When your boss is threatened by your ideas, s/he may send you signs that your intelligence, creativity, and enthusiasm are not welcome anymore. That means your boss now wants you to quit your job. If your manager is truly terrified of you, you may be subjected to disciplinary action as a pathetic attempt to put out your fire. It happens because fearful bosses don’t empower their workers; instead, they bring them down. These types of bosses only prefer flattering and obedient employees. When you are serving a toxic boss and you are too smart, too vocal or too creative, your boss will send you signs that he or she wants you to leave your job.
Signs Your Boss Wants You to Quit
Feeling like your boss wants you to quit can make your day-to-day life exceptionally stressful. If you’re seeing signs you should quit your job, take matters into your own hands by doing things like planning for a new career and making your life outside of work more enjoyable.
Hopefully your current boss isn’t as insufferable as any of the higher-ups in Horrible Bosses. After all, no one wants their career life to feel like a dark comedy that’s poised to end disastrously. But, having a strained relationship with a supervisor may be a sign you should quit your job. If you don’t have the best rapport with your boss, you’re definitely not alone. And you never know, if your boss has been particularly difficult lately, they may actually want you to quit. Fortunately, if your boss or your job makes you miserable, you have other options. Take your supervisor’s behavior as a blessing in disguise and a sign that it’s time to quit your job and move on to bigger, better opportunities.
If you think you may be in this situation, don’t despair! After you learn some signs that may indicate your current job (or boss) isn’t for you, we’ll offer advice on how to make the most of a bad situation until you find something better. And remember, isolated incidents could mean anything, but if you notice a pattern, you may want to start updating your resume.
What are the signs your boss wants you gone?
- Everything I do seems to annoy my boss.
- My boss has started micromanaging me.
- My boss has completely abandoned me; it’s like I don’t exist.
- There is nothing I do that my boss fails to criticize.
- There is no small talk for us.
- My boss won’t greet me — or smile.
- My boss won’t make eye contact.
- My boss has a derogatory demeanor and reserved, domineering body language when dealing with me — and behaves differently with others.
- My boss isn’t available for me via email or phone.
- My boss attributes my successes to my colleagues.
- I get blamed for problems that were not my fault.
- When I ask my boss for feedback, I rarely get it.
- My boss doesn’t listen to anything I say.
- My boss goes to my subordinates first for new projects — not me.
- My boss no longer asks for my input on key decisions.
- I’m often excluded from major meetings that involve my work.
- My boss’s door is always closed for me.
- My boss always disagrees with me.
If more than half of the statements above apply to your situation, your workplace dynamic might indeed be unfavorable. However, before rushing into conclusions, let’s see if you’re prone to some type of negative thinking that can affect your perception of your work relationships.
“I think my boss wants me out”: identifying negative thinking
How do you determine if this is a catastrophizing thought, rather than the real situation at hand? Your first task is to stop the kind of thinking that fosters helplessness. Instead of the exaggerations your mind is conjuring, focus on rational alternatives.
We can start to change our thinking when we recognize common patterns. This requires self-awareness, because irrational thoughts are often automatic — and convincing. Check out the table below to see if the examples in the left column ring true to your current situation at work. Then examine the rational alternatives in the right column and modify them to fit your situation.
Causes of Stress in the Workplace That You Should Know
Remote work & Productivity
They always disagree with you
It’s also crucial to realize that your supervisor is still a human and that while this hostile attitude is unjust, it’s a normal reaction to the climate produced by frequently hiring and dismissing people. So, if your employer continuously disagrees with you, it’s possible that they’re trying to assuage their own fears of terminating you.
When your manager considers firing you, they will request that you document everything connected to your job. Filling out timesheets so the organization can keep track of how you spend your hours and minutes may be part of it. From now on, they will give you even the smallest instructions in written form. For example, the feedback that used to be given during a coffee break now requires an email chain with your boss’s boss cc’d.
Denied overtime
Once your boss has decided to terminate you, he or she will refuse to pay you overtime. It’s an attempt to minimize your monetary perks in order for you to feel discouraged in your job and quit. Sometimes your boss will drive you to work some extra hours, but you will not get paid any overtime.
Realizing that your boss wants you to leave is sad, but you’ll stop feeling awful about the issue when you know that merely being yourself has made your employer uneasy to the point of excessive conduct. You’ll no longer blame yourself for being intelligent and capable because you’ll see that it’s your terrified employer, not you, who has a problem. You’ll notice that your management is frightened of your own strength. It’s possible that you’ll have to shift employment. That’s fine! You weren’t planning on leaving this job anyhow.
Sources:
https://www.comptia.org/career-change/plan/how-to/hate-your-boss
https://anywhere.epam.com/en/blog/18-signs-your-boss-wants-you-to-leave-and-what-to-do-about-it
https://managementverge.com/10-signs-your-boss-wants-you-to-leave-the-job/