I ended up deleting this cause it was posted while I was about to sleep so I’m just reposting so I can see replies.
Also someone asked what I did last time, I’m in a nonprofit, fundraising.
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My boss makes me sit on zoom or phone with him to hear him rant for hours at a time. And he. does this for an hour or two and then work comes out of it. And sometimes he makes me write their emails as he dictates them in THEIR CAR. He has high energy all the time and gets aggressive quickly or mean quickly and I have to sit through the highs of it and be expected to listen while they drone on. They would also make me stay on the phone or zoom with them for my whole shift some days or other days be extremely elusive giving me one or two tasks and be gone. When all the tasks could have been scheduled for that week with one or two times for check ins.
He also gets mad if I get slightly distracted from what we are doing or if someone is talking to me. They’ve gotten mad at me for not telling them if I will step away for a minute… even if it’s a quick thing
I’ve confronted him about not having enough social professional space and he’s threatened me with not helping me with tasks that are huge projects (which I in fact would like to do independently, but its huge projects that I can mess up if it’s independently). And also has said that I’m not able to write emails to people… because I don’t have that skillset. People in my job have to email others all the time and I’ve been more than able to connect to vendors—which I do now without them.
They also hugely micromanage. While I’m ok with reading my emails to them (sometimes I ask), but they also want me to do it constantly rather than me being independent. I will make small mistakes here and there, but it’s like things I can learn along the way of me working—however they will get mad/yell at me saying “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT”, as if I didn’t have a reason. And they will speak to me like this in front of the interns who I’m supposed to manage.
I used to be very motivated and in my first year of working, I’d do overtime all the time (9 am to 6/7 pm) to accommodate their crazy life. I wouldn’t get paid my time and a half for awhile either.
They also come to work extremely late (like a half hour to almost two hours late) and leaves like 4 hours to tend to home commitments/kids. People always say it must be cool to have my boss never here (and they hate that my boss gets that privilege cause none of us get to be remote, or leave early when we want to).
I’ve been able to argue for early time schedule to leave during when everyone else in the building is on break and got that for my department (I’m the ONLY full time employee in my department so I basically act like an assistant for my boss). We don’t get christmas break or any sort of 1 week break. The most we’ve gotten is a two day break which I should be grateful for… but everyone else I know in their office jobs gets at least Christmas break if not, a 1-2 week break with summer fridays.
My issue is that, when they want to finish a project, they will make me stay up till the last minute and make me do it with him—sometimes even past my time. There was once (happens often but this was the most notable time) a scheduled half day (counts as my scheduled PTO days) and I stayed well over 6.5 hours that day and they kept yelling at me. They wanted me to hunt people down who were LEAVING on their half day to get information/process something… while I was stuck there the whole day and overtime with no apology. No one has called him out for making me stay overtime and my boss has even reasoned with me doing over time with saying the person in my previous position would “do it all the time” which didn’t sound true. Sounded like they came later than me (9/10) and stayed till 6 or 7.
While I understand we have to be collaborative to do these projects, there’s no sense of my time, but his time trumps everything. I have to stay with him to do the most smallest things, as simple as me writing down every word they say on to our project file.
And when they want to work like this, I have to be on with them THE WHOLE TIME, not even time for a break. I’ve complained about this and they blame me for not taking my break.
Another thing they do is they offer my help without asking me if I can take something on. To me, its a wholly inconsiderate thing to do.
While it might be my fault, the reason why is because they make me stay over my time if I end up taking my break. The job isn’t done and everything becomes do or die with them.
I think that also, a lot of how I’ve been emotionally reacting to this has been used against me. For one whole year, I stayed silent, not said a bad word and never said anything bad about anyone even my boss. I’ve cried in front of my boss (after starting my second year), explaining I have a mental disability and was on/testing medication (adhd/processing delay) as well. My boss has been using this against me and to say that I can’t focus sometimes.
I’ve started to rant to coworkers and even my interns (as they see how the boss treats me and also thinks similarly to me as well). I also try to make sure the interns are protected from this or at least feel appreciated from my side. They also feel annoyed when my boss keeps constantly asking them to get his lunch/pick up their lunch. Professionally, I know I shouldn’t rant and it’s not normal for me to do so in my jobs—so this is a first time I’m out and ranting. I feel like it shows how angry and resenful I’ve become.
Some parts of me feels like I’m just a bad worker because I’ve lost all motivation to continue on our projects. I feel extremely apathetic and just tell him I don’t have an opinion anymore on how we do things.
I’ve also had similar issues in the past during my grad schooling because I’m also not much of a leader/conceptual person (but a technical, do enough to get the job done) type but the person/collaborator would get angry with me because I ask for clear instructions on what they want while I input my opinions—I’m not working with clients but where I am is in my grad school is supposed to be collaborative. I’m learning more on how to be a better detailed person, but I feel like when I get inspired or try to enact on my ideas, they get shot down or I get yelled at for “not listening to them”. It’s weird because it feels like i’m being yelled at left and right by people for either small mistakes or for things not even my fault—everything is also overtaken by my people pleasing tendencies and sometimes I will look angry and annoyed. I’m so used to people taking over projects I’m on that’s supposed to be collaborative. I just feel at a loss and really depressed, I don’t feel like I have a vision of projects I want to do. Not sure where to go to from here.
Tldr; elusive but micromanage-y boss, and mental health issues surrounding work/schooling