Have you ever had a supervisor that...

[MyBaby]

Hi everyone. I love my job and my fellow employees are great. The one person I don't care for is my direct supervisor. Have you ever had a boss that acted like a drill sargent and you were his troops? I finally lost it today and told him, in a raised voice, that I was sick of him treating us like trash and giving us back-handed compliments (the few that he did give us). For example, on Sunday, a fellow employee and I were working on several projects and were, according to the supe, not finishing fast enough. When we left, on time, he had asked us how far we had gotten, and we had said we finished the task. He said, "Wow, I can't believe it." in a sacrastic voice. Then the other employee jokingly said , "Yes sometimes we do finish on time," Then he said "Good Job". I mean why couldn't he have just said, "Good job and have a nice afternoon."
This person has no social skills what-so-ever. Most of the team do not like him.
Another time he said to me, "I bet I can make you cry." What an arrongant bastard. Was he trying to intimidate me? I could chew him up and spit him out before he knew what hit him.
I have talked to his direct supervisor about what happened today and other executive too. What do you think? Thanks!

[Drac of the Sharp Smiles]

I think very little will happen about it until you're ready to walk.... and then, assuming they convince you to stay, not much more than very little will happen.

I was in the position of having a lousy boss. In my case, it was a situation of a micro-manager who wanted his fingers in EVERY pot, and god forbid anything happen (even the tiniest thing) without him being directly involved. The result was that.... (*drumroll*)..... NOTHING COULD EVER HAPPEN without him there. Add to that, when we DID make things happen while he wasn't there, he would get pissed at us and we would get "you need to be asking ME before you do ______." However, if we didn't make things happen because he wasn't there he would get pissed at us and we would get "I swear nothing ever gets done around here without me!!" Drama-llama to the extreme and constantly talking us down.... not just in front of each other, but in front of the clients we were trying to help too. This last meant that we REALLY couldn't make anything happen, because the clients (after hearing him talking us down) wouldn't have trusted us to pick our noses properly and frequently wouldn't even talk to us, but would just tell us to have him call them back. Then he complained he needed to call everyone back and why couldn't we take care of more things for him?? (*sigh*)

The turnover rate of people who worked there was so high that there were times we could count it in people PER WEEK. People would come to work 1-2days and simply never come back. He never ever got a clue. Sadly, this person was the owner of the business. When he sold the business to an associate, then kept carrying on just as he always had, she fired him as soon as was contractually allowed. Needless to say, no one shed a tear.

So, yes..... If any of you out there are supervisors, TAKE NOTE.

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac

[MyBaby]

Thanks for your input. I'm not going anywhere though. If any one leaves it will be him. He needs to get a personality and some social skills...

[cutiebunny]

If any one leaves it will be him.

Don't bet on it. These people, typically, are connected. They've either kissed arse to get where they are, or they're related to someone, somewhere, and have pulled strings. Or there's some odd race quota that needs to be met.

As for working with these types of people, I work with many of them. It gets worse when you work for the gub'mint. Especially when you work with people who are former drill sergeants.

I currently am the supervisor and, due to the amount of flights we receive at work on the morning shifts and the small amount of officers that are scheduled to work the morning shifts, we have a workforce that has to travel between both terminals in order to work. Once our side clears a flight, they (typically) have to walk 5-10 minutes to the other terminal, work there for another 30 minutes, and then trudge back. Frequently, an officer who starts work at 7:30a will not eat until 2 pm. And, unfortunately, as a supervisor, there's nothing you can do about this because your supervisors are screaming that there are passengers waiting to be processed. I've been fortunate that I've been able to dodge this problem every day by giving my workers a heads up as to the schedule and everyone eats around 9-10:30a, but the other supervisors either can't figure this out or don't care to. I hate working people like this. I remember when I was on the receiving end of this treatment, and I hate to treat others like this.

The best advice I can give you is that, while you may not be able to avoid these people or these situations, divert your attention elsewhere. In the workplace, especially if you work on a tenure system, you can do more by being nice. Find something else you enjoy at your job, or schedule something you enjoy doing daily, and focus on that. Then you can think about doing something you enjoy while listening to these schmucks berate you. It really helps.

[iceman57]

Any task where you are the unique one able to act without team backups ?
If yes use it as a lever for his non bonus attribution and put it in a joke "I don't care about my yearly micro-bonus, but what about yours for appartment buying project".

I done this with a direct supervisor years ago with the China area, a pure mess area and of course I was the only able to chat with them in mother language... Some kind of lobbying, yes, but helpful to avoid direct threats.

Another trick was union, asked for a transfert to a subsidiary company during months, fed up by answers I took a union card, then one day the chief of operations told me in a private meeting with the supervisor to no more reply to job offers, I asked for a bonus due to China area and other stinky stuffs I had in charge, he said no, I thrown the union card on the table and said "and now ?". Got the desired desk 4 weeks later... Some kind of lobbying, yes, but helpful to reach personnal goals.

[ReiTheJelly]

Another time he said to me, "I bet I can make you cry." What an arrongant bastard. Was he trying to intimidate me?

Is he a jerk to everyone, or just women? Because you could try filing a harassment suit against him.
http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/charge.cfm

[iceman57]

Another time he said to me, "I bet I can make you cry." What an arrongant bastard. Was he trying to intimidate me?

Is he a jerk to everyone, or just women? Because you could try filing a harassment suit against him.
http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/charge.cfm

Excellent, asian or afro-american, add to this "racism" discrimination.
If I'm right (but need to be confirmed by US citizens) the audio recording is now fully valid in discrimination complaint, for $30 you can have a recorder for your supervisor famous one-liner.

[MyBaby]

He seems to get along a little better with the guys but there are a lot of guys on the team who don't care for his managerial skills either. I think he's just a jerk and cares only about himself. I've been there for almost a year and I don't once recall him asking first, " How are you?" or "Did you have a nice day off?" It's ME ME ME! with this dude. I've talked with several upper management to let them know what is going on. We'll see. Thanks for the input!

[Drac of the Sharp Smiles]

Excellent, asian or afro-american, add to this "racism" discrimination. If I'm right (but need to be confirmed by US citizens) the audio recording is now fully valid in discrimination complaint, for $30 you can have a recorder for your supervisor famous one-liner.

The only catch to this kind of thing is that it will (as I've been told, not directly experienced) frequently be tossed out in a court.... Either under the assumption that you tricked the person into saying something or under the argument that you were recording someone without their knowledge. Even I don't know the exact rules surrounding "recording someone without their knowledge/consent". If it was a public place (like a workplace) then you might fall under the clause of he couldn't reasonably expect the conversation to be private.

All said though.... Unless you don't mind making enemies (as was mentioned, possibly ones in high places) it's probably not worth doing anything. Blow him off and ignore him. That's generally what I did in my situation, unless my boss REALLY REALLY got directly in my face. (In which case, we would have it out verbally, usually until he stomped off somewhere. But I'm in an unusual situation where I work and without that I don't recommend a direct, unmediated confrontation at all.)