Afraid of getting fired

[Anonymous]

Must be in the air....I was paranoid of being fired today based on weird behavior by much more junior male boss...and I've had the same Fed.govt position for 15+ years. Determined it's all in my head.

Good luck. Hope he was just having a bad day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the PP is a jerk. nothing in the OP's post described anything material or lazy or incompetent. just stupid nitpicking.

...but I have hiring and firing authority, and if you're going to work in my department as an AA, you'd better get the company's trade name and standard communications font right, and know how to schedule some meetings using the public calendar search function on MSOutlook without needing to bother me with the details of it...or else you will replaced. Enjoy your severance payment, cause you're not getting a positive reference!!!

I have worked for a boss who sounded just like this poster (wouldn't surprise me if it was that person, in fact). In most jobs there are numerous opportunities to make "mistakes" every single day, and it's the rare person who is a perfect employee. What happens is that supervisors have favorites -- if they like you personally, because you suck up or for whatever other reason, your mistakes get overlooked. If you are not a favorite, and you have a boss like this PP, you are subject to much more intense scrutiny, and your inevitable mistakes, trivial as they may be, will become the focus. Some people use the power they are given in a job as a club with which to bash other people, unfortunately. Once you discover you're in that kind of toxic situation, you have to run, not walk, away from it. Very sad, but a valuable life lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the PP is a jerk. nothing in the OP's post described anything material or lazy or incompetent. just stupid nitpicking.

...but I have hiring and firing authority, and if you're going to work in my department as an AA, you'd better get the company's trade name and standard communications font right, and know how to schedule some meetings using the public calendar search function on MSOutlook without needing to bother me with the details of it...or else you will replaced. Enjoy your severance payment, cause you're not getting a positive reference!!!

I have worked for a boss who sounded just like this poster (wouldn't surprise me if it was that person, in fact). In most jobs there are numerous opportunities to make "mistakes" every single day, and it's the rare person who is a perfect employee. What happens is that supervisors have favorites -- if they like you personally, because you suck up or for whatever other reason, your mistakes get overlooked. If you are not a favorite, and you have a boss like this PP, you are subject to much more intense scrutiny, and your inevitable mistakes, trivial as they may be, will become the focus. Some people use the power they are given in a job as a club with which to bash other people, unfortunately. Once you discover you're in that kind of toxic situation, you have to run, not walk, away from it. Very sad, but a valuable life lesson.

NP here- if this person is an AA and has been there for a while- then it's not stupid nitpicking- the other PP was harsh- but it isn't rocket science to get the company name and font and check a schedule online. As a boss I;d be annoyed too- this is basic stuff. Who knows what other "opps" the OP has left off in her post.. when you protray yourselfe as a victim you focus on the easy "oh- wow- that's so petty- you poor thing approach). I guess I don't think OP is telling the whole story.

[Anonymous]

I used to work at a place with a hostile boss who micromanaged everything and treated everyone like shit. Needless to say, turnover was high and morale and productivity was low. He failed to see how his personality and management style affected his employees. I think he believed everyone else was stupid and incompetent, and to some extent, it was a self fulfilling prophecy wrt to the few who stayed.

[Anonymous]

OP, any response?

[Anonymous]

OP here, I am not an AA, I am a manager. I talked to him about this. He admits he is a stickler for details but then says he's "not a perfectionist". It makes me laugh.

For exaple, let's say we have to submit a proposal by oh, 2 PM on a Tuesday. I get the final materials from the analysts at oh, 1:55. (I am already familiar with the contents from the earlier vetting of drafts.) I frantically lay the final version out, with all attachments, insertions, etc. get it into the final format, and am to insert my boss' electronic signature (for the first time, as I am rather new). So I drop the signature in, hit send, and get the proposal in at 1:59. Phew!

Then later I get an email from him saying, in essence, "thanks for doing that, now here's the list of everything that was not perfect" - including that he didn't like the way his electronic signature was aligned on the page. It was too far right, it should have been more aligned with the, "Sincerely". This is an image that had to be dropped into the file at the last possible second...

I think many of you raised good points. I am NOT a perfectionist - I am usually valued for being a high-volume producer in a fast-paced environment. But I guess I am going to have to raise my game if I want to continue working here and be as valued by my boss as I'd like to be.

[Anonymous]

You should shoot back an email and thank him for pointing out how you can improve your work but also let him know the conditions you were working under. That way, at least there's documentation to back up your claims if you are challenged later on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you had written "she" instead of "he", I might have thought you were talking about me, except that my problem employee left us a few months ago. But your whiny, self-righteous tone (trivializing the importance of getting things right) sure sounds like her. While very personable, she refused to take the initiative on any project, had a million complicated excuses for why she missed deadlines, and refused to accept responsibility for even the most blatant errors--somehow anything that happened was due to someone else screwing something up--so her mistakes were actually someone else's fault. No one liked working with this woman--who enjoys being around a lazy complainer who expects the rest of the team to pick up her slack? We welcomed this woman's replacement with open arms and couldn't be happier with the new person, who meets deadlines, offers lots of interesting new ideas, and the one time a minor mistake occurred, took full responsibility and set about making things right.

My feeling is that you are probably on a mental list of people your boss doesn't enjoy working with, and you should start looking for a new job.

"whiny-self righteous tone" and "mental list"? You got all THAT from my original post?

You sound like a terrible boss!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I am not an AA, I am a manager. I talked to him about this. He admits he is a stickler for details but then says he's "not a perfectionist". It makes me laugh.

For exaple, let's say we have to submit a proposal by oh, 2 PM on a Tuesday. I get the final materials from the analysts at oh, 1:55. (I am already familiar with the contents from the earlier vetting of drafts.) I frantically lay the final version out, with all attachments, insertions, etc. get it into the final format, and am to insert my boss' electronic signature (for the first time, as I am rather new). So I drop the signature in, hit send, and get the proposal in at 1:59. Phew!

Then later I get an email from him saying, in essence, "thanks for doing that, now here's the list of everything that was not perfect" - including that he didn't like the way his electronic signature was aligned on the page. It was too far right, it should have been more aligned with the, "Sincerely". This is an image that had to be dropped into the file at the last possible second...

I think many of you raised good points. I am NOT a perfectionist - I am usually valued for being a high-volume producer in a fast-paced environment. But I guess I am going to have to raise my game if I want to continue working here and be as valued by my boss as I'd like to be.

Maybe he's pointing these things out because you are new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to work at a place with a hostile boss who micromanaged everything and treated everyone like shit. Needless to say, turnover was high and morale and productivity was low. He failed to see how his personality and management style affected his employees. I think he believed everyone else was stupid and incompetent, and to some extent, it was a self fulfilling prophecy wrt to the few who stayed.

19:51 here. My former boss sounds very similar to this poster's, and the point about self-fulfilling prophecies is so, so true. In the department I was in, everyone was constantly walking on eggshells, trying to avoid being the next person to incur the wrath of this hostile manager. My point in my earlier post was that you can see almost anyone as incompetent if you want to, especially a new employee who is still learning the job and especially if you expect your employees to read your mind as to what you want rather than making expectations clear. Given the OP's elaboration, it does sound like her boss was being unreasonable.

OP: I would urge you again to look for another position. I stayed in my similar situation long enough to allow that supervisor to completely destroy my self-confidence. I was trying my hardest to do a good job, as it sounds like you are, and I can honestly say that even though it has been a long time since it happened and I have had jobs since where I was again appreciated for my competence and abilities (not to mention that I knew even at the time that the supervisor had done the same thing to many other people), I have never completely recovered from that experience. One way to find out whether this is an isolated occurrence would be to chat up some of your coworkers and get an idea of the turnover under your boss. I found out pretty quickly that turnover was high, which was not disclosed when I was interviewing. I started to feel that something wasn't right very early on (first few weeks) and should have listened to that instinct sooner.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you are fairly new, I would give it some time. My boss is overall, a compassionate guy who has been very flexible since I had kids, but when I first started out, also as a manager, the entire first year sounded like what you were going through. However, I have to say I did learn A LOT. I had previous work experience and a graduate degree, but I was new to the field so I just sucked it up and am so glad - the second year was a bit easier, the third even easier, and so on.

Since then I've been promoted as has my boss, and he now does not have the same amount of time to spend with me. He still gets nitpicky, but the learning curve is much less now. Just hang in there, he is likely priming you to be there for a while and once you learn his style it will become easier.

[Anonymous]

Op here, thanks guys (or gals). I think I am going to try to use this as a learning experience to improve myself. I don't tend to think of trivial details as being important. I think of getting the proposal in by 2 PM as more important than carefully lining up an electonic signature so that it's aesthetically pleasing. But, maybe I can learn to be both a fast, high volume worker and pay greater attention to detail and even aesthetics.

I do think part of it is me being relatively new, he is indeed "teaching" me. I just can't believe sometimes the things that he feels are worth taking the time to worry about. For example, the document he didn't like yesterday was a consent form for a background check to be done on new employees - the consent form being something they didn't even think to have before I came on board (and it's kinda importnat to have, you know?). It was spell checked, it was laid out neatly, it was adequate to the purpose at hand.... the font and the hard returns are not what you like? Really? Sigh. I am just not used to anyone really caring about that.

I am going to try and if things continue to be difficult I guess I will have to start looking I hope not though because other than this issue, I really like this company and the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe he's pointing these things out because you are new.

Maybe, but she also said that he got "mad" at her for not looking at the public calendar. Had OP ever been told to check the public calendar first? Not everyone uses it, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to check with him first about times if she hadn't been told otherwise.

Also, tone matters a lot. Being new to a job always entails learning the way a new boss does things, and supervisors need to be patient with that learning process and not expect it to happen overnight. Ironically, if they would be more patient and treat their employees well (you know, like human beings), there would be less turnover and they'd have loyal workers who know all their preferences. I truly believe that a little kindness goes a long way.

[Anonymous]

"Maybe he's pointing these things out because you are new."

There are better ways to train someone.

It sounds like OP's boss just has his quirks and is not a good enough people person to discuss them nicely.

[Anonymous]

OP - sounds like your boss likes things the way he likes them. You'll know how he likes things for the next assignment! I work for a boss who gets micro-manage-y at times. I like things a certain way too (I like Times New Roman, hate Arial, and I am anal about spelling and punctuation and "flow"), so I can relate. I'm lucky in that my boss may be micro-manage-y but he is also a very nice person, so if something isn't the way he wants it, he's not that scary. though I've been paranoid about being fired a couple of times too.

Advice: just pay very close attention to how he likes things done, and do them that way whenever possible. (and if he offers "feedback" - i.e. criticism - you can say you appreciate the feedback and have made the changes he requested.)