Deal with toxic manager when you can't quit

Question

At my first job, I had the bad luck to get a manager that was very toxic.

This reached the point of him driving most of the team to quit. In the three months I was there, he drove 5 people to quit (in a team composed of 12 people), and was getting close to drive the rest of the team to quit.

To give a perspective of why he was toxic:

• Constantly undermining every one's work by saying thing like "I could have done it in one hour" or "That was really easy, don't be too proud of yourself"
• Constantly failing to meet deadlines, which resulted in everyone else (not him) staying overtime trying to make things right (We once had to wait for 3 weeks, for a vital piece of information, and when he delivered it to us, we were one week behind the deadline).
• Berating the team for using their rights, such as overtime pay.

At the time, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to leave without too many consequences. But a colleague there was not so lucky, as he needed this job to sustain his family.

This made me wonder, if there exists any method to, at the very least, mitigate the stress induced by this kind of manager? When quitting is not an option, and you have to stick with the job?

As suggested a little more precision on the situation:

This happened in France, in a region where the supply of software developers is far higher than the demand, and leaving your job can lead to several months of job hunting.

In France, when you quit, it is harder to get monetary compensation than if you are let go.

Also, there were only two people above this manager, there had already been complaints made, but they did not do anything, because he had way too many responsibilities, and the company was basically tied to him, for better or for worse.

From the answers and comment, it seems most people agree on the fact that quitting is always an option. I do not think this is true, it might be true in some areas of the world, but in many other, it's not.

While France is not the worst country in the world when it comes to employment, there is a lot of things that makes it quite hard to find a job, especially in areas such as Software Development. Most companies asks for diplomas, not experiences.

I did not think that getting in the specific of this colleague's situation was necessary, but I think I was wrong, the reason he was not able to quit :

• His wife was pregnant, and was due in less than a month (at the time I left) with their 2nd child.
• They had a mortgage on their house, so moving was not an option.
• He had already works in other industries, but due to health conditions he could not keep working physical jobs, he was not disabled, but was advised to stop those job to avoid becoming disabled.

Answer 1

First of all, quitting is always an option. What would your colleague do if the company suddenly closed its doors? (This happens, and the employees are usually the last to see it coming).

Your colleague needs to stop making excuses and start job hunting for real. It may take a long time, but there are better jobs and non-toxic managers out there.

In the meantime, there are a couple of things your colleague can do:

Constantly undermining every one's work by saying thing like "I could have done it in one hour"

• Remember that this person is toxic and whatever comes out of their mouth is not relevant or meaningful. Stop caring about this manager's opinion.

Constantly failing to meet deadlines

• Keep a written log of what was promised, when, and by whom. When anything happens, log that as well (what, when, by whom). It's a major pain in the rear to do, but when the grand boss comes around looking for necks to choke it will not only protect you, it may shine some unwanted light on the toxic manager.

Berating the team for using their rights, such as overtime pay

• Same as above - keep a log about what was earned, paid, etc. and remember that the babbling of fools is best ignored as much as possible.
• If the colleague is paid hourly, then not receiving overtime pay is something to take up with HR or the union, if there is one. If the colleague is salaried and this is "comp time", then the right answer might be to stop working the overtime to begin with (so there's nothing to comp)

Answer 2

To reduce the stress: Stop caring. After 8 hours work a day, stop working. If the manager makes it hard to leave, stop working and get overtime pay without working. If he says “I could have done that in an hour” you say “of course you could” so he doesn’t see you getting upset (because that’s what he wants) while thinking to yourself what you actually think of him. Same if he says “that was really easy”, you say “absolutely, that was really easy, you could have done that in an hour”.

He knows what he is, and you know what he is, so make it clear without saying anything bad that you know and you don’t care. It’s only stress if you care.

@strader: You wouldn't feel belittled if your five year old son said "I could have done that in an hour". Once you change your mental attitude, that boss isn't any more clever than your five year old son, so you don't feel belittled. You know which one is the child and which one the adult.

Answer 3

Constantly failing to meet deadlines, which resulted in everyone else (not him) to stay overtime to try and makes things right (We once had to wait 3 week, for a vital piece of information, and when he delivered it to us, we were one week behind the deadline).

There's a very simple answer to this. The deadline slips. And as much as managers love to say "but that's not acceptable", the answer is simply "but it's going to happen".

And you don't just tell him this. You copy his manager, and his manager's manager. You say what the original plans were, and that because your manager started you all on this late, it'll take that long. And you make sure it takes that long!

For bonus points, you can say "we're all prepared to do overtime to help out the company so it'll only slip by two weeks". Then you look proactive and helpful - but the deadline slip still happens, and management know it's down to your boss.

Berating the team for using their rights, such as overtime pay.

Now this is crazy stuff. If your contract says you get this, then you get it. If he pushes it, the next step is to call HR and say "John thinks we shouldn't be claiming overtime pay. Please can you tell me what our contract says? And please can you email that section of the contract to me and John, so we know for the future?" Especially getting email evidence.

Answer 4

1) As has been said elsewhere, quitting is always an option. It depends on what you are willing to sacrifice, but quitting is never "not an option".

2) I don't know anything about French work culture, but in North America where I am also a software developer like your colleague, it is perfectly reasonable for an employee to job hunt while working. You don't have to quit and be out of a job before you start job hunting; when you know that you want to leave, start looking for another job, and then you can seamlessly move from one job to the next easily.

My advice to your coworker (former co-worker?) would be to start job hunting ASAP, while continuing to work. He should continue to do his job to the best of his ability, and try to ignore the stupid stuff from his manager as best he can in the meantime, and then as soon as he finds something else, he should jump ship.

Answer 5

Just have a very short 1:1; tell your manager that you fell in love with him, that you have finally given up on having a relationship and just wanted to take this off your chest. Practice a lot so that you can say this with a straight face.

Once you have declared your love, he will no longer be able to avoid feeling weird and uncomfortable every time he looks at you, forever. With some luck, communication will be cut to a minimum and you will never be asked again to stay in the office a minute longer than necessary. It's not against the law, and if he tries to fire you to spare himself the embarrassment you will get compensated more than adequately. It's a WIN-WIN, but both wins are for you.

Answer 6

I have unfortunately been in this situation. I had been with the company for 2 years longer than my supervisor and she was totally clueless and attempting to fire all of her own employees to the point that I was the last developer standing (sounds kind of crazy when your job is to supervise those employees). She had actually written me up twice for things that were to basically cover her own issues. While this was going on I basically quit talking to her any more than I had to and had my headphone on at all times and sent an email to the HR department and the president of the company informing them of everything she had been doing. Luckily they finally saw her for what she was and she was the one fired in the end and I stayed on at that company for a few more years.

The basics being, do your job, document everything, and sooner or later those at the top will see what is happening and justice will be served, and if not hopefully a new position can be found soon.

Answer 7

I agree with most of the answers here. In particular, quitting is always an option, be job hunting already, and stop caring about what the manager is saying (except, obviously, that which is necessary to do your job).

The only addition here is to operationalize the "stop caring" part a bit. The people for whom simply telling them to stop caring is enough to accomplish that are not the people who need to be told it as they will have already stopped caring.

My suggestion is to reframe the situation in your head. Specifically, reframe the manager as just an obstactle. Dealing with the manager's crap is just an (unpleasant) part of the job, no different from dealing with a broken printer, say. Sure it's annoying, but it isn't personal and your mind goes to questions like "Can I fix the printer? Can I get the printer to do what I want despite being broken? Can I work around the printer? Can I accomplish what I need without the printer?" You don't wonder why the printer is so unfair to you.

Here's a more or less equivalent alternative reframing. View your job like a video game. You're trying to do the best job you can. Your manager is like a bad guy trying to thwart you. Not a boss, mind you, just one of the regularly occurring goombas. You're not personally aggrieved by the fact that the goombas in Mario are trying to impede you. You just think about the best strategy to get past them. Again, your mindset when playing a video game is that given this is the way the world is set up, what is the best strategy to navigate through it?

A third that's slightly different but mostly the same is to imagine your manager as a big parrot. If a parrot said belittling things to you, you wouldn't take it personally. The parrot is just making noise, and what it says has much more to do with it than you. This is likely true for your manager too.

The common thread through all of these, just to lay it out, is that you are intentionally dehumanizing your manager. Doing this removes most of the weight from what they say.

Clearly, this is not an ideal situation, and I'm not suggesting the above in lieu of finding a better job.

Answer 8

The immature way to deal with toxic people who you can't remove from your life, assuming you've already had a sit down with them and explained why their behavior is unacceptable, is to cut them down back.

For example, "I could have done that in an hour" should be answered with something like "You sure you're sober?" or "I'd like to see you try".

Refusing to pay for work should be met with "No money, no honey" and followed up by you not showing up to work the next day for whatever reason - probably sick time, it honestly doesn't matter if it gets approved or not because you're sending a message.

That piece of information you didn't get that put the entire team behind schedule should be something that the manager is never allowed to forget. Bring it up every time it might be relevant.

This is the wrong thing to do, but if you can't quit and really want things to work out, you're going to have to discipline your manager.

The professional thing to do is to document this behavior, send it to your managers superiors even though you know they won't do anything, and find another job. Look for a job while you still have one and then stop working with the toxic manager as soon as you get a new job. People like this are going to have a much bigger impact on your career than they have any right to if you keep working for them.

Answer 9

Disclaimer: IMHO this is only my 2 cents on the situation, read from few lines of description, be aware of this.

People under a toxic manager should put first their health (mental and physical). If you (or your colleagues) are not able to understand this, you are hurting yourself. So put first point of the list, in this environment, your side.

This require a lot of internal work and of course you can ask for help from family, friends and even meet with colleagues under this toxic manager could help. You must solve first how to not explode, in any way under a toxic manager. I'm thinking about NOT, NEVER, EVER:

• yell out
• physical attacks

If you are able to control your reactions "outside" of your body, you are on the right path on my side.

After this is important to take your time, at least one hour per day, to analyze your work routine, where you can improve. An example is: "how can I interact less with this manager?" or "I should have said something when.." etc.. This exercise will not help immediately, but will help after some weeks. You will be aware of the situation, in control of your reactions and more importantly (like other said) be able to react better and more professionaly, when this toxic manager enter in the room.

After this, remember one golden rule: toxic manager need employees to be bully with. Without them, manager is nothing, only an empty shell. If you can on this realization (and takes times) you will put all the situation on the right perspective.

It's only a job! Job is important, yes, but is not all your life. You can search and change the job. But scars of this situation will be with you even after some years. You have to come out with some insight about yourself, how to handle this kind of situation, control your reaction in public and handle toxic manager.

One example:

We once had to wait for 3 weeks, for a vital piece of information, and when he delivered it to us, we were one week behind the deadline).

If this happened to me, after two/three days of waiting (maybe less, dpends on the exact situation). I started with:

• email every day to remember that you are waiting for this crucial information
• phone manager at least one/two times per day and report this in emails
• bring manager on details

Last point is most important, because you mention this manager said:

Constantly undermining every one's work by saying thing like "I could have done it in one hour" or "That was really easy, don't be too proud of yourself"

This is good! You can use this to prove the exact opposite.

Software development is all about small details in chain, to make things work. Bring manager on details, smaller is better. One hour will fly, you know it. Do it again, again and again. Do this not only by yourself, but with other three/four people. Toxic manager will explode for sure. Like other said, log by email everything, include manager on emails and if he/she does not responde, log to upper management.

BUT a crucial point. Be professional. Jokes, sarcasm.. put aside all of this. Main point here is to do the job during normal hours. Your focus should be commited to complete the job and prove that you are doing this, without any doubt.

This is an example, but I think you understand what I'm saying.

In conclusion:

• put the situation on right perspective,
• be aware you your reactions and control them,
• log everything,
• don't do overtime,
• bring manager to smaller details,
• report to upper management,
• be professional,
• search for a new job

Plus note: there are a lot of remote jobs opportunities, a lot of ads even here on stackoverflow/stackexcange, take a look on them.

Answer 10

Even if you were in a position where you depend on the income and thus cannot just walk away from your current job, that does not prevent you from looking for another job and staying with your current employer until you have signed a contract elsewhere.

Depending on your company, changing teams may also be an option. You might be able to bring this up with your boss’s boss, but only after considering the circumstances of your case: If the boss and his boss are best buddies, you are unlikely to get any support from there. Otherwise, it is ultimately not in the interest of the company to have a manager that burns through employees at a high rate—unless your company has a culture of turning a blind eye to such behavior. If you find that is the case, you should definitely find a job elsewhere.

Until then, reduce your involvement in your job. Do just enough to not get fired. French employment law, to my knowledge, is very much in favor of employees, and your employer cannot simply let you go without there being a serious reason for it. What I would suggest:

• If you need input from your boss or anyone else to do your work, request it in writing, and follow up on it in writing if still nothing happens.
• Keep a paper trail of everything that happened, especially others failing to meet a deadline, so you have proof should anyone try to blame you.
• Do not go out of your way to cover up for your manager’s failure to do his job. As the saying goes: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
• Remember that, as long as you deliver average performance, you have fulfilled your side of the deal. You are not required to excel.
• Do not provide your company any reasons to fire you. Make sure you fulfill your contractual obligations. Be present during core working hours (if defined by your contract), do not use your computer for non-work-related purposes unless explicitly allowed by your company, and the like.
• Do not work more than the hours you are contractually obliged to work. (Remember that looking for a new job is a task in itself which requires energy.)
• Take your contractual days off. You do not have to earn your vacation, it is part of your contract.
• When you are sick, take the sick leave to which you are entitled by law.
• When your manager makes personal comments, do your best to ignore them. If you have a different source of appreciation, that is even better and helps you put your manager’s comments into perspective. (Quite likely, he is belittling others in order to divert attention from his own flaws.)
• If your manager berates you for claiming your contractual or legal rights, at the most state that you are entitled to them by law/that they are part of your contract, and that you hereby consider the issue settled. Or do not comment at all.

It may still be a tough time, but you can make sure it is going to be temporary.

Answer 11

This is not unique to France in any way.

• Pretty much everywhere in the world, quitting voluntarily disqualifies you from unemployment benefits. (otherwise, why not just quit once a year to have a 3-months paid holiday, then get hired again?)

• When you have a mortgage and you need to move, you either sell your house or you rent it out (and put the rent towards monthly loan payments). If you can't do those things, you're essentially worth zero financially and you don't earn enough money to own a house.

• Someone who became a software developer because they had to quit doing physical labor will always be at disadvantage vs. someone with a degree in programming.

In the short term, your friend should try to cope with their boss, complain to HR about blatant cases, and perhaps get the worker's union involved. In the long term however, they should honestly answer two questions:

• Are they any good at their job?

• Can they afford the lifestyle they currently have?

If they aren't good at their job, they will never get a decent one which they will be able to hold onto. There are good companies with nice bosses out there, but these have the luxury of hiring people with impressive CVs, and firing someone who doesn't perform well.

If they live beyond their means, they will eventually get bankrupt. They will have to let the house go, better sooner than later. Waiting for things to improve is not going to work, because kids only become more expensive as they grow, and your friend won't get younger either.

Answer 12

I'm going to answer this question from a different perspective. Instead of telling you what you should do (quit, look for another job, etc) - I'm going to give you some things that helped me get through when this sort of thing happened to me. Because, well, I had a very similar boss for about 18 months.

---

First up: Forget about Validation. Ordinarily, your boss saying "Good job!" or "I'm disappointed in you" should have an effect on you, because you have respect for your boss and their opinion matters to you. But in a situation like this, you need to let it go. Your mantra should be: "Why does this guy get to determine whether I'm happy?" I'm not saying to disrespect him, to be sarcastic to him, to backtalk, or anything like that (that's not generally going to go well) - just to put a mental buffer whenever he says something stupid/demeaning. 'He said that would only take him 1 hour? Eh, whatever. I'm happy that I did a good job because of X, Y, and Z.'

Second: Be professional and it's tough to be fired. The funny thing about places with incredibly high turnover is that's harder for the manager to pull the trigger to fire someone for silly reasons. Why? Because the in-house knowledge is spread far too thinly. Most of the people are new, after all! When I was at the end of my 18 month stint with the toxic boss, and I gave my 2 weeks notice? My boss noticed that I was only putting in 40 hours a week the last few months (he'd been trying to force 45-50 hour weeks as the baseline). But his reaction wasn't "Good riddance, you lazy bum!" but was "And I can't convince you to stay? Listen, if you ever need a job, please let me know." I was professional, diligent, did a good job, and knew my way around the SQL databases. Not only was he not going to fire me, but was trying to convince me to stay at only 40 hours/week.

Third: Mentally project yourself in his shoes. Do NOT get me wrong - I'm not saying that your boss is right/smart/good/decent/whatever. I'm saying that he's a terrible communicator with anger issues. A regular boss can simply tell you their priorities; a regular boss can understand if something unexpected comes up. A terrible boss doesn't do either... so it's really important to try to figure out the boss' priorities. For instance, the toxic boss of mine would scream at us when he felt we weren't being productive... and he would scream at us when we missed deadlines. But the reason he screamed at 'not productive' was because he was worried about 'missing deadlines', which was mostly because the business area would get upset and yell at him for underperforming. Once I knew that, I made sure to work closely with the business area and figure out when a deadline was slipping well in advance. I'd tell him (and the business area), "Sorry, I'm not going to meet the deadline for X by the end of next month." And he'd give me some flak and I'd have to defend the deadline being missed... but he didn't get chewed out by the business area (they were given a lot of warning, and they knew I was working hard on their app since they were regularly involved in what I was doing) which in turn reduced the flak I ended up getting from him. Basically: figure out what stuff is critical to him, and what stuff is fluff.

Fourth: Focus on the positive. Oh, I generally hated my 18 month stint while it happened. For the most part, it sucked and was a nasty grind. But there were positives: I got to do an awesome .NET project with a really cool chemical engineer. I got to really amp up my SQL skills. I got to experience a hard-core, "if this system goes down, it costs the company $10,000/hour until you can fix it" up-time mindset. I got to dig into some pretty cool performance algorithms. Don't get me wrong - the company sucked, the job sucked, and I'm glad I left... but I'm also glad I was there for at least a little bit of time. The experience I gained was alone worth it in the long run. So... while the job sucks, try to keep your mind on the positive where it exists.

Answer 13

i had similar issue, toxic manager plus HR-b.tch sold to the manager and upper management (regional, world) who didn't give a sh.t about the situation

basically, in the end the outcome for me has been to quit. sorry, i know that's not what you want to hear but rather have a happy ending solution instead and yes, i had mortgage and so too

i'd been at war with this manager for years, at first i was naive and just played nice until it started to get ugly (official blaming letters, yelling, threats of any kind including physical and so on)

then i got in touch with a lawyer to respond accordingly and started gathering lots of evidences (emails, secret vocal recordings, etc.) that i could have produced in court if needed

my lawyer written replies didn't really cool things off, although managed to avoid blames to be pined at me since they were just plain bullshit and most of the time totally illegal

colleagues didn't give a sh.t since they didn't want to loose their very well paid jobs and some were even just too happy that whatever happens i would get the heat because i alone always stood up to this manager (even if i was not involved at all, i would get rammed...)

talking to union, well... if they're really loyal to workers (many aren't, so beware) why not but at some point in time i was union and it barely protected me

while i was union, not feeling concerned colleagues turned to me for help when they'd get into trouble from time to time, then they'd go back to pretending they didn't know me once i got them out of trouble, so don't expect much of anyone

you can complain to work inspection, i did several times. finally a work inspector came once but got handled by the HR-b.tch which made sure the inspector didn't see or talk to me, hence the inspector left and nothing happened either

after almost a decade, my health got from bad to worse, i've finally had some very serious health problems so i went to HR to have things settled with an agreement so that i'd leave with some money given the evidences i had against the manager and the company itself, which happened since HR and the company knew very well that they would have everything to loose in court

so, in short, was it worth it ?

well, i acquired some skills in work laws and justice system so i wont' be f.cked again next time, i also learned a lot about people behaviour and what (not) to expect from them

on the other hand, took me about a decade to recover from some of my health issues although the worst ones are permanent now (sight issue caused by too many prescribed drugs for chronic back pain, cancer and a few others, all stress induced in the first place)

so worth it or not ? i'll let you decide for yourself...

also keep in mind that if laws used to be mostly on the employee side, it's been changing a lot and keeps changing more and more quickly for the worse

good night, and good luck.

Answer 14

I want to say I am really sorry to hear what you are going through; I know it is an awful situation to be in. I am reading a good book called "5 types of people who can ruin your life", which is all about "High Conflict Personalities" and how to deal with them.

I haven't finished it but I can already tell it will be useful, just based on what a remarkable fit the stories are to my own experiences.

I would say that you need to focus on doing your job professionally and ignore his put-downs, and try and find somewhere else ASAP for your own good.

You can wind up being miserable trying to please someone for years, only to have all your efforts thrown back in your face when you finally decide to leave.

I have taken the "no-nonsense" route of calling out slights and attacks and responding in kind, but for someone who has got where they are with toxic behavior you can't beat them at their own game, and people might even see you as a provocateur.

Look after yourself, turn e-mails off when away from work and just try to put him out of your mind (I know it's a lot easier said than done, but try your best). And know that others know what you're going through. Stay strong.