Toxic Boss and their tricks

Do you have a toxic boss or just a personality conflict with your superior? There is a huge difference between a boss that you just do not like and a toxic one. Some tricks of toxic bosses are going to be exposed today.

Trick one - impossible deadlines: This trick can catch you totally by surprise if you are not paying attention. Sometimes a boss will simply assign a project in an unreasonable amount of time to complete it. Like “I need this report by noon,” and it is 11:30am and it will take the computer 40 minutes just to pull the data. Another way a boss can make you miss a deadline is to withhold information you need for the job until after some point that it becomes impossible for you to complete the task by the deadline given. Another thing a boss can do to make you miss a deadline is to withhold training for the task or use scheduling to make it impossible for you to attend. A more sneaky approach is to not prioritize the project hoping you will forget about it and swamp you with other work at the same time. The boss will act like the project in question is not that important and wait to pounce when it is not done on time.  

Trick two - attack your documentation: If you start to have good documentation, then a toxic boss will attack this saying that it is taking too much of your time (despite the fact that it takes less than one percent of you work day). They will say that it is making you less productive. What they really want is more wiggle room to twist things up. 

Trick three - make unclear or even contradictory work assignments: Then whichever one you do not do will be the one the boss says they wanted. This tactic can be implemented as simply as a boss who always changing their mind.

Trick number - four claiming that you did not take an unnecessary corrective action: For example, the boss will complain that you did not put a help ticket in to the IT department for that problem, However, the problem was easily solved and/or did not require a help ticket for the IT department. If they make this technical enough it can take a large effort to explain why the corrective action was unnecessary.

Trick number five - isolation: The toxic boss will try to make you feel as if everyone in the office is against you. They will name names. When this happens you need to go to the person named and say something like, “It has been brought to my attention that there is a problem, and I would like to work it out.” Do this every time an issue between you and your peers is brought up by your boss. Never use your boss’ name. You are not there to say bad things about them; you are there to build working relationships and a network with the people you work with and to solve problems - even the ones you know are false.