The time you spend thinking about how much you can’t stand your boss or your supervisor or your team leader is time you’ll never get back. Hardly any of us doesn’t know the agony of working for a terrible boss who drives us nuts in one way or another. The very fact that you have to have a boss – a person in charge of YOU – is enough to annoy the best of us.
Add to that a bad manager who is also incompetent or insensitive or a perfectionist or countless other boss qualities … well, this is enough to drive anyone nuts! So I get it. You can’t stand your boss. But what can you do about it short of quitting, which is not always possible. Or the best solution.
Does complaining to coworkers help?
Sure it feels good to get together with other co-workers and just let the complaints fly. In fact, sometimes you find yourself rolling on the floor as people imitate the ogre or tell one good “my boss is stupid” story after another. Release feels good. So it must be a useful way of dealing with a boss you can’t stand, right?
Well … not really.
Sure it feels great to vent your feelings about your horrible boss, rather than holding them in. I’m all for a good gripe session now and then if it puts you in touch with stuff that’s eating at you.
But that said … what if every day you just bitch and moan about your boss or your job (whether to others or just to yourself)? Each and every day. Is complaining really getting it out, or just reinforcing your misery?
What does all this time spent in anger toward your boss or your job actually do for YOU in the long run? Truth be told … not much that will help you like your job better.
Been there, done that
As someone who early in my career was the queen of the complainers, I can tell you it’s a hard habit to break. But I can also tell you, it can be done. And it’s well worth it. Even if you can’t stand your boss, you won’t find a solution getting stuck rehashing the problem.
A friend of mine recently wrote me about her new teaching job. She remembers from her last job where her co-workers would sit around on breaks and just gripe about everything. Especially their annoying boss. It felt good at the time to get it out. And it made people feel connected. After all, they got to hate their boss together. And bonding can be very comforting … and addicting.
But what my friend realized was she wound up connected to other miserable people because of what she was doing. And that became a large part of her experience. In fact it helped shape how how she felt about the job. And, as a result, it shaped how she performed in the job — only leading to more negative feedback.
Let go of “can’t stand boss” mentality
So instead, in this new job, to help her break the “I hate my boss” habit, she now brings a book to read or works on her writing on breaks. She says she’s happier than she’s ever been on a job. Is her boss all that much better? Not really. But her days aren’t spent sitting in anger and negativity.
As for bonding, she meets people to talk to one-on-one about things other than how awful the boss or work is. And if she needs to bitch and moan about something that happened, well that’s what friends and family are for. Less is more when it comes to complaining in the workplace!
Gripe sessions at work not only keep you immersed in the misery, but also leave you vulnerable to snitches who like to tell the boss what’s being said. In the end, you spend so much time talking about the misery, that it’s hard to then go back to the job and find a way to feel good about the job or yourself. Time spent focused on how bad everything is less time for you to make it better for yourself. And it’s certainly not the path to success.
And on top of that, if your work friendships are mostly about the agony, it makes it even harder for you to then become someone who enjoys what you’re doing. When you box yourself into a misery circle that only reinforces the bad parts and does nothing to help you break out into a happier, healthier situation.
12 things to help reboot situation
Rather than hating your boss or your job with so much intensity, take some of that energy and redirect it. If your “can’t stand your boss” mindset is taking a big chunk out of your work energy, here are some things to try:
- Look for things you and your boss have in common. Even bosses you don’t like may have one or two things in common with you to help you shift the way you interact.
- If you can talk to your boss about things you have in common, you can progress to work things where your ideas can be heard.
- Find something that needs doing and offer to take it on. This will help get you more invested in the place. And perhaps shift how you are seen — and appreciated.
- Come up with ways to improve the work process and maybe save the company money.
- Make friends with positive people. And if possible those on your boss’s good side.
- Focus on the job and how to do it better.
- Go above and beyond in your regular work. And make sure your boss finds out about it (the true benefit of good allies).
A few more reboot “helpers”
- Focus on what you have and not on those things you don’t have.
- Start to project a more positive and competent attitude.
- Check your the ‘tude at the door. You earn respect in each new situation; it’s not due you.
- Be the person who says “I can” and not “Can’t be done.”
- If you see a problem, come with solutions. It’s ok to bring up things that bug you, but come armed with possible remedies. Not just gripes.
By the way, if you put all that effort into hating your boss, imagine how that affects how they feel about you. People can intuit the hate. Conversely, they can also feel sincerity and respect. Which do you think is the smartest choice of action?
Check where your emotional energy is being focused
And then look to aim it where it can actually do you some good!
Of course, there are some situations so awful there really isn’t much you can do but move on. But in most situations if you can’t stand your boss, there’s at least one thing you can do to improve how you feel about your boss or your job. And if the first try doesn’t work, please keep trying!
[Article updated in 2020]
About the author…
Ronnie Ann, founder of Work To the Wise and Work Coach Cafe, bases her real-world advice on her many years as an organizational consultant where she helped interview and hire people, added to a certificate from NYU in Career Planning & Development, as well as her many adventures as a serial job seeker.
More posts to help
How To Deal With a Bully Boss
My Boss Has a Favorite and It’s NOT Me
Why Won’t My Boss Retire Already!
Are You Afraid To Talk To Your Boss?
What To Do If Your Boss Takes You For Granted
My Boss Tries To Control Everything!
Are You Always Feeling Angry At Work?
Boss Doesn’t Communicate with Staff
Help! My Boss Doesn’t Understand Me
How Gossip at Work Can Hurt You
Playing the Blame Game at Your Job
Do You Feel Invisible at Work?
And just in case you do need to leave
⇒ How To Quit a Job (Without Hurting Yourself)
Hello there.
I am indeed in the I Hate My Boss Club. I feel for people out there who are at the edge of sanity over having to deal with a boss they hate. I would pep-talk and say that bosses are only human whatever they may think of themselves, but because I’m struggling with my own boss too, I know that’s one platitude no one likes to hear at this point.
My problem is with my team leader who, for as long as I’ve been with the company, has never taken ownership of his own team. He himself came from another department and our team of 12 was his first admin job, but clearly he’s more eager to help out his previous department than he is with managing us. He’d go through the motions, sure, managing our workload, hiring and firing people, performing QA roles … just to keep productivity barely beyond the minimum. I mean it’s fine with him if we’re more productive, but if we scrounge around and slack off, it’s fine as long as we meet our targets. Isn’t that nice. Huh. It would be, but if it was his previous department in need, he was more driven, eager, focused … sometimes at our expense.
He never really let go of his previous job and was just messing around with us because at least he gets to be referred to as our manager – a manager. This works to his advantage because he gets to boss us around over what trifle of a team vision he has, but if our team fails and we get dissolved, most of us will get retrenched and he gets his old job back.
He never volunteers any new prospects for our team. He has no plans to make the team more profitable or competitive. He doesn’t interact with us in a way that makes us feel that our work is welcome or appreciated. When upper management makes decisions detrimental to our team, like taking the best colleagues in our team and putting them on other teams, he never argues for our benefit. I know all this because he and I are the most senior members of the team. We speak frequently, even have a few beers every now and then. I think he’s a nice guy but a total wuss. And because of his attitude, our team already feels like a dead end.
It’s not like I didn’t try to do anything for the team. He didn’t have any plans for the team so I pitched my own. I’m a management graduate, he’s a nurse; so I think I know what I was pitching. I was the one who mingled with everyone and tried to rub on some sort of team spirit or ethos. But as upper management kept on making decisions for our team while my manager just looked on, I myself have given up myself. I did what I could; I didn’t get any help or support from my manager. So just to stop the madness, I handed in my resignation letter early this morning.
I work in an MNC as an Asst.Manager-Operations.Since the last three years,i am managing my two team members in pacing up with the work flow even after office hours.Till the time,three of my subordinates had left the organisation due to staggered timing of work flow.I had repeatedly asked my Boss to have the schedules done as per the normal office timings of 8 & 1/2 hrs.BUT All goes in vain.
Even in Off days,i used to get calls from my BOSS and without listening my opinions/suggestions/possibilities/situations, he will rather go as per his head and makes me feel like instrumental.I am now so much devastated and frustrated with my work that i feel no more gain in my social life. Literally,me & my team used to start at 09:00 hrs and ends every evening at 21:00 hrs.
In mostly every meetings,my Boss will never be mutual and will drag to every corner (It feels like getting ragged)..Most of the surprise thing is while other Dept colleagues used to stand up in support of me for the appraise.In most of the other branches,my dept colleagues had left the organisation for the only and one filthy situation.(They had opted for quiting rather than getting the same with HR)
Please suggest me..What Shall i do..?
I work in a two person business which is composed of my boss and me. We both are paid well and have amazing benefits. My boss has chosen to start his own business and uses the office of the business and all the business supplies, including software programs, to run his personal business. He has his wife as an employee, although she works from home, and pays her and her social security payments out of this personal business. This personal business consumes close to 90% of his time, so I am left to operate the business which is paying all the expenses which my boss uses for his personal advantage. My boss is a Trustee in this two person trust (of which I am an employee).. The decisions about the Trust’s operation are determined by another Trustee, the Trust’s attorney and the Trust’s accountant. I have told my boss that I do not think it is right that he runs his personal business out of the office, etc. His reply is that he is only trying to earn an income for his family. I have talked to my boss and the accountant and the accountant suggests that my boss pay the Trust for the office space, the supplies and the use of other expenses. There are many days that I can work around thinking about this, but my bosses office is right next to mine and I can hear him use the phone for his personal business and spend the time on his personal business. I really do not want to communicate with my boss, which most of the time I do not need to. But I do want to be able to be happy in my work. I love my job and as next year I will be 65, it is smart for me to keep it. Please help me figure out what to do about working with someone with whom my idea of right and ethical is different from my own. Our company is audited once a year..should I think about talking to the auditors about the Trustee ( my boss) running his personal business using the Trust’s resources. Thank you so much!