It had been the suckiest week to date under my asshole micromanaging boss with no social skills and a glaring lack of experience. He had never been a manager before last December so his only prior experience telling people what to do was parenting his twin toddlers. Turns out, using the same tactics on adults with whom you have a business relationship can be counterproductive! Boss seems both shocked and appalled by this development, but not enough to consider trying something different lol. He obstinately continues to aggressively swing his managerial dick at the slightest whiff of disobedience. It's exhausting.
Tuesday, he wrote me up, AGAIN, for some trivial bullshit micromanagey reason. (He has done this to all my coworkers too.) But this time he upped the ante and PIP'd me. I signed the PIP, agreed to his “remedial actions” which included mentoring sessions aka watching him tear everything I've done to shreds for half an hour a day, while thinking to myself, “Well, this shit is not fucking happening.”
Just to give an example, asshole boss found it PIP-worthy that I use complete sentences when documenting my work rather than just vomiting out sentence fragments with as many abbreviations as possible. To be clear, there is no official policy about this. He just prefers to do it that way because it's quicker for him, so in his tiny mind it must be quicker for me too. (Not really!) FTR his writing is frequently incoherent because it is riddled with spelling errors, malapropisms, and “abbreviations” that no one knows wtf they mean. So, yeah.
After receiving the PIP, I returned to my desk and cleaned out all my personals. Printed all the emails where asshole boss had harangued me at length about trivialities, the ones where he had given me contradictory information about policies and procedures, and the ones where he bullied me about not psychically knowing which morsel of contradictory guidance I was supposed to follow. Stowed the documents in my car. Continued to show up to work and get just enough shit done so as not to screw my coworkers, while I weighed my options. Talked things over with Other Half who told me I was behaving like a battered wife, asshole boss will never change, and the only solution was to GTFO whether I had another job lined up or not. I then had to admit that Other Half was right. We made the decision that my mental health outweighs my paycheck, and since we both enjoy the taste of rice and beans, we would be fine no matter what.
Thursday night into Friday, I tossed and turned. By morning I had decided that I was definitely leaving. I also decided, what the hell … if I swallow my pride and ask her nicely, maybe my old boss will take me back. Friday morning first thing I called her. She said, “Yes! Please come back! We've missed you!” I love my old boss so much.
Side note: when I left, Old Boss was sad to see me go but thought (as I did) that the move would advance my career. IMO, that is the mark of a good boss. Furthermore, her demonstration of good will at the time of my departure was an investment that is now paying off for her company. “What goes around comes around” works in a positive way too!
Anyway, from the moment I got to the office on Friday I knew for sure that I was leaving. Asshole boss was wfh so I knew he wasn't going to be bugging me too much. All I had to do was the bare minimum until closing time so I could get paid. At 4:45 I messaged the boss that it was my last day, shut down my computer immediately to avoid having to read his response, dropped my badge at security, and walked out, then went to happy hour with my cool coworkers and celebrated. It took a minute to convince them it wasn't an April Fools joke lol. Cool coworkers were all happy for me. Everyone hates asshole boss and they're all just waiting for a chance to jump ship.