I used to love my job and reported to a great manager. We got on really well, were very similar, and we built a good rapport. There was a lot of positivity.
Unfortunately, that manager moved on and into a new role. I was redirected to report into a traditional pale, male and stale man. He doesn’t have any empathy or getting the best out of staff. He just doesn’t give a fuck about people.
Every interaction results in more work for me. He never offers solutions. Just fires questions out, fixating on hypothetical points. It just sucks the god damn life out of me. Worse, he’s a blatant liar and boot licks the CEO. I’ve seen firsthand how he’ll position things to make himself look good, or to downplay issues, and yet, he’ll be going on at me behind the scenes. He only cares about how he looks rather than doing his actual job — which is to call out issues and to highlight risks and areas of non-compliance.
I genuinely feel gaslighted on a daily basis. It’s so frustrating that I want to scream after every meeting. He’s a problem creator and not someone that actually fixes anything. I am honestly shocked that he got promoted given his lack of success in the business. He is the very definition of a manger, and not a leader. A leader cares about people and wants to improve and coach them to get better. My manager only cares about himself and just wants to be seen to get things done. Never any improvements or vision, just reactive to what ever is in front of him.
I’ve worked for a pale, male and stale type of a company before and ended up leaving. Which is probably my next move here, except that I have to stay for a bit longer to get a bonus. Which is obvious good financially, but otherwise annoying because I’d really like to hand in my notice to this irritating, annoying, poor excuse for an executive manager. I would love to tell the arrogant fucker that he’s shit at his job, that he is useless, and that he needs to look in the mirror and realize how people actually see him. It’s not just me. His entire team complains about him and they think he’s a cold, rude fucker too.
I know I need to just breathe and let him fuck up something so badly that he gets in trouble. It’s inevitable. In fact, there’s a big project that I fully expect he can’t deliver, and his bosses will be asking some tough questions. No doubt he’ll deflect and worm his way out of trouble while blaming the team and demanding that others sort out his mistakes and lack of foresight.
It’s amazing that the pale, male and stale get promoted isn’t it? They are pretty much always shit. That generation has the weirdest emotionally suppressed set of control freak managers. I’ve worked with a few in different firms and cannot wait until they all fuck off and retire. Millennials and Gen Z will bring the world a much better era of true leadership!