Using the Giraffe, a distant team member can interact and socialize with peers at their company's headquarters without ever stepping on a plane. An engineer can see and speak with anyone on the factory floor, even from a different country. These capabilities decrease travel expenses while fostering collaboration.

The Giraffe is a mobile robot that can be moved around its location by remote control using the Internet. The Giraffe allows a user to hear, see, and speak at a far away location, just like traditional video conferencing. This fusion of robotics and video conferencing allows a user to feel like they are at the robot's location. Because people near the robot can see and hear the user, they interact with him as if he were truly present. In a sense, the robot acts as a stand-in for the user.

Do you manage teams at multiple geographic locations? Now you can "manage-by-walking-around" even if you're not there. Keep teams focused on their goals and build camaraderie using impromptu water-cooler talks and casual chats, just like if you were there. If you manage a factory floor or lab space, you can inspect progress from afar without relying on periodic status meetings.

Most books about leadership read like the Scout manual: CEOs and top managers should be authentic, considerate, sensitive, and modest, as well as creative, smart, and strategically brilliant. All true - but not very useful in the real world, where the person in the corner office might be as approachable as the junkyard dog.

Exhibit A: Steve Jobs.

Is he the charming, jeans-wearing CEO whose dramatic unveiling of the Apple (Charts) iPhone in January drove the stock up 8 percent by day's end? Or is he, as has been chronicled in several books, the classic jerk boss, notorious for belittling subordinates and business partners?

He's both, of course, and not much different from most executives: blessed with some attributes and cursed with others.

Working with doctoral students Paul Harvey and Jason Stoner, Hochwarter surveyed more than 700 people who work in a variety of jobs about their opinions of supervisor treatment on the job. The survey generated the following results:

Thirty-one percent of respondents reported that their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year.

Thirty-seven percent reported that their supervisor failed to give credit when due.

Thirty-nine percent noted that their supervisor failed to keep promises.

Twenty-seven percent noted that their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.

Twenty-four percent reported that their supervisor invaded their privacy.

Twenty-three percent indicated that their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

According to the researchers, "Employees stuck in an abusive relationship experienced more exhaustion, job tension, nervousness, depressed mood and mistrust. They also were less likely to take on additional tasks, such as working longer or on weekends, and were generally less satisfied with their job. Also, employees were more likely to leave if involved in an abusive relationship than if dissatisfied with pay."

Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multi-tasking and productivity. But they're also a nightmare for many of their bosses, those over 35 who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn't replace relationship building as a primary means for doing business. Today's bosses can't understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.

"I hear from clients that [young professionals'] first instinct is to IM rather than walk over to their boss's office. That can be OK for a quick question, but when you're planning something, you need to talk face-to-face," says Steven Rothberg, founder of Collegerecruiter.com, who places recent graduates into corporate jobs.

The tech disparity between 20-somethings and 40-somethings is far greater today than it was 20 years ago, when today's 40-somethings were the young turks. Over 17 percent of today's workforce is between the ages of 25 and 34, while another 28 percent is made up of employees 55 and over, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show.

That breakdown is not much different than in many past years. But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging. A recent survey by outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison shows that 60 percent of U.S. corporations acknowledge having workplace tensions among generations.

Ruth Sherman, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based communications consultant whose client roster includes Deloitte, Pfizer and Bank of America, says common complaints about younger workers range from lame handshakes and poor conversational skills to super-casual attire and personal use of company e-mail. Some show up at job interviews in tee shirts. What the Gen Yers don't see, she says, is the meaning and value of gestures and other non-verbal skills that don't come through in a text message.

"My clients are frustrated; a lot of them are throwing up their hands because they can't persuade young people to get it," Sherman says.

Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM who now runs Instant Technologies, an enterprise IM software group, thinks one of the biggest etiquette breaches by Gen Y recruits involves newbies typing paragraph upon paragraph of chat.

"It's a new medium, don't treat it like e-mail," Tyler says.”

A bad boss can drive you nuts! Long hours, low pay. Hard work, no health insurance. The boss gets a golden parachute, you get no pension, no respect. You need a break.

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