Hi! Maybe someone has advice…
Latley I have troubles with being anxious, angry and almost bitter at work, and only at work.
The meditation or metta-exercises I do at home work niceley in my freetime, but the effect disappears almost right-away and I get all grumpy, angry and anxious once I’m at my desk at work.

The job is good and awful at the same time…

With lots of luck I landed a creative job a couple of years ago. I love the work I do, I do it out of passion. And for this field the work conditions are excellent (little overtime, good pay, extra vacation, yoga lessons every tuesday, I work with a friend.).
I am very secure in my abilties and I get lots of positive feedback from peers and coworkers. It’s challenging but that brings tons of opportunities, most of the time I’m very satisfied.
So I don’t want to change my job.

The difficult thing about this job is my boss – she owns the company.
But she is a fast thinking woman that easily flips into existential panic… and that results into her being angry and irritated.
And occassionally she is a bully, but she doesn’t know it…

When I started the job, my boss was often very boisterous, she brought a handful of young interns to crying fits, several former colleagues left the place because they couldn’t deal with her anymore and she bullied one co-worker to the point where she was sued.
Often times she is ungrateful to other co-workers, or has shouting matches with them (she isn’t aware that she is raising her voice.)
I am lucky, because I get better treatment.

In the last two years, her moods got a lot better. But this year I still got chewed through two times:
Once because I complained that I don’t want to her to talk badly about my body, making comments if I’m fat or thin or how my shirt fits or how thick my tights are – I tried to say this diplomatically, but she flew in a rage. She was even more ignited when I tried to conciliate that day. I got chewed through, got into a crying fit, she screamed at me that I shouldn’t cry at my age.
We forgot about this the next day, but I feel like I haven’t been treated fairly :/.

The second time she was angered because she thought that I didn’t do a job from 2 weeks ago quickly enough (I didn’t have instructions on what to do and had to wait for them for an hour.). In her anger, words get turned around in my mouth, situations from months ago get misinterpreted, I got a critique session that was 20 minutes of only negative critique.

Sounds awful? It is! But remember the part where I describe why I like this job again ;).
My boss does this rarley – twice this year.

But these negative situations with my boss spin around in my head constantly once I sit down at work…
the crying 16 year old intern on the stairs 3 years ago, the coworkers in tears stroking the dog, me being chewed through, her screaming at me, her indignantly complaining that I didn’t put away something after I stepped on a bee and cringed in pain on the floor…
(The beesting probably hit close to a nerve, I was almost fainting from the pain, but she didn’t know how much it hurt.)

My boss gets sometimes a little bit angry at random things, an open window, when the kitchen smells like food, when we are on the phone and don’t answer her quick enough who we are talking to etc.
I hear it in her voice, see it in her stance, when she closes doors loudly etc.

With other people I wouldn’t think too much about it, but I am in constant tension, because saw several times how something small can ignite her anger and what the results are. And while I trust in my abilities as fast thinker and good talker, I am afraid my actions or my words will we be misinterpreted again.

I figure that she fears that there isn’t enough work, or that she deals with difficult times at court with one former co-worker sueing.
She has her moments of good moods and clarity, actually she is perfectly fine 90% of the time… but it can turn like that weather.

(I’m sorry if I mangled the language a bit, I’m not a native speaker :))

How can I deal with this?

• This topic was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by Kaddi.