Happy Boss Day! Really.

Office work space

Today is National Boss Day – Did you know it started here, in Chicagoland?

Wikipedia states: Patricia Bays Haroski registered “National Boss Day” with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1958. She was working as a secretary for State Farm Insurance Company in Deerfield, Illinois, for her father, at the time and chose October 16, which was her father’s birthday.

The purpose of designating a special day in the workplace is to show the appreciation for her bosses she thought they deserved. This was also a strategy to attempt to improve intra-office relationships between managers and their employees. Haroski believed that young employees sometimes did not understand the hard work and dedication that their supervisors put into their work and the challenges they faced. Four years later, in 1962, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner backed Haroski’s registration and officially proclaimed the day.

Wikipedia adds: “It has been pitched as a day for employees to thank their bosses for being kind and fair throughout the year, but some have opposed the concept as nothing more than a meaningless Hallmark Holiday, as well as placing unfair pressure on employees to ‘kowtow’ to managers who earn more than they do, while exercising power over them.”

The Dutch word ‘baas’ meaning master was what led to the word ‘boss’.
Hallmark did not have a greeting card for Boss’s Day until 1979. Today they offer over 50 different cards for it.
It is a controversial holiday.
It is not mandatory to give gifts to your boss on this day!