How these subtleties tamed the tyranny

Lou Avakian

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Sep 23, 2019 · 13 min read

I spent two decades in a Fortune 15 company. Nineteen of those years were rewarding, highly educational, mighty challenging, and overall satisfying. But one year was hell.

My misstep

When three work friends encouraged me to apply for an internal job on their release management team, they said that the organization was “fully Agile.” They didn’t use the term “Release Train Engineer” but that’s what they were describing and needing.

I was more than interested! I wanted that role. I already spent some years as a Product Owner and a few more as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach, all of which were great. A Release Train Engineer role excited me. I also looked forward to working with my former teammates again. Years earlier my experiences with them were positive.

Meanwhile a work acquaintance from another organization — a director — reached out to me to ask if I would come and work for her. Her charge was director of a Program Management Office (PMO). She said she needed someone as organized as I am to help clean up a big post-merger mess (post-acquisition mess, really).

Although I was flattered and honored that she even noticed me at all and wanted to “elevate” me, I was more interested in the Release Train Engineer role.

At the time I thought the decision was a no-brainer. Clean up messes with newly-acquired, bitter project managers OR try for a Release Train Engineer role in an emerging technology environment. No-brainer!

I killed the interview and landed the position. I received a raise and a bit of a bump up. Little did I know that I made a terrible decision and that I trusted the wrong people.

Immediately when I started on the team, I was assigned the tedious job of comparing the same data that was managed in twelve different spreadsheets and, you guessed it, reconciling it. This was 2016. Ouch. So much for “fully Agile.”

This job was pitched to me as technologically bleeding edge. But I received a raise and a small promotion to go from Product Owner and Scrum Master to Spreadsheet Reconciler?? Surely the hidden camera was somewhere. Surely this was some kind of a test. Or perhaps I breached a secret portal into weird world? No, unfortunately, it was real.

And why, might you wonder, was I given this boring assignment? I learned I was basically hired to do a job that no one else would do while the person who owned it went out for a medical procedure and lengthy recovery.

I was blindsided. And my so-called friends? Always busy. Lucky for them we were in different states and everyone was telecommuting. They only had to “see” me in instant message, not in person. They never had to face me.

Do not panic

New positions in the company required an 18-month commitment. So, I became the best “spreadsheet reconciler” you ever did see. I found a lot of mistakes, inconsistencies, and gaps. I cleaned up the work, leaned down the process, and set up regular meetings with the data source owners.

We hoped to pitch a tool for data management instead of using twelve conflicting spreadsheets. Everyone involved seemed grateful. We started to make progress.

But then I went and opened my mouth.

In my first one-on-one with my new boss (always over the phone, with desktop-sharing software), I carefully and tactfully questioned what was meant by “fully Agile” as I naturally assumed some basic things, such as a database.

I suggested that reconciling twelve sources wastes time and compromises the release data. I described the efforts I was leading to improve the current chaos, to baseline the data, to seek a tool for it.

I visualized improved reporting. I sincerely wanted to help the organization.

What came next was a lashing.

“Why are you collaborating with other teams? Why are you doing someone else’s job? I don’t pay you to do someone else’s job. You just need to do what you were told to do. You are gravitating to tools because it is what you’re comfortable with. I can’t tolerate this kind of behavior.”

If he intended to leave me speechless, he succeeded.

By this time I had noticed that all the releases managed by the team were managed via spreadsheets. This would be perfectly understandable a couple of decades ago. But this huge company — with a global household name — certainly had tools available. The explanation given to me was that it was all too new, this bleeding edge technology. I wasn’t buying it.

It’s not like the delivery teams in the company didn’t have any tools; this organization was just choosing not to use them. And I was getting spanked for bringing it up. Because yes, tools are what I’m comfortable with, if you want to call it that.

As my new boss berated me, oddly, he worked himself into a tizzy and began yelling. I don’t even remember what he was ranting about. Further blindsided by the irrational yelling, I scrambled to make sense of it.

He repeatedly asked provocative questions but refused to let me respond. Why aren’t you attending the change management meetings? (I was.) Why aren’t you relaying information back to the team? (I was.) Why aren’t you being a team player? (What?!)

I tried to speak but he spoke over me. This went on for about 15 minutes. Something about deliverables past due that I never even heard of before.

I had a sinking feeling that he felt somehow exposed to the other teams. The horror hit me that I was working for a man-child with issues of inadequacy and insecurity. GROAN!!! I put my phone on mute.

Yes, I cried. But I kept my phone on mute. I tried not to panic.

Think, don’t crumble

Much to my relief, someone else joined the conference call. This other person heard the lashing I was receiving and sent me an instant message later that day: “I’m on your side.” That little crumb kept me from crumbling.

For the following year I got to know the “us versus them” mentality of my boss: All other teams were a threat. None of the other teams knew what they were doing. The other teams were out to destroy our team.

Every day there was someone from another team whose competence would come under fire. There were threats to get people fired.

The bully was also a butcher. Of names. A peer of his (an idiot no doubt!) was named Hagley (I changed this up a bit) but my boss regularly referred to him as Fagley. GROAN again!

I came to recognize patterns, especially three:
1.) Exasperation and anger over a missed delivery date that was never requested but the claim was, “I asked for this a month ago!”
2.) Your own ideas parroted back at you that you just said ten minutes ago, as if they were his ideas, stated now for the very first time.
3.) Exaggerated disgust after delivering to him precisely what he asked for because “this isn’t what I asked for” followed by demands for something completely different. (Logical, follow-up emails after meetings only exacerbated the beast.)

The reason he got away with it is that everyone was afraid to say anything. Everyone walked on eggshells, afraid to lose their jobs.

When medical procedure lady returned to work, she assured me that I would not remain on his “shit list.” She calmly explained that I would fall off the list and the focus would then be on someone else. How reassuring.

It got worse before it got better

I took to crying. Not in front of anyone of course but in private. I cried out of frustration, I cried out of confusion, I cried out of anger, I cried out of betrayal.

One day, after an especially harsh beating from the man-child, I cried. I was telecommuting so I was in the privacy of my home. But I received an instant message from the boss’s Favorite, requesting that I join her conference bridge. I tried to pull myself together quickly. I joined her conference bridge and asked her what’s up. She said she just wanted to check on me to see how I was doing.

Aaaaand the floodgates opened. I could not get it together. My frustration only made it worse. How humiliating.

The next day, on a conference call with the whole team in attendance, the man-child called my “stability” into question. I wanted to say, “Dang dude, you are one crafty mother — ” but I just said, “I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

I had two and a half more years to go before I became eligible for a full pension/payout. With two boys in middle school, I was desperate to survive. But he had all the power and I had none.

I worked many years in this company with highly intelligent, collaborative, energetic supervising managers. I received glowing performance reviews because I loved my job and gave 100%. They let me help them. They encouraged growth.

They said HELL YES to the certifications I earned. They said HELL YES when I partnered with other teams for the greater good. Those years were all normal, with ups and downs, with successes and struggles. I could, in clear conscience, defend the company in those days.

But now I was stuck between a rock and hard place. I could not let this man-child control my head. I knew that. But I had to reach deep into the bottom of the barrel to find some strength and strategies. What I found surprised me.

Listen to your mother

I thought about my mom, rest her soul. She had a way of always being right. Even her cliches were spot on. In hard times she’d say:

You’re put where you’re needed.
You’re never given more than you can handle.
This too shall pass.

I thought about Mom’s cliches:
The organization was desperate for help so I was definitely needed.
The man-child so relentlessly barraged me with disapprovals that there was no sense of more or less of it.
Change would certainly come eventually.

I clung to “nothing lasts forever.” Re-orgs happen every day, people shift around, supervising managers come and go. So I clung to the truth that the situation would come to pass, and it helped me to survive the present.

Seven soul-saving survival tactics

These are the strategic gems that I scraped from the bottom of the barrel. These gems saved me from losing my mind while reporting to the man-child bully. I hope that someone else finds them useful, particularly those targeted by bullies and holding on for dear life in Corporate America.

(1.) Talk and laugh with your loved ones

I had to tell my kids, “Mom is being targeted by a bully at work.” I knew that they would scrutinze my actions like they always do. How will Mom react? That question is always plastered to my forehead. So be honest.

Sharing the bully’s daily outbursts with my family and laughing about it was a huge relief, a great stress reducer. And a way to show the kids how to stay strong and persevere. I felt stronger with their support.

Be prepared to answer this question if you have kids: Why can’t you tell another trusted adult? I told them that I was being targeted but the bully can’t seem to hit the bullseye.

I explained that the bully was not strong enough, that I was stronger. I told them that I felt sorry for him because he was unsure of himself. I described to them the version of my attitude that was surfacing.

I assured them that if I got to a point where I needed to tell another trusted adult, then I would.

I didn’t have the heart to tell the kids that Human Resources (HR) was there to protect the supervising managers, not me. I’ll get in a lot of trouble for writing that line but it was openly understood across the company.

Besides, what would I tell HR? That my boss is a skilled circumnavigator of legal boundaries? That he’s a meanie? HR had much bigger fish to fry, like cases of physical threats and discrimination.

I had to squash any pity-party notions that were brewing in my aching spirit. I had to stand up on my own and be wily right back. And the more people outside of work who I talked with about it, the more validation I felt.

The point is to let it out, to reveal the circumstances to people who care about you. You don’t have to carry the burden alone. Family, friends, even acquaintances in your community can lighten your load.

Think about it; you would do the same for them.

(2.) Maintain high work standards

Do not let the quality of your work suffer. Do your best work. Make sure your name is on everything you own. Make it shine. In fact, blow everyone away with your high quality. Blow them away even farther with your gracious reactions to feedback.

For me, an intense work ethic comes natural. If you are not cut from that same cloth, try to step it up anyway. Do work that you can be proud of. Kick ass.

The critical side benefit is that it serves to protect you later on should the bully try to falsely claim that you did poor work.

(3.) Never allow yourself into the evil lair alone.

Always invite someone else to meetings with the bully boss. Never meet alone no matter what. Invite other people for “their input” to whatever you’re currently working on. The bully will still behave unprofessionally and cruelly but you’ll have a witness.

Hold firm to no meetings alone but if you get stuck making an exception, kick number 4 below into very high gear.

(4.) Kill them with kindness

That’s right, I killed my boss and my (former) friends with kindness. I was sticky, icky sweet. My favorite things to say were

• “Sure, no problem at all!”
• “Yes, I can do that. Happy to!”
• “Doing great! And you?”
• “It was easy! Any time!”
• “So good to talk with you! Have a great day!”
• “It’s my pleasure!”

You get the idea. I actually had a blast with this kindness thing. The man-child’s momentum stalled, evidenced by his sputtering confusion, not quite sure if my sunny demeanor was sarcasm or not. What could he do? Complain to HR that I was being too nice?

The day I began killing with kindness was the day I took my power back.

(5.) Don’t take the bait

Here’s a little trick that bullies like to pull. They soften their voices in attempts to soften you. But don’t take the bait! The quiet apology for “being hard on you” or “not fair to you” is a set up. Hear the alarms in your head and resist the urge to acknowledge the bully’s admission of bad behavior toward you.

Nothing good could come of that conversation. You would be sucked into a twisted tirade with no way out.

I responded to the soft apology with something like, “No, no, not at all.” Or, “Oh. I didn’t notice. You’re fine. No worries.” (I killed the bait with kindness.)

Bait comes in many other forms, like challenges and accusations. Don’t fuel that fire. There were times when I simply said nothing. People hate awkward silences so very much that they cannot resist the urge to fill the silence and start rambling. Just let the bully fall right into that trap.

Stay professional, stay on topic, speak only when something needs to be said, and do not engage in small talk. Anything you say can be used against you so keep it positive and professional.

There is never anything wrong with being the person with the most integrity. Your steady integrity wears the bully down.

(6.) Build alliances with people on other teams in your organization

When your boss is a bully, trust among teammates is out the window. Never let your guard down. If you say anything about your boss to a teammate, your boss will hear about it guaranteed.

But don’t isolate yourself. Instead, make friends with coworkers on other, related teams.

I built relationships with everyone outside of my immediate team, with everyone who had inputs to my work and everyone who received my inputs to their work. We became a solid clan of reliable, reputable experts in our respective areas within the organization. I bent over backwards to help them any time they needed me and they did the same for me.

Relationships are everything. There is strength in numbers. I have witnessed, more than once in my lifetime, bullies backing off of someone who they realize is well-liked by many.

(7.) Pump yourself up

Never underestimate the empowering effects of music. Listen loudly and often to uplifting tunes that boost your mood and your morale. For example:

I’ve Got to Use My Imagination - Gladys Knight & The Pips
Mean - Taylor Swift
Main Vein - Jamiroquai
Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder
Fight Song - Rachel Platten
I Love Music - The O’Jays
Part of Me - Katy Perry

Search for your favorite songs and turn them up. I don’t know what’s happening scientifically but feeding music to your soul fortifies the mind. Or maybe it’s just magic. Whatever the reason, music grounds us.

Do not be discouraged if you feel like you have a boulder on your back during this difficult time; the key is to appear light as a feather. Then you can enjoy your boss’s subsequent head-scratching, and your mutual disengagement.

The Bored Bully

Using these seven tactics emboldens you to regard the boss-bully as merely an unavoidable inconvenience, an unexpected detour while your favorite road is being paved.

Your self-confidence sends the message that you’re too busy for the bully. Then the bully gets bored with you. You can’t bully poise.

Mother was right

Over the course of the year I learned why two of the three (former) friends begged me to join their team. One of them thought I could “fix everything” while another needed a hard worker on which to dump a ton of work. The third one felt a little guilty and tried to help me out from time to time. I never did learn of her motive.

But I didn’t care anymore. Because change was happening. Noticeably, the bully was away for large chunks of the mornings and lied low in the afternoons. I didn’t ask! I enjoyed the breaks but did not exhale.

One of my cohorts from another team told me that the bully had health issues. A couple of months later he took medical leave for surgery. I actually did feel sorry for him (why??) but wow, what a nice break.

Upon the man-child’s return to work after surgery, he was laid off. Another organization picked him up and poof, he was gone. I was stunned. I no longer reported to him. Once his move was visibly official in the system, I finally, finally exhaled.

My new boss had no skin in the game but she was adequate. She chattered a lot about herself. Clearly she was looking to retire soon. I didn’t care. I had survived the boss from hell! A year with Chatty Cathy served me just fine.

I inched across the twenty-year finish line, and celebrated nineteen good years.

I am not stronger, wiser, or better after The Year of the Bully. But I am equipped. I have well-formed survival tactics should I ever need them again. And maybe I’m helping someone else by sharing them, especially those folks who have something to lose.