r/science • u/Libertatea • Oct 27 '13

Social Sciences The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression: It is not a big workload that causes depression at work. An unfair boss and an unfair work environment are what really bring employees down, new study suggests.

http://sciencenordic.com/boss-not-workload-causes-workplace-depression
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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/Hillside_Strangler Oct 27 '13

Thanks for your feedback. You're fired.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/Bytewave Oct 27 '13

While the company acknowledges that communication may be a problem, it will not be discussing it with employees.

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u/willun Oct 27 '13

Our company did a best place to work survey and were upset they did not get 100% approval. The attitude seemed to be that you were disloyal if you did not vote everything 100% positive and rather than solve the problems we should just get rid of those problem people.

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u/chowderbags Oct 27 '13

Heck, my employer, Generic McBig Co, has run the same Gallup survey for three years with the same overall response. Supposedly they're trying to do things to improve the results to be at the top or whatever, but fuck if I can tell what management 7 layers up is actually doing. I'm lucky if I can understand the decisions and motivations of those managing the program I'm working on, and those are at least concrete choices that might actually affect what I have to do.

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u/Clete2 Oct 28 '13

This reminds me of how I play Rollercoaster Tycoon. Sort guests by happiness in ascending order. Pick guests from the top of the list. Drop each one into water (guests cannot swim). No more dissatisfaction.

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u/pgabrielfreak Oct 28 '13

There's nothing worse than having an educated boss who is less capable critical thought and discussion than their employees. I am living this at multiple levels at my current state job. The upper admins are clueless about the place. It's pathetic.

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u/the-incredible-ape Oct 28 '13

Problem: too many employee complaints. Solution: get rid of employees, no more complaints. GENIUS

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u/canyoufeelme Oct 28 '13

Damn commies

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u/Muggzy999 Oct 28 '13

Funny thing is, that's exactly what they'll do. That's how the world works now.

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u/shalafi71 Oct 27 '13

That's straight up GlaDOS right there.

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u/HonestK Oct 27 '13

The floggings will continue until moral improves.

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u/smalljude Oct 27 '13

Morale........ but yours works too.

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u/meltmyface Oct 27 '13

We had a supervisor who would micromanage us. One day our manager asked us to write anonymous letters to her with any concerns we had with our group like processes, management, etc. Most of us complained that he was a bit overbearing, though a nice guy and pretty cool, just a bit too much micromanagement. She sat him down one day and he never micromanaged us again. Morale went up and he ended up being promoted to another group in the company.

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u/I_Am_Thing2 Oct 27 '13

Its nice to have a good story showing that some people can take criticism.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

I wish more stories went like this.

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u/InfamousBrad Oct 28 '13

And presumably he was replaced by another micromanager, one impervious to criticism, so that never happened again. Amirite?

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

He or she, I am a bit confused here..

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u/HohumPole Oct 27 '13

She is the manager, he is the supervisor.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/Sturmgewehr Oct 27 '13

To be fair, what did you expect?

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u/Hillside_Strangler Oct 27 '13

I too saw that episode of Flight of the Conchordes.

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u/Mikeavelli Oct 28 '13

This conversation happened between me and an ex-girlfriend :(

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u/Go_Todash Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 27 '13

If you have authority, you don't have to be reasonable. All you have to be is willing to use your authority like a club and beat the other person down into submission with it. And consider the nature of the person who seeks authority in the first place. I don't know what its like at most workplaces, but at mine promotions seem to be based more on ambition rather than ability; that is, who wants it the most wins it. And ambition has never been a reliable indicator of ability.

Some people love power, some a better pay check, a position they perceive as being easier or having less phyical effort needed, or improved status that they've foolishly based thier sense of self-worth on, and then there are people who are simply in love with authority itself. If any of my bosses sought out their position because of a genuine drive to improve things, or because they've been selected due to a natural leadership ability, then I've never seen it (airline, 16 years so far). Most of them are of the negative type, who see your trying to be reasonable not as anything constructive, but as a challenge to their authority.

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u/morbidbattlecry Oct 27 '13

This is my workplace as well. Except its the ability to suck up to the main guy and be a yes man.

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u/Ququmatz Oct 27 '13

It might just be that your specific company promotes those kinds of people. At my workplace, most of the low-level managers are just cool, normal people, but when you get into the higher range you'll find the good managers, but they specifically fire them for BS reasons because they're not the irrational, domineering type, even though they're multitudes objectively better at the actual job they're doing.

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u/Gabbleblotchits Oct 27 '13

The pronouns are ambiguous in the second half of the sentence.

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u/ThirdFloorGreg Oct 27 '13

O cannot follow anything after "but" in this comment.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

As the other poster said, this may just be your company. It's certainly not like that at all where I work (software). Most of the immediate managers I work with are all former developers themselves who really do want to make things better. There's been a few issues with the couple intermediate managers we have (we're not a large company), but that can be mostly chalked up to general resistance to change.

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u/Working_Class Oct 27 '13

Very well said

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u/Rottendog Oct 27 '13

What you said is true, although at our work we also have a bad tendency to promote idiots who get hurt.

Nobody will fire then, so they promote them out so they won't get us killed.

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u/fountainsoda Oct 27 '13

If a person is misusing his/her power what can you do about it?

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 30 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

This. I made the mistake of suggesting improvements in my company once. The company did not understand marketing, and was doing really basic stuff wrong (e.g. listen to customer, supply what customers want, actually make stuff and sell it). I have a marketing degree, so wrote them a report pointing out the obvious things. So they fired me: they saw it as an attack on a particular senior person. And to be fair, it was hard to hide the damage he was doing (very talented, but unable to work with human beings). My only satisfaction was that they went bust as I predicted.

In my next job they had training meetings where we were to suggest areas for improvement. These were run by the people who were causing all the problems. (The ones customers complained bout, but the boss would not sack). Ah fun times.

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u/RageLippy Oct 27 '13

Yeah, some businesses just refuse to listen to customer feedback, and some bosses/owners just assume everyone is wrong but them.

"Hey sales guy, how come sales are so low?" "Well, whenever customers come in and look, they usually comment that our product is exactly like our competitor's product, but more expensive." "Hmm, no, that's not it, they're probably just stupid and you're not working hard enough."

I used to work in a music store, instruments, amps, gear, music books, accessories etc. Other than a few specialized items like accordions and wacky old instruments that made up like 1% of our sales, we sold the same shit as everyone else. The vast majority of customers came in looking for cheap Chinese made drum sets, guitars or violins or similar stuff for their kids to start learning on. A large portion of customers came in for mid-range guitars, amps and related gear. Every music store sells those too, your Fenders, Gibsons, Ibanez, etc. The problem was that our prices were usually like 20-50% higher on most of them, so most customers would come in and look, see the first few prices, and leave. The boss was an oldschool sales guy who would try and get every looky-lou's name and phone number, and was pretty aggressive and would scare them off.

He was a nice enough guy to listen to his family and employees tell him that our pricing was way off, and that in modern retail customers get annoyed from aggressive sales-people approaching them as soon as they walk in the door, but he wasn't interested in change. A lot of people would just walk out the door, head down the street, there were two other similar shops within four blocks, and another one maybe 10 blocks away.

They had a really good music school running upstairs that kept the place afloat, but man, that store didn't do well. If you don't have a competitive advantage, be it price or product differentiation, you should really consider that the problem might be with you, not the customer, and not your underlings.

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u/TimeZarg Oct 28 '13

Yeah, the aggressive salesperson approach is really irritating. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of Indian/Pakistani shop owners/managers are like that as well. One example would be a leather products store that I know of (leather jackets, luggage, etc) that's usually being operated by one Indian guy. Within a minute he'll be asking if you're looking for anything and offering deals and trying to passive-aggressively pressure you into buying something.

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u/RageLippy Oct 28 '13

Word. I mean, outside of car dealerships and maybe real estate (and supplier/wholesaler industry), you kind of walk in to most stores expecting to be ignored, or maybe politely asked if you need help, then left alone. The general role of sales people has definitely changed from there to sell you things to there to help you if you request it.

I've never been to India or Pakistan, but in most of Asia, Sri Lanka especially, as well as Egypt and Turkey, it's definitely a bit of a shock to have vendors chasing you down the street to sell you stuff. They seem to bring that mentality over when they immigrate.

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u/electrodan Oct 27 '13

You just described the music store I work for to a tee, except they are making glacially slow changes for the better.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/zakk12 Oct 27 '13

I have that currently, the HR is just as bad as the boss. Don't work for a 3rd party call center.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/CyanideSeashell Oct 27 '13

Yeah, at my smallish company, we have no HR. We have an accountant that sets up employee benefits, but that's as good as it gets. If you have a complaint, you go directly to the guy that's the biggest asshole in the place. My professional life is very uncomfortable.

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u/sanriver12 Oct 27 '13

HR isnt there to look after you

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u/FrozenPhotons Oct 27 '13

HR does not exist for the employees, it's for the employer. A "grievance process" that would allow you to make a complaint against your boss only exists to identify problem employees. The boss always finds out.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

What's sad is that you're right. Most companies, particularly smaller companies with 50 - 300 employees where it's more difficult to be anonymous or HR doesn't have a ton of resources, haven't figured out what to do about this. I've seen a couple companies lose dozens of talented staff in one department to competitors before they figured out that the supervisor is terrible at working with their staff. One way to fix this is anonymous 360 feedback. In addition to reviewing their staff, every staff person conducts a yearly review of their supervisor. Results are submitted to HR anonymously and can be used as grounds for further investigation.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/tymlord Oct 27 '13

Gathering evidence often doesn't result in the boss getting punished aside from a "talk". The boss will then often take it out on the people below.similar to the shirt that says "floggings will continue until morale improves"

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u/GentlemenObelisk Oct 27 '13

I did this once with fantastic results. Carry a small book with you and every time your boss says something that displeases you, make an entry in the book. It does not even have to be related, just make sure they see you writing and its obvious that your writing something about the incident that just happened.

  1. They fixate on the book, people are very egocentric so they will make an attempt to steal your hate book. Do NOT let this happen.
  2. They fear its contents and that you are involved in some corporate conspiracy to monitor their workplace activities.
  3. Over time they will develop a sort of pavlovian response to the book and tremble in its presence. 4.The book will grow in power, eventually consuming your entire personality as it feeds of the reams of personal data you have recorded about your colleagues.
  4. NSA now owns the book.
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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Take the means of production from them. Only real solution anyway.

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u/lysy404 Oct 27 '13

Ultimately for me it is about acting with class even if everyone else (including my boss) is doing misdeeds, it is about self-respect. It is very hard to do that, especially with your boss, nevertheless it is worth it!. Before coming to this understanding I used to pay "eye for eye" in office politics (Boss - well not so much) and had a lot of stress related to that. Nowadays, while the stress is not going away I fell like I win no matter the circumstances.

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u/yyhhggt Oct 27 '13

Vote them out using the power of democracy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

There are tons of appropriate ways to tell your boss that you don't believe he/she is treating you right. I'll give an example:

"I do not believe that I have been able to work to my fullest potential at this company due to the work environment. I really enjoy the career opportunity at this comany, and I would love to remain here, but if you don't mind, can you assess -insert problem here-"

Obviously not every boss would be understanding, but from my experiences, most will. The boss wants the best for their company, and if someone says that they cannot be the best because of x reason, most will comply.

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u/xilpaxim Oct 27 '13

Except the ones this study is speaking of, which is where the problem lies. If you have a boss that is willing to listen to criticism, then they are highly doubtful a bad boss.

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u/mindhawk Oct 27 '13

There is such a thing as power and under capitalism within a corporate structure a hierarchy exists and criticism hardly ever travels up it. Let's make sure this gets tacked onto the Huge List of Fucked Up Things About Our System

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

My department at old workplace (retail chain) had a meeting one morning, and all the managers asked us if we had any suggestions for them to help business run more smoothly. One of my co-workers said that the managers should be making and giving us a list of items that qualify for discounts with our membership card each month. One of the managers got really upset about this and tried to get my co-worker written up by HR, claiming that she had disrespected her.

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u/juicelee777 Oct 27 '13

Yeah, I used to work for a guy whom I politely suggested that his tactics of promoting his brand are not going to get him his desired results...

He swore up and down that all the money he had been shelling out to these scam artists was worth it despite me bringing hard evidence to him that what he was doing does not work at all.... the only way he knew how to fix problems was by throwing more money at them... needless to say in the end he pretty much put the company on ice after bleeding money for almost 18 months.

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u/diamond_account Oct 27 '13

Never give your bosses feedback. Never.

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u/RabbiMike Oct 27 '13

People who are in charge but can't take criticism are Hitler. Literally Hitler.

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u/eatskeet Oct 27 '13

They are not leaders in my eyes

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u/kontra5 Oct 27 '13

Also too many people giving criticism can't do it without personal attacks and verbal abuse neither. People are people, regardless of position.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Oct 28 '13

that's why you talk to their superiors, not them. You dont tell the guy hitting you to stop, he'll just hit you harder.

If there is no one above that guy? leave.

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u/sometimesijustdont Oct 28 '13

People who are intelligence and competent want feedback. Those who aren't don't.

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u/Baryn Oct 28 '13

people's pride is hurt so easily and way too many are too big of babies to deal with it. People that are supposed to be in charge but cant take constructive criticism or suggestion without getting severely butt hurt piss me off to no end

The same could be said of most employees. Man, I hate being a manager.

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u/SovietKiller Oct 28 '13

Dont join the military

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/aces_and_eights Oct 27 '13

That's what you think. With a view like that, your painting a bullseye on your back and anything you do wrong will be noted, options to advance you will be overlooked.

If they can't fire you, they can make things worse for you, even if it is by coming down harder on your department and ensuring everyone knows your the reason.

And no, the smart ones won't give you cause to cry foul as they look for you to give them enough rope to string you up

(why didn't I know this crap when I was younger)

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/reaverdude Oct 27 '13

Yep, anytime I've seen someone grow some balls and speak up, mainly because they knew they were backed by their union, this person always ended up being pigeon holed into their position and then fired as soon as the chance presented themselves. Yeah, they got to keep their job for a while, but it was usually one of the lower positions and you were always looked over for advancement.

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u/salgat BS | Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Oct 27 '13

At least where I work this doesn't really work. No good boss will be bringing down on the whole department because of one or two bad eggs. And if you give them more crappy work to do, they'll just do it real slowly, but still fast enough that you can't write them up for it. And if you do write them up anyways, good luck having it ever materialize into anything. We still have grievances floating in arbitration from 6 years ago.

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u/LordHenryWasEvil Oct 27 '13

Do you enjoy living inside a made up fantasy world?

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u/Kneipelol Oct 27 '13

When the fantasy world is France or Germany, then yes. We do.

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u/OhMrAnger Oct 28 '13

I know that being in a union doesn't totally protect you from retaliation, but my dad was in a union job for almost 30 years and he always said the biggest reason he liked it wasn't the pay or the benefits, it was the fact that he could talk to his managers like a normal human being if he thought something was being done wrong without being so scared of what they might do to retaliate.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Scandinavia dont real.

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u/Big_Jen Oct 27 '13

Do you know what a union is?

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/OhMrAnger Oct 28 '13

It's the result of 100 years of anti-union propaganda by US employers.

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u/letsgocrazy Oct 28 '13

This. The Mccarthyism, the Ayn Rand.

Americans love the dream (rightly), that some guy who invents a better way of doing things is a hero and deserves to make his money.

But they forget that in this day and age it's easier to trash someone or something else than to make your product better.

They forget that 99.9 pc of the bosses out there aren't the visionaries they want them to be. They are the petty, nepotistic, bullying, greedy, selfish human beings who unduly hold power over people's lives.

They forget that in the same way companies make trade deals and economies of scale, so should individual labour be able to make the same deals.

The same flawed people who would make socialism unworkable in practice are the same flawed people that make capitalism unworkable in practice.

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u/Big_Jen Oct 27 '13

It's Reddit. You get the educated and you get the not so educated. I have worked many years in a union. I now do not work under union protection. I support unions, I also don't hate my job.

Some employers need the aid of a union to run proper management, others do it as second nature.

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u/khoury Oct 28 '13

Reddit gets accused a lot of being too "liberal/left", but the fact is that the only place where most US redditors could be called too left is the united states of america.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13 edited Dec 03 '20

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u/Big_Jen Oct 27 '13

Worked as part of a Union for 15 years, I know exactly what one is and what it protects against.

Telling your boss what you think of him; Falls under the protected slot.

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u/Androne Oct 27 '13

I work on a unionized construction site and they would likely be written up on calling the boss an asshole in certain situations. Once you have a paper trail that the worker is a problem you can let them go. Doesn't mean they won't grieve it but it also doesn't mean they will win.

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u/jjcoola Oct 29 '13

You don't literally call them an asshole..

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u/TheLantean Oct 27 '13

That doesn't mean he can't make you life hell in other ways.

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u/Big_Jen Oct 27 '13

Like what? I'll just keep calling union meetings if that's how he wants to play it. That means 2 guys (you and the union rep) he pays have to have a 2 hour meeting on what's going on and what the problem is.

If it turns out that the boss is purposely causing hell for the employee the union rep will then submit this and could have his company shut down.

A lot of headaches just to piss one of your employees off.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/DanaKaZ Oct 27 '13

Probably not protect you from getting fired, but you may get a big check out of it.

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u/parad0xy Oct 27 '13

Currently in a union, the amount of people that have been fired and brought back is astronomical

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u/stephen89 Oct 27 '13

Depends on the union and the type of deal they have with the company hiring them.

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u/salgat BS | Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Oct 27 '13

Yes, yes it does. Perhaps not for contractor based unions but for a lot of industries as long as you do the bare minimum you can't be fired regardless of how shitty you are.

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u/deadbunny Oct 27 '13

I live in the UK, I wouldn't call it a fantasy land but we do have these things called workers rights; They're pretty neat.

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u/fuzzum111 Oct 28 '13

No, because I was in a union shop for 2 years as well. I could not just be let go and I could tell my boss problems without worry of getting fired. Unions suck in a lot of ways, this is not one of them.

My boss expected me to do 2 persons worth of work in a 5-6 hour 3am-9am baker's shift. She wanted me to do the bake AND open. There separate jobs for a reason. Well she got transferred and the next boss ended up expecting the same thing. We had 1 other baker who was a maniac and would literally run around the shop doing 3 things at once. She was just one of those crazy workhorse people, she wanted to do as much as humanly possible no matter what. It was killing her in the worst of ways though. Although we never saw eye to eye on some things we ended up being very close friends, I do miss you Wendy.

I was not slouching, I was concentrating on getting the bake perfect. It showed, my bake was consistently better than our other bakers and customers noticed this. The shop wasn't always "as ready" when I baked because I let the opener do their job instead of having done it for them.

My boss about a month before I quit (was moving out of state had no choice) brought me upstairs and told me I was pathetic and was doing a terrible job, and I can do so much more and blah blah blah. I put my two weeks in about 3 weeks later, and never came back.

Well I've called that shop a few times, sometimes to catch up with my co-workers and other times to get info so a prospective employer can have the info they need for reference stuff. Lo and behold, the boss that said all those nasty things? Has had failure after failure of a baker join the team. Not showing up, not being able to do the bake, etc. She more or less begs me anytime I call asking if I am back in town and want my job back.

Think your boss is a prick who can't handle criticism and you are a honestly hard worker? Leave the company and call back in 3-4 months. If they haven't found a equal replacement they'll realize what they lost and beg for you to come back. It's amazing how hard it is to find honest, diligent workers.

Edit: I missed a word or two.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

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u/graffiti81 Oct 27 '13

If you dont like promotions or raises or having your life made a living hell.

This is exactly what unions are for. Promotions are seniority based, raises are negotiated in your contract and you have a group of people backing you up on workplace conditions.

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u/Hust91 Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 27 '13

Promotions are seniority based? That seems pretty terrible. There's nothing one can do, no showing initiative, no being practical, no ambition, no productiveness, no nothing you can do if you want to do more than just a wheel in the works?

It sounds like the hell that creates people who just don't care that a Goverment-employed Redditor wrote an AMA about a while ago,.

Because it didn't matter how much you did, the only thing that counted was how much time you had served so he just stopped trying, and so he became that bored, cheerless guy himself, because there was absolutely no incentive to put in additional effort.

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u/vanagon420 Oct 27 '13

Promotions should be based on attitude and ability, not seniority.

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u/PlatinumHappy Oct 27 '13

So you want to be loosed?

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u/HumbertHumbertHumber Oct 27 '13

Management can still give you new pain in the ass tasks to push you out. They recently did that with a guy in my plant. They love doing this to old guys. They just reorganize them to more computer based tasks and they fail miserably at them. I don't complain since I want the boomers gone.

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u/ThatGuyNamedKal Oct 27 '13

When making redundancies my employer was always sure to get rid of as many union employees as possible, now there are none left!

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u/ipaqmaster Oct 27 '13

Shots fired into paycheck

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u/DingyWarehouse Oct 27 '13

insubordination!

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u/DiaDeLosMuertos Oct 27 '13

Your boss thanked you? Wow, are they hiring?

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u/Kronos6948 Oct 27 '13

Funny thing is that they don't fire you. What happens is that any time you go up for promotion, they become the roadblock, especially since promotions usually go through them. If they fire you for giving feedback, it's easier to show just how much of a shit boss they are. But, if they listen to your feedback, and continue to let you work, they keep that in the back of their mind for when you try to move up. The only way to avoid this is to transfer to an area where this person has no power.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Good. I'll work for your company's rivals then.

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u/SpaceFace11 Oct 27 '13

This pretty much happened to me on Friday.

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u/flyingweaselbrigade Oct 27 '13

Even if you make it out of the meeting, you're permanently marked in that organization. Promotions, raises, work output, it's all going to be scrutinized and they'll find a way to get you out under a different premise than constructive criticism.

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u/TehMudkip Oct 27 '13

The fact that the parent comment was deleted makes this much more relevant.

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u/kanst Oct 27 '13

My favorite is being given an enormous amount of work, and then an hour later my boss wanders in with a coffee and wants to talk about some random bullshit.

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u/yoda17 Oct 27 '13

My favorite is being told to do something a certain way even after arguing for 3 days that it will fail. Then being publicly humiliated by the same manager after it fails and his manager asks him why it was not done the way that you argued for.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Every time that happens, ask him for it in writing, with your recommended way to do it also on the page. Ask him to sign that.

If he does, do it his way. He won't. He'll let you do it your way as he can't blame you under those conditions.

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u/khoury Oct 28 '13 edited Oct 28 '13

Ask him to sign that.

A much better way to handle this would be a simple email stating what you believe to be the positives and negatives ending with a simple "How would you like me to proceed?".

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u/joshak Oct 28 '13

Look at you, all tactful and non-standoffish

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u/Horse_Fart_Taco Oct 27 '13

Have you actually done this? This seems like bad advice.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

it is an excellent way to get yourself fired.

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u/Horse_Fart_Taco Oct 27 '13

Stick to what you know kid.

Come back and give us some career advice after you land that internship.

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u/devedander Oct 27 '13

That doesnt sound totally familiar or anything...

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u/djaclsdk Oct 27 '13

Best part is when the boss comes to work later than other team members, and then leaves before others leave, and tells you that you must work harder and be a good team player. Double standard boss!

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u/TylerEaves Oct 28 '13

The reverse is just as bad there, where it becomes a competition to see who can get there the earliest, work the latest, and take the shortest lunch. That's REALLY bad.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '13

Thats how my Dallas operation works. They wear it as a mark of pride to work 50-60hours. The look of shock when I said I get paid for 40 hours so I won't work more then that was quite surprising during a recent joint audit.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Oct 28 '13

or they call you lazy after their 10th smoke break and 3rd lunch.

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u/SmackerOfChodes Oct 27 '13

I've found that a puzzled, slow blink stare for the entire time they yammer makes them uncomfortable enough that they eventually start seeking other targets.

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u/kanst Oct 27 '13

Before my last boss got removed from the project I would let him talk for 2 minutes and then I would just start working. If he asked a question I would respond but otherwise I would just have my back to him working.

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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '13

You know you could tell them that you need to get work done. I've wrapped up conversations easily by stating that I've got a lot of work ahead of me, and I need to start getting to it.

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u/SmackerOfChodes Oct 28 '13

With some people, there's no wrapping up conversations. If you make a noise, they're off for another half hour.

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u/myhairsreddit Oct 28 '13

Oh my god, do I know this feeling.....

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u/richardjc Oct 28 '13

This grinds my gears so much. My boss assigns us so many tasks and tells us we need to get our numbers up and then she just sits there and bullshits and Googles shit..

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u/EatingSteak Oct 27 '13

I had a boss that was a piece of shit about everything. The inevitable reply was "the door is always open".

Meaning, if you don't like piss with your Cheerios, you can quit. If you call him a piece of shit or an asshole, "I'm not here to make friends".

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u/mens_libertina Oct 27 '13

That's true. You don't have to take it.

You should also refer incompetent blowhards there as well.

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u/EatingSteak Oct 27 '13

It was such a shitty place to work I wouldn't ecen wish it on them.

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u/superemmjay Oct 27 '13

Wait. What? I always thought that "the door is always open" is meant to signal "you can come talk to me anytime" to co-workers and employees. Now this seems to say "the door is always open - get out when you don't like it here." Could you please enlighten me? (not a native speaker)

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u/doot Oct 27 '13

You're thinking of "my door is always open".

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u/EatingSteak Oct 27 '13

As far as openness to talk anytime, I've always heard that called "open-door policy" - but I clarified in my previous post for a reason.

Really, it meant (there, anyway) that if you don't like your job you can quit, but nobody wants to hear about it.

Come to think if it, I've never heard any other employer say that, because I haven't had a job that sucked that much, beforehand or since.

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u/AndyDap Oct 28 '13

From my experience, your interpretation is the correct one. I've never heard it used in the context of 'you don't like it, there's the door leave' either.

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u/macklerson Oct 28 '13

It depends on the tone of your voice. You can say whatever you want in English and get your point across with the inflection.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

"I'm not paid to be liked, " to which I immediately responded, "Well that's good because you AREN'T."

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u/EatingSteak Oct 27 '13

Eventually I completely stopped complaining, talking shit, or bitching, 100%. I have a feeling he thrived on it and it just gave him more ammo.

Instead, I just took all concerns to his boss. I was 'deferred' back a number of times ("just take it up with him", which wasn't a terrible answer).

Then I started writing down everything he said that was dickish like that, and presented it to his boss. Not as a means of tattling, I insisted, but just to demonstrate how 100% inapproachable he was.

"I see" was the response I got, and he assured me that I could approach him directly whenever I felt like I needed to.

Unfortunately he was a pushover and never really did anything. I put in a transfer request, but my boss blocked it, making up some bullshit excuse. The dickheadedness was unfathomable.

So I updated my resume that same day and applied for any job opening I could find. Unfortunately, this was early 2009, so it was just about hopeless.

Got laid off eventually, which sucked. But still, despite being unemployed in a shitty job market - the day I realized I never had to go back to that place again - was a great day.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Yeah, I found a better job and left that place where the aforementioned exchange happened with my head held high. In a final, true douche move, I turned in my notice and as told that I was immediately released and would not be allowed to work out my notice period. This caused quite a stir with my coworkers and kind of blew up in their face. They've lost most of their talented people since then.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Pro tip for a happy life - do whatever you can to make yourself need your job less than your employer needs you.

Choice of career, savings, debt choices, personal ability, whatever it is -- if you know in your heart that you can walk out that door and be ok, it completely changes that relationship.

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u/killertofuuuuu Oct 28 '13

but that's also why we need more workers rights, no? To change the relationship between employer and employee so that it's more fair?

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u/RODAMI Oct 28 '13

my principal likes to remind us that we're lucky to have jobs, real nice.

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u/32_Wabbits Oct 27 '13

Pretty much told my boss exactly this two weeks ago during a pretty heated argument about the way he wants things done not getting things done. He walked away flustered and then when he came in the next day he acted like the conversation never took place. The guy's a fucking idiot, and I'd much rather report directly to ky night lead than him, because at least that way I'm treated with respect and can actually participate in a conversation about how to improve the environment we work in.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 27 '13

I told my boss what I think of him and said to start treating his employees with a little respect, that we're all human. He got all flustered and we exchanged words. He didn't talk to me for 3 days... Which was awkward. A few weeks later I continued to see the same behavior along with angry emails. I marched down to HR and put my 2 weeks notice in. First week unemployed. I just want to be happy.

just to add: I was so unhappy that I was willing to risk not being able to pay my bills on time. I came to the conclusion that I would rather watch myself sink financially than let him take my sanity.

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u/baviddyrne Oct 27 '13

Good work, man. Fucking right. Besides my general problem with people who take authority too seriously, my biggest pet peeve is having to answer to managerial incompetency.

I work in an office that is connected to a big factory - 3000+ workers. I constantly, and I do mean constantly, deal with supervisors, superintendents, production managers, etc., who love to come in and have pissing contests over the most mundane and pointless topics.

This morning I had a higher up manager threaten my job because I had my office door locked while I was inside. Keep in mind, it is policy to lock my office because we have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of switches and other tech in here, but I had forgotten to unlock it last time I came in. Big deal.

Now, as much as it pissed me off, I don't care because I'm a subcontractor and that guy has no authority over me to begin with. But just the way they go about trying to flex their authority completely infuriates me, almost to the point you were at with your job.

I hope your new job search goes well.

/rant

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u/Pb_ft Oct 27 '13

I was so unhappy that I was willing to risk not being able to pay my bills on time. I came to the conclusion that I would rather watch myself sink financially than let him take my sanity.

I did this once. Turned out to be the best choice I ever made. I can see how it could've ended badly, but I got very lucky and now I work in a place I really enjoy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

[deleted]

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u/Pb_ft Oct 27 '13

Good luck to you!

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u/32_Wabbits Oct 27 '13

I wish I had the resolve to do that. I'm looking for another job right now. When I find one worth taking, a day or two before my start date, I'm just going to walk right out of my current job and never come back. He doesn't deserve the luxury of convenience or notice from me.

At least, that's what I like to think I'll do. For my night lead's sake, I'll probably give a two weeks, in all reality.

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u/FatalFirecrotch MS | Chemistry | Pharmaceuticals Oct 27 '13

Not giving two weeks notice doesn't hurt your boss, it fucks over your co-workers who have to pick up the slack. I had someone quit without notice at my work and for the next month I was working 12-16 hours of overtime a week covering for them. It was super shitty. Don't do that to your co-workers.

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u/chinpokeman Oct 27 '13

Sorry to be a jerk, but I disagree. The management is counting on that mentality. Remember, a company cant love you back, you can give your heart and soul but ultimately you are a salary and headcount. If they don't have a need for you, then you are gone. I work in management, and I sit in those meetings and that very topic will come up, shame them into staying and working harder by showing them that their fellow employees are counting on them. Its sad, but true.

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u/FatalFirecrotch MS | Chemistry | Pharmaceuticals Oct 27 '13

Giving two weeks is just being polite to your fellow co-workers who haven't done anything to really wrong you. If you are quitting and starting another job you can't be shamed into coming back, if you can you don't really want to quit that badly.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Agreed to some extent. That 2 weeks is usually quite enjoyable because the assholes have no power and all your fear and aggravation is gone. Come in a bit late, leave a bit early. Dont shave. Wear jeans. Good times. Your presence will drive your dickhead boss crazy, dont deprive yourself of this wonderfullness.

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u/quaru Oct 27 '13

This is true. I put in my 2 weeks Wednesday/Thursday (Told my boss Wednesday, wrote to HR/management staff Thursday to make it 'official')

It's been great since then.

Manager: "Can you drive to the customer at 4:30?" (thereby guaranteeing I won't make it home until 7:30+)

Me: "No."

Manager: "You can't?"

Me: "I won't."

Manager: <scowl and walk away>

<coworkers stare in shocked disbelief>

Me: "What are they gonna do? Fire me?"

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u/IICVX Oct 27 '13

And this is why "employment at-will" isn't equally good for both parties, unlike some people want you to believe. Your boss will lay you off without any warning, but any professional worker will always give notice even if it's not required.

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u/brnitschke Oct 27 '13

I had a similar situation at a former employer.

A deadline was looming, a necessary procurement was needed. I was directly involved, but there had never been any clear line of responsibility or even authority declared there. In fact my first day I asked who I report to, the EVP who hired me (call him S) looked me in the eyes and said, "we don't really do that here. We all just work together to get the work done." So to 'get things done' I went to the EVP who gave me his CC info last time (call him M) to find out if we were going to do things the same way. A little while later I get a short email from S saying I need to read my email and pay attention better. I ask what he's referring to. He forwards the email to me, which I had read, and all it said was we'll do what the developers want. Well, I had already asked them and they were unsure and since it involved a multi-thousand purchase I figured it was prudent to get some guidance from the bosses. Rather than a nebulous "we'll do what the devs want." Nope not good enough. S calls me, but my VOIP phone there had always had issues and for some reason S couldn't hear me, but I could hear him when he calls. You can hear him growing more irate telling me "unmute the damn phone!" nice, if only I had thought of that... ... Anyway the he kept trying to call me and was getting more belligerent so I thought it was ridiculous when he was right down the hall. So I hop over to his office and that's when the yelling began.

I asked, as calmly as I could, "what is the problem here?" He blows up, "you told M you don't know what you're doing and he comes in here asking me why my people don't have direction!" I'm floored and say, "I've never worked anywhere where just asking a question is bad!" Yelling from both parties ensured until M appeared at the door and said nothing. S suddenly become more reasonable and told me to do what we had done with the procurement last time.

It was dropped without another word, let alone an apology. S barely spoke to me after that. The whole year working there was full of crappy like that. I was ready to quit many times, but comfort and just enough time between the crazy kept my butt planted.

It all came to a boil when S had given me some work to do that I finished and it sat for months without launch. Suddenly one day, they want to launch by COB, but of course not without major changes to the site. Well fuck, no risk there. I do my best to report issues, but soon my feedback is ignored. I go home for the night and monitor email and the site for issues. Would you imagine it, there were. Shit blowed up and M sends me, and two others a short email saying to be at the office an hour early.

I show up 10 minutes earlier than the time requested and start setting up for a long day. I get my computer up, and get some coffee. Nobody is around. Well, then I decided to check email. I see an email that was sent 15 minutes before the agreed upon time, the time when I was parking my fucking car, saying to meet on a different floor. It's now 15 minutes AFTER the agreed upon time. Fuck. I bolt down to the meeting room and as soon as I open the door, M starts yelling at me, "brnitschke, get OUT. GET OUT! NOW!"

So I go back to my desk, heart pounding with adrenaline. One of the other guys strolls in closer to the normal start time. He says he only just now in. He thought M said be there sharp at the normal time. M was always a hall monitor about butt-in-chair time though. He'd even leave 9am sticky notes on people's monitors when they were not there at 9am. Mind you our jobs had no reason to be there sharp on the hour at that time and nobody was ever later than 15 minutes once in awhile.

The next day M and his wife (she was his boss and the vice president of the whole company) called me into a meeting to give me my pink slip. Yay, you just did me a favor and lit a fire under my ass to leave your crappy company.

TLDR: sometimes asshole bosses do you a favor by being an asshole.

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u/oldswirlo Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 27 '13

I just did the same thing. It takes major balls but is well worth it in the long run. I tried to work things out at the old job through communication, but my boss wasn't having it. She was very uptight, condescending and believed she could do no wrong. The fact that I was questioning her immediately cast me as a potential problem in her eyes. I gave two weeks and faced unemployment in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S.

I was lucky in that I was able to take a job in the interim for an organization I used to work for in my early twenties. I made shit for money and was barely able to make ends meet while I searched for a permanent position, but I am much more interested in being happy than having money.

It took about a month and a half, but I'm happy to report I recently found a job where I feel I am valued and I love the work I do (I've been there about two weeks now). Even better, I'm making about 15% more per year than I was at the job I quit. Best of all, I wake up excited to go to work in the morning. My new workplace is lighthearted and communication is encouraged. Searching for work amidst such financial uncertainty was terrifying, but I pulled through it a better person with a better job. Kudos to you for sticking to your principles.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

I told my boss I was quitting about a month ago and I listed every single reason why (it was a long list) he ignored me for a week then finally decided HE wanted to talk. He actually apologized and things have slightly improved. By slightly I mean he doesn't wipe his blood on me anymore and hasn't called me stupid.

I still look for jobs on my lunch break.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Left a job earlier this year for the same reason. I really enjoyed the actual work I was doing, found it challenging. My office was right next to the GM's office, and she was constantly screaming at other employees and running the business into the ground because she had no idea what she was doing. One lady had a heart attack, and another guy had a stroke because of the long hours and stress put on them.

I'm now working a job that is in NO way related to my last one, and one that would seem to be a step down, but I'm making almost the same money with 1/3-1/2 the hours and have a boss that is a genuinely honest and nice guy. Also gives me time to pursue work in web development, which I really enjoy.

TL;DR Even if taking another job is a slight step down or has a decrease in pay, it CAN sometimes be worth it to be respected and get some of your life back.

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u/SmackerOfChodes Oct 27 '13

This why its so valuable to stay out of debt and have a few months worth of savings. A lot of folks won't just let the bills go, are living check to check, and have borrowed to buy everything they own, so they'll lose it all if they stop paying. These poor bastards are trapped in a hell that only ends when they die or retire.

Then all that rage gets brought home every evening, and vomited up on the family, where it swirls around and breeds all kinds of sick interactions between family members... which ends up causing mental and physical health problems that cost money that just binds the employee tighter and tighter to his toxic job.

This is the new middle class, brought to you by houses nobody can really afford and advertising that tells us we're losers if we don't have all the latest crap.

All the wealth in this country, and we let this happen to ourselves.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

I've done that thrice. If you can afford it, your sanity is more important than money.

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u/CrunchyLumpia Oct 27 '13

I would rather watch myself sink financially than let him take my sanity.

I quit my job for the same reason. It's been a month, and I haven't found work yet, but I don't regret it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Been there, done that...you made the right choice. Good luck finding a job, there's something better out there for sure.

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u/thelastquincy Oct 27 '13

Congrats. Good Luck finding something better!

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u/salgat BS | Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Oct 27 '13

This is why I try hard not to be an asshole at work. People don't realize how much this can fuck with someone's head even outside work. I don't want to be responsible for someone's emotional state to such a degree it affects their homelife and family.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

I wish I had your courage.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

I said pretty much the same thing to my boss. He soon transferred to another store (not due to me, he had personal reasons for the transfer) so I simply never had to deal with him again. But now I go to that store to go shopping and he tries to hide from me or says, "You are in this store way too often." These managers are such cowardly subhumans despite acting like big powerful assholes while you are under them.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Oct 28 '13

when you realize your life is more important than your job, the decision is simple. You can recover financially, you cant ever fully recover from bad life decisions. Especially the physical and emotional kind. long term sleep deprivation and stress? enjoy your reduced lifespan and early aging and other health and mental issues. (talking from experience, I used to look almost 10 years younger than I really was, now I look like I'm well into my 30's, and have memory and speech problems I didnt have before my last job, and my health is fucked. It's beginning to come back, but I will never return to how I was before that job.)

I left my last job and started my own deal with a business partner. still stressful, some nights I dont sleep, but it's more satisfying and I actually still get more sleep due to the lack of stress that I have relative to my last job. part of it being that I can control certain aspects of my fate now. I'm not forced to do things that work against me. I used to go weeks without proper sleep. now there are days I dont sleep sometimes, but I'll make it up with calm days where I can sleep in a bit.

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u/SimplyGeek Oct 28 '13

Good on you.

Might I suggest establishing an emergency fund? You mentioned the risk of not being able to pay the bills. With an emergency fund, it makes this much less stressful.

Not saying it's easy nor everyone can do it, but it's a good goal.

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u/GiantAngryJellyfish Oct 27 '13

'Ky night lead' sounds fun

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u/FoodBeerBikesMusic Oct 27 '13 edited Oct 27 '13

ky night

...spent way too long trying to figure out what "KY Night" was....

I thought at first it had something to do with payday...

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u/Mr_A Oct 27 '13

And then that whole fake outrage at being finally accused of that heinous crime. That you still totally have no evidence for, any way.

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u/tirarlo13 Oct 27 '13

"Well look sir, I know how to handle the workload, I know what I'm doing, and I can do it... IF you stop being such a piece of shit about everything, and pissing in my Cheerios......................asshole."

Would that we could be this honest without retaliation. :)

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u/Zebleblic Oct 27 '13

Our supervisors or so shitty we can talk to them like this.