boss dilema

Vicky, Some intervention needs to take place here. I would definitely put HR on notice there is a major problem going on in your department. Document every conversation, event that has been going on with your boss. With your education and career field, I would be out looking for another job. Life is too short for such unhappiness. Your boss is a jerk!
 
Besides my earlier suggestion (remember, I'm wealthy...I can do stuff like that without fear of repercussion).

I'm going to add to the discussions on HR. While working I generally made friends with the HR folks...going out drinking beer until the wee hours friends. By the way, when they get drunk they absolutely blab everything about everybody, although the next morning you're sworn to secrecy.

As human beings, they really dont want to see something bad happen to an employee. They want all laws and rules followed.

But their job is NOT in any way to act as your advocate or make sure your problem gets solved. The very moment they detect that you may be moving into an area where the company may be at legal or financial risk, a report is written, management is notified, and a little invisible box appears around you.

You might get the immediate problem resolved. You might win a battle. You're absolutely going to lose the war. You will be 'marked'. In essence, you will become the nice dog that bit somebody once. Everybody may still be happy to see you, but nobody is going to put a body part near your choppers and everybody will be a little nervous about it. The word of what transpired will absolutely get out and become a major topic of office gossip, where of course it will be garnished with all sorts of stuff. Remember playing "the whisper game"?

A long way to make sure you understand that HR is not a tool to help you...

Get another job. Quietly, loudly, however you want to do it...but get out of that managers field of vision, presume right now that this manager will take your change of job as a major slight and will take whatever opportunity they have to damage your career...so make sure your move is to a new division or somewhere else well away from their area. Say all the right things (I need a fresh challenge/I want to get closer to the companies core business/I want to do something really different/etc) to try to minimize the damage down the line, but dont spend too much time on that, it probably wont matter.
 
There are really two issues here: coping with a difficult manager; leaving a difficult manager. Considering litigation is not productive, and not likely to achieve your goals.

Don't hope you can change this manager, the best you can do is manage your interaction with him/her. There are a number of good books on this subject.

While you are doing that discreetly start working on an exit plan. You are not meeting the manager's needs (that is not to say that the manager's needs are OK), plan accordingly.

Recently I read a book published by the Harvard Business Review with a title to the effect: When Good Managers do Bad Things. If you have a chance, read it. It will give you some insight on management dynamics.
 
Get another job.  Say all the right things (I need a fresh challenge/I want to get closer to the companies core business/I want to do something really different/etc) to try to minimize the damage down the line, but dont spend too much time on that, it probably wont matter.
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Vicky
As usual, much wisdom from the many "life battles" by this board's posters. Note particularly TH's most recent.
As much as you want to back a truck over this guy, in the end whatever pleasure you did get will minor to what you can achieve by focusing your energies on being someplace else and looking back at how much better off you are. (I do encourage you to use this experience however to raise your understanding of the key questions to ask to get a handle on your future manager's leadership--including doing some cross checking of "stories" with future co-workers).
Expecting a dysfunctional organization to get better is like wishing for Tinkerbell to provide you fairy dust to fly-way. The job market right now is as great as it has been for some time so "carpe diem"!
Make a commitment to yourself to spend X time every day on finding someplace better to be.
Good luck and "fly away" soon
Nwsteve
 
Vicky,

Seems to me the best thing for you to do would be to heed the 'find a different gig, pronto' advice, whether it be somewhere else in the company or at a different org.


Then, sometime down the road when your path crosses with whats-his-name, you could accidently kick his ass for being a waste of space... sorry... that's probably not gonna help your karma, but I know it would make ME feel better.
 
Documentation is the key....a written litany of his unprofessional behaviors is nice powder to have. Confronting his one up manager with the data, while keeping your other employment options humming, could be a good strategy.

Or, if you're really devious, he sounds like the type that might implode in front of others with a few well placed jabs of the clinically inserted needle.....torment him into extinction! Sounds like his fuse is pretty short.
Caveat Emptor....the author is into his 3rd glass of $12 cab sauv...
 
Vicky,

After working for a controling ass for ~10 years I channeled my energy into RE (thinking it'll be a way OUT). He eventually left the company after several employees complained to HR and his upward mobility was limited. Now I have his job and will retire at 43 with the RE working for this ******* guided me to.

Point being, when all you have is lemons, make lemonade.

Hang in there!
 
I expect to keep on staying with this company for another 3-4 years.
Any suggestions?
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Vicky, what are your reasons for staying another 3-4 years with the company? Salary, benefits?

If it were me, I would definitely go looking for another job. You have to weigh if your reasons for staying are more important than your psychological health.

Is the rest of the company better than your unit? If so, are there openings for which you qualify? Still, it could be tricky to look for another job within the same company. Your manager might resent that and may do whatever is in his power to prevent you from leaving, even to the extent of giving you poor performance reviews or badmouthing you to other hiring managers.

The latter happened to a friend of mine who had a really bad manager who seemed to have it in for my friend. She kept picking on my friend and giving her bad evaluations so that the other managers who had openings in their units did not hire my friend. My friend ended up being fired after almost 4 years of torture from this evil manager. This manager had a reputation in the company for being a bad manager, and the company eventually did let her go, but one of her last acts was to fire my friend.

Don't let it happen to you. There must be other jobs elsewhere. There've been lots of good advice here, including what you can change (your job by getting another one) and can't change (your current manager).
 
Usually you don't have legal recourse if the boss is equally abusive to everyone; not singling people out based on sex, age, color, etc.
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Martha, I was hoping you'd check in on this one ... that's a good point. Of course, since we don't know exactly what this guy is saying, it's possible he could be stupid enough to stray over those lines ...
 
VoyT, it could be that the manager strayed over the line, but it would take a lot of time and energy to prove it. 

The best revenge is doing well elsewhere.  Depending on the industry/profession she may be in a position to even the score, but never share your opinion with another employer.  Everyone has worked for a jerk at some time, no one likes to wonder whether or not you will tell tales about your next current employer.

Take the high road out of there!!
 
Thanks for all of the experiences and advice.

I checked what the company generally does and it is like th and others said. I may win a battle but lose a war. HR is not there for employees but works for management. Management has selected ******* boss to move up so they will back him. The last person to go to the director to complain about a similar situation was fired in the next available round. Based on my boss's behavior only, I will have no legal recourse because it will all be blown off as interpersonal differences. However, I have started documenting everything. About a year ago I finally stopped a sexual harrassment thing that went on for about half a year. This did put HR in high gear. The person involved is not at the company no more. If the company does fire me I will take them to court to show a pattern of a hostile environment and retaliation if that is possible.

I have thought about leaving the company and decided with DH to stay. I will keep working on a transfer and keep a very low profile in the meantime. One of my colleagues in my group did that. I took him a year and it took the boss by surprise but he did it. I am not interested in another employer at this time. My industry consists of a few big players only, not too many places to go unless I want to consider a different part of the country but DH is more important than a job.

Within another 3-4 years I am planning to kiss my cubicle job goodbye and only work for myself. I am willing to take a big paycut at that time, but it is not possible now. Leaving now would mean losing lots of benefits and $$$ that I need for my RE. I will minimize the communication with my boss to an absolute minimum and only communicate with him by email/phone/pager as I was able to do for a little while. Of course I get dinged for this big time in my performance review again (Vicky does not properly understand the need to communicate with her manager for direction and yadayada) but it keeps me more sane.
At my previous employer I had a fantastic boss. I really enjoyed working for him. Then they promoted him (he deserved it) and brought in a complete idiot. If I move to another company I may have to work for a nutcake somewhere else. I will definitely keep my eyes open but I am not ready to tell the boss to shove it.

Since boredom rules my day, I have put my side business in high gear and I am going to sign up for some classes to put my other future self-employment plans in high gear. This way I may be able to nibble some more time from the 3-4 year horizon. In the meantime I will have to turn my brain off when I go to the office and not take any of his behavior towards me personally. Hope I can stand it.

Vicky
 
By the way, you arent necessarily going to end up fired.

I had the "major moron boss" who wanted to play fast and loose with the politics. In my case, he decided to tell me who I could and couldnt date in the company; in particular someone who had dated one of his friends previously. Unfortunately we were about 3 weeks into a relationship.

I boxed him in nicely, got all the goods on him, had HR all worried about any problems/lawsuits, crossed all the 't's and dotted all the 'i''s.

For three months, he was my very best buddy. I treated him like a deluxe rattlesnake that was probably just sleeping.

Came in to work one morning to be told by security that our entire office had been closed down and half the personnel...including management (me) laid off.

He had basically restructured the organization to have only the people he liked report to matrix managers in another district, and quite easily killed me and a few supporters off.

Our legal prospects? Slim...he claimed it was just a streamlining to cut costs and consolidate management.

By the way, I was the #1 sales manager in the country. By a big, fat, huge margin...$13.5M to the #2's 5.5. So performance wont help you much either.
 
Dang, TH, that's crazy! Of course, the best revenge is that you are spending your time much happier than he is! :)
 
Yeah, it worked out for me. I decided after taking a couple of months off to move to california and shack up with an old girlfriend, got the job that paid me all the stock options that let me ER, and a few months after I got here, I received word that my old boss had been fired by the new CEO.

I sent a somewhat modified grief card to his house..."I'm sorry you're dead". :)
 
th said:
I received word that my old boss had been fired by the new CEO.
I sent a somewhat modified grief card to his house..."I'm sorry you're dead". :)
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What goes around, comes around. :D

MJ
 
All in all it was a GREAT shift of karma.

Also shows that the darkest clouds have the coolest silver linings sometimes...
 
Sounds to me like the "Major moron boss" was smarter than he appeared. I was never in such a situation, but from the boss'
point of view (personalities aside) it looks pretty slick.

JG
 
It was slick until my biggest account (about $8M of the total annual intake by my district) went with a competitor right after I left. I'm really not sure HOW that happened >:D

Probably what got him fired.
 
So what to do? I am afraid to rock the boat but I would love to talk to the director get me transfered. But what if does not work out - I will get retaliated against as usual and pretty bad this time. The other alternative is to keep on swallowing it, apologize for my behavior and feel miserable but virtually don't have to work. I expect to keep on staying with this company for another 3-4 years.

Any suggestions?
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I used to work for some one like that - a real dictator. Luckily he moved on to another department. If you wait ling enough, a person like that will most likely leave.
 
Spanky said:
I used to work for some one like that - a real dictator. Luckily he moved on to another department. If you wait ling enough, a person like that will most likely leave.
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Yeah . . . in one company I used to work for the half-life of a manager seemed to be about 18 months. The problem was you could wait the 18 months and get a new boss that was even more of an evil cretin than the one before. :-[
 
Martha said:
Usually you don't have legal recourse if the boss is equally abusive to everyone; not singling people out based on sex, age, color, etc.

This is NOT legal advice, but my gut feeling is that try to have more than just you go to HR and talk about the issues.  United front and all.  But know that there always is the chance you will get canned.
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I was always equal-opportunity when it came to browbeating
and similar employee policies :)

JG
 
And another thing........it is not uncommon for seniority and senility
to ride close together.

JG
 
I wouldnt bother with human resources. You probably will be shooting yourself in the foot, more. Your boss will just be pissed and that wont help you. I have found that it is best to not worry about changing an organization in my opinion. Working at a job means that you have to change to the organization or just ignore the mf's. They promoted this guy, so that is what the organization values. I am also an engineer and had a job similar to yours (had to do a bunch of data entry). I just bided my time (took the paycheck) and left for a better job. Trying to move to a different manager or job within your organization doesnt work (at least in my experience). Many reasons for that (the least could be your manager playing games to keep you). Keep your chin up and remember, a job like yours is a perfect time to fine tune your FIRE spreadsheets :D and post here.
 
Don't blame your boss, blame yourself for staying in your current situation. It's like buying a house near the airport and complaining about the noise.
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With all due respect, many folks get caught suddenly in these situations. I did. My fix? 11 months of unemployment, emergency accts wiped out, a new job paying 75% of what I was making, and an hour commute. However, it took about 1.5 years to accomplish this. However, it shouldn't be that way. If you're doing a good job, like what you're doing, & the people you work with, why is a supe letting one ass run roughshod over his/her "reports" the fault of a worker who is trying to stay in a job he/she likes otherwise? My worst-nightmare supe was being handled up to the executive director and the situation became untenable and I couldn't risk a poor eval with an upcoming job search.

Sometimes a really incompetent boss is the result of management misjudgement and once that misjudgement is discovered, the boss is replaced. . . but this is rare.

Usually you need to remember a couple of things:

1) Your boss was selected and promoted to that position by his superiors in the company. They believe in him/her. They would have to admit that they were wrong to go against him/her. They are not likely to side with you. They may pretend to listen and feel sympathy, but chances are they are really figuring out how to get rid of you.

2) HR is hired by and works for management -- not for you. Their real job is to make management happy. They are not likely to side with you. They may pretend to listen and feel sympathy, but chances are they are really figuring out how to get rid of you.
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This is REALLY on the money. I've been in situations wherein I was able to outlast them (eventually everyone discards their trash...promote them into someone else's problem, etc.). My dealings with HR also reflect the statement above. The trick is determining whether it is a situation you can outlast, or whether to move on. However, as the original poster is an engineer, it would seem options abound...don't know what market she's in though.

My former organization of 700+ people was basically driven into the ground. I was there 14 years and when I talk to folks today (2.5 years later) they're ALL miserable. My own workgroup was tight and ran well...until the new one was promoted ("handled"). They sent her to $50,000 worth of pop management classes over a few years. This allowed her to promote herself as a change agent...specifically a "reformer". However, she was put in charge of a group of crack pros, the best I've ever had the fortune to work with, and she proceeded to suck the life out of the team, the consultants, and anyone working interdepartmentally. Presently, a few of us are gone, the team is split over several areas, and some still have to work with her, but the mgmt problems spread to the whole organization. To be fair, not all problems are her fault, but her handlers also have a wide reach. It is rare to see ANY private discussions more than 5 mins in length not turn to retirement, job hunting, etc. And when you see folks from the organization, they consistently remark that the only people smiling are those who left.

So, if you're like me, and each time you walked in the front door in the morning, and as soon as you hit the elevator button, a wave of dread comes over you and you ask you'reself, "What am I DOING:confused:!!!", it may be time for you to move on, damn the cost. All jobs have some crap, but if you can gain back some joy, go for it. Your health is also a part of life AND retirement.

Then he turned back to the subject and said the company needs to keep around lazy and incompetent people, because that always motivates the people around that lazy person to work harder to pick up the slack.
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How is this a good thing? The company loses...they pay someone not to work, which in turn hampers those taking up his/her slack from being more productive. Those taking up the slack are put upon, constantly. Not much reward either way. I do agree there are always slackers. I don't agree they're needed nor that they are motivating agents. People miserable over having to carry someone don't exactly have cutting edge creativity and you stand to lose them to better working groups/companies/etc. You always have good folks sticking out tough moments. But you also commonly see good folks leave early in a cycle and go elsewhere.

Hell... maybe I owe mine a thank you. I lost 25% of my income, but focused hard on retiring early in order not to have to deal with her type every day.

BTW, more random thoughts... what Ginger said is true. Document the hell out of anything and everything. If it hits the fan, they will have and you'll be stammering for answers if you don't. I prepared a 13 page response to a 1.5 page document in a grievance (my one and only). It took 3 months, but I won. Ultimately, I also lost because I was marked. However, it could have gone much worse, so the damage that was done did not reach into my new position. BTW, I was the first to actually make a challenge. Others stepped up in the couple years since and there has been public admonition by higher ups in meetings. She's still there, but doesn't have as large a reach as she once did...so at least some folks benefit.

In my situation, it probably doesn't help that immediately preceeding my "evil one", I worked for the absolute best supervisor I've ever seen, heard of, or even thought about. She was as exceptional as the latter boss was incompetent. Pity...the agency lost a real asset in her...as the agency that picked her up already knew. Others are still poised and leaning for the jump.
 
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