I had been working at the same company for about 8 years and was overdue for another promotion. Finally I get a meeting put on my calendar with my boss and some higher ups and they tell me congratulations youre promoted! BUT we are also making some changes to the team.
The change was that while me and the 2 people below me were staying on the same team, the 2 people above me were getting a team swap. When this happened my current boss ended up telling me that he had no choice in the matter because there was someone higher up that refused to work with my new boss anymore, so they had to switch him onto a new team. That was the first glaring red flag.
He ended up being fine to work with for the first couple months (I suspect he was trying extremely hard) Then one day a switch flipped and he started being extremely rude and condescending to everyone he encountered while micromanaging the hell out of as many people as he could.
Some examples of things he did many times:
-Clients ask us to resend some info they cant find. Him: “No, we sent it months ago, you can find it yourselves” (would have taken me 1 click to resend)
-Sending revisions to emails our team has already sent out and making us follow up with his revised version as a “correction” to what we sent. (No significant changes being made)
-Department rule was to come in between 8-8:30am. Nope we have to be at our desks by 8 am. (But still stay past 5)
-Deciding on deadlines for other teams at the company and making me follow up multiple times to ask people who have much higher titles than me why they are behind on the timeline that my boss set for them
-Fully cancelling projects that I had been working on with clients for months because he wanted my time to be spent on the projects he was working on. (That I would get no credit for being a part of)
-Incessantly calling and emailing people on their vacation days
-Asking me to share my own personal to-do lists with him and then getting pissed that it wasnt organized to his liking and making me change it.
The crazy part was around when this all started someone higher up than this boss set up a meeting with me to talk about the transition and before I ever had a chance to complain she started telling me about how I can always come to her for “a shoulder to cry on” and that the bosses other team members had cried to her countless times before so she understands, and that I shouldnt take any of the bosses criticism personally. I was shocked. Why the hell did any of these people stay on a team where the boss was making them cry??? Or even with a leader whos critiques could not be taken at all seriously? Youre supposed to be learning from your superiors advice, not crying about it and disregarding it.
As soon as i had that conversation i started applying elsewhere and I quit once I found the right new position. When I told my boss I was quitting he immediately asked me if they could match my new offer I turned them down and said it wasnt about the money, that I just wanted to try something new.
I was planning on sticking to that story so I didn’t burn any bridges until I told the full team I was leaving and everyone told me they were miserable and had expressed this to people and were all told they were getting moved to new teams but the dates kept getting pushed off. After hearing that, I decided to be completely honest with HR in my exit interview. I told them everything that had happened and told them that the rest of the team was going to quit if they didnt follow through on their promises to move them asap.
I found out that by the end of that month the full team had been shifted around and my asshole of a boss was working with 0 people on his team for weeks before they found even 1 person to add to his team, theyre still short staffed currently.
Now Ive been at my new job for 2 months and Im much happier than I ever was at the last job plus I’m making more and working less.
TLDR: Got a new asshole of a boss, quit and told HR how much of an asshole he was and that everyone else was going to quit too, they gave his whole team new jobs and left him to run the team alone for weeks. Now I’m happy at new job.