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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2025-02-05 05:04:01+00:00.

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verbally abusive boss

Originally posted to Ask A Manager

Thanks to theriverbedrunsdry for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: hostile workplace

Original Post Sept 11, 2008

I recently left a large internet company to join a well established, yet small creative agency. The company’s philosophy of listening and constantly learning really connected with me and the team was very passionate about doing good work for a great set of clients.

The issue here is the level of verbal abuse that I have since found out is a feature of the work environment. The cool radio station playing in the background wasn’t because the office was hip – it was to cover up the screaming coming from the executive office for even the smallest offenses. Late 10 minutes? Well, you are going to get yelled at for a half hour and have every other fault or perceived flaw flung at you along with a litany of questioning of your professionalism and dedication. Didn’t convey the exact message that the founder force fed you before a client meeting? Well, that is good for at least an hour.

I have tried everything from being calm and reasonable, to trying to get a work in edge wise, to confronting him and telling him behavior is unprofessional and damaging, to just flat out ending the conversation and walking out. Unfortunately, because I am not willing to sit through these tirades with my hands folded and head down like all of the other executive team, I am being froze out of key meetings and now enduring work which is totally not in my job description suddenly becoming my responsibility (i.e. I am a producer and suddenly I am being told that site QA, customer research and architecture work is also part of my duties).

I am a senior level person with over 10 years of experience and have not had the experience of working for someone who only knows how to express themselves by yelling. I just started this job and really would like to get a year in before going, but this is taking a toll on my health and I dread stepping foot in this place. There were also a whole host of things that they flat out lied about during the interview process (no 401k, no flexible hours, team is widely dispersed) and I would have never taken this role if I had known. I am not sure what to do here – I am very on edge and don’t think I have it in me to deal with another day wasted with these tirades.

Update Dec 19, 2009

I emailed you a little over a year ago (see entry under “jerks” for September 2008) about my verbally abusive boss at a small creative agency. Well – I hung in there until I couldn’t stand it any longer and found something else and gave my notice two days before the Thanksgiving break in 2008. I honestly don’t think I have ever had such a tirade unleashed against me as when I gave my notice. He badgered me over and over about how I had misconstrued his yelling and that he was just passionate about his work. It then turned into a horrible set of personal attacks and threats of lawsuits if I ever contacted anyone from the agency again – he even demanded that I remove the agency’s name from my LinkedIn profile as he perceived it to be some sort of legal infringement for me to even say I had ever worked there.

Long story short – instead of the two weeks I intended to give, I left at the end of the following day. This was not before he got the whole company together (about 20 people) in the conference room to talk about how little I had added to their process and how they would be going on and probably doing better now that I was gone. Two more people gave their notices by the end of that day because he was such a tyrant about the whole thing.

Unfortunately the job I left for was somewhat out of the frying pan and into the fire. I left for a publicly traded, much larger creative agency as a director and was really excited to get to hopefully work with some decent folks again. On day one – I got a taste of how things really were – they “forgot” to mention that I was expected to keep a set of clothes at work for all of the all-nighters and then showed me the sleeping bunks they had built along with a shower so folks could live at work.

I was given accounts in both LA and NY (despite having been told there would be no travel), so I worked from 5am til 8 or 9pm and was routinely called out in executive meetings for not taking one for the team (all the rest of whom where single and without kids unlike me) and staying on with them all night. The final straw was when the company did not protect me from a mid-level manager who obviously had mental issues and that I had a strong hand in her getting fired because of client complaints. She slashed my tires, broke into the office and stole a laptop, and then called my multi-million dollar client and aired all of the company’s dirty laundry. When they left her go, I was told to leave the office and stay at a nearby cafe because they were worried that she would become physically violent – never mind that I had to buy my own coffee. In the end, even though the worst did not take place, I had to endure numerous phone calls from her at all hours and slanderings on facebook.

After 10 months, I have since left that agency as well and have vowed to never work in an agency again. I am currently relocating and am looking for a nice, “normal” quiet job after taking 6 months off to recuperate.

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