I got the “why are you doing this to me?” treatment from another subordinate I had to strip jobs from and it pretty much a crystal ball into the future headline claims that “Richard is an asshole boss”, just as I’ve always suspected. I’m actually the best boss in the universe, obviously. But to a narcissist, anything that doesn’t go exactly their way to their benefit 100% of the time is an affront and personal attack. This person actually said “why do you want me to be unhappy?” in the “why are you doing this to me?” speech on the phone.
And what do you think a boss would have to do to warrant that kind of reaction? I can think of lots of reasons… Demote a perfectly qualified hard worker to exert your dominance, throttle their ambition or just to see them suffer. Use the workplace as an environment to settle personal vendettas. Meddle with productivity because you love chaos, lateness and failure. Sure. But what did I actually do? Constantly tell this person what they need to do and more importantly – the destructive nonsense they need to never do again – and react accordingly to the repeated failures.
The follow-up that is so intolerable is this mindset that the individuals schedule is the only one that matters to the collective. Huh? I’m the freakin CEO and I don’t operate that way. What is wrong with these people that they think their entry-level positions entitle them to miss deadlines, let reams of work slip away from them and get re-assigned to more competent people and then casually chat me up about getting those things back just because they’re ready now?
Since I see a long future of this kind of dynamic where I’m the bad guy because someone else failed at their responsibilities, i’ll open this up for you to tell me what a horrific corporate monster I am now so I can change my wicked ways before they become more of a problem. Here’s a text I sent one of these individuals with the “i’ll do it when i’m ready” mindset for you to tell me if I handled them improperly or not. The objective was to explain to them why exactly they were being demoted (when in fact they really should have been fired), how its nothing personal and how while they have many capabilities – roles that involve implementing those capabilities in a group with others has not worked out well and thus can’t continue. I think I said it perfectly. Problem?…
I know you think everything is designed to punish you because everything is all about you and other people “trying to hurt you” because thats just what they “want” according to you but the truth is that we are late and we are in trouble in this business and we lose money every hour we dont move our ass. You’ve already cost more than you’ve added – you don’t need to keep subtracting to it with your endless pledges followed by apathy. It’s not all about you. It’s not even a little bit about you, personally. The fact of the matter is all about your work ability and you are not cut out for any role in business that involves working with humans. Working with robots and by yourself shows potential and you can have the opportunities it affords. but your endless insistence that everyone else work around your schedule no matter how dire the circumstances on the business end and no matter how utterly trivial they are on your end simply makes you wholly disqualified for the positions you were attempting to be in.
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