The best boss I ever had, was also the worst boss I ever had.

Don’t be ‘that’ boss.

I know firsthand what it is like to work for ‘that’ boss and it was strange when I finally realized, the best boss I ever had was also the worst boss I ever had. I learned more about who I didn’t want to be as a person and as a leader than I did workplace skills.

My boss and I were extremely close, maybe that was part of the problem. I supported her granddaughter’s nonprofit, bought and sent birthday presents and Christmas presents to her grandchildren, handmade her daughter housewarming gifts, I was friends with her and her family on Facebook, even had facetimed with her son who lived across the country with her, had his books he had written, and I even went to her family members birthday parties. We talked about everything and knew more about each other’s lives than I imagine some of our closest friends knew.

One of the most vivid memories I have was when I mentioned going on a diet because I had gained some weight and was feeling uncomfortable; without even looking up, my boss responded with ‘that's a relief, I just thought you were pregnant’. To be a 25 year old women, having a 60 year old women say that to me, was absolutely stunning. To be honest, I’m not even sure how I responded - but to the same tune, my boss always said ‘no babies’, ‘no babies yet’ - even though, I was in a long-term relationship and should’ve felt comfortable to start planning for a family, if that was what I wanted. Spoiler, I was not comfortable and worried what would happen if I did become a mother and what that would mean for my career.

I remember another time, I asked why I didn’t get an incentive raise (even though she did), she told me I didn’t get an incentive raise because our ‘partners got a raise to continue doing business with us’, so she didn’t want to ask the chain of command above her, to give me a raise as well. Keep in mind, she made more from her monthly incentives alone, than I did in my monthly salary … at some point in the conversation in the coming weeks, I was told because I didn’t have a collage education, I would never make more than what I was making in that role. Mind you, I was salary making around $42k in salary pay plus my incentive pay. Fast forward to today, I work full time making well beyond that pay grade and in my real estate career alone - only working part time, I make more than my salary pay in that position.

Another time, my grandmother stopped in, she was a member at this institution, and because I spoke highly of my boss, my grandmother wanted to meet her, so we went into her office, and all chatted. After a few minutes I got called away for a brief moment and had to leave the office. After they had finished their conversation, my grandmother met me in the lobby, and we walked back into my office - my grandmother shutting the door behind us said ‘I don’t like her! She said to me’, ‘I’m not sure about that boyfriend of hers. I think she is going to outgrow him.’ To which my grandmother praised my boyfriend and told my boss how wonderful he was and that she was wrong. - What kind of boss tells your grandmother she doesn’t like your boyfriend? - I just found that to be very odd, and extremely out of line. Especially since, my boss had only met my boyfriend once at a basketball game and sat 3 seats away from him the entire game.

I should’ve known she wasn’t trust worthy after seeing her interact with our co-workers and then hear what she would say behind their backs. I remember, she called one of our senior team members ‘a cowboy,’ and said he wouldn’t be with us very long, she talked about how another senior team member couldn’t remember anything even if it was right beneath his nose, the HR lady was only for the company and not for the employees, and many other employees also fell victim to her gossip but never knew it. There were other employees in our building that saw the passiveness towards me and were vocal about how they didn’t like it. To be honest, a lot of people in our company didn’t like my boss- so much so that when I started as her associate, I had a really hard time gaining anyone’s trust.

I think some of the worst things this boss did though, were passive. From the start, I was told never to email anyone on the senior team directly and to go through her for everything so she could send everything to the senior team directly. This may be super common in large corporate companies, but we had 93 employees and saw each other regularly.

I was really close with one of our partners, most of our partners actually, and that could have been intimidating for my boss. It certainly would make sense and explain her behaviors trying to downplay my position and even taking credit for things that I brought to light. Regardless, in this specific situation, I had uncovered a flaw in our rates compared to the market and emailed her to review why restructuring the rates would benefit us as a company and make us more competitive based on the market at that time. She said thank you and that she would look into it. At our next meeting with our senior team, she got a ‘huge’ thank you from a senior team member, thanking her for uncovering an issue with our rates and how we were going to make the rates more competitive.

Another time, I found yet another area our rates could be more effective and would benefit a top partner of ours. I emailed over the information and was told not to worry about it right now. Well, a month later at a meeting, a member from the senior team was frustrated by lack of focus on improvements to the program, I chimed in and let him know what I found in regard to our rates and how it would highly impact a top partner. He praised me, and said, ‘see this is what I am looking for’ - meanwhile, after the meeting, my boss was irritated I even spoke up.

I truly think she knew I was a threat and with her trying to protect her role, she always seemed to want to ‘play down’ my skills, unless it came to customer phone calls, according to her, that’s where I shined because of my ‘soft skills’. She would pay more attention to outside organizations that she was on the board of, she would return and purchase Christmas gifts, and other gifts on company time and she was so focused on getting on the news regularly that I would end up doing all of our combined responsibilities for our department as our department was just the two of us.

I saved all my reviews, and they were all amazing reviews, rated 1 - 5, I had 5’s across the entire review, every time. Our partners loved me, I was good at my job, members loved me, and other staff members loved me. I was doing all the weekly and monthly reports that my boss presented in meetings I wasn’t invited to and honestly, I was really killing it at my job, I was the one who would frequently visit our partners in office, and had become closer with most of our partners, but especially our new partners - than my boss, and honestly could’ve done the job without her.

In my last year, I decided to get my real estate license and before I went for my state exam, I had a meeting with the COO and VP of the HR Department - no problem. I received my license in June of 2021, bought my first house representing myself, then sold my father’s house. Never requested anytime off for real estate or did anything real estate related until after working hours. Both homes closed 7 days apart in September. I did request a week off to move into my new home (as would any homeowner - it wasn’t work related). I had become friends with an employee of one of our partners prior to getting my real estate license, we had become pretty close actually, we just clicked, and established trust quickly - which was a huge benefit to our B2B relationship- she worked for our biggest partner, and they were slowly starting to dislike my boss more and more, I know this because they told me; anyway, in October I became her relator. I had told my boss about this, and she said, ‘well you better hope the COO and HR department doesn’t find out.’

Fast forward to my final months with this company. A senior team member from the HR department, reached out and asked about what my boss’ plans were for retirement right after I started working with my new buyer, that I had already told my boss about and right before our next review was due. Somehow my review this time was terrible; I went from being this fantastic, knowledgeable individual who always went above and beyond to someone who was barely meeting expectations. Even though I was doing more than ever in this roll. 4 months later I was fired, funny how that worked.

I knew my boss was plotting to fire me, but she had to set it all up first, and she did. She started doing so the minute she received the ‘what is your plan for retirement’ email. I was riddled with anxiety for months because my boss saying things like ‘I have another meeting with the COO and HR about you today, if you don’t start using your calendar, they’re going to fire you. I can only do so much.’ ‘I think they’re going to put you on a 30-day probation, I don’t know we will see’ "‘They don’t want to do a 30-day probation period anymore, I am not sure what is going to happen, I am pulling for you’ - When all along, I know she was the one paving the path for my termination.

My last day was a Monday. I came in, saw the HR lady in my boss’s office, and knew, so I just walked right in and sat down. At the end of my termination, the HR lady said, ‘if you’d like I can pack up all your personal belongings and ship them to your home, so you don’t have to pack Infront of everyone.’ My response … ‘that’s okay, I only have my calendar and a photo in my office to take, I packed my stuff two months ago,’ her jaw just about hit the floor.

The senior team must have felt some kind of way about my termination because the COO made sure I received a small severance package. In the termination meeting, my boss used this as one of her reasons for letting me go … she saw my Facebook post saying ‘Looking to buy or sell in 2022, give me a call’ I posted that on a day I was out sick with COVID. I was told I couldn’t post things like that because it doesn’t state that I am a ‘part time’ realtor. Then HR told me that it was a conflict of interest to work with my buyer as a last hell Mary reason as to why they were letting me go.

When I was walking to my car my now former boss walked beside me saying ‘The COO is friends with the GM at Partner XYZ and the GM told him you were working with their employee, I didn’t say anything.’ A complete fabrication, which I later confirmed. She couldn’t even be honest with me that she wanted me gone - but I get it, I was a threat. It’s not the first female with power who has been threatened by me and it won’t be the last, I’m sure of it.

All in all, my termination experience at this institution, was absolutely uncalled for and it had everything to do with my boss, and no one else at this establishment. The biggest mistake I made was, not going to HR when I realized what was going on as my boss got all her ducks in a row to let me go.

Regardless of the turn out, I still have great relationships with everyone at this establishment and even representatives from the businesses we partnered with when I worked there. I am much happier in my current role and in my real estate career than I was working for her. I own a home and have two doggies with my boyfriend - the same one she didn’t care for - we’re going on 7 years together, after knowing each other since middle school and we are very happy.

It’s been two years since I was let go and I had never told my side of the story. I never ranted publicly on Facebook because it wouldn’t only hurt her reputation, but it also would have hurt mine at the time, and it’s just not that right thing to do. I heard from members of the senior team after my separation and their kind words really helped me to accept what happened and move on, but a part of me has always wanted to share this story.

Moral of the story is, stand up for yourself, be your own voice of reason and don’t let someone gas light you into thinking they’re looking out for you and have your best interest in mind. Be very aware of other people’s intentions.