By Hera Lindsay Bird

Copyright thespinoff

He made my life miserable before I quit. Now he’s taking all the credit for a project I worked on.

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz or fill out this form.

Five months ago, I left a job because of my old boss. He was a micromanager, passive aggressive, emotionally volatile, disrespectful, and wildly unprofessional. I would dread all messages with him, which could arrive at any time, because he would text me about work on the weekends and in the evenings. I became chronically stressed, I wasn’t sleeping well, and my mental and physical health took a big hit. I even sought out therapy to try and set boundaries with him in a mature, direct way.

Eventually I realised there was nothing that I could do to change him, so I handed in my resignation. Things continued to deteriorate in my last month in the job, so much so that the first thing I did after my last day was block him on all platforms.

After I left, everything got a lot better for me. I stopped having stress dreams and my nervous system started to chill after realising I didn’t have to deal with him anymore. There was still a lot to recover from, but without him around as a constant trigger, I was able to take time to heal.

But now a big creative project (yes, I’m being purposefully vague about what type of creative project it is) that I helped develop, manage and bring about as part of that job has just been released. I decided to join the online launch of the project, but seeing the launch brought up complicated feelings for me. While it’s nice to see the project released into the world and have my work on it recognised, seeing it also reminded me of all the stress and negative emotions I had to deal with while helping make it.

Plus now I’m seeing the project reviewed and praised everywhere. Partly this is because I still follow and am friends with many of the other people who are involved in the project. I have no issues with anyone else except my old boss, and I want to be happy for the success of everyone who was involved. But I can’t help thinking that my old boss is also getting a bunch of the credit for this project. He’s one of those people who is very charismatic and engaging when he wants to be, so a lot of people don’t see his dark side. This means most of the people I worked with on the project are praising him and celebrating along with him.

I can’t stop ruminating on all these thoughts and emotions. And I know I should probably try and avoid all mentions of the project, but a lot of the people who are posting about it are my personal and professional contacts. Also, I feel like my old boss has already taken so much from me, I don’t want him to take away what should be a positive accomplishment for me too.

So how do I deal with the fact that my terrible ex-boss is basking in the success from a project I helped work on?

Teamwork did not make the dream work

Dear Teamwork,

First and foremost, congratulations on the launch of your redacted creative project. It sounds like you put a lot of hard work and care into whatever it was, and deserve to have your contribution celebrated. It also sounds like you made the right decision to leave. But you’re still mentally on the clock, and doing a little freelance worrying about something which is no longer your problem.

Your boss sounds like a nightmare. Unfortunately, such bosses are a fact of life. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working for a cutthroat venture capitalist or a humanitarian organisation that digs wells in impoverished countries. These people are ubiquitous, and the only way to deal with them is to leave their company as soon as possible and never look back. We could dig into the psychology of why such people inevitably seek out positions of power, but it’s not very interesting. Sure, the cream rises to the top, but so does the pond scum.

Naturally, your former boss is taking credit for your success. That’s what bosses do. It’s so predictable it’s almost not worth being mad about. Do we blame parasitic wasps for laying eggs in the bodies of their victims? The credit he’s getting is purely ceremonial, and just as meaningless as Time Magazine awarding Rudy Giuliani Person of the Year. It’s one of those banal fictions nobody takes seriously.

I can completely understand why, having escaped such a stressful position, the publicity surrounding the launch of this project has thrown your nervous system into disarray. So how do you let go of the anger?

The first thing I would say, is this is not a problem that requires a solution. There’s nothing for you to solve here. You’ve already taken the appropriate steps by leaving. Now you just have to try and mentally disengage from the situation.

Easier said than done. But not impossible. You say that you think the best strategy would be to block all mentions of this project from your feed. But I wonder if this is counter-productive? Sometimes the harder we work to try and protect ourselves from harm, by censoring unpleasant thoughts or shielding ourselves from triggers, the bigger our distress gets. Working overtime to prevent yourself from experiencing anxiety can sometimes have the unintended effect of magnifying your problems, and giving them more gravitas then they ultimately deserve.

We can’t control our thoughts. They come and go, like the women’s timeless capri pant. Trying to shut them out doesn’t work, unless you have a mind like a steel trap. The reason they loom so large in your consciousness, is they pack such a hefty emotional punch. There’s something almost addictive about the act of rumination, even negative rumination, because it excites your nervous system, and gives you a little rush of adrenaline. The more you brace for the jump scare, the bigger the inevitable fright.

A better approach might be to learn to make peace with these thoughts. I would suggest looking into DBT or mindfulness techniques. The more you can practice dispassionately noticing your feelings as they arise, naming them and then trying to let them go, the less emotional power they will have over your life. When these thoughts inevitably crop up, instead of running from them, Scooby Doo style, try to think of them as an ancient and shambolic sea captain that wanders sporadically into your yard. Say “there you are again, shark-headed man,” raise a neighbourly hand in greeting, and try to get on with your day. It will take a bit of practice, but your thoughts are just thoughts, and no more dangerous than a passing fart.

Your boss may have enjoyed some unearned credit for your hard work. But he won’t go unpunished. Happy and normal people do not behave like this. If he treated you this badly, he will certainly treat others this way too, and sooner or later it’s going to bite him in the ass. Even if he doesn’t face external consequences, he still has to live under the shadow of his terrible personality forever.

I think you should be patient with yourself, remind yourself it’s no longer your problem, and when you suffer the occasional work-related flashback, try to temporarily bask in the relief you feel at no longer have to endure your boss’s miserable company.

I also think you should hold a little celebration of your own. Do something to mark the occasion, whether that’s going out with your former colleagues, taking your partner out for a fancy dinner and a bottle of champagne, or subjecting your nearest and dearest to an hour-long Powerpoint presentation on your project.

Institutional credit and having your work acknowledged is important. But the most important thing is the work itself. In years to come, when your old boss has moved on to haunt someone else’s dreams, the people who read or watched or listened to whatever it was you made, will still have been enriched by your hard work. It might be less glamorous than employee of the month, but it means a lot more, and your boss can never take that away from you.

This isn’t the last or even the most important thing you do. Why not take all the things you loved about working on this project, and create something new, under your own steam? Be your own boss!