My boss reminds me of my mother-in-law

[FreedomReigns]

I have been at my new job for three months, and it has been a living nightmare. I swear my boss is a sociopath who gets enjoyment out of making me squirm. As a new employee, I have been spoken harshly to, yelled at, and made to feel extremely inferior and incompetent. I am an introvert and do not like confrontation, so I have suffered this abuse silently. Until now. I want to quit. And I have no qualms about quitting. I just don't know how. I don't know whether to just turn in my letter of resignation and say nothing, or do I sent my "documentation" along with the resignation letter? And believe me, I have plenty of documentation. How a woman can treat employees like this and get away with it is beyond me. I know others in the department have witnessed her ill treatment of me. In fact, the communications director came to me one afternoon after I'd been screamed at and asked if I was okay. Why would she say that? The employees in the office know but they don't say anything because she is the business manager and has clout. Advice/suggestions welcome. Thank you.

[Kwamina]

Hi FreedomReigns,

Sorry to hear that you're having these problems at work. I understand you not wanting confrontation. Whether you quit or not, what might help you is to think of what you would do if your mother-in-law treated you like this? How have you handled the interactions with your mother-in-law in the past? Are there any lessons learned from those interactions that you might also apply to this new situation with your boss?

I've experienced difficulties with certain people at work too, one in particular who exhibits strong NPD traits. Regardless of whether he 'officially' is NPD or not, the traits are clearly there and what I've done is apply all the new skills I picked up here. And it has helped me very much. I started applying boundaries, SET, DEARMAN etc. at work and this has had a significant impact. How would you feel about applying some of the stuff you've learned here at work? Have you perhaps already tried to and if so, how did it go?

[clljhns]

Hi FreedomReigns,

I want to echo Kwamina sentiments and have many of the same suggestions and questions. I would add, does your employer have a superior that you feel comfortable in talking with? I, too, have encountered people like this in the workplace, and one thing I came to realize is that I was emotionally involved in the situation. What I mean by this is that I would react emotionally to the comments or actions, and then hold onto them after I left each day. One situation that comes to mind is a principal that yelled at me in front of my students and colleagues. I talked to him in private and told him how unacceptable his actions were. This did not go as well as I had hoped, because I was still very much angry with this person. In retrospect, I don't regret stating my position, but I do wish that I had been matter-of-fact with the information. I will add that this person never did that again to me, but we had a strained relationship for the remainder of the year.


Also, is it possible that some of the reactions you had to MIL are playing out in the work place?

Wishing you all the best.