Humiliated in meeting

[Hammili]

I don’t want this to be too outing. Essentially boss is a Jekyll and Hyde character, one minute overly friendly and enthusiastic the next minute he can be nasty, overbearing and demanding

Meeting yesterday with 4 people. He floated an idea (by floated I mean demanded it happens). I spoke up as to the barriers to stop this from happening (it’s the area I manage). He was incredibly rude, told me to stop talking, make it happen, I’m not interested in the issues and that I was being confrontational.

At that point I shut up and he said (very sarcastically) “so do you think you can make this happen?” - to which I had to reply yes

Moved on to another point of the meeting and he was talking , stopped and demanded I look at him and maintain eye contact with him the whole time he is talking. Told me I was impolite and “your eye contact is all over the place”, look at me when I’m talking to you. “There that’s better”.

it was humiliating, embarrassing, I felt like a little child.

my line manager was in the meeting and walked out with me at the end, she could see I was upset and agreed his behaviour was appalling. I went home to work for the day.

would HR do anything about this? Or is it fair enough to demand extended eye contact from someone

Leave before it permanently damages your mental health. You're worth so much more. Don't try to be a hero staying there longer than anyone else did. It really isn't worth it. I speak from bitter experience.

If he’s not the owner, then HR and you need to go above him and state to those higher up exactly what is happening and how his behaviour is causing damage both reputationally and practically.

Completely bizarre behaviour

Definitely go to HR. What a cunt

I'm sorry you were humiliated during that meeting.

I would bring it to HR's attention. Most definitely.

I would also recommend that you sign yourself up for an assertiveness training course so that you have the skills, going forwards, in dealing with asshats like this bloke.

In relation to this point you made in your opening message @Hammili :
"At that point I shut up and he said (very sarcastically) “so do you think you can make this happen?” - to which I had to reply yes"
I would have replied "I will have to politely disagree with your opinion because as the manager of the area that you're asking to make this happen, I can categorically affirm that it is not possible for this to happen and my opinion on that hasn't changed since the last time you asked me a few minutes ago"

If you felt empowered you could go on "Based on the information and experience I have built up in this area, the barriers to entry are very important and will add X amount of costs to the project which are an unnecessary expense. I'd imagine that you would be interested in these issues when our client comes and asks us why we've spent X amount on unnecessary expenses." or explain why it's not possible to do what it is that he's asking to be done, asking for the impossible.

He sounds like a complete and utter dick, with a serious case of inflated self-importance. Time to deflate that level of self importance.
All of the above could be said to a manager without the need to agree with their idiotic point of view.

The trick here is to be assertive without being aggressive or bitchy or rude and also without having to tow the party line which isn't possible.

Your line manager should have backed you up in the meeting. I doubt that you will be able to rely on backing from them further down the line.

I'm in my 60's so I'm not longer prepared to tolerate this kind of shit from my boss.
The last time something like this happened I told her I'd return to the meeting if she though she could behave like a civilised human being and walked off.
She didn't do it again. She still picks on the younger ones though as I often find them crying in the toilets.

HR are there to protect the organisation, not you.

What you need in this situation is a union.

By all means go to HR, but it is unlikely they will take it further unless they think the boss is putting the organisation at risk.

Spotted HIM straight away.Absolutely typical male response.Appalling…

Really clear example of bullying. Absolutely go to HR (and your union - @Postapocalypticcowgirl isn’t wrong, but it’s in the companies best interest to deal with bullies otherwise paying out for constructive dismissal cases gets expensive).

Your manger should have supported you. I'd confide in them that you are unhappy and see if they can escalate it

I'd be looking for a different job after that.
Also, easy to say from a distance I know but you'd have been well within your rights to walk out of the meeting stating that you were not prepared to tolerate being spoken to like that.

What did your LM do to help?

Definitely talk to your manager, and given I assume you are not at work today and tomorrow, it will be several days after the event so not a quick reaction. No-one can then accuse you of hot headedness as a defence mechanism.

Then probably HR, the point made about neurodiversity and discrimination is a valid one, and if you have never seen him behave like that to a man, then reasonable to assume you are treated differently because you are a woman.

Start thinking about another job as well in the meantime.

OP if he does anything like this again, just say very quietly that you think his attitude towards you is rude at best and sexist at worst (assuming you are female) and would he like to start the conversation with you again?

He'll either get very angry (and there will be plenty of witnesses if you are in a meeting) or pipe down because you've stood up to him. If the former, you can say you are not putting with his rudeness and overreaction and you are going to speak to HR (then do it).

You do not have to put up with this.

Yes. As you rightly say it is hard to do when it's your job on the line but why on earth should anyone have to put up with this?

If it’s public sector, raise a grievance about the bullying. There is likely a known history and he may be reprimanded for it.

I am disappointed in your line manager too. Why on earth did they not intervene?

Sorry I don’t understand how you differentiate between boss and line manager. Is the “boss” in your parliance, your managers manager`?

Report report report every instance. It continues happening - get signed off by doctor for stress on the regular.

Public sector aren’t always good at removing people so could take time or you could be switched to another team eventually. But it works both ways if his awful behaviour ends up with you taking lots of time off - public sector seem to do little to get rid of long term sick staff, and at least you don’t have to put up with his crap.

I’m not HR, but have worked with great HR teams. The good ones would train line managers like yourself so that no one gets “ripped into”. Glad I don’t work in your organisation.

I would speak to your LM. Don’t focus on humiliation aspect, but quite simply the inappropriate behaviour of the man.

Tell your LM that you need her support to address this so it doesn’t continue. Ask her to consider what action she can take. Start from a position of expecting that she will provide this. If she is then flakey or unhelpful, make clear that you feel it cannot be allowed to continue and you would hope for support. Take it higher if needed.

Try to focus on the behaviour and note down descriptions of what he said and did. Make that the main focus. At the end, you can note down how these actions made you feel. Don’t start with those points though.

Shocking. Don’t take it lying down.

I was writing notes and looking at my screen, at that point I didn’t try myself not to cry if I had to interact with him again.
I get your point that you were diverting your attention so that you didn't cry, but at the same time I can see that as your were typing and concentrating on your screen , it could seem that you were making clear that you weren't listening to a word he was saying which would have been rude. When I'm talking to somebody I like them to look at me at least a few times and indicate that they are at least participating in the conversation. Anything else is downright rude.

You're not going to last unless (and this is very challenging, I would struggle to do it) you can learn to shrug off his ridiculous requests... or he leaves. I'm only thinking of how to manage your stress levels in meantime while the other options get played out.

Do you recognise yourself in OP’s post?