Have you ever had a really rotten boss?
One who yells, belittles people, creates unfair schedules, and is generally incompetent?
Any one of those things stink, but sometimes you get stuck with all of them at once.
Why on earth doesn’t her boss step in and handle this mess?
Seriously, your boss either needs training or firing, and it’s blazingly obvious, so why isn’t that happening?
There are actually reasons for this, some bad and some good.
To keep reading, click here: What to Do When: Your Manager Is an Idiot and Her Boss Doesn’t Care
I once considered myself to be in this situation. The key to getting out of it was not making assumptions. HR helped.
To summarize way too much: I went to HR and said “it seems to me like such-and-such is going on, but I might be missing something, how do we figure out what’s really happening?”. With that as a starting point the processes worked out pretty well.
(I try to avoid assuming to such a degree that I won’t even say I *was* in that situation, just that I once *considered* myself to be in that situation. The management structure was changed, and a bunch of problems went away, and so I don’t have to *care* if anyone was actually an idiot or whatever — so I make an effort not to have an opinion on that.)
I am now retired. During my 45+ years in the workforce, 25-years in the government, II have endured just such bosses. I fought back as best I could by either getting a transfer to another post, or causing my boss to become so discredited that they could not function.
I am a WASP, and on two occasions when I had conflicts with non-whites (in the government) and I naturally lost….
I wish, your post was complete and I could read it till end.
Ah! So true, so true, Suzanne! You explained it so simply. This is such an usual occurrence and there are misunderstanding and realities, and misunderstood realities! I find myself having to explain such things to employees. Sometimes “picking on somebody” is nothing but following directives or simple procedures. Now, are some managers really incompetent? It does happen. If it is the situation then look for inconsistencies and remedies. While recourse if hard to find in smaller organizations, large ones would have a system in place where you can voice your concern.
Unfortunately, even large organizations do not usually have a system to deal with this. I’m not sure of the reason incompetent bosses are left in place. Maybe the next level boss doesn’t want to admit he/she made a mistake in hiring. Maybe it’s a pain to hire someone new. I can’t figure it out.