Passive Aggressive Boss -- or Sexist Jerk?
Dear Stanley,
My boss is uber passive aggressive. One day he's nice as can be, the next he completely ignores me and yells at the slightest mistake. Every day is dependent on his mood. Most days he praises his other employee while completely ignoring me. If he does speak, it's to tell me I've done something wrong (and if I haven't, he'll change his policy to make me wrong). The other employee makes mistakes and it's "No biggie, it's okay," whereas if I made the same mistake there'd be hell to pay. The other person has been there only six months and works part time. I've been there four years working full time. I do a substantial amount of the work and I work hard, always trying to please him. He doesn't act this way every day, but he does it a lot. I can't figure out what puts him in a bad way that makes him turn on me.
Here are a few examples: I'll spend hours working on something, give it to him completed, and then it will just disappear, so that I have to do it again. Or he'll say, "Oh, we don't need that anymore. Change of plans." I'll give him completed work, and he gives it the okay. Then when the client is in, he'll make a point to show me everything that's wrong with it (even though he approved it earlier) in front of the client, so that I look incompetent. Clients will come in and he'll introduce them to the other employee but ignore me. When they introduce themselves to me, he acts like he just didn't realize (these are clients that I did the work for; I was the one in contact with them over the phone).
What is his problem? Does he do it only to me because he knows the other employee won't put up with it? I'm at a loss as far as handling him. He acts like he hates me. He doesn't like it when clients compliment me (heaven forbid they actually talk to me, especially the men, because then my boss goes into overdrive with the ignoring etc.). I feel as if there should be a sign above my door like at the zoo "Please don't feed the animals." Only it'd be "Please don't acknowledge the employee."
Signed,
Mystified in Miami
Dear Miami,
I'm guessing from your letter that there's one huge, unspoken factor involved: You are a woman. And he, I am sorry to say, is a stone-cold, sexist bonehead. Tell me you haven't made that connection? He is high-handed at one moment, overly solicitous the next. He swaggers around in macho pride in front of other men and ignores you alone because he is a dolt and believes that treating the woman in the office poorly indicates strength. It doesn't. He's a weasel and looks like it to any other man who was born after 1945, and possibly even some before.
This would also explain his tendency to praise your work in private and then show off the size of his equipment by lording his power over you in public. So I believe you are misdiagnosing the behavior. He is not passive-aggressive, although he presents that way. He is a sexist jerk who doesn't know how to manage a competent, responsible professional woman.
I wish I could tell you that there was a management technique to deal with this easily and quickly. There isn't. A man's attitude toward women, particularly surrounding issues of power and dominance, is forged in the cradle and cultivated throughout his life both in the social and the workplace spheres. It screws up everybody's life, but just because it makes everybody unhappy and dysfunctional doesn't mean that men don't cling to what they know. The alternative -- foraging off into land they know not -- is far more frightening to them, in the end.
You can go two ways here: You can out-power this loser and shame him into behaving correctly. Call him on his rudeness and inconsistency at every turn. Whack him upside his head when he is bad. Push back hard when he gives you a rude shove. But you know what? That's exhausting. And it doesn't sound like you're that kind of person, either. You sound reasonable and kind and forgiving. These are all liabilities in the world you inhabit.
Fortunately, you have the tool that has worked for eons to help the less aggressive people in social and professional situations: manipulation. Withhold work until the last minute, so that he doesn't have time to screw around with it. Ask him if you may attend the meeting, and then withhold your friendship and attention when he says no. Express NO emotion when he is unpleasant. Allow him no access to your feelings, because he doesn't deserve it. With a little practice, it becomes easy to manipulate bosses. Check out my books Throwing the Elephant and Crazy Bosses. I've been working on the problem for years and believe I have made some headway.
Finally, you could also try perhaps the most difficult strategy of all: gentle, persuasive reasoning. To do that, you will have to show him where he errs, reward him when he is good, chill him when he is bad, and keep reminding him of his inconsistencies and stupidities. To do that, of course, you will have to keep your temper. And good luck with that.