I found a thread a few days ago where someone asked "I want to get my boss fired, because he's incompetent and is ruining the department, so how can I do this?" This idea is broken at many levels, and the stuff of delusional daydreams.

If you're ever in a situation like this, stop and take a breath and consider a few facts.

First and foremost, you're not a superhero, and you're not smarter than everyone else. It is not your job to come in and single-handedly save the IT department from ruin. That level of hubris is self-delusional and dangerous to your career. And if you ARE smarter than everyone else in the company, then you're in the wrong company.

Second, you can't "get your boss fired" by yourself. If you imagine that you can walk into your grandboss's office with a list of the boss's stupid moves, you're fooling yourself. That's not how things work. Do you think your grandboss is going to look at your well-documented list of the boss's sins, say "Thank you, Johnson" and then can the boss? That's fantasy. What's more likely to happen is that you'll get fired for insubordination. At the very least, you'll piss off your boss because he'll find out about it.

Note that I'm not talking about times when the boss is doing something illegal or unethical. In times like that, it's your responsibility to take these issues up with upper management. I'm talking about when the boss makes bad decisions (or more likely, decisions you don't agree with and have dubbed "bad"), or is a jerk, or is just somehow a bad boss.

Finally, what do you think is going to happen when you "get the boss fired"? Do you imagine that a better boss will be hired in his place? Why do think that upper management will get it right the second time? They screwed up once, and they're not fixing the problem, so what will change the second time around?

Realistically, when you're in a situation like this, one of two things will happen. Either upper management is aware of what a loser your boss is and he'll be gone soon enough, or they can't tell he's ineffective, and no amount of your documentation of his bad decisions is going to change that.

So the question is, which situation are you in? Do you trust upper management to take care of things and get rid of your bad boss? If so, sit tight and do your job. And if you think upper management is as dumb as your boss himself, then you are in a crappy company and need to get out.

The bad boss is not the problem. The company that allows him to be a bad boss is the problem.