of these statements your boss would be in agreement with? Is there an alignment?

Is it really in your interest to be this person or to work for such a person?