Customers Suck!

My boss is a cow
by Fera Festiva

My boss is horrible.  I need to vent.

I'll try and sum up, but it won't be easy. Basically she is very insensitive, opens her mouth without thinking, goes back on her word, talks about employees behind their backs, picks favourites – and disguises it all very well when there's anyone else around.

Example: I have clinical depression (in many ways not a big deal – it's just part of my life). She told me I'd probably "outgrow" it when I grew up a bit! Never mind that I am 24 and have suffered with this illness – because yes, it is an illness – since the age of 17. Leaving aside all the factual errors in that statement, the fact is that she's my boss, and I have a medically recognised condition. IMO that should be good enough – she shouldn't be making judgements. She didn't tell my coworker with repetitive
strain injury she would "outgrow" that. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but it struck me as particularly insensitive and inappropriate, especially as she regularly mentions how I am "too young" to understand this, that or the other.

On top of all that, I recently had a couple of weeks off because I had a minor breakdown of sorts. When I returned, I heard independently from several coworkers that she had said she felt sorry for my boyfriend for "having to put up with that", and that it was "typical" of me.

Another example: she told me that if I signed up for a Master's degree (which I did – I am meant to be writing an essay for it right now, actually), the company I work for would definitely pay me back my fees, and she would have no problem letting me have time off work to take exams or if I had an important assignment. She would even let me study while at work if it was really quiet. I really felt she was encouraging me to go for it. So, after much umming and ahhing, I signed up. Then she told me that actually, the company wasn't paying for anything. On top of that, every time I need time off for course-related things, she puts on the guilt trip. "Your job has to come first, you know… we're not paying you to study, we're paying you to work…" and, best of all, "I might not be able to give you time off for your exam if we need you, October is the busiest time of year you know". If I miss the exam, I fail the course! (And yet, when another coworker took a day off at no notice because it was a nice day and he wanted to go shopping, there was no problem.) Today came the final straw, when she told me it would be best to give up the course since it wouldn't do me any good.

An example that doesn't involve me: a woman I work with has a son who, when he was younger, was regularly ill. Mean Boss put this coworker on disciplinary because she took something like three days off to look after him when he got out of hospital. Now, another coworker has two young kids. Boss is absolutely fine about letting him take time off if they have colds or flu. I'm not begrudging him that at all, I know I could never be a parent at all, and he does a great job of it – but it seems awfully unfair to penalise one person for looking after their kids and being very understanding towards another.

You get the idea. She's not a nice person. More than once, I have come home in tears because of something she's said to me (if she ever spots me dealing with an SC she hauls me into her office and blames me, even if they are being utterly unreasonable; she has also claimed I've said or done something I know I haven't, like swearing at someone or "having one of my tantrums").

Reading through this it seems like it's not that big a deal, and I'm just being overly sensitive – but it's causing me grief, and I needed to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading.