10 Things Your Boss Won't Tell You-III

8. "I'm shallow."

As if being thin and attractive weren't its own reward, being both helps workers get ahead at work, too. The opposite is also true: People who are unattractive or overweight in their bosses' eyes are punished for it at the office. In spite of the fact that in most professions, attractiveness has no bearing on performance, many bosses subscribe to the notion that "what is beautiful is good" (PDF), according to a psychology researcher from Hofstra. As a result, good-looking people earn 3% to 8% more than average-looking people, who, in turn, earn 5% to 10% more than those rated "plain," according to a 2005 study by Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University.

Extra body weight comes with its own employment challenges: 43% of overweight people say they were teased, harassed, fired, not hired, passed over for a promotion or otherwise treated unfairly because of their weight by an employer or supervisor. And overweight people are paid as much as 6% less than their slimmer co-workers in comparable positions, according to Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity (PDF). The standards are tougher for women than men: Women with a body mass index of 27 or higher are at "serious risk" of weight discrimination, while men must have a BMI of at least 35 to be at comparable risk, a 2008 Yale University study found. And moderately obese women are three times more likely than moderately obese men to be the victims of weight discrimination, the study also found.

9. "I don't have time for you."

Forty-year-old Erika Worth owns a background-check business in Vancouver, Wash., and a detective agency in Los Angeles, putting her in a dual role that requires monthly trips up and down the West Coast. So every time one of her 15 employees has a question about a project or a scheduling conflict, Worth asks them to try to come up with a solution on their own. It's not that she doesn't care: She just doesn't have time to handle every problem as it arises.

Bosses have always been busy, but since the cutbacks of the recession, many managers now have even less time to supervise, talk to, or nurture their staffs, Cohen says. Two-thirds of employees say they have too little interaction with their boss, up from just over half in 2008, according to a study by Leadership IQ. "When times get tough, managers become avoidant," writes Mark Murphy, who worked on the study. And with unemployment so high, some bosses feel they don't need to spend as much time with their employees: If the employee doesn't like it, well, there are plenty of other people who would like their job. "A lot of bosses have this 'but-I-give-them-a-paycheck' mentality," says career coach Sherri Thomas. "They think that the paycheck is enough of a thank you."

10. "It's all about me."

You've slaved away on a project for weeks, only to hear the boss give the presentation with no mention of your name. You've spent months doing research for that marketing proposal, but when it goes to boss's boss, there's no mention of your contribution. Bosses who take credit for your work or blame you for problems that you didn't fully cause can "be equally and sometimes more damaging to employees" than the obvious bully, says Deblauwe.

Nearly half of workers say their boss has taken credit for their work, and more than a third say their boss has "thrown them under the bus" to save himself, according to a study by Spherion Staffing. That kind of credit-grabbing and blame-deflecting behavior is growing more common, says Thomas. In a tight labor market, "there's so much pressure to achieve and people feel like they have to be overachievers."

To be fair, this behavior isn't always as bad as it seems. Sometimes it's not appropriate to credit each employee, such as when the higher-ups don't care which member of the boss's team did what and simply want to know the results, says career coach Hallie Crawford. And "some bosses think of the employee as there to help them and that's just part of the deal," Crawford says. They may not be maliciously avoiding giving you credit, rather they may see the employer/employee relationship as not requiring it, she says. And for bosses with large teams, "it might be human error" -- they just can't remember who did what part of the project.