Employee treated like @?*&

[pezza.......]

My girlfriend has asked a good question.  She works for a very successful company, her boss is very well educated and can be a very funny guy. So why does he feel the need to talk to all of the people that work directly for him like 5 year olds?

Most of her work is carried out in close proximity to him and she does very well at humouring him, but why is it that people in these positions feel the need to be obnoxious?

 

Any ideas?

[cat woman]

I've come across in my working years with supervisers/bosses with this sort of attitude, i think that they are the under dog at home and treat people how they wish in the working enviroment just to prove that they are in control where they not at home. I feel sorry for people who are like this, they never earn any respect from the work force, and just makes a bad atmosphere for everyone. I have always spoken and treated people how i would like to be spoken and treated, you cant go wrong, but unfortunately not everyone is like that, (its a sad world). Tell your girlfriend to imagine him in a pair of jazzy underpants, that would help her through the working day.  :-)

[vicars]

There are several reasons that people do this:

A power thing - people get to like power and put people down to get their power rush.

A lack of understanding - this can come from having been treated like this themselves and being unable to recognise that this is not the way to behave. They may never have been treated badly but just do not understand how their actions effect other people.

Insecurity - people are afraid of others shining more brightly than them so put the achievers down.

Bad manners - different from above in that they realise what they are doing but couldn't care less.

Bad upbringing - parents never corrected them and so nobody else can - they get away with it all the time and why should they care about what others think if their parents/past employers etc never corrected them.

You can be Oxford educated but still have personality disorders, and if you say this guy is very funny at times I would guess it is a mixture of all the above but especially insecurity - he is looking for attention and cant stand others getting it. Get people to stop laughing with him and he would not know what is up - would probably turn nasty and this would show him as simply being a bit of an animal, thoughtless, uncaring and self centred. You say as well that he treats the people working directly for him like 5 year olds, and I bet he does not treat others like that. This would clearly be an insecurity issue but also a lack of understanding of how to manage - he probably feels this is the way to get results and this may come from the culture he was brought up in - dominate others to succeed and rule with an iron fist. Unfortunately this gets short term results, though does not lead to long term success unless he is jammy and has bosses who don't look at simple things like nurturing staff or praising good work to encourage more. Your girlfriend has my sympathy.

[undercovers]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/08/26/corporate.psychopaths/

apparently the office is the place for our psychopathic brethern - so watch out if he brings a nice Chianti in to have with his �lunch�

[dyfusion]

He does this because it gives him significance.  He doesn�t even know he�s doing it.  It�s not about his education or money just his pattern.  If your girlfriend watches him closely, she will notice the SAME things he does when he is going into that state.  She needs to watch his breathing (e.g. shallow, fast) his physiology (his body) then his language.  Once she has identified WHAT he does! She then needs to shock his nervous system. Some thing that will CHANGE his state, it could be a hard slap on his back, then ask him a question that has NOTHING TO do with anything BUT requires an answer.  HE will go into brain fry!!!! He will come out of that NASTY state too answer the question.  And he WILL automatically return to the nasty state (she will have already identified the things) and keep repeating the process until it becomes programmed in him.  It is a form of NLP.

[dmsjps]

With my boss it's a power thing, definitely; he has no insecurities whatsoever: thinks he's gorgeous (but isn't, not by a long shot), thinks he's brilliant (and is, at his job, I have to admit), and thinks everyone wants to watch his every move because he positively relishes having an audience. However, none of that matters normally. Unfortunately, because of his people management / staff morale skills, it makes a relatively trying problem very, very annoying and he gets a big fat zero. He insists on playing staff off against each other by being incredibly nice to one of us one day and putting one of the others down - in front of each other - and then turning the tables the next day. I think it's very, very unprofessional but he's the boss so that's it, tough luck!

 

I guess at the end of the day some people just get too big for their boots. Oh well, it's a long way for them to fall.