Rant time. This boss of mine is a middle manager with no real authority. I’ve been in that position before, and I know it sucks. He seemed to have genuine solidarity with us. He also seemed to really dislike the upper management. He was pretty hands-off, and any time he told us to do something, it was always “Look, don’t shoot the messenger. I know it’s stupid, and I don’t like it any more than you do. But I’ve been told that we are supposed to…” etc.
Like I said, I understand it sucks being a middle manager, and so I didn’t hold it against him. He seemed cool… until his own ass was in the fire with upper management. Then he threw us all under the bus. He started snitching on us about everything and scolding us like he was our dad. Now half of our department is laid off, and I know that he was part of the reason why. He was never really friends with us. He was “buddy-buddy” with the upper management all along. I’m mad at myself because I should have known.
Anyway, the moral of the story is to never trust a cool guy who’s been in a shitty workplace for 12 years. He’s part of the shit. If he wasn’t also shitty himself, then he wouldn’t have stayed in a shitty place this long. Rant over.