Close readers of this blog know that I have a low threshold for “news” or “trends” that seem to be generated by the clueless and brain-dead practitioners of America’s public relations profession solely to promote the latest book or expertise of some windbag “expert” they have as a client.

Don’t know what I’m ranting about? It’s the flood of pitches about the problems with office gambling pools around the NCAA college basketball tournament, aka March Madness, every spring. Or, office romance issues around Valentine’s Day. And, I even had one last year that was concocted around the ridiculous notion of workers going overboard and watching the Summer Olympics instead of doing their jobs.

These are all urban workplace legends created out of whole cloth by PR people to hype and pitch their clients.

They are not a problem for 99 percent of the working world and simply are a case of creating a bogus workplace issue that—surprise!—there just happens to be some expert who can help solve.

This would all be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that there are equally brain-dead media types, primarily engaged in the broadcasting profession, who play into this hype and regurgitate the nonsense that these PR handlers and their “experts” are spewing. They help to perpetuate this cycle that focuses on silliness rather than really honest-to-goodness workplace issues.

And that gets me to my latest rant about something called National Boss Day. It’s apparently coming up Friday, October 16, although as Wikipedia rightly says (and readers note, I’ll probably never put that in a sentence again), “The holiday has been the source of some controversy and criticism in the United States, where it is often mocked as a Hallmark Holiday.”

I’ve had a couple of press releases today touting either workplace surveys pegged to National Boss Day or some manner of workplace expertise about how to deal with a boss that spins off the event.

Here’s my take: National Boss Day is a put-on, a fraud, a silly and senseless “event” that one would expect to find in a Monty Python sketch, an episode of The Office or a Dilbert cartoon. And in all cases, the mention of such an event should simply be to mock the pretentiousness of such BS.

Why do we need National Boss Day anyway? As a longtime boss, the last thing I want is for anyone working for me to engage in such nonsense because it seems to elevate being a boss for no other reason than because a boss has power and authority.

In my world, great bosses are honored for the good they do and the respect and loyalty they generate among those who work with them, not because someone concocted some fake day that people are expected to remember. 

So, just remember this when you read or hear some dumb “news” story on Friday about National Boss Day. When you do, smile for a second and perhaps take a moment to wonder, “What kind of real news am I missing because some idiot editor fell prey to this PR crap about National Boss Day?”

When that happens, think of me and remember, I warned you here first.

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