NPD Chronicles: Fighting Everywhere!

I feel like a young child whose parents are about to get divorced. Things between my co-worker M, and my boss have gone from bad to worse. And what pisses me off about the whole thing is that she's so over the top, she's making me see things from his point of view and that is a big no-no in my book. I HATE when anyone makes me agree with him. It doesn't make me feel good about myself to side with a psycho.

I have been at my current place of employment for almost 5 years. In those 5 years, I have learned things about my boss that haven't necessarily made it easier to work here, that is still definitely my personal hell, but it has helped me accept that things will never change.He is the way he is, it's a mental illness. He is not capable of understanding things or seeing things from different viewpoints. Talking and venting to him is like speaking to a brick wall. I just go by my motto of no longer caring more than he does and that has helped me tolerate this place.

M & J, my co-workers, have a more difficult time accepting the above. They are better people than me, I guess. They are determined to see the human in him, whereas I've come to terms that there is no human side to appeal to. I understand it's harder for J, since she had a personal relationship with the man, where her and her family would hang out with him outside of work. So she is not only losing a boss, but a friend/mentor or whatever the heck she considered him.

While I was on vacation, M had a breakdown. She walked out after 3 days and went home sick, and didn't come back for like a week. She handles her stress differently, to the point where it causes her physical harm. She went to the doctor, who said her ailments were stress related and so she stayed at home until he cleared her to return. In the meantime, she sends our boss this email where she is venting and trying to tell him what is going wrong with the agency. Bad move. The email was full of analogies, I read it and was just cringing the whole time. That's just not a good way to communicate with this man. He is the most defensive man I know, so an email, a conversation, very little will actually get through to him.

As a result of that email, M and my boss had a blow out, then he had a blow out with J. During their fight, M lets him know that she is only planning on working here until the end of this year, as she is moving out of the country with her boyfriend. With this new information, my boss is now treating M with kid gloves, babying her and making sure he's "sensitive to her needs", not because he cares, but because he doesn't want her to leave before he finds a replacement or trains someone else to do her work.

In a separate yet related issue, back in January, there was one more lady in our team, S. Once S left, our boss decided to not fill her position, therefore increasing our workload. I made it clear that I wasn't taking over the contract work, something I'm completely unfamiliar with, so then he dumps it on J. When she decided to stand up to him and tell him that it's not okay, he basically threatens her, telling her that if she doesn't want to do what he tells her to, he has no job for her. So this is background for the next story, which is that now our boss is taking away a lot of M's duties, and distributing them between J and our contracted accountant.

Strangely enough, this is bothering M. I mean, she's acting like it doesn't, but it does because now when J asks her about something, she snaps. Don't get me started on how she talks to our boss whenever he addresses her. I get it, he's being fake when he's acting like he's caring, but still, play along, or just be cordial. She just responds very short, snappy, making it seem like she's the bad person and not the other way around. I mean, I hate the guy, and sometimes I can't help but cringe when I hear her talk to him.

Since I've been back, it's been non-stop fighting between those two and lately, it's also been including J, who is the innocent victim in all this. M seems resentful that J is seemingly taking our boss' side, but that's not the case. I mean, the man threatened her job, so if he asks her to literally jump through hoops, then that's what the hell she has to do right now. Friday, he wanted J to work on something, M felt she could do it by coming in early on Monday, but you can't offer to come in early on Monday when you're claiming stress all the time. So our boss wanted J to do the assignment and M flipped and in turn also flipped on J. So much so that she had to send an apologetic text over the weekend.

Right now, they're all out there fighting again. I'm trying really hard to avoid all the fighting. Not only with my boss, but now with M. I mean, her and J get along the best, so if she's capable of snapping on her, I don't want to put myself in her bulls-eye, especially because I probably won't react as well as J did. I walked in this morning and have basically tried my best to avoid all of them. I even ate my lunch in here, with the door closed, while the fighting and the whispering about each other all went on right outside my door. It's really draining to hear the constant bickering. Even though I'm not the one fighting, it's still not a good work environment, the negativity and tension are just everywhere, and it just doesn't feel good.

All this to say, that everything that is happening just seems to reinforce the fact that I am getting out of here soon. I am so convinced. I've said it plenty of times, but this time I actually feel it, that my time here is slowly approaching its end. The thought makes me so giddy and excited. I sent out another two job applications today, hopefully one of them works out, they're both close to home. I think the knowledge or the sense of freedom is also what's helping to keep me sane. I'm not going to engage with anyone because nothing I can do or say to the old man is going to make him hurt more than just walking away and leaving him scrambling to learn all the stuff I do, half of which he has no idea even needs to get done. That'll be the best revenge.

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