I have experienced this over and over in my career as an educator. No matter how many times the scenery has changed, one thing remains constant: type of person who ends up being in charge.
Those who are in charge have a very basic authoritarian personality that ranges in intensity on a continuum of how this manifests, but the presentation is always consistent: they are in these positions of control over others because being in control of others is their entire raison d'etre. None of them have ever been remarkably more talented than those of us on the lower rungs. They certainly aren't more remarkably intelligent, and most often, aren't even experienced in any way that is remarkable. They are all the same type of mean, narrow person who has risen up to be in charge simply because they have put their energy into climbing up into positions of being in charge.
And this is simply what they do, because they get off on it. They thrive on having dominion over other adults. They push those below them around in ways that are sometimes subtle, sometimes overt. But it never fails.
I was driven in large part to leave the public school system because of the prevalence of this bullying, domineering type of personality who lorded over all of us who were but lowly classroom teachers, always with their demands to usurp your own creativity, your own talent, by either drowning it out entirely or stealing what you produced so they could claim it as their own. This drive for control and dominance completely cut off my ability to authentically teach my students in the way they needed to learn. There were a number of other reasons, but this was a primary one that prompted me to exit stage left.
I took a position with an online teaching company that serves as a third party for public schools needing to fill vacancies with virtual teachers, thinking that things would be better because I was at least out of the chaos that the public school had become. I couldn't have been more wrong. In the public school, at least, I only had to deal with one or two megalomaniac authoritarians….but with this organization, God, they were innumerable.
I have more people in charge of me than I could count on my fingers and toes due to the way the org is structured…at least four within the organization, and two in the public school. And every single one of them moved heaven and earth to come between me and my ability to even perform the most basic tasks of my job.
There were these odd rules thrown up by the org bosses for the sake of just…having rules. And it all just spectacularly blew itself all to hell:
— We weren't allowed to communicate directly to the school, only through one particular liasion…who rarely to never responded to emails, and when she did, I had to go back and forth with her three times highlighting things in bold to get her to actually address what I was saying.
–We were given material we were supposed to use, but I couldn't access any of it. More back and forth pointless exchanges. I was told to just basically make something up. I helpfully tried to point out that if half the student body were reaping the benefits of expensive, district-provided programs and the other half were relegated to online classes in which their access was cut off and they would receive instead stuff that I just, as I was instructed, “made up” that this was a serious issue of inequity that someone needed to look at.
–The person in charge at the school buddied up to me and gave me her cell phone number and wanted to be my best friend and include me…until she had a mood swing and complained to the org about me, and I would be reprimanded., told not to communicate with her….until she inevitably reached out to me again, like omg things are falling apart here, I really need your help. This went on and on.
–I was supposed to teach as a member of this school's faculty, but I was not allowed to participate in faculty meetings…because one or more authoritarian-ass megalomaniac said so. This was not at all, I pointed out, conducive to anything productive because…how was I supposed to teach and be in alignment with what the department was doing if I was not allowed to be apart of the department?
–Finally, I managed to wrangle all of this in, I got hold of what the department was doing, I made content and I was ready to go on–but then, the “facilitator” who was supposed to do nothing more than mind the children so I could instruct them–decided that she was the one in charge. She cancelled my classes at the last minute, claiming the kids didn't have computers or the internet magically disappeared…and she would throw out my content, teach whatever the fuck she wanted, and I would come back a week later ready to move on to the next step, only to find that I had been fucked over so hard I had no ground to stand on.
–I reported all of this. I reported all of this. AND I reported all of this. Finally, I said I waned out of these classes but only on the condition that I be given more. The dopey, none-to-smart boss number fifteen wrote back and said, oh, okay, we will take you out, without confirming that I would be getting other classes. I had to write back, in bold print, that I was not agreeing to give these classes up without a replacement.
–I was ignored. someone else wrote back and suddenly, what do you know? I was told that the district wanted rid of me. Wow, what mother fucking kismet. Right at the moment I said I was done…”You're not breaking up with me, I'M breaking up with you!”
–Oh, and the classes to replace this one? They're cutting my courseload from $1500 a month to $450 a month, saying there were no classes available. I hopped right onto the list of pages and pages of available classes, and loaded myself back up with as many as I had before because…Goddamn, that must have been way too hard for them.
FUCK THESE PEOPLE. I am so sick and tired of being kicked around and treated like shit when I have two Master's degrees and 13 years of experience in my field. I wish I could afford to quit because my GOD what a scathing go to hell missive I would fire off.
Anyway: TL;DR: Authoritarian personality types who occupy every facet of management are a large reason why we are all antiwork.