Passive aggressive bosses fucking SUCK.

[Madrone]

I'm SORRY your instructions - relayed through a third party - were not clear. I'm SORRY that as a result you felt the need to get me on the phone and YELL at me - still not making your instructions clear because you were too busy being pissed off and contemptuous. I am SORRY that the resulting anxiety of that conversation made me frantic to try and accomplish your directive, but I STILL did it wrong resulting in 10 minutes more work for the both of us.

But most of all, you fucking douchebag - I am SORRY it was YOUR fucking fuck-up that required my intervention in the first place!

/ :rant:

Then the fucking asshole CCs my other boss on emails to me about my insubordinate behavior and the resulting system outage. Complete with gems like this:

"However, that said, any fantasies that you have about
"personal distain" are simply that, fantasies."

"It's too
bad that you did not pay attention when it was XXXX passing on the
request. It's also too bad that you didn't do what I told you in no
uncertain terms to do, no mind reading required. It's also too bad
that you were too busy pouting because "he's mean to me" to ask where
the power switches were on the router.

"If I came down too hard on you for not listening to what
XXXX was passing on to you, I am sorry for that."

========================================================================================================


There's a lot of history w/ this guy - and this latest incident is pretty tame compared to a bunch of the other shit he's said to me. I find it pretty interesting that he keeps the personal attacks and passive aggressiveness to a dull roar when he's CCing the other boss - but still can't quite resist getting his digs in, at least a little bit. He INFURIATES me. :grr:

[GOPisEvil]

1. Seriously, dude needs some help.

Granted he'll never go for it, but he has some seriously unresolved issues and it's not healthy for either of you for him to continue in this way.

Good thing your other boss hasn't lost his mind as well.

Perhaps G would prefer a certain guy whose name starts with "T" back? }(

[Madrone]

2. Unresolved issues?

Ya think? :P

I've tried to tell him he needs emotional help, and that he could probably benefit from medication. (now everyone reading this that doesn't know the history is like seriesly ... WTF??) He refuses. He's been getting worse for awhile, I think. He doesn't really talk to me anymore except for brief calls every once in awhile at work - and because he's so draining and I am already so DRAINED I don't seek out conversation from him. I'm just mostly relieved not to have emo. I don't have what it takes to deal with it - especially now.

Actually ... I think his freak out about me "lying" about you coming for Xmas last year was probably the beginning of the end.

I probably didn't tell you about the passive-aggressive completely out of left-field email he sent a few months ago (in response to a note I'd sent him about DMCA take-down notices we were receiving about file-sharers) about how it would be a shame if an "employee" ended up getting in trouble for something like that - an "employee" that may or may not, he's heard, have a "substance abuse problem." It was really bizarre and about a brazillion times more passive-aggressive than I can either remember or convey.

WTF? I didn't bother responding but I was thinking...."WTF is this? A threat based on the fact that you know I smoked pot?" Which is pretty much exactly what I think it was -- in a verrrrrrrrrrrrry passive aggressive way.

[GOPisEvil]

3. Man, his little red choo-choo has gone chugging around the bend.

I guess I should have rented or bought a helicopter to fly over there last Xmas just so he wouldn't get offended when I couldn't move my car at all to drive there. :eyes:

[Mopar151]

4. Mental illness in managers

Is, IMHO, largely responsible for killing manufacturing in this country. Some of 'em are carriers, like Typhoid Mary - no outward symptoms, but pass the disease to others.

[grace0418]

5. *SHUDDER* Oh god have I had my share of that over the years. You just reminded me

why I am a freelancer now, even if it's difficult and uncertain at times. NO MORE ASSHOLE MANAGERS!

I'm so sorry you have to deal with that Madrone. Boy have I been there and I feel your pain.

[Madrone]

7. Thanks. I'm sorry I have to deal with it too!

This is the second time he has gone OFF on me over something that all in all was something relatively minor that's work related. It's very bizarre and the punishment doesn't fit the "crime" - so to speak. I am always the first one to call attention to the fact that I screwed up, or that something I did didn't work as I expected it to. I never hide or shy away from ANYTHING. The utter inappropriateness of his reaction ends up making his inappropriate reaction what STICKS - not what I may have done wrong.

We used to be very good friends, which I think makes him come unglued on ME in a way that he wouldn't on anyone else. As he's become more and more unstable our friendship has all but disappeared. He is a person that creates scenarios in his head and stews, and stews and stews until all of a sudden he blows up and from what I can see it comes from nowhere. Some time early this year I got an email from him freaking OUT because he said I'd lied to him about GOPisEvil coming for Christmas. He was supposed to come and decided at the last minute not to because of the weather. The "boss" had mentioned to me that he may come into town that day and I'd said GOPisEvil would be here. Well - months passed and I got a freak out email about how I was a liar and I only that Dave was coming because I was trying to make sure he wouldn't - then he basically called me a whore (all of my friends locally are men and he said some remark about probably hanging around with "the man of the week"). He can be very hateful and rude and has often been completely out of line. Usually it's just to ME though - not CCd to the other boss, which is why, I guess this time he's mostly restraining his personal diggs and call outs. The only reason I can figure that he is CCing the other boss on this is because he's trying to get me in "trouble" or to create an issue with me and my other boss. He made mention that the other boss "needs to be informed" about my supposed blatant insubordination, I guess. Funny because as usual I would be the FIRST one to mention what I'd done wrong.

It still pisses me off that if he hadn't fucked up the router configurations HIMSELF he wouldn't have locked himself out of it requiring my help to get back in. The irony of that is just too much. Life would be great and I wouldn't have all of this drama of having done something wrong if HE hadn't done it wrong in the first place.

[Skittles]

6. you want I should kick some passive / aggressive boss ass, Madrone

LEMME AT HIM

[Madrone]

8. He might be too crazy even for you, Skittles.

haha!

[PassingFair]

9. I'm not seeing any "passive" side here...

he sounds like all aggression to me.

[woo me with science]

10. Another perspective:

First, it is not your job to talk to your boss about his mental health problems, no matter what you believe they are. If there is a problem with his behavior, the professional thing is to go to his supervisor and discuss the behavior, not any suspected diagnoses or medication needs.

Comments about his personal feelings about you are not professional. It sounds like you have been engaging in psychobabble emotional talk with your boss, which is always a bad idea. Ditto giving him any excuse to have the impression that you are pouting or otherwise demanding that he stroke you emotionally. It does not matter if you were friends in the past. If he is your boss, you should not even go there. It sounds to me like his complaints about you are specifically about emotional comments like this.

The "passive aggressive" threat that insulted you so much may have been his way of sounding a warning across the bow about office regulations without actually getting you in trouble, which is a favor to you. If he mentions it directly, he has to take action. Again, you appear to be thinking in therapy terms ("passive aggressive") instead of the language of the office.

I would take a look at my own behavior and assumptions. If you are a person who is invested in the therapy culture, there is a temptation to use and communicate in that language in environments where it is not acceptable and to expect "therapeutic" responses where you should expect purely employment responses.

I think there are two sides to this story.

[Madrone]

12. Oh there are two sides.

But you are definitely not understanding the situation. That's fine ... it's deep and it's 8.5 years of history long.

Psychobabble emotional talk? :rofl: Sorry, that just strikes me as hilarious - especially given the circumstances. :D

For the record - I never implied that it was my "job" to talk about his mental health issues. We were friends for a long time - we did not communicate JUST inside of work. He was very visibly losing it and I expressed my concern for him and we discussed it. This was a long time ago. He made it clear that he wasn't willing to do ANYTHING to solve that problem - no matter how it might be impacting his life. Conversation over. He's only gotten more unstable since then - hence our friendship waning.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

11. That's some fucked up shit man

I'd keep a copy of all his little vicious emails. Think lawsuit comes to mind when your boss is calling you a whore and accusing you of being a drug addict. He's abusing you!

Sorry you have to work in such a toxic environment Madrone. Maybe he'll go completely off the rails soon and get fired. One can hope.

Take care of yourself. :hug:

[Madrone]

13. It's even more fucked up than that - as those are only a few examples.

I don't hold on to stuff so I tend to get over it and let it go ... so I don't have clear memory of EVERYTHING he's ever said or done that was way beyond appropriate.

I would NEVER think about any lawsuit or about calling him out with the company like that. We were friends - he's really a good person, he's just nuts, getting more nuts, and unwilling to do anything about that. He's not in my immediate office anymore so I don't have tp stare him down every day. That helps.

[Brickbat]

14. You're keeping a folder of all this, right?

Because you could put together a pretty good complaint file.

[Brickbat]

15. Dupe.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

16. Ummmm.....yeah.....I'm going to need you to come in all of Saturday....yeah...........

[barb162]

17. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

:) Great movie. That guy was a total dick.