There is probably nothing that impacts the quality of a job like a boss. Get a good manager, and you like going to work every day. Have a bad boss, and you don't even want to get out of bed in the morning.

If you've ever had a bad boss, you often dream of how to get out of working for a jerk, ranging from winning the lottery to getting a better job somewhere else. But in this job market you're feeling a bit desperate.

"People who are employed right now and work for a bad boss know they can't immediately leave because they know jobs are hard to come by," says Kathi Elster, a business strategist and consultant. "It's frustrating and depressing for them."

Elster spends a lot of time listening to people gripe about their bosses, along with her partner in K Squared Enterprises in New York, psychotherapist Katherine Crowley. They recently put together some strategies for helping employees "manage their boss" called "Working for You Isn't Working for Me," (Portfolio, $25.95).

"The fact is, you need to manage the relationship," Crowley says. Adds Elster: "The key is to manage yourself to minimize your boss' behavior on you."

In the book, Elster and Crowley say there are four keys to improving a bad boss relationship:

1. Detect. You first must identify exactly what it is that "drives you bonkers" in a bad boss, such as verbal attacks or unwarranted criticism. "Once you can detect it," the authors say, "you can correct it."

2. Detach. By learning to see the boss for who he is, and educating yourself on how not to react so strongly to the annoying behavior, you'll be able to eliminate the stress a bad boss brings to all areas of your life.

3. Depersonalize. No matter how miserable a boss may make you, you're not the first person to go through this and you must realize "it's not about you," the authors say. By understanding the boss's behavior existed long before you arrived on the scene and that one of the reasons it is so upsetting to you is because it's triggering your "worst fears," you can learn to view the behavior more objectively.

4. Deal. This involves creating a customized plan so that "when the boss acts out, you can defend yourself" and take a more objective and constructive approach to your job and career.

Employees need to understand that unless they take steps to resolve problems with a boss in a constructive way, they may continue to have problems no matter where they work, Crowley says.