Seven Rules to Surviving An Abusive
Boss
At the interview for my first professional job,
my future boss asked me, “I notice you’re married. Are you planning to get
pregnant?” After I picked my jaw off the floor I stammered, “Uh, no?”
It was a totally illegal question and the
shocker was it came from a woman. What I should have done was run screaming for
the nearest exit. But the job was offered, I took it and three years later I
quit with a raging case of Post-Traumatic Boss Disorder.
Rule #1: How you are treated
from ‘go’ is a good indicator of how you will be treated on the job. The first
phone call, your interview, how an offer is made and how negotiations are
handled…
My boss made me think I was her confidant. She
gave me the plum jobs and ‘confided’ to me that everyone else was inferior. For
two years my feet hardly touched the ground.
It didn’t last. The Boss-zilla is a soul-sucking
manipulator of narcissistic proportions. He hooks you with compliments and
seductive ‘let’s be friends’ invitations. First you are the golden child, held
above all others and then he tears out your heart and show it to you while it’s
still pumping..… uh… Did I say that out loud?
Rule #2: Keep a healthy
distance. You cannot be friends with your boss.
Into the third year, my work was bounced back to
me bleeding red edits. My boss started calling me into her office for
‘feedback’ sessions that got more and more humiliating. How did I lose my
touch? Answer: I didn’t. I was the same hard-working nerd I always was; it was
my boss’s attitude toward me that had changed.
Rule #3: You are neither all
good nor all bad.
My co-workers hated me. As long as I was the
‘good’ one I didn’t care. When things went south I couldn’t take being isolated
anymore and I started talking with other staff. Generously they forgave me and
shared their own horror stories of abuse from my boss. What an eye opener!
Rule #4: Keep open diplomacy
among co-workers.
They don’t have to be your friends but you
should be able to compare notes just like siblings do about their parents.
Dysfunctional bosses often use the old divide and conquer game to keep staff
malleable.
Once I realized it wasn’t me, that it was a
sick, dysfunctional corporate culture that allowed my boss to be abusive, I had
a decision to make. My moment of truth came when I realized I had become
someone I didn’t recognize and didn’t like. Depressed, obsequious, timid, who
was this person? I wanted my spirit back and the only way for me was to leave.
So I quit. That sounds easy. It wasn’t. It took months to find a job that felt
like a good move, not a big step backwards.
Rule #5: Learn to define
yourself by who are, not what you do.
Or “Don’t
forget to have a life.” A lot of us were raised to think our
end-all and be-all is our occupation. The first thing we tend to ask each other
after being introduced is, “So what do you do?” I’ve had clients, grown men
miserable in their jobs, shrink from the idea of quitting primarily because
they have no idea who they are without the job. Family and friends (my husband
was great at this) help us remember we are parents, church and temple members,
coaches, thinkers, readers, spouses, travelers, life adventurers and more.
These roles are constant no matter what the job is.
Rule #6: Always remember you
have options; quitting is only one of them.
If you think you don’t, you will become
depressed, a burnt-out shadow of your former self. Find a psychologist, life
coach or career counselor to help you regain the perspective you’ve lost in
abusive boss hell.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have at least
one Boss-zilla story. A power-mad night supervisor at Taco Bell or a VP at a
Fortune 500 company, it’s all the same. Post-traumatic Boss Disorder (PTBD) is
no joke. It took me a good year to stop shaking every time my new boss asked me
to his office for a conference.
Rule #7: Living well is the
best revenge.
Giving notice to Boss-zilla was as bad as I
thought it was going to be. She called me ungrateful; I was told my poor
performance would follow me wherever I went. What kept me calm throughout her
tantrum was knowing my new job was at a very prestigious institution, which had
to be killing her. She didn’t need to know there was no salary increase.
PTBD struck again many years later. Older and
wiser, I recognized the signs early and took action quicker than before. From
then on I’ve been self-employed. Today I’m happy to say my boss is usually
pretty reasonable.
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