Passive aggressive boss

[Pinkos]

I've posted before about my crappy job/boss. Well this week I sent an email to the group saying I needed to take some personal leave next week. Things have been escalating with my boss. When I say escalate, I mean that he's been making me uncomfortable with certain behaviors (pushiness mainly) and I've become more aware of how he manipulates me into responding to him in certain ways and trying to stop that. I knew this would trigger some retaliatory behavior from him.

So after I send my email he asks our admin to send an email to everyone setting up a lunch for next week. Literally, 3 hours later the admin sends this email copying me. Everyone responds and says they can make it. I haven't said anything yet and he hasn't spoken to me or said anything to me so far other than sending me an unnecessary email asking me if I had followed up on something, to which I replied 'yes.'

Now I don't want to go to lunch with these people. He did me a favor as far as I'm concerned. But it's typical practice for him to schedule a HH close to Xmas and I'm planning to be sick and skip that now that he's done this. Am I crazy for thinking he did this intentionally to provoke me or make me feel excluded? What he typically does after doing some shady stuff like this is to come to me later and act like he didn't do it intentionally. I expect once I'm back he'll say *oh I didn't see your email* or something like that where he washes himself clean.

The more I think of this pattern, the more pissed off I'm getting!

So a part of me feels like calling out this passive aggressive bulls*it. I was thinking of sending an email to everyone saying "I guess I'll try not to take it personally that this lunch got scheduled after I said I was gonna be out.[laughing emoji]"

Now that I've written it out it does sound like a bad idea. What do you all think? How would you handle this kinda nonsense? Just ignore it?

[Pinkos]

I just wanted to add that I'm aware of the contradiction of being happy to not have to attend another tedious lunch with these people and being upset that I'm being excluded. I think I'm just chafing at the punitive attitude from him. I haven't done anything other than try to manage a tiresome and immature boss. 

If you read my last post from around this time last year, I feel like he has some issue with me taking time off and creates some drama or complaint whenever I do. I've noticed this pattern over a few years. It seems like I always have some bs to deal with before going on vacation.

[walking on broken glass]

Hi Pinkos!
I think it is perfectly reasonable to be upset when you are excluded, even if you don't like the people you are supposed to spend time with. It is a work event, after all, and you expect to be treated as an equal member of the group.

I wouldn't write what you suggest because it sounds a bit passive aggressive. Would you consider writing something more direct and straightforward? For instance, 'I would really appreciate it if you could move the lunch to a time that I can also make, as I have already said that I will be off work next week'. In that way you voice your complaint in a direct way and you make a reasonable suggestion about how it can be fixed.

If there is a history with your boss being controlling and manipulative, you should trust your instinct that this is not mere coincidence, even though he will insist it is. I am sorry, it is a difficult situation to be in.

[Pinkos]

Thank you for your comment, Walking, esp for the reassurance that I'm not being unreasonable for being upset to be excluded in this way from a work event for the whole department. It feels intentional and like he wants to send me a message. I don't enjoy these people's company but I do attend these things out of obligation and not to be obvious with my disdain for them at this point.

But I feel like all I get from them is contempt and I don't know why I bother. And this kind of behavior from him just reminds me of how much I contort myself to "play nice" while he has no compunction about doing something so obvious to exclude me.

Your script is more appropriate, thank you. If I decide to send anything that's what it will be and not my passive aggressive one. *sigh*

[Pinkos]

Am I playing into his hand by asking to be included? There is a part of me that wonders if he wants me to come with my tail between my legs and asked to be allowed to come to the lunch.  There's something humiliating about it to me. Maybe that's what he's trying to do. It's like when abusive people give you the silent treatment and you're supposed to ask "what's wrong?"

[blunk]

I was thinking, maybe just send an email stating your regrets.

Something like...I regret that I will be unable to attend the XYZ luncheon, due to previously scheduled time off. Please enjoy, and I look forward to hearing about the highlights/seeing photos of the day upon my return.

That way you make it clear that you are aware of the fact that the function was scheduled after you put in for the time off, you don't have to say that you want to be there (because you don't), and you still come across as pleasant.

Just a thought.

[walking on broken glass]

Hi again!
I don't think you are playing into his hands. You have every right to be in this lunch: it is both a social and a work event, and those lunches are supposed to take place to give people that work together some sense of community. If you are deliberately excluded, this hurts your chances not only for socialization within work but perhaps for job prospects too. It might be something that you could even raise with HR, if it is a persistent problem.

Are there any people on the team that you get along with and would like to sit next to in a lunch? This might make all the difference when your boss is awful. If the whole work environment is toxic, would you consider changing jobs? I know it's not easy but it's not good for your mental health to be in such a bad working environment. If you decide that you will definitely leave, you can just focus on doing your job, and try to ignore your boss shenanigans as much as you can. Knowing you will eventually leave might make it more bearable.

[bloomie]

Pinkos - It doesn't feel good to be excluded, especially if it is habitual and there is a pattern to it.  (which I remember you having experienced similar to this before) I am sorry you are still experiencing this.

I think about this kind of thing a bit differently and maybe fall in line with blunk's suggested response. Your boss very well may be acting PA about your time off. That stings and is annoying and something that you will process through. In the meantime, it is a professional environment and your boss has the right to schedule a lunch when they choose and you have the right to politely decline and take your time off and enjoy yourself.

One of the most healthy things I have ever done for myself is to read through The Four Agreements and take the challenge of one of the agreements which is to refuse to take offense.

That doesn't mean the behaviors are not offensive or intentional, rude and deliberate, but it does empower me to make a choice around how I am going to respond and how much power I give over the behaviors toward me. I can choose to decline with dignity and grace and to let it flow down the river of life and move forward.

There is a time to calmly and wisely speak, assert yourself and confront inappropriate managerial decisions and communications and possibly take things up the chain of command. Is this one of those? If not, protect your peace and move on are my thoughts on the matter.

[Pinkos]

Thank you Blunk, Walking and Bloomie. I am appreciative of all your perspectives. I've had some time to calm down and am remembering that I have a lot of shame and sense of worthlessness whenever these behaviors arise. I feel that I'm being punished and shamed for a reason. And on a deeper level there's fear that I must be doing something wrong to bring this about. It has to be my fault somehow. That I am projecting a bad attitude and triggering them etc.

I have to spend a lot of time processing my unconscious thoughts & feelings around this in order to get clarity. It seems like I have to keep affirming and reaffirming myself in order to calm down.  Because you are right, Bloomie, I have to be able to see this as firmly on their side of the fence. It has nothing to do with me and does not require me to do anything to resolve it. Because that's the struggle - feeling this urgency to confront it and stop it somehow. Or resolve it by fawning etc. I vacillate between fight and fawn.

I have been a good and responsible employee and I'm a friendly and cooperative person by nature. I can't seem to trust my own assessment of myself and keep looking at myself through his disapproving eyes. I have been unhappy in this environment but that doesn't mean I have a "bad attitude" or that I deserve to be treated with zero consideration. I feel like I'm being punished for trying to be myself more and not behaving in ways that don't feel natural and genuine to me. I.e., fawning. I don't know if that makes sense. I just get this strong feeling that anytime I'm not anxious and fawning it's noticed by him and he reacts to it. I'm not sure if I'm projecting this into the situation because what I'm describing is familiar to me from my PD parents. I was never able to relax around them and I feel like the same dynamic is happening here with my boss. There's a neediness and anxiety coming from him and it's very strange & uncomfortable how he interacts with me.

I'm open to any observations or feedback on this if anyone feels up to it. I guess I'm trying to reality test while not gaslighting myself about what is right in front of me.

I decided not to reply because the email from the admin came 3-4 hours after my email stating I would be out next week. So I felt it would be redundant to say I wouldn't make the lunch.

[bloomie]

Pinkos - Wow! What deep work you are doing as you examine your thoughts and feelings around this. It seems like you are uncovering some powerful insights!

I have been a good and responsible employee and I'm a friendly and cooperative person by nature. I can't seem to trust my own assessment of myself and keep looking at myself through his disapproving eyes. I have been unhappy in this environment but that doesn't mean I have a "bad attitude" or that I deserve to be treated with zero consideration. I feel like I'm being punished for trying to be myself more and not behaving in ways that don't feel natural and genuine to me. I.e., fawning. I don't know if that makes sense. I just get this strong feeling that anytime I'm not anxious and fawning it's noticed by him and he reacts to it. I'm not sure if I'm projecting this into the situation because what I'm describing is familiar to me from my PD parents. I was never able to relax around them and I feel like the same dynamic is happening here with my boss. There's a neediness and anxiety coming from him and it's very strange & uncomfortable how he interacts with me.

Everything you are describing here makes perfect sense. You owe it to yourself to trust your own assessment of  the neediness and anxiety that is coming from this boss and your appropriate discomfort with it.

It would be wisdom to apply the knowledge and truth of the experiences you have with this boss, that are consistent over time, and adjust your engagement accordingly.

Part of adjusting might be to hold, as much as possible, a cool, professional, emotionally neutral countenance in the workplace. You might be thinking... but, bloomie I already do that! And I am sure you do outwardly, but I am suggesting the boundaries implied in holding a neutral professional posture penetrates to how you allow yourself to think about the things your boss chooses to do and say.

Another part of adjusting to the reality of the atmosphere you are working in might be to begin to choose to detach and remove any emotional investment you may have made in the outcomes and responses to you being you. You are authentically you for yourself. And you are right to honor yourself and your contributions. To celebrate them, even! You walk strong in the knowledge of your worth!

I decided not to reply because the email from the admin came 3-4 hours after my email stating I would be out next week. So I felt it would be redundant to say I wouldn't make the lunch.

Brilliant!!! Exactly that!!!!