termination worries, please help

lazlowpanaflex

OK. i admit it. i do not get along with my boss. i am respectful but he is so focused on covering his butt, that i end up spending energy on documenting things. twice in the past several weeks my documenting has saved me from his ability to "pin" something on me, which -in both cases- seemed like setups for laying the groundwork for performance issues. i do a good job and he admits this, but our relationship is simply awful, and i think he wants me gone.

some of his allies in my peer group do not like me either, i sense; again, i'm respectful to them (and everyone) but the deck just feels stacked.

do i have rights? am i doomed?

Hunter1

You certainly haven't indicated anything in your post which would implicate any 'rights'. Sounds like you should polish up the ol' resume.

ray a

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-28-03 AT 07:35AM (CST)[/font][p]When I was a mfg. manager I always told people who come to me with this kind of a story they two choices. Figure out why the boss doesn't like them and correct the problem, or get out.

Now in HR, I have to ascertain if the boss is the problem. But, bottom line. You still have those two choices - change yourself or look for a new job.

Rockie

When you have this type of working relationship, it's time to move on to something else. The hell you put yourself through every day just to "survive" is not worth it.

Personally, if I felt I had to constantly try to "protect" myself from a boss who was "covering his butt", I would conclude that my best interests were not being served.

POPEYE

Well said, Rockie!

Margaret Morford

I agree that you should get out, but I also encourage you to do some self examination. What will you do differently in your new job so that you have good relationships throughout the organization? I left one company early in my career and spent some time looking back on my five year tenure. My valuable lesson was that there was a group of employees that weren't sorry to see me go. This was because when it came time to fire someone, I always handled it because the managers weren't very good at it. Essentially, I did the dirty work and made a lot of employees fear me. One employee (whom everyone hated and needed to be gotten rid of) even said upon quitting, "Margaret finally got me." In my next job, I made the managers fire their own people and handle their own problems and stepped out of the policeman's role and into a coaching role. Next time I left, the employees were sorry to see me go and perceived me as an advocate.

Every time I leave a job, I ask myself what I will change about my style the next time to be better. In my last corporate job, I work for a boss straight out of Dilbert. He was terrible and everything I felt about him was justified. It didn't change the fact that I didn't manage my relationship well and probably could have worked out a consulting arrangement when I left to collect more of my stock options than I did.

I offer this advice because you say your boss is awful and you have some troubled relationships with your peers. Regardless of the fact that these may be bad people, smart people can mange bad people better.

Get out. Start fresh with a new group. Change anything you want with a new start. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Don D

I UNDERSTAND!! Margaret is the only person on The Forum that I fear. When I see that she has responded immediately following my response, I reach for a Tums before I view her post. x:-)

Pork

Lazlowpanaflex: What a name; Accept the inevitable and your honor; get out of there. Where one is not welcome to a party it is best to leave and join your own party! There are more opportunities out there, where you can take your skills, they might just be they, Lazlowpanaflex can stay there with the loosers! Pork

System

I am having the same problems myself. We went from a three person H.R. staff to just me. My company laid off my boss and expected me to take on the mantle of H.R. with only 2.5 years experience as an assistant and no formal education. My new "boss" is the accounts manager who has encouraged me to bend the truth, protect him when he is caught in a lie etc. On top of that the other managers say things to non-exempt employees (I work in retail) such as "why don't you just quit and make it easier on yourself" and " do they really need breaks?" in front of staff. I'm getting much the same feeling you are, that they would much rather not have me around.
I would love to get out but there is not much out there.
Obviously this is no help other than to empathise (sp?) and grouse for myself.
By the way I am new to this site, any formalities?

Pork

Not many, but keep your thick skin on and wait for the follow-up post, when some body will type faster than their mind thinks. I am not one of those. I have been their where you are but I was the the HR boss; I did not see it coming, but at least I had provided my assistant with some pretty good educational opportunities and HR training over the last 6 months of our relationship. I think/believe our "blessed one" send me in there to get her shored up because she was going to loose her husband to kidney failure about a month after I left; she had two high schoolers and she had to become the bread winner. She took my place and is still there as the HR with two assistants that she has trained well. The family is doing well, and the company is too. I went on to another HR position and finally got back home to my roots. The bottom line is look to the positives if you can find them, if not as I advised above, move on, your path may be blessed for some reason that we humans do not necessarily understand. pork