So now that I've been working under this new manager for a couple months, it seems like my fears were justified.
A lot of people didn't like our old manager, and I can understand why. He had some serious social problems. He didn't relate to people very well. He liked to toy with people. It wasn't ever intrusive or anything. He just liked to make people squirm. He may have pushed boundaries sometimes, and it was definitely annoying. He liked to play mind games with people. Keep them confused. Never give them a straight answer to a question. Sometimes there'd be some passive aggressive aspects involved. Whatever. It's a relief not to have to deal with that anymore.
But one thing I liked about him is that we had one very clear understanding. Neither of us approved of bullshit office politics or control freaks in general. He knew our senior manager is a megalomaniac, and he never played along with her power trips any more than he had to. Our senior manager does not like human beings. She wants everybody to be an automaton in the workplace. Any human-like behavior gets punished. He protected us from that. He told us he didn't care as long as we got the job done, and he meant it. He also understood that punishment or threat did nothing but demoralize me, and wouldn't use those things if he could avoid it.
If he ever got on my case, I knew it was because I was doing something that was going to get me in trouble with a power higher than him, or he had been specifically told to and the interaction was going to be documented, or because he was being watched and had to put on a show. I really appreciated this - enough to put up with his weird games. I cannot cope with this job without that kind of freedom. It's such mind-numbing work. I need constant distraction to keep my mind awake, or I can't work. When I try to focus 100% on work, it lasts about 40 minutes before I just shut down. I go into a catatonic state, where I can stare blankly off into space for a long time without realizing it... or I'll just fall asleep. The only means available to me to prevent this without drawing attention to myself is to browse the internet.
New manager comes in and she's really cool. She's very straightforward and good-natured. She's actually a really interesting person with tons of cool stories about things she's done and seen. I talk to her very frankly about how I relate to this job - what the work and environment do to me, how I cope, and what happens if I'm not allowed to cope. She seems to understand and promises she'll be on my side in all that. She totally isn't. She says that being distracted every once in a while is ok, and she mainly cares about the work getting done. Her actions say otherwise. She says something anytime she sees me distracted, no matter what the distraction is or how long I've been distracted (if she even knows) or how productive I've been that way or if there's even anyone else around to care. If I try to reason with her, she feeds me the same lines that my previous manager would straight let me know that he was instructed to recite to me. I totally understand if she's being put under pressure, but that doesn't explain why she'd get on my case at times when, for instance, there is literally nobody else in the office who would care (as on Saturdays when it is only a few people from only our shift staffed and every single one of them feels the same as I do about this stuff and openly says so) and I am keeping up with my work. Fuck this shit so much. I am not a fucking robot. I can't pretend to be one for 8 straight ours five days out of every week for the entire foresee-able future.
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Topic: Things that made you RRRRRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Trust-o-nomics Edition (Read 3700479 times)