Last year, I wrote an article about dealing with difficult bosses that listed seven typical troublesome characters like the "micro-manager" or the "absentee" boss. Well, workplace expert, Lynn Taylor, has expanded on that in her book Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior AND Thrive in Your Job. Taylor lists 20 different types of Terrible Office Tyrant (TOT) and how to manage each one. This book could be particularly useful to recent graduates who have just landed entry level jobs. With today's job market, no one wants to have to go job hunting unless it's absolutely necessary, so it might be a good idea for anyone with a tyrannical boss to read Taylor's book.

Some may want to blame bad boss behavior on the recession but Taylor says, no dice. "It's a mistake to think too convetionally - that it's the economy's fault," says Taylor, who has studied boss behavior in good times as well as bad. "It is a fact that in the current labor climate, TOTs are in high gear because they hold all the hiring cards," she explains. "Because they also behave this way during any period of stress - even in good times, when there's unwieldy workloads to dole out or when they are just having a bad day."

But Taylor's book isn't about bashing bosses. In fact, she has a section at the back of the book that provides useful advice for bosses with TOT employees. "We are all TOTs inside, but when it comes to the office, the child inside should stay there," says Taylor.

In addition to real-life tales of employees who tames their TOT bosses - or hit the road when their TOTs proved untamable - Taylor also has humorous Dos and Don'ts segments in each chapter to assist employees in their efforts to make their workplaces more pleasant. Some of the TOT types discussed in Taylor's book are:

• Bragging
• Bullying
• Stubbornness
• Self-Centeredness
• Fickleness
• Helplessness
• Mood Swings
• Neediness

Taylor draws on 20 years of experience in corporate America and her experiences with raising two sons. What she discovered is that toddlers and TOTs have a lot in common, and she illustrates this in her book with a table of parallel incidents like:

Whether you're working with TOT employee, coworker or boss, Taylor says that any workplace can be "TOT-proofed" with the help of techniques like "CALM, Communicate, Anticipate, Laugh, and Manage." Taylor considers CALM as one of the most effective methods for dealing with TOTs.

Getting an entry level job these days is tough and with continued layoffs, keeping them seems to be even tougher, so following the advice in Taylor's book is preferable to going on the hunt for another job, except as a last resort.