Your Boss's Toxic Messages
27 March 2014
Read by 2554 persons
Stephanie's message:
I've worked for several years as a consulting engineer in a small consulting firm. It's my first job and I wasn't experienced enough. It was very hard, but I kept my head up. I can't stand this job anymore, but I don't want to leave it. I can't stand my boss (founder of the company) who has an overblown ego, is absent, regularly threatens my colleagues and me with dismissal (which almost happened a year and a half ago) and belittles us against each other. He blames us for the fact that the company isn't doing well enough, but he doesn't invest himself (he barely comes in one day a week).
Consequently, I have crying fits when I get home. I don't get along well with my colleagues because he has created a very bad relationship between us. I'm doing my job less and less well (I'm bored) and I'm always tired. The solution to all this would be to change jobs, but I'm afraid:
- the market is difficult at the moment (in a year of less active searching, I only had four unsuccessful interviews),
- I don't want to leave the region where I live,
- I'm afraid of unemployment and a pay cut because I just bought a house,
- I'm afraid of not finding a job and missing out on my career,
So I do everything to keep this job that is slowly destroying me. I both want to quit everything and I don't assume it at all: I do the exact opposite. I'm afraid of unemployment and I wish for it at the same time. I can't pull myself together. What should I do?
Jacques Salomé's opinion:
At first glance, you seem to be in a no-win situation. But you are the one who actually holds the keys to possible solutions.
1) Your employer
You describe your employer as unbearable. He certainly is if he matches the way you present him. But he is only (and luckily) present one day a week. You gain four days of non-pollution each week. Which is considerable!
Furthermore, I invite you to understand an essential rule of relational hygiene: "WORDS ARE NOT THE THING". There are the words that are spoken, and the actions. There are the intentions and the actions. There is what is said and what is done. It's not because your employer "says" "utters" "threatens", that it becomes reality, that it must become your reality.
2) Don't assert, confirm
You are "threatened" with dismissal, but you are still there, for three years. Besides, if you were dismissed, you could get compensation that would allow you to find another job with less anxiety than you might not have if you decided to leave, to quit your job.
It's not about running away, nor about opposing or even wanting to prove the "opposite": that you are not as he says, nor as he defines you. It's about using one of the most fabulous powers we have in human relations: confirmation. Confirming that it is indeed with the other that there is such a point of view, such a judgment of value, such an opinion or such a threat...
3) Free yourself
If you have read me, you must know that I teach the practice of symbolic acts. You could come to work every day with a symbolic trash can in which you would deposit as many pieces of paper as you want. On them, you would write the content of the toxic, negative messages, the threats, the guilt trips you have received from this person. By freeing yourself from this, you begin to do it for yourself.
I don't know of an ideal work situation. We receive positive messages from others (in your case very little or none at all) and toxic, negative messages (your situation). So it's a matter of not keeping them, not hoarding them. Have you noticed that when you eat something "bad" for you, your stomach rejects it, returns it? When you keep all these toxic messages, "crap" inside you, it's the equivalent of poison. It mistreats the vibrancy of your life, it is energy-draining and hurts your self-love, your confidence and self-esteem.
You cannot change your boss, but you can change your relationship with him, by not taking everything that comes from him.
Best wishes on this path of self-respect.
Jacques Salomé.
Psychologies.com
Posted on March 27, 2014.
I've worked for several years as a consulting engineer in a small consulting firm. It's my first job and I wasn't experienced enough. It was very hard, but I kept my head up. I can't stand this job anymore, but I don't want to leave it. I can't stand my boss (founder of the company) who has an overblown ego, is absent, regularly threatens my colleagues and me with dismissal (which almost happened a year and a half ago) and belittles us against each other. He blames us for the fact that the company isn't doing well enough, but he doesn't invest himself (he barely comes in one day a week).
Consequently, I have crying fits when I get home. I don't get along well with my colleagues because he has created a very bad relationship between us. I'm doing my job less and less well (I'm bored) and I'm always tired. The solution to all this would be to change jobs, but I'm afraid:
- the market is difficult at the moment (in a year of less active searching, I only had four unsuccessful interviews),
- I don't want to leave the region where I live,
- I'm afraid of unemployment and a pay cut because I just bought a house,
- I'm afraid of not finding a job and missing out on my career,
So I do everything to keep this job that is slowly destroying me. I both want to quit everything and I don't assume it at all: I do the exact opposite. I'm afraid of unemployment and I wish for it at the same time. I can't pull myself together. What should I do?
Jacques Salomé's opinion:
At first glance, you seem to be in a no-win situation. But you are the one who actually holds the keys to possible solutions.
1) Your employer
You describe your employer as unbearable. He certainly is if he matches the way you present him. But he is only (and luckily) present one day a week. You gain four days of non-pollution each week. Which is considerable!
Furthermore, I invite you to understand an essential rule of relational hygiene: "WORDS ARE NOT THE THING". There are the words that are spoken, and the actions. There are the intentions and the actions. There is what is said and what is done. It's not because your employer "says" "utters" "threatens", that it becomes reality, that it must become your reality.
2) Don't assert, confirm
You are "threatened" with dismissal, but you are still there, for three years. Besides, if you were dismissed, you could get compensation that would allow you to find another job with less anxiety than you might not have if you decided to leave, to quit your job.
It's not about running away, nor about opposing or even wanting to prove the "opposite": that you are not as he says, nor as he defines you. It's about using one of the most fabulous powers we have in human relations: confirmation. Confirming that it is indeed with the other that there is such a point of view, such a judgment of value, such an opinion or such a threat...
3) Free yourself
If you have read me, you must know that I teach the practice of symbolic acts. You could come to work every day with a symbolic trash can in which you would deposit as many pieces of paper as you want. On them, you would write the content of the toxic, negative messages, the threats, the guilt trips you have received from this person. By freeing yourself from this, you begin to do it for yourself.
I don't know of an ideal work situation. We receive positive messages from others (in your case very little or none at all) and toxic, negative messages (your situation). So it's a matter of not keeping them, not hoarding them. Have you noticed that when you eat something "bad" for you, your stomach rejects it, returns it? When you keep all these toxic messages, "crap" inside you, it's the equivalent of poison. It mistreats the vibrancy of your life, it is energy-draining and hurts your self-love, your confidence and self-esteem.
You cannot change your boss, but you can change your relationship with him, by not taking everything that comes from him.
Best wishes on this path of self-respect.
Jacques Salomé.
Psychologies.com
Posted on March 27, 2014.
