Let's Say It Out Loud

“People do not leave organizations. They leave managers.”

But of course I could not write that down on my resignation letter. The boss is still human with feelings to be considered. And just between you and me, I have a really strong gut feeling that he is closeted, even without consulting my other colleagues, and despite his stories about having past flames with the opposite sex. I would rank him as bi at least.

But enough about his orientation. That's strictly “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Objectively speaking and to be fair, the boss had the best intentions. He is a good friend, loyal to the end. But honestly, and without doubt, he was a really lousy manager.

He has his good points. He believed in my abilities. He supported my career. He shared information, even privileged ones about the organization and its people. Even information that are not relevant to what we do. He just shares them, like peanuts. And he is as hardworking as hardworking gets.

But of course there are his bad points. He was excruciatingly obsessed with details. Even at the cost of efficiency, even at the cost of relevance and real value (read: nanomanagement). He was an overly ambitious perfectionist, unrealistic in his objectives and expectations. He was extremely workaholic and grew frustrated at other people who would rather value other things above working long hours in the office. He just loves to explain everything using long grandmother stories, as if you were retarded. He is impatient, emotional (read: taking everything personally), and egoistic (read: thinks everything is about him). He was somehow hypocritical as well, giving advise on just about everything even if most of the time, you won’t see him subscribing by his own advice. He loves to argue about anything and to prove that he is right, by any mean, even if by technicality (read: I don’t want to argue with you about whether or not green is a better color than red). He would even let you say it out loud: "That he's right, and you're wrong." He'll keep count and rub it in your face, as if how many times he proved he was an unreasonable dick mattered to the more important issue of finding a way to solve the problem at hand. (read: "Dude, you were right, I was wrong. Now can you honestly get over that fact already so we can move to things that matter). He was irrationally clannish, gossipy, and judgmental on almost about everyone whom he oftened dismissed at face value.

That is, on top of being paranoid, neurotic, vain, (allegedly, but most likely to be) closeted, needy… and wait for it… CONTROLLING.

I’m sorry if that came out harsh. He did mention that I should be honest, and of course it was impossible back then to give an honest feedback to your boss if he was all that (read: above) and you knew you still have to report to him everyday and he could easily make your life harder than it already is. But now that I’ve detached myself, I guess I can subscribe one last time to his advice. And besides, at this point, there is nothing to be gained by sugarcoating.

Sometimes I even felt that even the good points as a manager were some in some way a byproduct by his other negative traits and just happened to be in good light.

It got so bad that I made it a point to come to work early in the morning so that I could have some time alone - free from early morning updates and root cause analysis on why this-and-that was delayed and strategizing on our "strategy on how to approach a problem."

I also wanted some extra time to condition my brain to be at work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do anything productive because I would be too busy thinking, “Fuck me. I’m in hell again.” I literally felt my chest tighten whenever I see him walking in with what looks like a pissed-off scowl straight to his cubicle. Shortness of breath would soon follow and needless stress thinking, “How the hell should I approach the boss today?”

Of course I had to be sensitive to his emotions as he was extremely moody. Oftentimes, we cannot start proper operational discussion up until he has griped about his bad day, or until I shared something personal – which he appreciates because that shows trust. Sadly, it only shows that I place obligation and value for keeping my job and making other people feel content over my value for privacy. OR, here it comes: until we settle some of his grievances about me from last night’s after-office get-together where I apparently joked about something that offended him.

And that’s another thing. I couldn’t get it when someone who is apparently very open to ridiculing people publicly (read: okray in the workplace) is so very VERY sensitive when other people poke fun at him. He has a big issue about showing respect. He always claims that he should earn it. By what merit then? The last time I heard, respect was not earned through enforcing your rank and/or age. He should’ve fared better if he showed some of the same openness being on the other end of these jokes he so loosely fling at others. I say if you are so willing to throw crap, don't get mad when crap gets thrown back at you.

But back to the way we worked: You see it was neither here nor there. It was fucking everywhere. Work covered all day, all night and sometimes, all week just because the boss doesn’t want to say NO.

And why not? Maybe he believes that delivering all these unrealistic demands by stretching your resources is operationally sustainable. Maybe he underestimates the amount of detailed work needed to obtain all these lofty ivory-tower objectives. Maybe he overestimates his resources or his limited resource’s “stretchability”. Maybe he wants SO MUCH to impress the higher-ups. Maybe he gets off on knowing that he can manage his people to achieve what is impossible consistently at the HUGE personal cost. Whatever his reason, it made him a lousy project manager plainly for the reason that he can’t say NO to his clients (mostly our VP).

Of course our client would always want more features in a project. Of course our client would always ask for a shorter period of implementation. It was the client's job to be unrealistically demanding. It was his job to bring the clients back to earth, snap them out of their fantasy, show them the reality of limited resources, conflicting priorities, work-fucking-life-balance. You know, aim for the happiness of his beloved hard-to-impress clients while considering the general well-being and sustainability of his staff. That is simple supply-demand management. You do NOT take everything that is demanded, stretch your limited supply to their limits (WITH OVERTIME AT NO EXTRA COST) and expect them to do it again – on a regular basis - JUST BECAUSE HE'S WILLING TO DO IT.

I tell you what: unless he does not include me in all his strategizing and thinking and arguing for the sake of arguing and just let me do my execution shit, this thing wouldn't have gone down this ugly.

Naturally, I generally felt unprotected. It was as if I had to do all the expectations management and “bringing back to earth” stuff that was supposed to be his job. That was also on top of having to keep all these root cause analysis for all the delays we were experiencing with our projects. (Well, how about: “TOO MUCH FUCKING WORK” as root cause, huh?) I was spending the limited time that I have in the day doing all these analysis, all these discussions and strategizing, all these planning and arguing and persuading and expectations management only to find that at the end of the day, I am alone in the execution.

Of course my boss would say that he is protecting us as that was his best intentions. He was getting the brunt of the impact of any of the project’s delay and never pointing out that it was his resources’ fault. Here’s news: THAT GOES WITHOUT SAYING. Don’t expect us to jump for joy when you say you take full responsibility because, well, management means taking full responsibility - good or bad. And had he learned to say NO in the first place, he wouldn’t have these problems.

Now if you think it ends on the already stretched workday, it gets worse.

He believes we’re still real tight buddies and that I would want to hang out with him all the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I am buddies with him before he became my boss. But when he became boss, he just didn’t realize that hanging out with him felt a lot like working for me. And I’ve been working and seeing his face the whole damn fucking day. It’s not like he’s some hot chick whom I would want to see more of. I just want to see my other friends, go home, sleep, poke my eye out, stare at the wall, watch paint dry, I don’t know, just anything else that DOES NOT REMIND ME OF WORK. God. I swear, there are some days that I just felt so miserable spending more than 12hrs in a day with the boss. It's not like I could make jokes to him. I was very careful not to offend his delicate notions as it will surely spill over the next day.

Sure, let’s forget about the other things like the uncomfortably bromance stuff that he does (read: hugging, holding hands, doing that puppy-dog eye look… ARGH! I still get chills...) which did little to help my inkling about his being closeted. Ok, forget about that. Seriously, please forget about that. Let’s bury it ten feet deep in the ground and never bring it up. EVER.

The other damning issue I can’t wrap my head around is how he can be so insanely demanding even on a PERSONAL level.

He gets angry if I do not text him to say that I’m at home already. He throws a hissy fit if I do not tell him about my gimiks. He gets wounded and hurt if I do not share or report anything about my personal life that he feels is worth sharing because it would make him feel trusted and show that I wanted his advise. Ok newsflash: I would gladly share anything about me if I already felt comfortable enough or if you do not see that as a signal to do a bro-hug for 10 seconds, and NOT because you demanded to know because it appeases your need to feel trusted and needed.

He made me feel that friendship was work. A whole lot of needlessly stressing work. Stressing work that would spill over real work. I mean, really, we cannot start work until he explains to me how he felt about the last joke I cracked last night. Or to ease his paranoia about me not texting him. There are days that he would be mad as hell and we would spend the entire morning just talking about it. Well mostly he did the talking.

On my end, things got so bad that sometimes I cry. I cry because of plain frustration at not being able to fully express myself in fear of, well, the boss - the boss who can easily make your life a living hell (if it wasn’t already) - and the boss who can recommend to throw you out of the office. My head was in so much pain from being torn between what I really wanted to say and what the boss wanted to hear that it could only produce undecipherable gibberish (read: crying).

Until finally I stopped crying and called it quits.

I was miserable and I hated my life. I tried asking for reassignment, subtly. I said I wanted to handle non-food again. (read: I want another manager). But that somehow backfired, ending with me still staying under the boss, with double the load. Which of course, as we know, proved to be the breaking point.

I was unhappy spending my work hours there. I was MORE unhappy spending my non-work hours there.

I had to leave. I couldn’t take another month in that sorry state. No amount of financial appeasement, relocation to another group, or future opportunities could have changed my mind. The VP had no qualms about letting me go (she saw it coming from miles away), but she mentioned giving me the option to choose another function because the boss would rather lose me in the team than lose me completely. That did little to help. I had to be completely free of his circle of influence. As in fucking miles away. In another country just to be safe. I had to jump out in a leap of faith even without another job in the bag - in a completely different country. That was how bad it was for me. I was so sure (read: 100%) about wanting to leave that I did not care exactly where I was going. (read: Anywhere but here.)

Again, this is not to say that the boss did not have good intentions. He had the best intentions, all the way. He talked to me about his plans for me, and kept reminding me about the favors that he "did not calculate." (Which come to think of it, does not make sense because how can he keep tabs of all his favors if he did not calculate?) All his intentions were fine even if it may or may not serve selfish purposes. The only thing that did not sit well with me was his approach and method which has eventually, through much exposure proved to be overly manipulative, conniving and sometimes came off as scripted. (read: forcing me to eat a donut just to prove his influence.)

Well, faced with that I eventually had to say, "Fuck it. I’m out."

In fairness, both of us made adjustments. In his words, “Nahirapan din ako.” But to what extent and whether or not that suffering was self-inflicted, we cannot tell. Mostly to me, it felt like a one-way adjustment street.

So I just opted to go out, whereas he always had hopes that I would fit this mold that he had for me because it played so well in this universe that he controls, or rather attempts to control.

I never claim to understand nor attempted to influence the boss to change. He was entitled to his quirks just like everyone else and I understood and accepted that, even if I did not personally prefer it. I just wish he’d understand and accept everyone else’s quirks as well. Nor try to control everything else in such a forceful manner just so it would fit his "dream" world.

What was the boss thinking? Not everyone agrees to what he believes. Not everyone values the same values that he does. Not everyone is a raging workaholic nor do they want to transform into one. Not everyone is clingy in friendship nor clannish with his friends. Not everyone was comfortable with hugging and holding-fucking-hands (which is UNIVERSALLY SO DAMN WRONG by the way). Sometimes he failed to understand that people find their rewards in life differently. So unlike him, I didn’t pity our oldest buyer just because he is old and he is still a buyer. I loved the guy. He was happy the way he was. In fact, I pitied the boss because I knew that despite of his professional success he was never going to be content with the way he lived and the way he pinned part of his hopes on how everything can be controlled to meet his UNREALISTIC expectations. Because frankly, despite all his claims of, “I understand you because I’m just like you when I started…” we are not the same. We will NEVER be the same. (First of all, I’m not closeted.) And I strongly felt that he was expecting too much of me PROFESSIONALLY and PERSONALLY. I’m just sorry I cannot give him what he wanted on EITHER.

In the end, he let me go. Which again, should go without saying. I just wish he could’ve proved me wrong by not attempting to negotiate or make be feel guilty by saying that he did “not count all the favors he did” for me and that I was leaving him high and dry in the middle of such remarkable performance. He just asked me to promise to text him everyday and keep in touch everyday. Well, that’s the boss for you. Demanding until the very end.

I bet he’s fuming because not once did I attempt to communicate. If you want to know why, it’s because I feel stressed talking to him. An my policy in life is simple: AVOID STRESS WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

Finally, it’s not that I’m bitter. That’s just the way I roll. I hope he deals with it and understand and accept it for once. He and I will not always be on the same page.Maron out.

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