During your life you will have all types of relationships. They range from casual temporary to extremely intimate.
When your relationships suck, life sucks. Sometimes the solution is easy, you simply remove yourself from the person(s). Problem solved. Unfortunately, it’s rarely that easy. Maybe we don’t get along with a family member like a mother, father, sister, brother, our kids, or worse yet, your significant other. It could be you have a problem with someone you work with or your boss. It doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s begin by looking at why we have bad relationships.
First, it’s important to understand that if you have a bad relationship, it’s your fault. When I’ve had relationship problems in the past, it has always been my fault too.
I can hear you scream, “Not so. It’s not my fault because so and so is an ass.”
True. It’s never your fault because someone behaves the way they do. Say you apply for a job only to later discover your boss criticizes everything you do. Maybe you’ve married someone only to discover the person you married is not who he or she pretended to be during the courtship phase of your relationship. Maybe a coworker is jealous because you got a promotion that he or she felt should have been theirs. Well, my little munchkin, it’s still your fault that your relationship with that person sucks and here’s why.
Though you have no control over the behavior of another person, you have 100% control over your thoughts and actions. Today we’re going to use just one example; your job. That’s an important one since it may well involve 1/3 or your life or more.
Let’s say your boss is a jerk. Maybe he yells at you in front of your coworkers. He might criticize everything you do. He might put pressure on you to continually work overtime without compensation. He might want you to perform tasks far above your skill level. I could go on, but you get the idea.
The net result is a nightmare every day you’re at work. It might be your fault this relationship is sour because you didn’t do your homework prior to accepting the position.
When you first walked into the office, restaurant, or store where you want to work, what was the atmosphere of the people working there? Did you ask other employees how well they liked working there? Did you take the time to meet the person with whom you would be working directly under? Despite all the indicators that something was off with this potential workplace, did you take the job because the pay was too good to let go? Did you take the job because you were afraid you wouldn’t find one more suitable?
Now let’s say you did everything right, but the boss still turns out to be your worst nightmare. What do you do to change the situation? The simplest solution is to find another job. But before you do that, first ask yourself why. The easiest way to answer that question is to ask the boss. (Your boss might also be a woman. I’ve used ‘he’ and ‘him’ to simplify writing this post.) This takes guts because you will feel vulnerable. That sense of vulnerability (fear) is ego based and is a problem only you can solve.
Before you discuss the problem with your boss, the first step is to unemotionally look at the data available to you. Does the boss behave the way he does with all employees or is it directed at only you?
If your boss behaves the same way toward all his employees, the bad ego-based behavior is his alone to own. Here are 5 reasons why your boss might direct his bad behavior toward all his employees.
- Maybe he is ill either physically or mentally.
- There are problems in his personal life that he brings to work.
- If your boss is a manager, he might be under pressure from someone above him to increase production. He fears for his job.
- If your boss is a business owner, he might be having troubles with the business.
- It makes him feel powerful and in control. He’s on an ego trip.
If the animus appears to be only directed your way. Is the boss justified in calling you down for either doing something you shouldn’t be doing or not doing something you should? You must be honest here and that can be difficult. The tendency is to allow your monkey brain to obscure the truth. It wants you to believe you’re the victim.
Here are 5 reasons your boss might target you:
- Maybe he is ill either physically or mentally and sees you as an easy target.
- He may not like you for reasons he may or may not understand.
- He may be jealous of you because you are better looking, more skilled, more popular, or senses you are a threat to him in some way. (More typical with managers than business owners.)
- Maybe he has the impression that you don’t care about helping to make the business a success. (More typical of business owners.)
- Your performance on the job doesn’t measure up to his expectations and he wants you to quit because he can’t bring himself to fire you or report you to the person who can fire you.
- You have committed some type of transgression that you are unaware he knows about. Perhaps he overheard you badmouthing him to another employee or going above him in the chain of command. Perhaps. unbeknownst to you, he spied you playing solitaire on your computer or texting friends when you should be working.After carefully analyzing the data available to you, determine the best action to take. If you’re consistently late for work, start arriving on time. Text your friends on your time not on company time. If you’ve badmouthed your boss, he may have overheard, or someone reported you. Maybe he caught you in a lie. Gossip and lies are betrayals of trust that will endear you to no one. And, depending on your boss, it may be the one thing that makes him want to be rid of you.
After carefully analyzing the data available to you, determine the best action to take. If you’re consistently late for work, start arriving on time. Text your friends on your time not on company time. If you’ve badmouthed your boss, he may have overheard, or someone reported you. Maybe he caught you in a lie. Gossip and lies are betrayals of trust that will endear you to no one. And, depending on your boss, it may be the one thing that makes him want to be rid of you.
If, after careful analysis, you remain mystified, you need more data. Now it’s time for a meeting. You will probably dread doing this, but it needn’t be a scary thing if you structure your questions the right way.
Go into the meeting with one goal and that is to find out why the boss appears to be targeting you. Don’t waste your time or that of your boss’s by skirting the issue. (Hint: you can follow this same format for another employee who appears to be behaving negatively toward you.)
Here’s one possible scenario:
You walk into the boss’s office, with a smile and say, “Do you have a few minutes Joe?”
Joe: Yeah, what’s on your mind?
You: Has my work here been satisfactory?
Joe: As far as I can tell, it’s fine.
You: That’s good to know, but there appears to be something I’m doing wrong. I would like to know what that something is so I can correct it.
Joe: What do you mean?
You: I’ve noticed that you appear to be unhappy with me quite regularly. I need to know what I’m doing wrong.
Bear in mind, that your boss may or may not be honest with you. That’s not the point. He might be biased against you for a myriad of reasons he isn’t willing or able to divulge. Assume this is the case if he doesn’t provide you with a meaningful answer to your last comment. However, that also provides you with necessary data.
Notice, not once have you implied the problem is with your boss. You are data gathering. You do not want to make your boss defensive. However, you’ve told the boss that you are aware he is targeting you. You have also caught him off guard and forced him to examine his behavior.
If the reason for his bad behavior is because he doesn’t like you or is jealous of you, chances are by simply drawing attention to your awareness of his bad behavior will cause that behavior to change for the better.
A problem with your boss is not the only issue that face you on the job. It might be a problem with the people you work with. Sometimes you mightl find yourself in what appears to be a no-win situation. If you do your best, your manager may see you as a threat and the other employees won’t like the fact that you are making them look bad. If you don’t do your best, you become more dispensable and you may cause your boss to see you as expensive dead weight.
This is usually avoidable by following a few personal rules:
- Be the kind of person you would enjoy working with.
- When you have an opportunity to make someone look good or help them, do so.
- Little acts of kindness go a long way. Maybe you surprise your team by bringing donuts for everyone to enjoy. Also, never miss an opportunity to lavish someone with a well-deserved compliment.
- Ask for advice when you need it.
- Don’t give unwanted advice. People resent that.
- Never, ever gossip about anyone. If you have a grievance, take it to the source.
- Remember, everyone has struggles and a snarky comment directed your way may have nothing to do with you. Learn to ignore one off comments.
- Try to think more in terms of we and us instead of I and me.
All that said, if the work environment is irreparably toxic despite your best efforts, it’s time to find another job. Learn from both your mistakes and those of others and move on.
