For one, he hired me when he knew I was working nights at QT.

I basically just said "IM REALLY GOOD AT COMPUTERS I PROMISE!!". Diablo III had just came out and we talked about it a bit during my interview which was really cool. He was a really nice guy.

First time I was late I was so used to QT I was running 5 minutes behind and I called him up (he manages over 50 different people) and was just like "IM SO SORRY IM RUNNING BEHIND OMG!"

He basically just said he didn't care and to try to not make a habit out of it. That was it.

Every. Single. Time. he has asked the department to work late, he has stayed with us the entire time and bought us dinner. He has sent out thank you emails to everyone who participated in working overtime, etc. He has thanked me in emails for the work I did on creating a utility for a special assignment and forwarded it to his boss.

Our director who never even talks to me came up to me to tell me what a great job I did and thank me personally.

He has fought for raises for me offering me 13% when I became a DBA (company max) and 10% the year after that. The company decided to offer free classes at a college for employees and he asked me personally what I might be interested in if anything and showed me the list.

I have sung his praises on pretty much every review - really cool guy. Needless to say, he is very popular at our company and pretty much everybody has his back - soft spoken guy that isn't afraid to lead forcefully when need be (usually when other departments blame our department for screw ups), but he holds people accountable and asks what went wrong and focuses on how to prevent it from happening in the future.

Anyway, he's no longer my direct manager which makes me kind of sad, but I still work with him on a regular basis and he's a really great guy. He's trying to organize whirlyball leagues and I hear him talking about video games with my coworkers all the time.