I have this boss—let’s call him Don. Off the cuff, Don was very unprofessional. He was high during our first meeting (it was over Zoom, and we are in California, so it’s legal). At the time, I thought it was cool, that this would be a lax and creative environment, but now all I see are red flags.
After a few days, I realize he’s a complete space cadet. He would forget what he was talking about in the middle of talking about it, constantly. He would always reschedule meetings, then not show up at all, ignore messages, and then message hours later expecting you to be ready at that moment for a meeting. It could be 9 o’clock at night, but he would chastise you for not being ready. He would always make passive aggressive comments about the camera needing to be on even when it was really late and the meeting was sudden. He would then spend up to FOUR hours saying things if very little importance. He would start talking, trail off, start responding to an e-mail, then say, “Where was I again?” and the cycle would continue. When he actually gave us information, it was confusing and rarely helpful. If you are the one speaking, he’ll randomly start doing push-ups in the middle of you talking while loudly breathing and counting out loud. No, “Hey, I’ve been working from home and I have to move around for a second.” type of warning. He would do this after canceling several meetings with you, so it felt really rude. Sometimes, he would randomly say weird things 1:1, like “Is there anything you need to forgive yourself for?” Look, I’m all for having some kind of personal connection with teammates, but he has no discretion. He said he almost kidnapped someone and their family because they owed him money.
I thought these things were bizarre but as an intern you want to create an aura of positivity and willingness, and I didn’t want to be “that girl” causing problems. Maybe I should have said something about being uncomfortable, but what he was saying was so weird I just felt like it was beyond having a personal convo. Often, if I asked for help, he would say things like, “Everyone says you’re doing well but now I’m not so sure because of your lack of confidence.” I don’t lack confidence, I’m asking for help…because I’m an intern.
Then I was asked to meet him at the office. For context, Don is married with children. I’d say he’s in his forties. The night before I was due to be in the office, he sent me a text saying “I can’t wait to meet you!” I didn’t respond. I brushed it off as him being friendly…after all, it was the first time we were meeting in person. There was no flirting going on from my end, and I didn’t think he was because he is married.
I get to the office, and the first thing he does is look me up and down, nodding his head, saying “Okay!!” Then he extends his hand out to me, as if to have me grab it to do a spin! I awkwardly chuckled and he went and sat down. Then he said, “Get that ass over here—I mean, get your butt over here. Sit next to me.” I didn’t sit next to him, I sat with a seat in between us. He could sense I was uncomfortable, so he grabbed both of my hands, made me look him in the eyes, and shook my hands while saying “It’s okay!” five or so times. There was someone else in the room, who was also an intern, and he said nothing. I looked at him and tried to meet his eyes, and he would not look at me. It made me feel like maybe I’m wrong for thinking this is weird?
I was highly uncomfortable so after our meetings, I excused myself and said I needed to leave early. He was disappointed because he said that we could have all gone out that night. I tried to play it off like I would have but I was really worried about the traffic.
When I got home, he messaged me something along the lines of, “You know, it’s a shame you were uncomfortable, because you need to be more open and charismatic if you want to get a job.” This really upset me. Even though I’m working from home, I answer everyone within minutes (or seconds!) of them getting in contact with me. I’ve initiated meetings, I’ve presented at meetings, I’ve messaged people from all different teams and roles within the company and created a connection with them. I have tried so hard to be professional, a great employee, a great teammate. I felt like maybe I just needed to work harder to showcase that.
Time goes on, and I’m getting more irritated and uncomfortable with him. A lot of time has been spent worrying about my interactions with him and dealing with his absolute inability to manage his time or be organized. I have no idea how he is in a management position getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I started to tell my mentor about some of the things going on. I left out the meeting in the office, but mentioned the push-ups, the high interactions, and just feeling like he acts more like a buddy than a boss. My mentor could tell I was feeling upset. Within a few days Don was removed as my manager and I was given an entirely new team to work on. He didn’t talk to me or tell me why from that point on. He is still actively posting on group channels so he definitely wasn’t fired and I believe he was told that he and his team needed more training on working with and training interns. If those little things I brought up were such of a deal…then they really have no idea how bad what’s going on within his team is. Now, I’m working with a new manager. He is so professional, helpful, kind, empathetic. He’s not making any weird comments to me. And he teaches me a ton! I acknowledge that a lot of learning needs to be self-driven, but I was not being given the tools to succeed.
At this point, my internship is coming to a close, and I’m not sure what to do. Do I go into further detail about everything that happened? Do I tell Don’s boss about everything during my meeting with him this upcoming week? He’s quite the big wig. I don’t want this to be an HR issue. I don’t want to be seen as some newcomer making problems with the company. Despite the weirdness, I am absolutely loving this job. Don wasn’t always that bad, sometimes he really advocates for the people on his team, sometimes he provides good advice, but the bad outweighs the good for me personally. I don’t want to be seen as negative. I don’t want him to get fired. He has a wife and kids. But I don’t think I could talk to him about what he did and why it made me uncomfortable. Is that unreasonable and unfair of me? Am I just taking the chickenshit route?
My goal would be for them to extend my internship. It’s very unlikely, but it has happened for people in the past. I do feel like a lot of time and experience was robbed from me. But is that getting in the way of me thinking logically?
I’m looking for honest feedback! I know this was super long, so thank you so much if you read this all the way.