Imagine a used car salesman who knows nothing about cars trying to lead a team of mechanics, but he really has a thing for the young female mechanic who makes him look good and he wants to impress. He constantly tries to impress her with why he’s learned about cars but never listens when she actually has technical feedback and suggestions. That’s my situation, but in a data analytics context.
It’s draining my soul and it’s so difficult to explain and prove. I’ve gotten to the point where I put all my effort into pretending to work instead of actually working and I don’t seem to be held accountable. I think this is definitely because he’s too incompetent to realize how long things take, but I always feel like his intentions are fucked up.
Here’s everything I can remember:
He often fawns over me in meetings about how cool I am because I like to go to concerts and listen to “hip” music, but he’s actually just super out of the loop, even for a guy his age. He’s 50ish and I’m 30ish. For reference, he just learned what Spotify is this year. It feels super uncomfortable, like he’s gawking over a super normal thing. I don’t bring up my hobbies or interests anymore because his voice gets high and excitable. He’ll sentimentally say things like “wow, you really are an old soul” when I happen to know a random fucking song from the 80’s. I’m definitely more into music than most people, but I’m literally just saying I’ve heard of a certain artist sometimes. He always brings up to others the fact that I know of the band St. Paul and the Broken Bones and how cool that is. I really don’t give a fuck about this band (nothing against them). It’s so weird.
He once told me that he came to my neighborhood over the weekend. He visited my neighborhood coffee shop and tried to attend a concert I also was planning to go to but ended not. He lives like 45 minutes out of the city, so it was weird he remembered my super specific neighborhood in the first place, chose to go there, and then tried to engage with me on it.
He’s tried twice now to get me to go to conferences out of state with him. He always pitches them to me by asking if I would want to go for myself, and then when I say yes, he then tells me he also wants to go. It’s always for vague reasons. These conferences are also specifically for data analysts who know how to use the software. He literally has no idea how to do data analytics but has convinced leadership he does.
He once requested a meeting so I could teach him how I built my data dashboard. After I started presenting he told me he was recording so he could watch and learn later. It felt like a trap. It’s obvious he’s not learning anything new but he’s pretending to so I take him more seriously. He tells me he wants to learn more (because I often call him out on his bullshit and tell him to take a class if he wants to learn these skills) to which he just giggles and deflects by flattering me. It feels like he recorded me so he could present my work as his own to someone else, or just to have the power. Otherwise he would have told me and asked if he could record.
He once fawned and said “Aw she’s so cute” when I got flustered during a team meeting. I said “I’m not cute” and then he got defensive by saying “he didn’t mean it like that”. The whole team openly talks to each other about how much we hate him at this point, so I know they also thought it was weird.
I’ve stopped putting on makeup and rarely turn on my camera. He tends to act giddy when I make an effort to look like I don’t work from home.
During a huge division meeting, I briefly turned on my camera to introduce myself. 20 minutes later he messages me to ask a work question, but then randomly says “btw, I’m loving the new summer look Maddy… :)” I literally had just decided to wear a little eyeliner and a new basic top. My colleague said it was weird and that I didn’t look different to her. She was more incensed than I was.
I once shared that I cosplayed as a hobbit, and joked that I should have been an elf instead. Then he started saying how much I looked like that tall blonde lady from the movies. It’s true, I do kinda, but the way he said it was so creepy and full of affection.
2 months into my job he said “you’re doing so well at your job, much better than I thought you…” but he cut himself off. When he hired me he told me that he hired me more on the basis of my background in racial equity promotion and “also, frankly, your personality”. Even though I had demonstrated my technical acumen much more than my coworker did (co worker’s opinion not mine). He literally does not know enough to assess my skillset. He just pretended to asses it and relied on the impressing his bosses.
He’s always fawning over me in front of other people trying to flatter me and impress me. He always says “you know, you make me look good” or “you’re a reminder to everyone about how smart I was to hire you”. I can’t tell you how often he says this.
I feel like a little pet to him. He raises me up in meetings but constantly patronizes or undermines me and my expertise. He always thanks me for my feedback and says he loves my frankness, but nothing shifts in his actions.
I’ve tried to throw myself into my work and have automated so much of my labor. I really want to make a difference in government. But even when I try to explain to him what I’ve done, he doesn’t understand and just keeps asking me to try new (expensive) data analytics tools, even though I’ve already figured it out with R. He pitches and secures funding for software none of us have a need for and deflects and giggles whenever I confront him about how he doesn’t understand what goes into data analysis. He’s a fraud and a con artist misusing government funds. He also seems to personally know the software salesmen we meet with. It feels corrupt.
Idk why I’m writing all this here. I just feel trapped.