I have all sorts of interesting stories from previous jobs, most of which I have filed away in the “Don’t be ‘that’ boss when you grow up” mental folder.

Now that I’m approaching four years removed from my last job, I think it’s probably safe for me to tell that interesting tale. I had worked at the company for about a year and a half, and had just come back from a wonderful week off at Christmas. I was immediately summoned to my boss’s office, where she introduced me to a man I’ll call Pointy Haired Non-Boss and told me she had a great opportunity for me if I was up for the challenge. But, she said it in that, “It doesn’t really matter if you’re up for it, you’re going to do it anyway” tone of voice. I was being promoted to Project Manager and was tasked with rolling out a rather significant new product…in six weeks.

I had been in that position before - in the job I left three years before that. I’m not one to back down from a challenge, but when I’m backed into a corner and fight really isn’t an option anymore, your only other option is flight - and I said as much to my boss. “You know, the last time I was put in this sort of position, I wound up quitting the job.”

Long story short, we missed the unrealistic deadlines about four times because Pointy Haired Non-Boss had all the project manager authority, even though I seemed to have all of the project manager responsibility - and there was no way I could wrestle any authority from him to actually get anything done. He’d go behind my back and hire contract programmers, and not tell me. He’d force me to keep the project schedule on the network drive (made me unpassword-protect it, to boot), then change it all and not tell me until I printed it out for a status meeting. It was all very stressful…not just for me, but for the entire department. The guy had no clue, and he liked to hide behind threats and white papers and rhetoric about capability maturity models.

Why am I sharing this, you ask? Because today’s Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit calendar entry up in the upper-right part of the page brought back some potent memories. Pointy Haired Non-Boss liked to come into work sometime between 9 and 9:30 AM. My cube overlooked the parking lot, so I also had the responsibility of alerting the other folks in the department as to when his car pulled in.

I on the other hand, was at work at 7:30 AM, took a half hour for lunch and then got the Hell out at 4 PM. Probably a dozen times during the month before I gave my notice, he would mosey in and say he came by my cube at 5 PM with a question, and I wasn’t there. A couple of times I countered with, “I came by your cube at 8 AM with a question, and you weren’t there, either.” He didn’t like me…and I didn’t like him. But, he was one of those guys who got off on power - especially where women were concerned. He would set me up at meetings to look like a complete failure and when I defended myself, I was being “emotional” and “not a team player.” Emotional…yeah, when you rake me over the coals in front of my boss and her boss, I’m going to get a little wound up.

Once he pulled me into a conference room under the guise of discussing my career, then proceeded to threaten me. If I didn’t pull it together, I would lose my job. At that point, I took action. However, my boss told me there was nothing she could do, and HR told me there was nothing they could do. Given that, I realized the only person who apparently could do anything was me. So, I left.

Someday I’ll regale you with the story of the day I gave my notice. Ever had one of those moments which played out so perfectly, you could swear it was a scene out of a movie? Yeah, that was it for me. I wish I could remember which day that was…it might have been exactly four years ago today.