how to deal with an unreasponble boss

[chrissylee]

I love everything about my job except for one thing- the head boss. He is an extreme jerk and takes his personal problems out on different people. Just this past week I got talked too and am getting my hours cut back because I am not as fast and proficient as people who have been doing this job for YEARS.

 

It is frustrating because I am doing a good job, I am just slower in some areas and there are still a few things I sometimes need help with.

 

How do you deal with a boss who expects you to be as perfect as the veteran employees who have had years of practice when you have only had months?

[Arieswoman]

chrissylee,

You have my sympathies, as I have had my fair share of crappy bosses.

 

You need to be assertive about this and put the responsibility back with him as the boss.

It is the duty of the employer to make sure the employee is suitably trained/qualified/experienced/supported to do the job.

 

Tell your boss that you are sorry that you can't keep up with the other workers who have been there for years and could he suggest any ways that your performance could be improved. Could someone mentor you, or are there any training courses available?

 

I can't see the logic in cutting your hours back because you are "too slow"? Now someone else will have to do your work and you won't get the experience to hone your skills.

 

Have you thought about talking to the personnel dept about this?

 

Good luck.

[d0nnivain]

You become perfect & proficient in the job. You don't complain that you are being picked on, if you have been at the job for more than a 90 day probationary period. Your boss is paying you. You concentrate more. You get help. You practice.

 

 

BTW it's unreasonable not unreasponble

[preraph]

Be vocal and let the boss know when you are trying or starting to get something so he knows you're trying and not just cruising along. Hopefully he'll hang in there with you, but you never know.

 

I took a job I was delighted to get because it was so close to home once and everyone at this manufacturing place had been there 30+ years. It was allegedly a buying job, which I am good at, but in reality it was a design spec job for the containers they manufactured. They sent me to their Mexico plant so see operations and had a little seminar on the different specs for the containers and all the hundreds of variables for different uses. So I got these orders in and they had to be checked and not just turned in because it was too complex for even the client to know what they really needed, so files would go back and forth from my desk to this 30-year woman who had bad arthritis in her hands.

 

Because people were always moving the files around, I began keeping notes on the whereabouts of these files because then people would ask for them, and I could just look it up and say "It's right here" or "So and so has it." Everyone there but me could see all the Outlook notes or emails I guess. So it wasn't like I was hiding anything.

 

So one week the arthritic woman got really peaved because I developed suddenly and right there at work a really painful hand condition and it got so bad I had to leave work and go to the doctor. I forget now what it was called. Anyway, she wasn't happy about that because she had been suffering from arthritis and no one was going to one-up her and her pain I guess.

 

So about a week later, she gets a file from me and I make a note she's got it and I'm waiting on approval. Well, some days later, the client calls checking status and she comes asking me status and I look at my notes and tell her the file is still in her office to get her approval. She argues and argues with me but finally goes into her office and finds the file and then blames me and says I only left it there that day. I told her, Well, here, I can tell you what day it went in there and checked the notes. So I was able to prove she was wrong, and she didn't like that one bit. Apparently part of my job was to be her scapegoat and certainly not have any pain that rivaled hers. So a couple of days later, with the support of the owner and everything (keep in mind they've all been together for 30 years), they make up a story about having to close a manufacturing plant and have layoffs. Only I was the only layoff of course. They knew they couldn't just fire me because I could prove that deal wasn't my fault. Cute. So problems with unreasonable bosses usually don't go well. Honestly, your best bet with one is if you can become their buddy, but I can rarely ever do that because I hate jerks like that.

[chrissylee]

You become perfect & proficient in the job. You don't complain that you are being picked on, if you have been at the job for more than a 90 day probationary period. Your boss is paying you. You concentrate more. You get help. You practice.

 

 

BTW it's unreasonable not unreasponble

 

No one is perfect at their job- not even my boss. I also have a right to complain about "being picked on" when he is expecting me to be at the same level as someone who has had years and years of experience and I have not. It is unrealistic to expect that from someone.

 

I am been doing all the things you said - (You concentrate more. You get help. You practice.) but I feel for the amount of time I have been there I am doing a good job. I am just not as fast as the veteran employees.

 

Also BTW I know its t's unreasonable not unreasponble but I do not know how to change a thread title after its already posted.

[chrissylee]

chrissylee,

 

I can't see the logic in cutting your hours back because you are "too slow"? Now someone else will have to do your work and you won't get the experience to hone your skills.

 

Have you thought about talking to the personnel dept about this?

 

Good luck.

 

 

I agree with this 100%. I am not sure how he can expect me to get faster and be as great as his long term employees when he wants to cut back on my hours.

 

Other people have told me that this is just the way my boss is and to give it a few weeks and he will move onto someone else to pick on. He seems to always have one person that is on his bad side for a few weeks but then he gets over it and finds someone else to grip about.

[pink_sugar]

I have had ridiculous bosses like that and so has my husband. I remember working a job where I didn't get enough training, so they cut my hours quite a bit as a result and obviously with so few hours, I was not going to become faster and catch on quickly enough. You might need to communicate to your boss that you're doing the best you can and you need at least X amount of hours each week to become proficient. I remember my husband worked for some a-hole, who kept threatening to let him go after a month "because he wasn't fast enough".