Need advice on a recent work problem

Usually companies do that in order to make you resign, sometimes if your salary is high and they think they can replace you with someone with a lower salary. And they can't fire you because they will have to pay you so instead they make your life a living hell.

You can go with the flow, resign and find a new job, or you can annoy them back, message him before work and after work, ask him questions about tasks and no matter what they reply, reply back with another question. Keep doing this till they fire you.

My guess is if the manager is doing it because he/she wants you to leave, most probably the CEO knows about it, but try to talk to him/her first, see what they say.

Unfortunately, many managers don't care if you've been with them for 9 years or more, they don't have the mentality of "investing in employees", if they can save $500 a month, they will get rid of you in no time, and usually by making your life a living hell at work.

Gather all the dirt you can have on him and go to his superior..let them fire his ass.

Ps : try to record a meeting with him first just to show that you " tried" solving issues with him.

Honestly, just keep biting the bullet until they get sick of it, show derangement but without retaliation or disrespectfulness=keep calm as rolf said.
It's no good times to be jobless right now my friend.

One thing that helps me in these situations is to always assume the person doesn't have bad intent. It is very possible your manager doesn't realize what he's doing. It's also possible he does realize it and he's being a dick. Until you know for sure, assume they're just unaware that they're being annoying. Put it on the count of incompetence.

This helps keeping calm and constructive during confrontations, which I think you're going to need to have. Set a meeting with them, explain these things that bother you, expect them to be a bit defensive at first, but try to build something positive out of it.

If after this it really turns out it's a toxic company, then you decide to leave or stay. But at least you'd have tried the constructive option.

sero wrote If the one-on-one was a success, ask him if he's fine with setting a weekly 30 min one-on-one meeting to discuss any unpleasant points. keep those meetings rolling till everything is back to normal.

This is wonderful advice. I would argue keep these meetings rolling till forever. And no need for 30 mins, 5-10 minutes every week should do.

I'll play the devil's advocate here.

- Meaningless long conversations/interrogation just to prove that I have made a mistake or I am involved in a problem resulting from a miscommunication.

Given that we have no context, I'm going to assume that your manager knows more about the problem than you do. You have already conceded that he's a pro in the field and having only heard one side of the story, I'm assuming you could've made a better job communicating before the problem happened.

- Mean messages left & right whenever we are conversing in an issue and sometimes some disrespectful words in between.

Being in management myself, I can only say that honesty is sometimes miscontrued as mean. Your manager may just be honest with you and you're simply unable to accept it.

- Objecting on every attempt I do to solve clients problems; please advise that I work in development & support as well.

It may be possible that your solutions aren't up to par with his expectations. Since he objected on your solutions, then other solutions have been deployed, how did they fair against your original ones?

- Objecting and expressing feeling of bother whenever I receive a request from a client that he is not ccd in. (not my fault)

It's not your fault that you received the request, it's your fault that you didn't immediately forward it to him.

- Asking for a sudden timelines on tasks I am doing without giving me any time to assess.

Do you mean tasks you will be doing or tasks you are doing? Perhaps you should get into the habit of communicating better? As soon as you receive a tasks, clearly convey that you are taking X amount of hours to assess the approximate effort that is needed to complete the task, before starting on anything.

- Sometimes reminding me rudely that this task has exceeded my timeline for it (even for the small half an hour task) even tough I don't have a priority task after it.

Just because you don't have any task scheduled after the one you're doing now, does not mean that you're allowed to prolongue whatever you're currently doing.

- Obvious and in-your-face no trust behavior appearing in a sudden request to know what is delaying the task (for no priority tasks as well) and asking me to show him my screen to validate my words.

if you have a history of delaying tasks, then his actions may be justified.

- My manager is a pro but the Lebanese kind of one, showing up at work @ 1pm, having his own company inside the company... Some of you will know what I am talking about.

You're appealing to hypocrisy, it doesn't matter what he's doing, that's up to his manager to assess. You should just worry about your own issues.

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By the time you read this line, you're fueled with anger, which is the original intent of my reply. You have to make sure that you're calm during your discussions with him, if anything i said has a shred of truth, I urge you to re-evaluate the points you plan on discussing with him as not to fall in any trap. It is quite possible that his own underperformance is backfiring on him from his manager and he's just lashing at you as a result.

Have an open and honest discussion with him, do not let his words get to you. If after your discussion with him, things do not change, then you can go over his head.

Know your rights, do not quit your job as you lose a whole lot of money doing so.
If you find another job, make sure the package gives you what you would've gotten had they fired you.
If you would like to more about this, send me a message.

rolf wrote So there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

I have not said otherwise, I have specifically mentioned that discussions are in order to resolve this problem. The intention of my message is to have Guitaret evaluate his/her own actions first before they engage into said discussions.

Went through something similar 5month ago then i burned out after 2 years of reporting issues with non persistent / non consistent support / solution relating to the issues i had to deal with.

What i learned from my own experience:
- In a work place, no one is your friend. As extreme as that may sound, the less you engage people on a personnel level in a professional setting the better. Stick to work related issues and do the minimum so that you integrate the team (have healthy relations) but don't get too close because some people are toxic and will take advantage of you or do you wrong if it's their neck on the line.

- Respect the hierarchy if you're in a company/organization that follows that to the bone. Meaning that if the bosses upstairs hold the bosses downstairs accountable and your work is really showing good in evaluation or performance check, it might help to report.
If they care less about productivity and hierarchy, meaning that relations between bosses/manager are always prioritized because they protect each other's back, they have common stature to the company (they belong to same subgroup) = >you're in a bad situation my friend.

- Last but not least, you're there for work. As long as you're not being abused and the place is not becoming toxic to the point where's it affecting your life outside of work, do the job and/or start applying elsewhere where you can get a fresh start.

Oh, and HR is there to help protect the company first. Anyone that tells you otherwise must be living in lalaland or doesn't have enough experience in terms of conflict resolution or situations similar to yours at work.

You haven't detailed much about the type of company you're in (private/public) or what kind of hierarchy you got nor the situation you're precisely in. None the less, avoiding the issue might do you good for a month or a year even, but at the next conflict things might escalate.
- Make sure you have enough evidence (email, texts, hell even voice notes) that could help your side of the story (bad reviews in your file can affect future employment)
- Do the best job possible (your performance is the game changer)
- Don't make enemies with people around because in case of an investigation, some people can do you bad.

Good luck and at the end, this will be a learning experience for you.
Cheers

Guitaret wroteHello Guys,

I am reading each new post thoroughly and I am grateful for your feedback. The opinions are mixed and rich, and some of you took the time to write a deep analysis of the problem; Thank you for that.
This problem is very related to one's expectation, some people work in in a far more toxic, and maybe dangerous work environment but they are grateful for being able to support their families. Funny enough that everything starts to feel better when you tune your hopes down because "hope is a dangerous thing".

So far I am not fan of the idea of opening up to him directly (as efficient as this may be) since I only do that to people I consider friends. I may soon go to the CEO and list all things that are bothering me and the things we can do to improve my performance but I am waiting for the right chance to do so as I am afraid I make things worse by overstating problems that most people suffer from (but I know it in my heart this is the right choice). Or, I may keep following the terms mentioned by @NuclearVision.

I will keep you posted and will reply on some of things you guys said as I hope this topic will help other people with same problem.

Cheers.

Hi Guitaret. This is your manager. You're fired.

Jokes aside, Toufic offered some solid advice, especially this:

Toufic wroteOh, and HR is there to help protect the company first.

I know someone who used to work in a prestigious hospital, and his boss was more or less like OP's, if not more ill-mannered. He decided to escalate the issue to the hospital's HR department, and the staff there acted all warm and fuzzy and concerned for him. A few days after he'd submitted his complaint form, he learned that HR were working on having him replaced.

The truth of the matter is that managers are, in the vast majority of companies, considered more valuable and are rarely replaced. When you have an employer's market (as is the case in Lebanon) all employees beneath manager level are expendable and easily replaced.

Concerning your case, here's what I think:
• Reading through your post, I'm left wondering: if you're a longtime senior employee with important achievements in the company and a favourable relationship with the CEO, then why aren't YOU the manager? This is something you have to think about yourself. Perhaps you might not be as valuable to them as you'd think. Try not think about it too loud though, because the CEO will take note and see it as a sign of bitterness. If you're on good terms, stay on good terms, even if you plan on leaving later.
• While reaching out to the CEO might be a good idea, chances are he's going to ask you if you discussed your problem with your manager. Then he's going to ask the manager, at which point you should expect all kinds of تمسيح جوخ to come out in full force and most likely not in your favour.
• You can win a battle against your manager, but unless you dig up something extraordinary against them, such as evidence of gross inefficiency, malpractice or squandering, then don't expect to win the war.
• If you feel like quitting because the situation is hopeless, then by all means do so AFTER you've secured another job.
• Last but not least, I don't know the company or you personally, and I can speculate endlessly about your history and how you ended up in your current situation. At the end of the day, I would say this: re-evaluate the company's culture. If it doesn't line up with your values, then perhaps it's the wrong company to be at for you.

One more thing: if you opt to discuss with the CEO, see if you can negotiate a transfer to another department into a position which could use your skills and expertise, even if partially.