I should, I suppose.

I presume it’s a ‘He’.

Hang on, I’ll ask the google.

Alan Joyce.

Right. I bet Alan is under a bit of pressure at the moment, poor bloke. I hope he’s not taking it out on his employees. There’s nothing worse than a grumpy/insane boss.

I’ve had some interesting bosses over the years, and when I say interesting, I mean uber jerks.

One of my former bosses could have been mistaken for a zombie in The Walking Dead. He berated his employees until we cried and would then telephone us after cocktail hour to talk about how he was the first person in NSW to be diagnosed with gluten intolerance and how lonely he was and how he didn’t regret getting hair implants even though it looked like a mushroom hat.

Another one of my bosses was a notorious toilet break timer (even though he was a smoker and spent a LOT of time on the smokers' balcony flirting with the receptionist…whom he later married, cheated on, impregnated, divorced and re-hooked up with). He always knew when we had spent three extra minutes in the bathroom and questioned us about our bowel movements and diets (no joke).

I think you get the picture; I mean, we’ve all had tumultuous and harrowing experiences with former work place superiors.

This reminiscing came about when I was thinking about the Qantas situation and how things may have been different if Qantas was run by Richard Branson. I’m not saying the technical plane issues wouldn’t have happened, but I’m pretty sure Team Branson would have created a pretty smokescreen of distraction, to take our interest away from engines and angry passengers, that would have included supermodels, discount plane tickets and launching a new company with ‘Virgin’ in the title.

Branson seems like a fun guy, always smiling with his casual flicky hair. I can’t picture him standing outside a toilet stall with his ear to the door, asking if you were doing Number 1’s or 2’s. Actually I can’t even imagine Branson in an office. Dancing on an airplane wing? Yes. Dialing 0 before faxing an expense report? No.

While Alan Joyce and Qantas have been gingerly handling their latest 43 PR nightmares, Richard Branson has been out and about having fun, launching the world’s first spaceport in New Mexico, starring in a short film with a pre-prego Miranda Kerr and losing zany bets cross-dressing with other airline CEOs.

He’s good to his friends as well, lending Greg Norman his island home, Necker Island (otherwise known as heaven) for the golf star's 14th marriage ceremony.

But how does any of this make him a good boss and any better to deal with the Qantas saga?

I suppose it doesn’t really. All this tomfoolery and fun times doesn’t make Branson any different from my old drunk hair plug zombie boss. For all we know, he too might make boozy midnight calls to his employees talking about his flesh-coloured beard and how Levis no longer make his favourite cut of denim jackets, but I doubt it. He probably has someone on staff to prevent him from drunk dialing?

Branson is good at business, or at least good at making us think he’s good at business. He’s clever, with an even cleverer PR team. He owns over 200 companies and has made a career out of being the ‘nice guy’. He’s written books with quirky faux sexy titles and has sold everything from records to wedding dresses. He’s a showman, who I’m sure would have us all at ‘hello’.

Alan Joyce, are you listening to me?  I’m trying to help you here. Grab a costume, launch a sub-company and buy an island.

Alan Joyce, it’s your time.

I believe in you.

The opinions expressed in The 7PM Side Project blog do not necessarily reflect those of The 7PM Project or the Ten Network.