Advise Me

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

I am a smart and worthwhile person. I deserve respect.

If I keep repeating that over and over again, do you think it will magically appear? Me neither.

*sigh*

My boss is driving me batty. I was working from home today. After a meeting, he called me. Of cousrse, this was during the two minutes I was up to get a drink, and I missed him. I called him back within two minutes. First I called the desk he sits at that he isn't supposed to sit at because it's an SVP desk and, like me, he's a VP. No answer. I tried his real desk which he forwards to the other desk and left him a message there.

I never heard back from him. At 5pm, I IMed him asking if he still wanted to chat. My husband came home sick around 4:15 and was upstairs in bed, and my dad needed to get home to a meeting for his neighborhood soon. Five minutes later, he IMed me back and asked if I was still there. I responded in the affirmative, and my phone rang a few seconds later.

He asked me a question about a meeting that I'd scheduled for next week when I'm on vacation and I answered it. He asked me to give him two minutes, and he'd call me back.

At 5:22, I IMed him and asked if he could call me sooner rather than later, explaining about my husband and dad and needing to feed my wee ones.

No response.

My dad left, and the wee ones played nicely in the basement. I took my laptop downstairs to inform them that I was making dinner and in three minutes they needed to come upstairs to eat (can you say "leftovers"?). I then fed them.

At 5:52, my boss IMed me and said he'd talk to me tomorrow.

Dude, you said you needed to talk to me immediately. I called you back. You called me and asked for two minutes. I IMed you twenty minutes later explaining my situation. Almost forty minutes later, you IM me saying you'll talk to me tomorrow and that's it?

Ironically enough, he did call me thirty seconds after that to fill me in on the two things he wanted to talk to me about tomorrow. He apologized for not seeing my IM, but not for the rest of it.

I've had conversations with him before about how he needs to respect me and my time better. This is by far not the first time that he's blown me off, and I've explained that when I'm working from home and have two wee ones and it's past 5pm, I'll work when needed. However, having me dangling and then just deciding you don't have time is not ok.

And he keeps doing it. When I'm in the office and we have 1:1 meetings scheduled, he'll call me ten minutes before the meeting to tell me he hasn't eaten yet and needs to get lunch and we'll skip our meeting. Or I'll call him five minutes into our scheduled meeting to find out where he is only to discover that he's in a different meeting and is completely blowing me off.

Apparently explaining kindly that he needs to respect my time doesn't cut it. Remember, this is the same boss who gave me the highest rating possible at my interim then ended the "review" session that lasted all of two minutes that I should know that even though I got the highest rating, it isn't guaranteed at the end of the year and that I shouldn't slack. It took all my effort not to reach through the phone and strangle him.

How exactly do you handle a boss who absolutely does not get it?

As a side note, I work three days a week. Two of those days, I work from home. I have an interesting job that has responsibility and makes me use my head and pays pretty well. Oh, and I now have a direct report. I can't recreate this job elsewhere, which would otherwise be my first inclination.