Sleep Well Wesley

I did the unthinkable yesterday - I stood up to MNB. I told him that veiled threats were not useful, and that if he wanted to fire me, he should probably just do it. I told him that constant tantrums were definitely not the way to get the best out of his engineers, and that he should try a different tactic. We were all in this together after all.

I also made a point of asking him where I fit in the organization. He spent entirely too long thinking before giving me a line of crap which basically meant that he couldn't think of anything meaningful to say.

It's strange. You would think that my level of paranoia would increase, when every interaction with my boss contains thinly veiled threats. After my discussion with him yesterday, I am no longer worried. I know what is going to happen, and strangely enough MNB told me a whole bunch of things that I am sure he didn't realize.

1) He told me that he wasn't afraid to fire people. I take that to mean that he ENJOYS firing people. As I said in a previous post, he would like to deep six the Sarcastic Brit and Myself, but he doesn't figure he can get away with it.

2) He is the only member of his family without a graduate degree. But, he has brothers who have doctorates from Oxford. What that tells me is that he hates people with graduate degrees because his brother probably lords his academic achievements over his head. No wonder he hates the Sarcastic Brit so much. The Sarcastic Brit also has the Oxford pedigree.

3) He only wants people doing what they were "trained to do". Only mechanical engineers can use CAD, only electrical engineers can design circuits. That tells me that he has a hard time picking up new skills and can't believe that people (especially young people) can be good at more than one thing.

4) He is a very good manager. People follow him from when he changes companies. This tells me that he is incapable of hiring new people, probably because he isn't a good enough judge of talent, and he can't inherit a team because he is unable to trust the guys who were there before him and don't owe him their loyalty. In short, he is unable to earn the respect or loyalty of others. He would rather just move his old team. It's easier.

5) He keeps telling me how expendable I am. Oddly enough, I have never said that I am indispensable. I am neither that arrogant nor that stupid. He also told me that he doesn't lose sleep at night over whether I will quit or not. The fact that he keeps telling me that indicates to me that he has some issues over my employment being terminated. I am not sure if it's because he wants to fire me and can't or if he figures that he's screwed if the Sarcastic Brit and I leave.

6) He is a pathetic man, working for a pathetic company. He is a bully who can't lead an engineering team that was functioning fine before he arrived. His boss is a weasel who convinced the EWA that she would be his pawn if she were made COO, so he pulled some strings to make it happen. She then screwed EWA and showed her true allegiance (only to herself). Her boss, in turn, is a fictional character that steals things from little Mexican girls and their friends. Need I say more? (Sorry for recycling that one, but I just enjoy it too much). MNB's behavior has only convinced me that my leaving the Mecca is inevitable. The only thing that worries me is that I won't get the chance to quit before he fires me. Sleep well Wesley. You have done a fine job today. I shall most likely kill you in the morning.