My boss is a control freak nut-job

[Aries]

They created a new layer of supervisors last year. Now instead of 12 of us reporting to a program chief, we have 3 unit coordinators who report to the chief. And us lowly slobs report to our unit coordinators. For some reason they picked this woman to be a coordinator and she loves to find something to nag about.

Last month she kept complaining that I take long breaks. I sometimes take 70-75 minutes, but I always work work for 8 hours. I asked her if there was a rule about how long we can take and she finally found a memo from 1996 that said maximum break time was 90 minutes. So I'm sticking with 60-70 minute breaks. But she made me fill out a form about WHEN I take the break. I put down 12-1 but sometimes I start early at 11:45. She kept sending me nasty e-mails and finally forwarded one to the program chief and executive director. They finally told her to stop it.

But now she's doing it again. I took break from 1 -2 and when I came back she chewed me out, saying she had to look all over the building for me. She didn't. We have an in-out board where I put down that I was coming back at 2 pm. But she insists that I need permission to change my break time if it's not exactly 12-1.

 

[bin_tenn]

Yikes. Micromanagement is a huge red flag for me, and it's a primary reason I left my last job. I don't really have any advice, other than going above her for help.

 

[Aries]

Yikes. Micromanagement is a huge red flag for me, and it's a primary reason I left my last job. I don't really have any advice, other than going above her for help.

I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Some days I get busy in the morning and can't take a break until 1 pm or so. Eventually she will do what she did before and e-mail the program chief and get told to cut it out. It's still annoying though. I can't believe thy made her a supervisor.

 

[Don Piano]

She sounds like a narcissist from your description of her behaviour. My opinion is that it is fundamentally unacceptable to treat people like this.

I don't know what country you live in, nor what industry your work in so it is hard to even try to advise. The only thing that popped into my mind was to find out whether you could offer the same service that she is without unreasonable behaviour. Perhaps then offer it to management. You need to carefully think about this, don't just do it.

 

[Aries]

It's unionized- but the union mainly protects the people who deserve to be fired. No one likes my boss. The program chief made that pretty clear to me. The new girl who started a couple of years ago told her one day that she didn't ave to talk to her and send an e-mail if she wanted to say something. That was funny. I saw the stunned look on her face and asked what happened. They had to pull her out of the organic chemistry section several years ago because she wouldn't stop feuding with the woman who ran that section. They even made them go through conflict resolution, but it didn't help. Toady I got busy and took my break 38 minutes late. She noticed that I can back 30 minutes late and sent me an e-mail saying that I needed permission for that.

 

[Don Piano]

A strategy that some people deploy when they are dealing with people that they perceive to be difficult is to get others involved on their side. The aggressor probably treats other people the same way, if a group of people respond negatively to the aggressor consistently that person may reevaluate their behaviour because of cost-benefit.

 

[Aries]

A strategy that some people deploy when they are dealing with people that they perceive to be difficult is to get others involved on their side. The aggressor probably treats other people the same way, if a group of people respond negatively to the aggressor consistently that person may reevaluate their behaviour because of cost-benefit.

The guy who used to be a program chief before he got demoted told me to write and e-mail to the current program chief complaining about a hostile work environment. He can't stand her either. I remember one day a few years back he went into the lab to get a piece of tape and she stated nagging him about wearing a lab coat. Everyone got a laugh when he yelled at her about not needing to wear a lab coat to just get a piece of tape. No one else has to tell their supervisor their exact break time. Everyone varies it depending on the workload. I could complain but I'm trying the passive aggressive approach first. That seems to work best. The other women I work with is an expert at it. If she gets a duty she doesn't want she puts it off and puts it off until it gets assigned to someone else. She's out sick now after heart surgery so she hasn't had to deal with the control freakishness yet.