I'm a middle manager for a city government and I gotta say the last few years have been the absolute worst. Covid, losing staff left and right, an increasingly entitled public, backwards technology, etc. All of that sucks and is getting worse but it's part of the job. What's the absolute worst thing though? Having not one, but two, insecure, micromanaging bosses above me. My immediate boss is a complete tool, two-faced, duplicitious, liar who never passes bad news up and always takes credit for my or other managers' ideas. Of course, whenever anything goes wrong, he's always happy to chuck us under the bus before even trying to ascertain what went wrong.
His boss, the director of the department is only interested in number one. He's always paranoid that something will happen that will get him fired and his knee jerk response to any issue, no matter how mild, is to rage. He also loves to get involved in every complaint, no matter how small, and micromanage it to death. Yet, he's also completely isolated by choice. Sits in his office with the door closed all day, keeps his camera off when using Teams or Zoom (which means most of the staff keep their cameras off) and has no clue what we do. He relies on info from his direct reports, like my boss, so he's often deeply misinformed. He's also pompous, arrogant, monopolizes the conversation and loves to throw around $20 words to show how smart he is (I'll admit it, I don't know what “reify” means).
I'm not quite sure why I'm writing this. Maybe I just feel hopeless and wanted to vent. The weekend is not long enough and next week will likely be as shitty as any other week has been/will be. I think I realize I can't change them and I need to change how I react. I'm not planning to quit yet as I have a pension that'll vest in just a couple years but I'm worried I'll have gone crazy by then. Plus, I care about my team. We lost a lot of people last year and we've been trying to rebuild from there. Of course, this means mistakes will increase, it always does with new people.
Does anyone have any advice? I feel like I'm holding on too tight and I'm beginning to get resentful towards, well, the whole damned thing. I'm not effective to my team if I'm always on edge that something will go wrong and I will be screamed at. It's always guilty until proven innocent (and even then they go out of their way to find some reason to ding you even when you demonstrate your innocence) with my management and at times I even feel like they're trying to remove every last shred of confidence I'm hanging onto, maybe because they're lacking in that? But, I know if anything goes wrong, whether we actually made a mistake or whether an applicant simply doesn't want to hear what the law says and complains, I'm getting hung out to dry. I have another manager friend at work I talk to who is in the same thing I'm in but sometimes that's not hlepful since our conversations tend to spiral down …
Anyhow, now I'm just venting. I used to like my job and cared for the community I served. I have 20+ years invested there, been promoted four times and like working with my people and supporting them. But it's hard to keep it going when I don't have any support at all. I feel like I'm in Office Space and I'm with the therapist asking him if there's some way he can have me imagine I've been fishing all day. Yet I feel guilty about tuning out as I'm responsible for people. It's sort of no-win but maybe I'm missing something. My wife is supportive but I know my stress is also wearing her down and that deeply concerns me. If nothing else, thanks for reading.