at my wits end
I genuinely do not even know where to start with this but I’m at my wits end with this job. I feel like I am losing my sanity due to the constant gaslighting from management.
So, I’ve been at this company over 2 years now. I’m going to keep details vague as it would be easily recognizable if not. It is a marketing agency. I joined as one of the first employees (think single digit) and we’ve since grown to double digits. I was brought on for client services but ultimately ended up doing a myriad of other job functions (ops, culture, hr, events, etc.). I became a go to at the company for everything and was essentially the golden child. I’ve worked exclusively in startups so this wasn’t a major surprise to me. What was a surprise is the absolutely insane environment management (two owners and one senior leader) facilitates by being genuinely unable to let anyone else make a decision. This isn’t unique to me, it is across the company.
Fast forward to today I was “promoted” to work in marketing, with no title change or raise. I’ve tried to discuss it several times and either been brushed off, misled etc. Was told we didn’t have the finances yet they promoted two other people (seemingly for staffing purposes). At that point, I started looking for a job as it was clear that nothing was going to change for me.
So moving to this marketing role resulted in me now reporting to one of the owners who I had always gotten along with. Easily 6 jobs in one, doing the job of an entire department. It quickly became apparent that reporting to him was a different ballgame. Within a few months, I couldn’t do anything right in his eyes.
I don’t even know how to explain this man, here are a few examples of his behavior:
- He will demand something complex occur immediately without having the proper infrastructure set up. Trying to explain to him said thing would be detrimental but can be done by X results in him spamming you with a ton of messages about how he doesn’t understand how we can’t do it, just get it done, he doesn’t want to talk about it for another minute. Usually a ton of typos bc he is typing so furiously.
- He often argues with the other owner and then makes me mediate between the two of them and play telephone, treating the other owner like a child.
Has no respect for others time. Regularly joins meetings late or does not show up, both internally and externally. Almost every week he reschedules our 1:1 (which is already an hour long), typically 1 minute before or several minutes into the call while I am waiting on the meeting. He won’t even message as a heads up, just changes the calendar. He has no meetings on his calendar and he is usually offline.
- He talks poorly about other team members and management to me, usually outright saying that people aren’t working hard enough. For example, we are expected to have a full calendar of meetings at conferences. Sure, not a problem. The problem is when me and my colleagues all have 15 meetings a day, and are sprinting around, and he’s saying we don’t work, meanwhile he’s up in his hotel half the time.
- He talks over everyone. Doesn’t ever apologize and does not stop. Typically will shush you if you try to interject.
- Is extremely unreasonable in his expectations. He frequently says one thing, forgets, and then contradicts himself later and it is always the other person’s fault. If you try to mention it, he does not care, he just says it didn’t happen and that’s that. My favorite part is he asks for a “Strategic Plan” for everything any everything. Gives specific requirements and needs to be a full built out analysis, and say not to start working on the task until he approves the plan. He will then give an arbitrary deadline, I will do it and then he will proceed to not review the plan for weeks if not months saying he needs to but doesn’t have time, until one day he acts like he never asked me to do the plan and says that there’s no reason I can’t start executing and not everything needs to include a plan yada yada yada.
Does not ever follow up on items he is supposed to follow up with. Keep in mind, he needs to review EVERYTHING even if the other owner has reviewed and approved. And it doesn’t matter, he’s going to completely redo it anyway. This is not unique to me either, he even does it to the other members of management. But it is incredibly inefficient, and I feel like I am wasting my time.
- Doesn’t respond to messages or complete follow ups. I started asking him in our 1:1 (especially for non urgent things) and he belittled me for waiting to ask him in the 1:1 saying I wasted a whole day. Then the following week I message him about these things so as not to get reprimanded again, and I am told to just wait until our 1:1. I understand working with executives there is a degree of managing up (have reported into C level several times), but it’s to the point where it’s frankly disrespectful to my time.
- Uses me as an executive assistant. To the point where I am asked to do incredibly personal tasks that have nothing to do with my work. Expects me to cater to his every whim.
- Because he expects me to cater to his every whim, I am also expected to be a mind reader. I have to go through all deliverables both internally and from external parties with a fine tooth comb to make sure that there aren’t even minor things that he would want to change or I am chastised for missing something. Keep in mind it will be things that are so trivial, he makes a mountain out of a molehill about pretty much anything.
- Generally disorganized and doesn’t pay any attention. I have to maintain an agenda document for our weekly meeting which, again is totally fine and generally helpful. What is not helpful is his obsession with assigning deadlines. And I don’t mean “get X project done by X,” I mean, write out each individual step of each task for each project and assign deadlines to everyone involved. For example, for one task within a project, I assign 5 deadlines: “OP to write post by X/X, Owner 2 to review and provide feedback by X/X, OP to implement revisions by X/X, Owner 2 to re-review by X/X, OP to make final changes by X/X, so on.” There are hundreds of lines like this in our agenda document. He has also made me create multiple project management databases that he refuses to use or refer to. I have to spend so much time updating this document it cuts into my actual work. He will criticize really minor formatting things, like oh you should have put this bullet before this one, or he will read a line where I mention a project and then will start telling me I need to provide it and link it in there, meanwhile what he is asking for is already linked right below, he just didn’t have the presence of mind to even look.
I have plenty of other examples like this, I could go on all day. I do not miss deadlines. I am a hard worker, I am efficient and dedicated, I consistently go above and beyond and I have never had issues like this at other jobs. Of course no one is perfect, but this level of micromanagement and criticism seems absolutely absurd. I say criticism because the way he communicates things is not “constructive” or “feedback” he is outright being condescending and rude. It’s like he is simultaneously useless and hands off but also the micromanager from nightmares.
I never know what I am walking into in our 1:1s. His mood dictates how he treats me and my workload for the remainder of the week. Some days he will be sweet as pie, and then the next week your work is shit. His emotional volatility has started to cause me a lot of stress and significant anxiety. I have just started keeping my nose down, doing my work and just agreeing with him so as not to cause conflict. I am really trying to just take a step back and not let it bother me but it really is easier said than done.
This past week, he really got on my last effing nerve. We hired an agency to build some deliverables. One of which was completed initially last June but because he is so difficult and requests so many changes (including new ones that he’s never mentioned before) they are STILL iterating on this deliverable. This is also a deliverable that’s highly specific for his use case and needs, me nor anyone else at the company will use it. Typically the agency sends me the drafts first and asks me to provide feedback before sharing with him because they know how he is. Anyway, he was supposed to review this deliverable and send feedback. He obviously didn’t. He decided the best time to do so was our 1:1 where I watched him screen share and change colors for over 90 minutes (our 1:1, again, is an hour). He also specifically told me I needed to be watching his screen. We sat in silence. One thing about him, is he is always right. If you say the sky is blue, he will say it’s purple and there is no discussion. There was a technological component of this deliverable that he fundamentally did not understand the function of (when I say technological please know this was like a basic function on a document). Myself and the agency had tried to explain it several times but it didn’t stick. Anyway, he misunderstands something and immediately it’s my fault I should have told him on and on. Normally I just take it because honestly it’s not even worth the argument. But he was just really continuously berating me for this, so I spoke up. And again, “speaking up” in this case was me calmly and politely trying to explain. He does NOT like this. He immediately starts yelling, chastising me, telling him that I wasted his time, I have no attention to detail, I can’t do my job, that I don’t understand, and I am being defensive and “trying to say he didn’t understand” and that I was wrong. I cannot reiterate enough how polite and diplomatic I was, he just truly is a bully and will twist the narrative in whatever way he wants to make it seem like he’s right. He keeps complaining until finally he hangs up. Asked me to send him an email thread (which validated what I said on the call) but has otherwise ignored me except for barking orders and sending unreasonable requests in Slack. I am honestly scared to meet with him this week, I feel like I am going to get my ass handed to me.
I have had plenty of stressful jobs, but nothing has ever brought me to this point. This job literally gave me gray hair, sleep issues, anxiety, depression, high cholesterol. It’s not so much the workload as it is the constant hyper vigilance and walking on eggshells that needs to happen to not set this person off. I am aggressively looking for a job, and it’s going decent. I’ve gotten a few interviews and gotten to the final round(s), it just is a really competitive market.
I don’t even know what I expect by posting this. I truly have tried everything to set boundaries and try to establish respect but he just does not give a hoot. I am feeling crazy, I feel constantly gaslit and am starting to develop bad imposter syndrome from this. I don’t know how much more I can take, but I live alone in an HCOL area and can’t just up and quit without anything lined up. I feel so trapped. Is anyone else in this situation?