Comments on: How to deal with a bad boss

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:38:16 +0000

I’m a custodian, and my employers have no respect for our department. I caught one employee in a compromising position and he did his best to get me fired after that, including searching my office with 4 friends in the middle of the night! A friend caught him and he blustered his way through it. I complained to my supervisor and was told basically, so what. Even though I considered it a huge invasion of privacy and I had not said or done anything about his behavior, he obviously thought I was going too and started trying to get rid of me. I was injured on the job and on Worker’s Comp and my supervisor tried to set up an unscheduled meeting with himself and HIS supervisor, our HR person, the Vice President and President of the institution I work at. I told my Worker’s Comp rep and she called them, showed up at the meeting and surprise, they said they called the meeting because they “missed me and I never visited them or brought cookies?” PLUS the HR person and VP and Pres, didn’t come to the meeting? Now they’ve put me on Day shift and my mate on Night shift, I work 7 to 4 he works 3 to midnight. I can’t help feel they are using him to get even with me again. Complaints all the way to the top had no effect and my supervisor just smiles smugly at me when he sees me. OH and by the way, not one complaint about my work, and people AT my job have went out of their way to tell my boss how good a job I do.

I think it’s time to go, but then what, smaller city, no jobs, can’t live on nothing. Getting about 4 1/2 hrs of sleep a night isn’t cutting it.

By: Allison

Allison — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:10:42 +0000

Reading this has made me realize that I need to get out of my current situation. My boss has never respected his employees and does not show an ounce of caring. A colleague and I recently got called into his office and were reprimanded for being good friends outside of the office. I believe that he assumed we were bad talking him around the town and he was getting paranoid. We were told that we have one more warning or we would both lose our jobs if we did not stop chatting to one another. My boss is the one who just does not care. He is only 27 and is up on a pedestal with his mother as the office manager, and his higher authority is his best friend, so you can see my predicament. However this website has provided me with the strength to realize that I am in an immature establishment and it is bad situation that will not change no matter what I do, and I am resigning this week. Thank you for all your posts and comments to help people in my situation.

By: Ali

Ali — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:46:15 +0000

Any tips to neutralise the power of a manager who is really rude with every one else his own team, and he is junior then the other manager.

By: Niki

Niki — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:03:27 +0000

Wow. This page had given me some strength. I’m a student in college, and currently working part time at the clothing store. I just got hired, and thought things were going great… Untill my manager. See, there are three managers in my department. I’ve seen all of them, but one of them became “personally” my manager. Which I thought was fine. She is always around helping me…teaching me new things and strategies, in other words she completely took “over” me. Note: there like 100 new employees, and 5 managers. She’s incharge in most of the store…. Well, it’s been a lil over a month now, and I started to realize, she is always around me. Kind of like on my back. At 1st I knew she didn’t like me, because she never talk to me, other than what to do and how to do it. Even though she seemed like really nice to everybody else. Then she became suspiciously nice. Too nice. Always called me out for work, asked me to stay later, laughed at my not-so-funny jokes….So, with all this “special attention” to me only, I started getting confused and a bit uncomfortable around her. Everytime she is around me I would feel nervous. I would start screwing up, because she would always watch me and critique me. Everytime I would see her around me(all the time)!! Everytime I would look in her direction she would always be watching me. And recently I came to work one day, and I thought she wasn’t working, untill she came over to me and started yelling at me for every unpertect detail I did. When I was doing my thing she told me not to it, because I needed to learn how to do other thing. She was really rude, and that made me feel like a failuret. I couldn’t take it anymore, and on my break I went to my car and cried for 15 mind straight. After I came back, she already went home, and other managers were on shift. But what is funny is that, when I’m not controlled, set time limit and critiqued by somebody… I do it my own way, and actually do it much better, and faster! I don’t know what her intentions are. Why is all this special attention?? Other managers don’t care how I do it, just as long as I do correctly. And I’ve never seen her around any new employees… Because she always around me, pushing me beyonds limits. I don’t know what to do, or think…..

By: B Robinson

B Robinson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:04:57 +0000

I’d also like to mention that my first boss was demoted and replaced by two managers: a team leader and then, after a few months, a vice president over the team leader. Just to be clear.

By: B Robinson

B Robinson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:51:30 +0000

I’ve had a few bad jobs. One was my first “professional” job after college. This particular company was unusual in that its former CEO had just been sentenced to five years for fraud. He was milking the company (multiple Ferrari’s, a jet, mansion, etc.). Not bad for a 100 person company.

This “milking” was only discovered due to the stringent accounting rules implemented due to the Enron scandal. Apparently, the company had not been cash positive for quite some time, and ended up having to restate their earnings. This erupted into a scandal that eventually involved the former CEO’s stripper girlfriend and an article in a large local paper along with a national magazine.

After this, the company’s stock collapses (bankruptcy), but somehow Warren Buffet comes into refinance the organization and help make it profitable, again. No joke. BUFFET interested in this 100 person company.

Anyways, by the time I get on board the company is a bit schizophrenic. As an example, when I show up to work I find that my direct boss was not the man that interviewed me. My direct boss (the manager of my group) was also surprised to meet me. In fact, his first words to me were, “Who the fuck are you?”, followed by, “Oh fucking great.”, and “Do you know how to do anything?….SHIT!” This only got worse. By the way, the person I was replacing, surprisingly enough, went AWOL six weeks earlier. I wonder why.

Every single coworker, in my small group, was either incredibly jaded and paranoid, or new. One of the first people I met, after having taken the job, told me, “Get outta here kid. You don’t want to work here.” Another actually told me, in a whisper, “I’ll show you how to do something, that way THEY can’t fire you.” What he showed me were a few lines of specialized code, and how to compile them. My fist manager eventually broke down one day and sobbingly exclaimed, “We’re the people who take all the shit at this company.” I could say more, but I won’t.

This job was really TOXIC. Really, really, really toxic. There are a few more stories that happened later on in the job. I ended up having a total of three manager in one year. The last was just too aggresive. I was told that if I didn’t like him yelling at me, I could, “Fucking leave, just fucking LEAVE!” I think it was the stress.

The things that went on there I could put in movie script. It is also nice to note that it was a professional job working with “industrial” scientists. By the way, I just walked out one day. It was the stress. I had done the best I could do. It was time to move on.

B. Robinson

P.S. This is just my cyncical viewpoint. I can’t imagine what the hell they though of me. It IS a great story though.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:25:27 +0000

Kiz F…So what!! all those countries are the same…no respect for life other than their own.

Surely a contract was initially sighted & signed prior to leaving his family from wherever Waterboy departed from??
The obvious problem here is read the contract, talk with others & the old addage that if it is too good to be true then it usually is??

Does the word greed mean something in Waterboys job adventure???

By: Kiz

Kiz — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:02:52 +0000

@Lindsay – He (Waterboy) clearly said he’s working in the Middle East, not India.

There’s a different problem that he’s dealing with: the tendency of the Gulf States to treat their immigrant workers as third-class residents. Certain places (UAE and Kuwait, e.g.) have only a 30% native citizen population, so you have something like 60-70% of the country with little to no rights. When they’re brought over as guest workers–which occurs at every level from janitors to upper-management–then they’re at a much disadvantaged position compared to anyone who’s a citizen.

The Indian nationals in question aren’t the people perpetrating this; they’re victims inasmuch as Waterboy is. Please don’t conflate the issue of child labor in India (which is serious, yet separate) with this one. (Personally, I know more people from Bangladesh and Pakistan who do work / have worked in the Middle East, but people from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere are usually in the same boat. Although anectodally, I’ve heard that Europeans and Americans get relatively better treatment.) KF

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:36:09 +0000

So you work in India??
What more do you expect from a country that has thousands of children under 12 years of age working fulltime in ship breaking up yards.

If you have the ablility to get a Senior Manager’s position than you should be able to get a job that at least thinks in the 21st Century.

Leave & to hell with this company.

By: Waterboy

Waterboy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:20:46 +0000

Thank You Everyone. I thought I was alone….
I was recently employed by a company in the middle east as a senior manager.
I have a contract and expected eveything to be just fine. This is not the case, my boss has worked in the middle east for too long, he treats everyone with disrespect. This morning he walked in and I said good morning (just me and him in the office) he turned and walked away, not even a grunt. He drives me mad, he is a dinosaur.

When I arrived the comapany didnt have any form of health and safety, or regard for its employees well being.
We have no first aiders. No accident book, no fire procedures or assembly points. there was no first aid kit….I used the one from my car just to get us by.

Every day is an up hill struggle,
I have not seen my children for 6 months as they are still in the UK. I asked what was the plan for christmas, and I was told… He is on holiday over the Christmas and new year period…..I am working, including Christmas Day, New Years day..

So I pointed out my contract says 30 days holiday per annum……he explained “you started in June, you get 30 days of next June”
So he expects me to have 30 days off in one go, when my children will be at school, work 12 months(12 hours per day, 6 days per week) without a single day vacation day.

Yes, I am demoralised and I miss my kids so much……..

I know what i have to do………..LEAVE.

But….HOW can anybody be so cruel to thier employees?.

One more thing that makes my complaints insignificant……..

I work with Indian nationals, they work 12 hour days 365 days per year (yes every single day) they work for 670 days and then they get 60 days off….. so yes they work for 2 years before thier vacation. The company pay them poorly, treat them even worse than me, and use them as throw away labour……….

It breaks my heart…………