Work Rant
My current boss was a colleague that was recently promoted ahead of me. We have been on an identical career paths for the last 10 years with many competitive stages but I was always a little ahead of him, that is until recently. When our department head left, we both put in for the job. Instead of having one of us leave when the other got the job, they split the job into two parts, partially because they were potentially going to lay us all off mid 2009 anyway so they did not care if they “split the baby.” When the Japanese company rescued us and helped us form a new company, they chose to promote my co-worker to an even higher level and made him my boss. 10 years of working in the same group and I saw how he micromanaged his staff and had a high turnover rate. But he succeeded scientifically- advancing his project to a later stage than my project (partially from luck and partially at the cost of some burned out staff). So it was not a surprise that they would favor him over me given that at this stage in the deal with Japan that his loss would be more problematic for them. I have been trying for months to develop a working relationship with him but he is so over the top in his micromanaging it is infuriating. He seems to think he knows better than me even with my 25 years in science. He has a huge ego and has lately been presenting my project to senior staff at the company and to executives in Japan without even asking me to do it. He initially claimed that it was more efficient to present all the science at once, we did not need to send a lot of staff to Japan, and it was easier for him to communicate with the Japanese because of his recent experience with them. More recently he presented my work to the board and claimed that these were closed door meetings where it made better sense for him to present my work. Then this week he presented my work at a meeting with the Japanese that I was also attended and which I could easily have presented (and with a better understanding of the work). Its clear that he is trying to advance his career and has no concern for my career what so ever. Today, he went line by line through my expense report for the trip to Philly that he also attended. He wanted to know about the most ridiculous minuscule items like a bottled water I bought at the airport. His excuse for this control freak behavior was to “make sure we are consistent in what we expense on our trips.” WTF?. He expensed a lot more beer that I did and he wants to know about a $3 bottle of water?!!! That conversation cost the company more than $3 in lost productivity. I am not sure how much more of this guy I can take before I start looking for another job. At least I will wait until January to start looking because the board promised us a end of the year bonus for getting the company sold to the Japanese.