It won’t matter whether you get this guy out of your head or not. You’ll find a new one as soon as he’s gone. You need him.
Why don’t you like the guy?
I went with the board vote and ate the food, but I snuck into the room where it was located when he wasn’t around and finished it before he would have seen me. Unless he looks through my trash, he’s not going to know I had any
There’s a lot of reasons not to like him, some of which I’ll list here.
He’s an asskisser: He was promoted too quickly and doesn’t know his job. Sucks as a manager, doesn’t know much and orders people around like he owns the place.
He’s “never wrong”: You’d think someone who had his head up the asses of the people above him would know that he isn’t actually qualified to do his job, but he gives orders like he invented management. He won’t take any of his subordinates’ suggestions seriously, even if they have 10 years of experience over him on a specific project. He makes arbitrary decisions that make no sense, like suddenly deciding that, during work ours, we shouldn’t turn off the lights in the copy room when no one’s there. He gets angry when you disagree with him and don’t accept his stupid opinions, and gets furious if you disagree with him with other people around to the point where he’ll call you into his office and chew you out for it
He’s a micromanager: He has stood behind me while I wrote an email for him, telling me to change specific, trivial words (think “facilitate” instead of “help”). He’s allowed his staff to make an internal outline for something nobody else but us would see only to go back and change everything about it. He’s told me exactly what font and what size he wants me to use in my own project. He’s given me back a memo that could have been sent in the body of an email 9 times for corrections, delaying the original project by over 2 months
He steals credit: He tries to block access to upper management. He gets angry if anyone below him so much as talks to upper management or goes to the executive office area. He’s change that little subscript on the bottom of memos that shows the initials of whoever typed it to remove the names of others and only put his in there. He’s misinterpreted assignment from upper management, refuses to let us clarify it, and then pretends like nothing’s wrong when we worked on something for 5 months that was originally solvable by a one paragraph email to a manager.
He’s a discourteous paranoid shithead: He’s gone through our desks when we’re not here searching for something we told him we already searched for. It doesn’t exist, we looked for it, we told him its not around, and then, instead of asking us to look again while he’s there, he waits until we all leave for the day and searched through our drawers. He’s why I lock all my stuff now. He’s accused me of losing things when I’ve given it to him, lying when I had proof I gave him the correct information, and never apologized for any of it
There’s more, but he deserves the hatred. No one in the department or others I’ve heard likes him at all. I am not hurting my own reputation from bad mouthing him to everyone I see. In fact, most times I’ll get a knowing look and a “Oh, I know about him”. I’m not afraid at all of trashing him and I would be happy if he died. There is nothing good about him.
He’s not a manager. He’s a jerk with a title.
If it’s any help I once developed this outlook: One reason you get paid a salary is to try to get along with people you normally wouldn’t get along with, because you get along with the people you DO get along with for free.
Many years ago I figured that 80% of the paycheck went for a coworker much like you describe.
Put toenails in the guy’s food.
I totally don’t eat food my enemies bring. Not because I think it’s poisoned or because I think they notice or anything. I just don’t like the idea.
You know that wasn’t made with love, is all.
I misread the question – I thought it said someone brings food you don’t like, and should you eat it just to be polite?
So to change my answer, if it’s something you want, just go ahead and have a bit, then walk away. Say thank you, and that’s that. It’s just food.
If you think he’s really incompetent, eventually he’ll get fired and everyone will see him for the loser you know him to be.
In the meantime, you can eat his little snacks and humor him.
There are people that I don’t like either. But I try to put up with them. I might need them one day, and it’s best not to burn bridges.
Oh, and this:
is disgusting.
Wait, you ate his food to spite him?
This has already been said, but you seem to be over thinking this. Also, you seem to be assuming that you’re taking up as much room in his head as he is in yours.
I feel awkward eating food that somebody brings in even if it’s somebody I like.
He’s looking brought your trash, don’t kid yourself.
If you do not like him it is ok to eat his food. The fact that you do not like him, he does not like you and you both know this means that it is probably best not to eat the food.
On a second thought, would you want him eating food you brought in?
Yeah, the nailclipping bit made me wonder what the other guy thinks about the OP. I’d love to hear his side.
The OP needs to grow up.
The other guy comes on super early and shoves the OP’s pens/pencils up his ass. Then he giggles when he sees the OP chewing on same.
No, I would not. That’s why when I bring food, I give it to specific people only.
Nobody likes the other guy. You don’t have to believe me of course, but the stuff I’ve posted is a tiny fraction of the crap he’s done to me and to others. When I say I cannot find anybody who likes working for him, its not an exaggeration. We recently had someone decline a job offer because he found out he would be working for that guy.
You come off as the crazy one in this scenario, just FYI. It doesn’t matter how insufferable this guy is – you’re not in control of his behavior, you’re in control of yours. Don’t act like a child.
Honestly, I’m such a pig that free food to me is free food no matter who brought it. I’d nom nom that food and wouldn’t give a rats patootie who provided it. I’m one of those people that would even make little napkin the doggie bags to take home to my family. I have no shame, and I’m okay with that.
I don’t think its crazy to dislike a guy who is a terrible person and manager, to the point where you’ve wasted months of time working on his inane projects all because in his paranoia, he wouldn’t let you even confirm the project with higher ups. The project I did literally could have been completed in an email written in 10 minutes, but we spent January through May on it. At the end, when we were presenting the powerpoint to the manager, she was impressed but asked why we were doing it. I replied that this guy said she wanted a presentation. No, she replied, she only wanted to know X, Y, Z. This was after 5 months of work. So no, I am not the crazy one, some people deserve to be hated and its fine if I take some time over little things like this to consider how it would affect him
You realize that he doesn’t give a fuck about your cunning plot against him, don’t you?
Take some of that energy & find yourself a work place that will appreciate your talents.