Socializing Socially brutal boss asking to stand up - how to handle?

[lux7]

Unluckily this fundamental section in the boards is quite under-used compared to the others, but I'll try anyway.

This is something that happened to me in the past with a disastrous former boss.

BACKGROUND

As a matter of fact, it pained me to know he was technically my "boss" and thus admit he had higher status within the company as it's a bad feeling to have in such a position a guy you dislike and disrespect not only as a boss, but also as a man and as a human being in general (going in the "why" would be off topic).

Our relationship was frosty.
At work he didn't guide you or explain or help or encourage -not that I wanted to have him around- and mostly left everyone by themselves with their tasks/projects.

Except that sometimes all of a sudden he'd come with these unbelievably socially uncalibrated top-down requests.

The following is such a 1-2 example.


"I NEED TO SIT THERE "

We were on a trip, in our airbnb flat, and I was sitting on a chair while he was on a couch.
He had brought a good friend of him along and it was 4 people sitting in the kitchen: him, his business partner, his good friend and me.

They were a group, and I wasn't part of it (my colleague and good friend was only coming later).

We were catching our breath and later move to the conference to check our booth was in order.

My rocking chair was by far the nicest place to sit, low and comfy, but I wasn't comfortable as was mostly left out from the conversation (and wasn't given any opening to joining in), wasn't busy with anything and my standing in both the company and this social circle was lowish.

He was using a laptop as he talked.

All of a sudden he turns to me quickly and coldly as if he expected me to scuttle away to make place:

"I need to sit there"

No further explanation, just stating his need to sit at my place and implying I'd have to get up.

A refusal seemed out of the cards as it'd be a direct confrontation to the person who's technically your boss.
Getting up suddenly would further sink my social standing.

I try to gain a bit of time as there seemed to be no available socially acceptable way to exit and saving at least a bit of face so I ask:

-"You need to sit here"?

Again quickly and expectantly for me to move quick:

-"Yes, I need to connect my laptop to the socket"

No please, no "sorry man", no nothing to help me save face.
My question had he state his needs but didn't bring him to any more social behaviour, so I get up and relinquish the chair.


DON'T NAP NOW

I wasn't gonna sit somewhere else and just wait around pretending all was good, so I was moving to my room and announced I'd take a nap.

And he goes, again quickly and in the same way you'd command a servant and expect him to sheepishly obey:

-Don't sleep now, we're going soon

I almost couldn't believe how far he'd go and couldn't take this one too now, so I replied:

-"yeah it's fine, just wake me up when we're ready and I'll be ready".

He again insisted on me not sleeping as we were moving in 5 minutes.

I couldn't comply now too as that would mean fully accepting the useless flunky role.
But I feel I still looked a bit silly and flunky-sh to reply:

"-5 minutes nap it'll be then"


YOUR FEEDBACK

Let's for a second forget the many mistakes done before this instance and let's focus on this one.

How would you have handled these two power moves?

To this day I struggle to see a socially acceptable way to decline standing up from the chair which wouldn't have escalated and likely seen me losing.

How would have I replied for example to him following up by saying he needed to do urgent stuff and had no sockets around him?
You'd sound petty and like putting my interest before the company's interest.

 

[trashKENNUT]

lux7,

I don't feel enough to know the details. Like is he your temp boss or anything. I have completely ignore boss request before, and it can happen three ways.

1)Get terminated and pretending to be nice
2)Get terminated and no pretense. All out war
3)Conversation, real talk, that sometimes leads to great working relationship.

I don't feel enough about your story to at least help, that is if i can, even.

Zac

 

[lux7]

Yeah it's a bit light on details -didn't wanna make it too long-.

It's an old story, at the time he was my boss. He had inherited the title when the actual CEO had to take a forced prolonged leave for family reasons, total coincidence he was in that position and as many expected he bombed it (not getting any pleasure out of it BTW, don't resent him much... Unless I really focus on recalling the feelings during times like that lol).

At the time I had a perm contract and he had strong authority over whether I'd get promoted at the end of the contract or not get a new contract at all and be let go.
At that time I could have (very) ill afforded being let go.
That's why avoiding a direct confrontation which could lead to a "full out war" was pretty high in the priority list.

 

[skin_man]

Hi lux,

I think you handled it in the best way possible considering the circumstances. I mean that because from your stand point *during* the hiatus, you felt a certain way as you described and even afterwards, the emotion lingered. These are invisible parts which your boss and his associates could not have picked up on and so you did well in responding like you did.

The best way to approach these type of scenarios is to be more proactive for the future. If you work in an office, you are going to face this sort of thing at numerous times - especially if you are not the boss there. So proactive measures include:

1. Be social at every turn when with these office folk. It's almost an unwritten law that whatever is not getting attention or drawing attention gets ignored or bullied. Which means make your presence known by striking conversation up whether you are invited or not. You would stir a few laughs at your expense but if you keep a straight face, no one will know you are being a jester for the moment.

2. When you have opportunity, look out for the needs of those within the group as though you were their own boss. This is a little tough if you don't know what they want yet but if you are at least able to demonstrate some sort of courage and outspoken attitude, they tend to gravtitate towards that persona as the leader, whether anyone just met you or not.

3. Be ready for vultures. When enthusiasm is at its peak, people who are vampires tend to want to prey on that, you must have a strapped on strategy on how you would handle these social challenges in a suave way - whether a boss is the cause or not. If you had followed steps one and two above, you'd realise that some people would be emotionally won over to your side in such a scenario, and so when you get a higher up come at you in an uncaliberated way, they would actually side you and even bridge the gap for you to be able to save face.

4. Monitor your thoughts. Victim mentality does creep in when in groups out of your clear control and with more new faces coming in, you might loose your whim but stay in charge mentally and the rest will follow suit.



Hope it's not too late and it still helps.

ENjoy!