Matthew Gates 5m 1,228 #tyrantboss
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
You went for the interview. You got the job. You’re excited to be bringing home a paycheck again. A few weeks into the job, you are doing okay. You enjoy doing your job. You are getting used to it and starting to do your job well. You’ve been showing up to work, doing your job, and everything seems to be okay. After a month or two, however, you notice there’s just one person you can’t stand in your workplace: Your tyrant boss.
Your boss is a tyrant. Tyrant bosses are hardly leaders in the sense, love to be in control of everything – control freaks – and hates the feeling of not being in control of everyone around him, always wants to know what everyone is doing at every single minute of the day, and abuses their power. A tyrant boss might have a meeting with the entire staff about what they are going to be doing for the week, but still comes around to double and triple check on them and ask them what they are doing and what they are working on.
The tyrant never takes a vacation because he can’t leave his business alone for more than 5 minutes without worrying about something going wrong. He trusts no one but himself to keep his business afloat. If he does have to take a trip away from the business, he is sure to call every few hours to make sure “everything is alright” and even then expects to be told exactly what everyone is doing.
A tyrant boss makes you feel stressed out, always keeps you on your toes, because you never know when he is going to be standing behind you, breathing down your neck, and he also believes he is smarter than everyone else. He seems to live for making your life miserable. Every time he comes around, you are stressed out by the very presence of him.
You feel like breaking down and either telling him off or walking out when he opens his mouth. You dread when he has a conversation with you or calls a meeting. In fact, it is not just you, it is the entire staff that cannot stand him and fears him. Everyone fears him, but stays with the company because they need to make a paycheck.
If you are a female, you can already tell he is a complete sexist chauvinistic pig because he makes sexual comments to you and ask you about your personal life and relationships often. He might even attempt to hit on you and see how far he can take it with you, and the fact that you are in a relationship does not dissuade him. He believes he is the dominating alpha male of the company and is entitled to say anything to you because he feels you need him for the paycheck he provides for you.
For some reason, he hardly seems fearful of any sexual harassment suits at all, because he is so confident that he can get out of any of them. If you’re a male, he might put you down and embarrass you in front of your coworkers. He might call you names, instigate you to talk back to him, want you to put up a fight, or argue with him so he can prove to you that he is smarter than you. If you say or do something wrong, he might mess with your paycheck or give you harder work to do to prove his point that he is your boss and he “owns” you.
After several months, you are actually starting to suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome. Every day is a day spent in hell. Every time you go to work, you try to avoid seeing him. You try to avoid any contact with him at all. On the day that he takes off or leaves early, you and the entire staff are relieved. When his name is mentioned, you really cannot bear the fact that he might be listening or come around the corner at any time.
The worst part of it all: He knows all of the stress he puts you through and he loves it. He wants to make you miserable. He thinks it is a part of his job in being your boss. There is no way to change him. He is that way because that is the way he has always been and he is never going to change.
When you go home, you are relieved at the fact that you no longer have to face him or hear about him. You cannot even talk about work because its too stressful. You just want to drop it. You are safe at home and he cannot bother you. Seeing your family, even though they may stress you out, is heaven compared to what your boss put you through all day. Every weekend is a vacation for you because it is at least two days away from seeing your boss. You count down the days starting from Monday until the weekend just because it is a mini-vacation away from him.
Similar to the experience in another confession, The Opportunity, the only way to get away from it all is to find another job. As soon as you start to feel miserable working for a tyrant boss, start looking for another job. Try to make sure you make equal to or similar to your current pay. You may have to take a hit in your pay, but if it means getting away from a tyrannical boss, than get away! It will be well worth it!
Your boss is causing you so much stress and stress will age you and cause many health problems. There is so much harm in dealing with stress every day of your life. If you can find a job where you are comfortable and happy, than why wouldn’t you want to work at that job? Working is tough enough, as it requires you to be away from your family for at least 8 hours at a time. Shouldn’t you at least be able to enjoy the place you go when you leave home for 8 hours a day?
If you do successfully find another job and leave your tyrannical boss, you will be relieved. You will feel as if a huge burden has been lifted off your shoulders. All of the previous issues at your former job will no longer be of concern. You quit and you are free. You will find that your stress is gone. But you will never forget the stress he caused you. You will have post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) just thinking about all the suffering he caused you.
You will never want to return to or around the area that you worked because you can feel his presence. You have come to despise him and hope you never cross his path ever again. The only good he ever did for you is to make you realize that you should never work for someone like him ever again. No one should ever have to work for a tyrant boss. If you find yourself working for a tyrant boss, you need to know you deserve better than that and you need to find a way out as soon as possible.
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