Horrible Supervisor, how do you handle yourself?

[tgal]

I won't go into a lengthly discussion, but I am sure you get the point by the title. My current supervisor was promoted from being a co-worker. He and I butted heads from day one. Basically, I work in an environment where no one has anything better to do other than worry about what other people are doing. When I bring a work related issue to him it ends up turning into this big ranting session on how so and so doesn't to this and he is ticked off at the world and he is so high and mighty on himself. This is my first experience dealing with a supervisor who bad mouths everyone, including his boss and employees. I know there are petty issues everywhere, but believe me this is really bad.

I am hot headed myself and now being pregnant, I can't stand this guy even more. The problem that I have is that I can't leave until after the baby is born because I need 5 years to be vested in my pension, which I don't want to loose because they put in ~15% of my salary in addition to the other retirement accounts. I would loose their contribution should I leave before the end of next April. There are so many other issues that compound the entire situation and although I don't want to stoop to his level I am finding it hard not to. So, how do I deal with him when I can't even stand him at this point????

[dionysia]

First of all, take a deep breath and say "only X more months, only X more months."

Is there someone in HR you can talk to? Or your boss' boss?

Di

[tgal]

I can file a claim against him in HR, but what do you do when you look for another job and need the reference??? Not that I haven't burned my bridge with him already because I don't tolerate him and am very forth coming with what I think about his comments. So, I am just really torn I guess.

[Zelda Von Yitz]

Filing a grievance with HR never helps. The employee never wins.

Document everything over the top he says: make notes of dates, times, what he said, who witnessed it and so forth.

And in the meanwhile, make sure you have the names, home numbers and home addresses of people who can vouch for your work. You'll need those people as references.

Sounds to me like this guy's on a power/ego trip. You have my sympathies.

[dionysia]

Zelda,
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Not all HR people are biased in favor of management.

Anyway, tgal, you can use a co-worker as a reference or a non-direct manager.

Di

[houseblend]

Ugh. I've worked with a boss similar to yours and it is so hard. It sounds like he is not going to be a great reference for you down the road if he badmouths everyone anyway, so I wouldn't particularly worry about that. I do agree to document everything just in case. Our HR manager was very sympathetic and let us go to her to vent. Unfortunately my boss owned the company, so in that situation there was not much HR could do. It would definitely be a good step to talk with yours, though.

Other than that, my advice would be just to try to detach yourself as much as possible. Use it as a great learning experience on how to deal with difficult people. There's actually even a book out there with that name that might be useful to read. If you find yourself getting overly upset by him, take a walk or find someway to let off steam other than towards him.

You have my sympathy!

[ManteoChik]

I can totally feel for you. I work at an FBO at the airport...where private jets fly into and general aviation. It's a job where you really can't have a lot of drama because you really have to focus on the customer. When I started my new job there the manager had just been "promoted" from a regular Customer Service employee to the CS Manager.

Pretty much when the new owners bought the business it was being forclosed on and this girl just happened to have been there the longest (at a whopping 6 months) so they just made her the mananger. She really had no business being the manager - and took it wayyyy to her head. She is very petty and all about drama.

I have a really hard time taking direction from someone who is younger than me and spends her whole day analyzing why her boyfriend of 7 months has not popped the question. It drove me crazy and she was always on everyone's case about "what they shouldn't be doing". We weren't allowed to surf the internet, however, she used to sit in her office searching wedding ideas and printing them out on office time. Or, spending her time on the clock surfing the web for airline tickets to go see her boyfriend who was at Officer Training for the air force.

Needless to say, our owners hired their 17 year old bratty neice who was living with them while waiting for her parents to move to FL from CA to work as a CS employee. My boss decided to be "friendly" and take her out and show her around to meet people. The neice ended up turning on her and using her to go out and get drunk and sleep with people. In return she started to blackmail our boss trying to get her to cover for her when she wanted to stay out all night and didn't want her aunt and uncle to know.

My boss was planning on leaving to move in with her boyfriend (hoping that he would propose...lol) but she ended up leaving a whole month early because of the neice. We were all so thrilled because we were finally free.

My best advice for you is to just do your job with a smile and try and deal with him the best as possible. That's what I did, it was really hard but in the end it was the best thing...when she left at least we didn't part on bad terms and she couldn't say anything bad about me.