I don’t run. I “ran” a 5k once 10 years ago and never had any interest in running. But along comes the worst boss I have ever experienced, and boom I found my motivation. This boss came in to the small organization, a retired millionaire who wanted to make the organization his passion project. He had preconceived ideas of the failings of the organization and refused to acknowledge anything from the past (he admitted he wouldn’t consider stuff from the past). He gossiped and micromanaged staff, spoke aggressively and whined when things didn’t go his way.
In the month and a half I stayed during his takeover, one staff was fired, another quit, citing his toxic management and I went on sick leave because of his behaviour. He promoted another (incompetent) staff to be my boss when he was well aware we didn’t work well together (she told other staff I had body dysmorphia??? dumped her work onto me, micromanaged my work, turned off her voicemails and set up call forwarding, ignored emails and wrote a grant application and took money for an initiative that didn’t have anything to do with our mission). I wasn’t the only person who had a hard time working with her, three past staff quit and part of the reason was because of her. Five of the seven staff, who were there at the time I left, had spoken to me about their frustrations and dislike of working with her. Funny how they bonded – terrible peas in a pod.
This new leader called me demanding when I asked for a raise and title change after 2 years working there, reminded me he was hired as the CEO and if I wanted to make demands, I should’ve applied for the job. He said I spoke to him like he was the janitor (when in reality, I’d treat the janitor the exact same way as the president or anyone else). He was unclear about expectations, expected staff back in the office 5 days a week but didn’t communicate that and then when staff were in the office, he’d huff and look at his watch if you took your full unpaid lunch or on one occasion, laughed too loudly in a closed office – he came in and told us to keep it down. He regularly interrupted and spoke down to people and overall just sucked as a person.
This and many other examples of his terrible behaviour resulted in my going on sick leave. It took weeks to rebuild my mental health and part of that included starting to run. I’m surprised I’ve stuck with it even now that I have a great job and colleagues. I guess it’s a silver lining from that situation.