I’ve been with my company 9+ years and in this industry 14. A project I spent 4 days working on, including late into nights and part of weekend, was turned into my boss this week. FYI boss is quite OCD about PPT slides and branding guidelines, etc.. and I have struggled for a while to perfect slides the way boss wants. We spend A LOT of time revising.
Over a video call / phone call, Boss looks at my work, says thanks, and then proceeds to once again criticizing my slides (even though it’s the exact format we had been using that everyone liked). Then boss proceeds to tell me they are disappointed that I’m not taking their advice and lessons learned. What boss doesn’t understand is that at least 40 hours were put into the slides already, and I have another 4 projects of similar size to do in a small time frame. Boss has no problem working on 1 slide for a few hours.. I don’t have that luxury nor the desire.
I got angry, red, another thing I cannot satisfy this person with even though I know my work is excellent and people really like it outside of boss. I tell boss I am not in the right frame of mind to hear this and talk, to please let’s talk on Monday.. but they proceed to continue asking me more and more questions, like poking a bear in a corner. Saying ridiculous things like I will not continue to grow without these skills.
So, in the most polite and respectful way I could, I tell boss that I feel like a child desperately seeking their parents approval, and that the child is starting to have self esteem issues because no matter what the kid does, parents always find fault in everything.. rather than just accepting the achievements and being satisfied with good and hard work. I also tell boss that they are a perfectionist and that is not an easy person to work with, especially under. I also tell boss they make me feel worthless when I know I offer so much and work so hard… that they are unapproachable, closed off, and treats people in our team as if we are an inconvenience to them. I then went into detailed examples of recent times Boss has treated me like crap.
They didn’t know what to say. I must have struck a nerve because their attitude changed and then all the sudden they seemed like they wanted to hear me out.. to accept their faults… they backed off a bit .. and after I basically criticized boss for nearly an hour, they say.. “you convinced me, go ahead and send the report out and schedule your meetings.
I kid you not, this was a 2 hour phone call. 2 hours of me standing up for myself and calling out Boss on their awful management style. Best 2 hours of my life. Call didn’t end in a bad note, but we will see if I still have a job next week.
People, don’t be afraid to confront authority when you are being mistreated!