To
my boss – I can see this eating you alive My boss (we’ll call him
Steve) is one of those guys who’s always attached to his email. Whether
he’s at his desk or answering them from his phone, he will stop the
conversation immediately and read the email. No warning. The sound will
go off, he’ll stop mid-sentence, read and reply to every email. This
annoys me. A lot. While going over a very important project (well into
the $40-$50 million dollar range and long-term), I’m briefing him on
talking points and covering the power point on the projector. A few
slides in, he gets an email. Immediately Steve pulls out his phone and
begins reading and replying. I’ve dealt with this for years, and this is
where the revenge begins. I’m on slide 6, and while he’s buried in his
phone, I progress the slide to 13 and patiently wait for him to end. He
looks up, oblivious to my trickery. Mind you, he has to present this
within a few hours to top-tier business management, and this a project
that we’ve been working on for months. I finish briefing him on the rest
of the slides, we take lunch, and eventually the guests arrive for
their briefing. Steve’s taking charge of the meeting, and I retreat to
my office, where I can still clearly watch the presentation but don’t
have to participate. Steve’s hob-knobbing, talking our guests up,
laughing and joking. As he’s talking to one particular VP, he gets an
email, and in normal s**t-lord fashion, he stops mid conversation and
reads it. The VP did not like this, not one bit. He interrupts Steve’s
email reply with a hand wave and a, « let’s continue. » This is where I
get my second idea for revenge. Eventually Steve gets to the power point
presentation, yammering on like he’s the one who spent all the time on
the fancy fly-in’s, formatting, research, etc… Until he gets to slide 7.
I can see him pause, break his jovial manner, and begins reading word
for word what’s on the slide. He’s no longer chipper and poised, he’s
floundering. Little does Steve know that I’m about to launch an email
war on his psyche that he is ill prepared for. See, since I’ve been in
my office, I’ve been collecting all the emails that came in that needed
replies, drafted the replies, and have them sitting on my desktop. I’ve
CC’d Steve to every one of them, because I’m just that good of an
employee. As he skips to the next slide, I send the first email. I hear
his phone jingle. He pauses and instinctively reaches for his phone,
throwing him off his presentation. He looks around, and then continues. A
minute later, I send the next email, then after a short pause, the
next… And the next… I can see him sweating bullets, his brain imagining
some catastrophic failure somewhere in our building, in shipping, in
product sourcing, etc… But he can’t check his emails without breaking
from the presentation and pissing off the executives. It’s still going
on. I have about 8 more emails to send, and he has about a hour until
he’ll be able to slink away and cower over his phone like Gollum holding
the one ring. I’m glad I went to work today.
as
I start to work in a general manager position in my actual company, my
boss gave me a company smartphone. I was carrying two phones with me all
the time. as soon he noticed this he called me and said no personal
phones were allowed during work time « because personal life stays
outside of the job and not to mix things » and I was there for « work
and not to call to my girlfriends or logging into Facebook » and
« personal phones are a distraction ». I agreed and complied the next
day. the very next day after I started to keep my personal phone in the
locker room, he was waiting for me in the lobby in a very bad mood
because he called multiple times after work time and I didn’t answer and
asked why I ignored him. I said I was at home and my company phone was
in the locker room so it was useless to call me after work time because
the job should stay outside of personal life and I didn’t want to mix
things.
I
was an intern at a local wedding magazine during college. Small office
of three interns who put the mag together, with an editor who will
always be the most incompetent person I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve
worked in food service! Anyway, after months of petty bulls**t, my car
broke down over Thanksgiving. I called the editor, letting her know just
in case I was ever late showing up, as I planned to take the bus/bum
rides. Her response? “Oh, your car broke down? You are no longer needed
as an intern.” Click. B**ch, you did not just hang up on me! I was mad,
but I took that call as a blessing in disguise and decided to forget
about it. We weren’t getting paid as interns, so who cares? Two months
later, a Saturday, I’m relaxing at home when I get a call. Guess who?
“Hey OP! Listen, I’m sorry about that call during Thanksgiving break, my
phone dropped it. We’re trying to get this month’s edition printed, and
I can’t keep up with all the mail, the ads and the phone calls. It’s
crazy here, and the other girls quit, can you believe that?? When will
you be back in the office??” Readers, it’s been four years since that
Saturday, but even now I can still feel that incredible sense of petty
joy. “You said I was no longer needed as an intern two months ago. I
have already accepted a position elsewhere. My new boss doesn’t call me
on weekends and actually pays me. Lose my number.” Click.
We were interested in getting financial expert Sam’s thoughts on the healthy and mature way to respond to a bad manager’s negative attitude in the workplace. He suggested going for the direct approach—open and honest communication.
« The best way to deal with a bad manager is to sit down with them in a one-on-one setting and share with them how their actions make you feel. Be calm and point out examples of where their actions made you feel uncomfortable, » the founder of Financial Samurai explained to Bored Panda, stressing the importance of staying in control of one’s emotions in these situations.
« The manager may simply not be aware of how their actions are causing distress to you and other employees. In a private one-on-one setting, it’s a safe place where the manager should feel less threatened, » Sam said.
« Once you make a person see the other side, most reasonable people should be able to make adjustments to improve the work environment. »
So
I had worked really hard to get a job I loved and I was great at and
paid decent. My team loved me and everything was going great. I made the
stupid decision to change departments. It was the same job but this
department paid 5% more. I went to my first meeting in the new job and
knew I had made a mistake. The operations manager made Somone cry, there
were only 5 of us in the meeting and he was picking on a junior manager
who has made a small mistake on the wording in a presentation he was
doing. The rest of the team were great. While I was their I was the lead
for a big project that lasted for 2 years. I managed everything and was
the go to person. On the final meeting with the director my boss took
over and took credit for all my hard work. So I left the department and
started to work somewhere else in the same company. About 6 months later
Boss rings me in a Panic and explains he has a big interview but can’t
find the project pack. I say I’ll send it across. I dig out the pack but
put in a roles and responsibilities page before I send it across. I had
my name as lead on pretty much everything. I get a call later on from a
old Coworker who said Boss had gone to his interview explained he ran
this project did XY and Z and then went to go through the pack which had
the responsibilities and he looked like an Idiot. Which rattled him and
impacted the rest of his I interview. Boss was fuming but my Co-worker
had backed me up. Boss didn’t end up getting the promotion and I like to
think I played a small part of that.
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