I have recently returned to work after a few years as a sahm.
I previously had a career in sales which I hated. I started out getting on really well with the very alpha male boss, and he seemed to really like me. He had a huge ego, and on a work night out a few months into the job I ended up accidentally showing him up - without going into the details I made him look stupid, completely unintentionally. The following Monday I went into work and everything had changed. He was completely horrible to me from that point on. I would say he actually hated me. He would have conversations with everyone round the table and completely exclude me and refuse to make eye contact with me. I caught him completely slating me on a couple of occasions to other staff members. The dislike on his face was scary. Because of this I started to really mess up my work. I made a couple of moderately serious technical errors on the system we used because I was so anxious and afraid for my job - at the time I was a single mum and was terrified of getting the sack. This gained me the reputation of being an inept fool with anything technical which spread across the small team I worked in and people who were 'in' with him bought into this - jokes would be made ie Are you following all this pinkbluegreen, better explain it again to pinkbluegreen etc. I'm actually reasonably techno savvy but it became a self fulfilling prophecy and I started to make a lot of mistakes. My belief in myself was at an all time low by the time I left the company for another job. He genuinely hated me. One Christmas he drew me in the office secret santa and refused to get me anything - he gave the money to someone else and asked them to buy me something. I got engaged during my time in the job and he refused to congratulate me.On my last day he had to leave early and left without even saying goodbye to me.
This experience has just coloured my belief in myself to do any job effectively. I now have a part time job in a completely different sector but still feel as if this man and his junior manager who was a clone of him are sitting on my shoulder telling me that I'm useless. I've been put in charge of an area of work that is technical - the company's social media - and it's something that I've found myself to be pretty good at, I've had good results so far and have put together a sound social media strategy. Yet I cannot get away from the image of this man's sneering face and imagine him just laughing at the thought of an idiot like me being put in charge of anything technical. I worked for him for almost two years and I wonder if my self confidence will ever recover.
He has now left the organisation that we both worked for and has risen to the top of another huge organisation where he must earn 6 figures plus. He has taken on a few of our former colleagues which I saw recently on linkedin and it served another reminder that he liked everyone but me. I felt like such a useless pariah at that job and I wonder if I'll ever get past it.
Sorry this is long, I've never really put this down in writing before.
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AIBU?
to still let this man be affecting me nearly ten years later?
36 replies
pinkbluegreenyellow · 07/03/2014 20:58
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