Is your boss an idiot?

-Puja's point

CNN Money is running an article , "Is your boss an idiot?" They include several examples of employer idiocy, like this one:
"So, why are you the boss?" That was surely on the minds of staffers at one Web start-up when they attended a meeting held to introduce the new chief technology officer. According to one former staffer, the CTO had zero Internet experience, a fact made all too apparent when he walked into the meeting carrying the book, "Building a Web Site for Dummies."
Unfortunately, I had a boss like that once.
I had a job working for a web consulting company. It was a dream job in the sense that I got to live in Mumbai. And also in the sense that nightmares are dreams too.
My boss, the "PDG" of the company (he owned the company and was its president), decided he wanted to start an American-style web consulting company. By American-style he seemed to mean that it should be pro-customer: do what it takes to make them happy. As opposed to the stereotypical French tendency of being indifferent to their customers' needs. (I love the French dearly, but we all know - French people included - that this attitude has historically manifested itself in many French businesses. Of course, Americans know that it has also manifested itself in many American businesses as well, but that reality never seemed to enter into my boss's thinking. Which is hardly surprising since many other realities also evaded his consideration.)
When he'd offered me the job initially I thought it was because of my talents as a webmaster. After I got there though he let it be known that he hired me because I was an American, and a female one at that. As if my demographic qualities were going to magically elevate the quality of his company's product. I don't think I'm being too bold to say that his company's product would have been better improved if instead of trying to employ some sort of aura I was supposedly exuding he'd actually tapped into my experience in building websites. Especially since (as I found out way too late) he apparently didn't have a clue about how to do it himself.
Now, he did have a couple of employees, myself included, who were good at it. But we weren't there for the sales calls when he promised customers things that were at best ill-advised and more often completely impossible. I'd sit at my desk and try wring out every drop of my existential essence but it was of no use. My feminine wiles may be good, but let's just say that if they were able to make Internet Explorer and Netscape compatible they would have done so long ago.
(Of course, my boss was practically a savant compared to the director of sales who wasn't even computer literate. There weren't enough computers in the office so when I was at lunch he'd use mine. The hazard this posed stemmed from him not knowing the difference between minimizing a window, and closing it. As if working digital alchemy wasn't trying enough, having to start over halfway through the day didn't make things any easier.)
So every day, against my better judgment, but per his instructions, I built crap. Which naturally the customers ended up hating. Which NATURALLY was my fault. It was a train wreck. It got to the point where I could see the train coming, but I couldn't figure out how to jump off the track in time to not get flattened. Perhaps if I'd been able to employ any professional discretion I could have actually helped the situation, built a decent and appropriate web site, and pleased the client. But when I tried doing so, he reminded me that I wasn't hired for that. Which is ironic since all my American instincts, which supposedly he did hire me for, told me that the best way to keep a customer happy was to not give them garbage.
Eventually I managed to extricate myself from this mess, which was hard because I was in a foreign country and pretty much dependent on him for everything. And I had significantly underestimated how big of an ass he was. He'd orally promised me a dozen or so times that he'd pay to ship my belongings back to the U.S. when I left his employ, but when I asked him if he could put that in writing he became furious. "How DARE you not trust me!" he bellowed (in English). Then, raising his arm and pointing to my office, he ordered me, "Get back to work!" Which is sort of amusing in retrospect because when I did leave (soon after, duh) he stiffed me.
So the moral of the story is that if your boss seems to be an idiot, it's probably not his only personality flaw.