once again...

It's probably a good thing my boss works from his home and not from our main corporate office. Today would have been his last on earth otherwise. I have worked for him for three and a half years now, and when I say he's the best boss I've ever had, I mean it. (But I haven't had great bosses either... one called me stupid to my face, one was complacent with the fact that her business was losing money since it was just "fun" to her, and another was so micromanaging that she couldn't keep employees longer than three months at a time before they ran away screaming.)

My current boss has problems of his own. He is a shiny-ball-chaser, meaning whatever captures his interest most at any given time is #1 priority. Tomorrow he may not care at all, there's no way to tell. He can't be anywhere on time, ever, and he can't finish anything on time, ever. He never finishes a project, a byproduct of the shiny-ball syndrome and the perpetually late problem both. He cancels and moves meetings for no good reason all the time, regardless of the strain it puts on me, who controls his calendar, or anyone else involved. Working with him, you are living in his world, and it's a wild, crazy ride.

He's also full of really great ideas, he's a lot of fun to be around, he cares so much about people, almost to a fault, and he would never do anything intentional to hurt me or anyone else. He's always giving positive feedback and wants everyone here to grow, learn, and succeed.

BUT. I have been begging and pleading for him to lead an internal training session (or two or three) for months to try to get some new team members up to speed on his area of knowledge. It's not something I can do myself, I'm a different department. He finally agreed last week so I set it up for today. Everyone was SO excited. We were going to do it after hours so they could all really pay attention, we had popcorn ready, people told their families not to expect them, etc.

An hour before the start time, he canceled it saying he had lost his voice.

It's ALWAYS something. Always. Something else always comes up. Maybe he lost his voice, maybe, but with his history of canceling everything I don't even care the reason anymore. The mood in the office was immediately brought down when I announced that we had to reschedule, but of course he didn't see it. I can't count on him to finish anything, and there are days I want to get up and walk out because I'm so frustrated by it.

There have been a few times I've tried to go into this with him, but seeing his face get all sad and mopey when he realizes he's made me mad is always enough for me to lay off a bit. Plus he is still my boss so I don't feel like I can totally ream him out with no consequences. I can't change him though. It's something I'm going to have to continue to live with, I suppose. Today was just particularly maddening.