Where Do You People Keep Finding These Awful Managers?!

I have a manager who I can only classify as evil. It doesn’t matter your skill level; she will try to get you fired on the sole basis of you being “too ugly” and/or being better off than her. Unfortunately, she is a high-school dropout and fifty-nine-year-old divorcee who lives way above her means, so even the college graduates straight out of college with a mountain of debt are viewed, in her eyes, as privileged children who had the world handed to them.

Back when I was young and naïve, [Manager] used to use me as a minion to target this one guy. He was a jerk who was bad at his job, but she mostly wanted him gone due to his chronic illness. Nevertheless, she got her way and pinned it on me, framing it that we needed to fire him if they wanted “me” to stay. I just wanted him better managed, man.

The health crisis happens, and since our former target is gone, [Manager] has no one to blame as a distraction for her being unable to do her work. Therefore, she turns her sights on me and begins gaslighting the h*** out of me. Because we are remote at this time, this evil woman is the only one I can talk to at work — by her own hand. She then moves to get me fired by calling me “catty” and “difficult” when I am actually confused and frustrated.

Luckily, that doesn’t happen, and another manager sees what she is doing. He insists that I start working under him, and a year later, I am thriving! I am also able to finally get help for my mental and physical health issues, where previously, [Manager] refused to let me take my sick days off. I even rise to be on the same level as her in a short amount of time.

Fast forward. My new manager leaves the company, and [Manager] tries to swoop in and be all “us against the world” again. She even tries to pit me against a new hire (who is wonderful in every way, but has male-pattern baldness so that is a no for her). I am older, wiser, and in a better mental state a year after the fact, so I manage to stave off her advances. She doesn’t like that very much. Her minion is gone!

Therefore, she fervently tries a new round of attempts to get me fired. But because everyone who worked with us pre-global health crisis already knows what she did to me due to a very public mental break, she has to throw suspicion off of her and make it look like it is OUR boss who is insisting that I be fired. She goes around telling everyone what a valuable member of the team I am to the point that it is beyond creepy.

Meanwhile, she also sets up situations trying to make it look like I am overstepping bounds by privately asking me for tasks for her subordinates, only to send a nasty, aggressive response in front of our boss when I (le gasp!) give her suggestions. Luckily, each time I am able to call her out on it in the sweetest and most apologetic manner (i.e. “I am so sorry. They don’t have to do these tasks. I only mentioned it because you asked, but no worries!”) so she is even nastier for no reason. 

Her whole aim is to make it look like I am needlessly attacking her and questioning her competency while acting like she is this sweet, innocent victim who has done nothing wrong and loves me so much that she sees me as a daughter! 

One day, though, we are sitting in an all-staff meeting when her boss asks me a question about why test cases aren’t matching up.

Me: “I am not sure, as I haven’t had a chance to look at the problem quite yet, but is it possible that it is [reason]?”

His eyes get all wide in surprise and he starts nodding approvingly.

Boss: “You know? I did not. See, [Manager]? I told you she was good! I didn’t even think about it!”

He crows and sings my praises as he fixes his issue for himself. Meanwhile, she is left stuttering with egg all over her face.

Manager: “I-I already knew she was good, [Boss].”

It definitely felt satisfying to know our boss has my back and sees the good I do, no matter how much [Manager] tries to tear me down.