Workplace relationships- need to change my attitude to bosses please help!

[WorkNCer]

I'm noticing a pattern at work and I obviously need to change my attitude. I am hoping dear MNers you might have some advice for me.

I have a very niche male dominated job and its part time and in the industry I work in PT is rarer than unicorn sh... So Basically it's not an option for me to find another one while DCs are small.

The problem is my bosses. In several previous jobs now I have become disillusioned with them and changed jobs. I have a need to look up to them, feel challenged by them, feel like I could learn something from them. To respect them basically.
I realise in my favourite previous jobs this has been the case. But of course there have been poor disengaged managers, who had crap ideas but insisted they be carried out, or have been super controlling and not given me any freedom to do my job.

It's happening to me again now I have inherited a boss who knows very little about my actual role (as I said it's super niche) but he is fond of literally dictating to me what to say in strategic emails etc and makes lots of decisions about my work in the days I am off. On the couple of occasions I did want guidance he was useless. In the rare one to ones we have (that he is not too busy for) I end up counselling him about his workload and office politics issues. I find it harder and harder to conceal at work that I resent him and its really putting me off the job.

How do I stop my unrealistic boss expectations from pushing me to leave another job? How do I stop needing to prove myself all the time and looking for praise from some remote and perfect super boss? It feels so messed up. I worry I am looking for a good parent figure or something.

Oh and final point. I am fairly sure that am a crap boss myself. I manage someone who I also inherited.with no training in my area so not able to delegate much to her. I see her once a week for a one to one and the rest of the time am quite disengaged with her actual workload as I don't want her to think I am breathing down her neck. I ask her every day how she is getting on with x and she says fine so I leave it there. I have a massive workload and feel overwhelmed trying to cram it into part time and supervise someone else who isn't really able to help. (She has already said our specialism is not what she wants to do long term).

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Oh OP, it's rotten working for an awful boss. You have my sympathies. I don't think it's unreasonable to wish that he were doing a better job, and I don't think it's the sign of some major psychological issue for you!

I wonder if you could find an uber-polite and flattering way of telling him some of your concerns. For example, with the dictated emails, how about saying 'I've learnt so much for you, but when you dictate emails like this, I feel like I am not really doing the job myself - I'm not learning for myself. I was wondering whether it would be OK for me to draft the email and then bring it to you to check. That way, I get to stretch my wings a bit. Hopefully I'll get better and then you won't need to do it any more in future.' I know it's beyond shit having to do this, but if you can make him a partner in a process of prising his fingers off your keyboard, if you can get him to invest in your progress and to see it as a personal score for him when he is no longer micro-managing you, it could be helpful.

You don't sound like a crap manager, by the way, but you do sound like you are overwhelmed. I think that when the work piles up, it's easy to focus on getting your head down and ploughing through it, rather than longer term solutions like training. However, as you already know, this is a mistake. Even if your assistant doesn't want to be trained in this specialty, I think you need to make more use of her as a resource. She is there to assist you, and by taking some of this work off you, she can really help. Even if it means you have to fall further behind with your workload in the short term, it's important that you develop her role (for yourself as well as for her).

In terms of the decisionmaking - this is a toughie, because obviously work goes on when you're not in the office. Without knowing the rhythm of your job, and what can or can't wait, it's hard to know what to advise.

Do you work in a small organisation or is there a hierarchy above your immediate manager? If it's a small place you're rather stuck and your only option probably is to keep moving around until you find a role/team that is more compatible with your needs. If it's a bigger organisation you can either take the view that your weak manager is an obstacle between you and the people that really matter, or an opportunity to be exploited and manipulated, or both :)

For example, if you know more about your work than your manager it can help to be one step ahead of them, propose changes and improvements but make sure you always copy senior management. The manager looks good, you look good and eventually the manager will simply trust you to get on with it and not interfere. If you've got someone that wants to offload their woes, use it as an opportunity to identify areas you could take charge. My immediate manager, for example, confided in me that he hates writing... reports, copy, anything. So guess who has made herself invaluable as scribe? :)

I know exactly what you're talking about, WorkNcer, it can be truly frustrating and exhausting. I too had a manager 'slotted in' who knows nothing about my job and is following some kind of 70's management style. We had a meeting with our general manager about it this week because the relationship had broken down. I too had the over-shoulder scrutiny, made worse because he knows nothing of my job. I'm convinced he wouldn't do it to a male colleague.

Do you have a manager above your own line manager that you could approach? That's what I did when I couldn't get through to my line manager? I jotted down everything that was going awry and then circled the deal-breakers on that list for my own reference.

I'm sorry that you're going through this, it's not easy.

Thanks so much all. I really appreciate getting a different perspective and your ideas have made me feel a lot less disempowered by it all.

Shove you are right and I will try to develop my assistant further. She's hinted that she'll be moving on in the summer so I will try to help her feel I can give her transferable skills etc to incentivise her to do more while she is with me. At the moment I am in the trap of finding it quicker to do the complex stuff myself than spend time explaining to her and I know that that way madness lies for the pair of us.
And thanks for the advice re tactful approach to the micro management from inept boss man. I will look for a way to appeal to his massive ego as I can see that he might respond to that.

Cogito great advice I will try to turn these frustrating one to ones where I end up supporting my boss, to my advantage. I've also been reluctant to do stuff that will make him look good as I have resented him being dropped on me as my boss. But now you point it our I can see that if I can do that for him he

Oh fat fingers. Sorry.
Let me ramble on some more.

Cogito I was trying to say. I can see the benefits of making him look good if it means he might stop patronising me so much.

Lying Witch sorry you have to put up with this too. I also feel that a man in my role would not be treated this way. The crap that my boss comes out with on a daily basis to do with me being part time and e.g. not being able to do breakfast or evening meetings or do work on the days I am 'off', (even though I do check and answer emails out of guilt when I can) all drive me nuts.
From what he has said of his private life arrangements he is an extremely hands off dad and seemingly never has to make ANY compromises at work due to his kids as his wife does it all. So he seems to be in a permanent state of bemusement that any of this is even an issue for me. Or he does this creepy 'indulgent' thing as if he's letting me off as a favour.

The idea of going to his boss is very appealing as he IS a proper boss in my book and I do respect him. But I don't know if it's feasible unfortunately. Sadly our top boss got too busy overseeing several projects at once so several of his line reports (including me) were distributed elsewhere, which is why I have this current awful boss.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts, I feel definitely less in dread of the office tomorrow. And at least it's finally Friday!

Not sure if my top boss posting was very clear. My current boss and I used to report to the same boss at top of tree. Then current boss got promoted to take some pressure off our overstretched top boss. And in the process became my new boss.

I have always treated my "boss" as an equal. They know some stuff. I know some stuff. They're not god.

You maybe need to look at why you have this need to look up to someone.

Wips yes that is something I worry about. I catch myself wanting praise and wonder why I care about getting that. I have lost a LOT of confidence at work since coming back after DC. I don't know why.

I am now in such an specialised role that my generalist boss doesn't know if I do it well or badly anyway (so praise is never forthcoming) just that I get it done which of course he is right to expect. but instead of trusting me to get on with it he feels he needs to manage me minutely on the non-specialist issues that he can.

I wonder whether he is confident too about his promotion and feels the need to 'look down to' me as his new report, making us a really bad fit.