- 2024
- Jun
- 6
Don’t stay at toxic workplaces.
A recent LinkedIn post talked about a manager style the author calls the “Up your own butt” boss. You can read that post here: https://www.linkedin … edium=member_desktop. You may need to log in to see it.
A position I held several years ago had a direct manager that fit this bill. Everything good was “We,” everything bad was “you.” Blame would be shifted, even if he was at fault.
Shortly before I left, he stormed into a shared technician office and started berating us about someone charging time - in this case, weeks - to overhead. (Overhead at this company was a charge number that you could use when you were just doing general tasks that had no direct charge. Things like setting up new equipment, cleaning an area, etc.) He was going to find out who did this, they were going to be disciplined. Possibly even fired.
He knew very well it was him doing it. He was having a house built at the time, and would go spend hours on site harassing the builders.
He should have been fired for that, as this was weeks of time he did nothing and lied about it. There were other incidents that he should have been fired for, including destroying expensive equipment from negligence.
Unfortunately, it was endemic to the entire company. His manager - the chief engineer - had a severe god complex. He was incapable of looking at something and going “Good work men, you did a great job!” Instead, he would go “I’m a great man, look at what I did.”
I learned very quickly not to go to this man with ideas, he would discount them immediately, and then implement them under his own name.
It was a terribly toxic place and almost drove me to alcoholism. I’m not proud of that, but I got out with the help of a good friend. Bless you Lance, I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.