Your Questions About Abusive Boss
Ruth asks…
Abusive Boss?
Hi, I work for a Mortgage Company which at the beggining I really enjoyed, until my boss will start calling me after work asking me and pushing me to work after hours and call me many time and send me several text messages pushing me to do it. He wont pay me extra hours. We don’t have a written contract. He doesn’t pay sick days or Holidays I have no benefits like insurance. Last week I was sick at the hospital and he called me asking me things about work.
I’m in the process of looking for another job but might time weeks, meanwhile I really need this job but I’m stressing out and it is really messing with my mental health. I don’t know what to do. I even have to go to his house and pay his personal bills because he can’t even write a check to pay his own!
Please advise!!
Thank you!!
admin answers:
What?? A lot of this stuff sounds really fishy and not to mention it’s crossing all sorts of ethical boundaries.
It’s unethical for him to ask you to work extra hours without pay, not to mention it’s REALLY crossing boundaries for you to go to his house to pay HIS personal bills without having record of it somehow on payroll or SOMEthing.
I really recommend finding a new job within the next week or two. Search on careerbuilder, monster, craigslist.org, and backpage.com. Look in the newspaper and find SOMETHING because this is getting out of hand.
In the meantime, what needs to happen is to set clear and professional boundaries. First tell him you won’t go to his house to pay his bills because that’s not work related, or he needs to bring those items into the office during work hours for you to complete WITH pay. Secondly, you also need to tell him that if he is asking you to work after hours, you need to be paid at least half-time or you will not do it. Thirdly, report his a$$ to the Better Business Bureau (don’t tell him of course) and notify them that the manager is abusing his authority and demanding that his employees work outside of work hours with no pay.
That’ll get him in gear. Either that, or broke from paying lawyer’s fees. But really, this needs to stop! He can try to continue to manipulate you using fear over you, but start setting these boundaries.
Steven asks…
What can I do about an abusive boss who always uses the racist card?
I work for a NC state agency and within my office of 7(plus our supervisor) there are 3 different races. That is just fine with me and it hasn’t been an issue for me until my boss unjustly “blew up” on a co-worker, cursing, screaming, slamming doors, and threatening my co-worker and then saying my co-worker disrespected her because of her race. That is only one of MANY incidents with her. Our director and assistant director are basically scared to reprimand her because she threatens to file EEOC suits. The truth is, she is the only one who brings up race and she is the one who is racist towards the other races in the office. In a meeting with our director last week, he admits she is abusive towards us and harrasses us. He is going to have a meeting with her, but based on past experiences, nothing will happen. Has anyone experienced this and been able to do anything about it when the racism card is always used? We are researching how to go about harrassment charges or something?
admin answers:
Keep record of her little FITS and tell your Directors that if she decides to file an EEOC complaint that you will be more than happy to be witness to her harassment and ridiculous behavior. I would add in my Journal that she is continuously using her race against everyone. And if she ever does that to you, you need to make sure you tell her that her race doesn’t effect you and that you have issues with the way she comes at you. Don’t go out of your way to explain why her race isn’t a factor just let it be known it’s not a problem with you. Let her shoot herself in the foot. When her boss’s gather enough against her they can safely and justifiably terminate her.
Thomas asks…
Three questions:Have you ever kept a job even with an abusive boss?
If you have, how long did you stay and how was your boss abusive?
With today’s economy, would you take any job you could(if you needed one)even if it went against your belief system? How far would you go to keep food on the table and a roof over your family’s head?
admin answers:
Depends what you mean by abusive, thereve been managers who have treated me in a disrespectful way, but no so much so that I was goaded into quitting, left after 7 months. I work for myself and not for others even in organizations that have managers/co-workers I despise. Id definitely take a job that goes against my views if it meant survival, thats just instinctive. I dont consider the welfare state survival.
Mary asks…
How do you handle a psychologically abusive boss?
I recently resigned my job but found out that my former boss had abused 5 other workers before me. We are all afraid to confront the situation because HR seems to be on his side and we don’t want to be jeapardize future jobs. I feel like a coward however since I’m fairly certain he will abuse again and I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this.
admin answers:
Oh my … I have seen exactly the same thing happen in one of my places of employment. He did not ever abuse me, but he did abuse many other people and he was in a position of enough power that he could get away with it. I know how tough this is to deal with.
My method of handling him was to be very good at what I did and to present myself in a very assertive manner. Sometimes people came to me in tears when he had abused them and my advice to them was to react to him in an unexpected manner. These people get their satisfaction when their victims act like victims. Try to find ways to react differently to him so that he doesn’t get satisfaction from the abuse. I can’t tell you what that reaction might be because it depends on him and what he is like. But that is probably the only way to cope with him. If it is a similar situation to mine, you won’t be able to touch him – he is probably in quite a protected position. I am sure if there was anyone to report him to you would have done that.
So form an informal support group – we did that. Have a plan to support each other. Don’t give him the reward of reacting the way he wants you to react. I would also strongly recommend that you keep detailed dated records of events. Try to never be alone with him – always have witnesses. If you are a member of a union, go to your union representative and explain what has been happening.
I hope these thoughts help. Good luck with sorting this.
Laura asks…
How DO YOU DEAL WITH AN ABUSIVE BOSS???
My boss is abusive. HE yells and goes on rampages. He scares his employees to death. Yet he keeps getting promotions and no one admonishes him for his tirades.
Once I tried to leave work one minute early and he flipped out and made me go back to my office until 6pm on the nose.
I am a new lawyer working at a large Phoenix firm. My boss is one of the partners. I don’t want to make waves because the legal community is very reputation oriented and I don’t want to get a bad rep when I am trying to develop my career. All of the other partners are well aware of his behavior.
He also times employees when they take bathroom breaks.
He yells at employees for writing in the wrong color pen (when it really doesn’t matter).
He treats the female attorneys like secretaries.
admin answers:
Quit
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