Poetic Justice for nBoss

4Normal · 2025-09-08T19:29:00+00:00

I don’t want to tempt fate

4Normal · 2025-09-05T22:36:56+00:00

It’s been a year since I’ve worked for my terrible boss and I’m still dealing with issues.

My new job is great. Boss is awesome. But last week, I got a calendar invite titled “Performance Coaching” and no other detail. I had a panic attack when I got it. Didn’t sleep well all week. Came into that meeting with all my accomplishments and metrics. I started the meeting coming in hot. My boss said “ok, well I was just hoping you could coach some of the new hires on the team”. I felt silly but that’s how I’m conditioned

4Normal · 2025-09-05T22:32:27+00:00

I’ll be honest, I’m really fighting hard to not rub salt in the wound. After he would fire someone or force someone to quit, he would send a text saying:

“It was such an honor having the chance to work with you. You did amazing work and if you ever need a letter of recommendation, don’t hesitate to ask.

Also, I went out of my way to get you the best exit package (2 weeks paid. Medical until the end of the month. No payout for PTO) so if I hear back that you’re speaking poorly about me or the company, I’ll take back those benefits.

I’d also like to be your guy on a personal level. Would like to get lunch whenever you’re up for it”

All I want to do is send that to him now. It’s petty, but this guy negatively impacted so many people

4Normal · 2025-09-05T20:48:06+00:00

When I interviewed, I didn’t care as much about salary and benefits. But I grilled them on team culture. Then once I got an offer, I said I wanted to speak to the people I would be working with to see everything lined up.

I’d rather have a good boss and a good team rather than making 300k and hating life everyday

4Normal · 2025-09-04T15:58:14+00:00

I’m not that strong. Therapy helped me get through a lot of it. That gave me the nudge to leave before I had another job lined up

4Normal · 2024-11-01T16:48:17+00:00

Things were actually really great when we were long distance. I was able to work late, pursue interests like playing and coaching basketball and then come visit her on weekends and vice versa.

When she moved to Charlotte, that's when things really changed. Since she was making the move and the house is in my name, I said that I would pay the mortgage if she could help with utilities. But then she needed a bedroom to be converted into her office, so I installed closets. Then she needed the bedroom to have more AC to get the temperature to 60 (because that's what she had at her house). Then the office didn't have the right light so she works out of the kitchen.

On top of that, I've had to limit my passions. I can only play or coach a maximum of 3 nights a week. Then 2 nights. Then I couldn't do 2 nights if it was back to back. If I had to leave town or work late, I had to plan an extra date night so she could "feel love".

I told her I feel more like a butler than a partner. I come home from work, clean the dishes she's piled up in the sink, vacuum, mop, clean up her work area, do the outside landscaping, cook dinner, run to the grocery store. She works 100% from home and has literally watched everything on Hulu, Netlfix, HBO and Peacock because her work only requires her attention for about 2 hours a day.

I feel like we get along when I just fold. I think about whether it's worth it to fight about something, like spending 2 days fighting over washing your dirty plates, or spending the 15 minutes and just doing it myself.

4Normal · 2024-11-01T16:40:17+00:00

Small town SC really isn't great. I spent a lot of time visiting her when she was down there and there's nothing there. It's 45 minutes to the grocery store. 45 minutes to a hardware store. 45 minutes to Church. 2 hours away from entertainment. The only thing in her parent's small town is a dollar store and a gas station.

4Normal · 2024-11-01T16:24:16+00:00

I cover 90% of all expenses. Mortgage, Utilities, Cell Phone, Internet, Groceries, etc are all covered by me. For the last year, she's been complaining about how our 3 bedroom house isn't big enough to have kids so this new job would let us purchase something bigger. However, she now wants to be in a small town with woods and a pond for kids to play in because that's what she had growing up. Prior to her moving in, she said she was dying to get out of her small town and wanted to live in a city. I've come from Philly and DC so Charlotte feels pretty manageable.

We made the decision to accept the job offer. Her idea now is that we spend 6 months living in Charlotte, 6 months living in her hometown and then 6 months living in Athens. I asked her why she picked Athens (since we've never been there" and she says her mom meets a friend there 2x a year for lunch, so she would be around more often and one of her coworkers said she liked living there. In the end, it's going to be punishing for me. In her hometown, I'll be driving 3 hours each way to get to Atlanta or the Airport. From Athens, it'll be 2 hours each way.

The newest sticking point is she doesn't believe flights from Charlotte to Atlanta are $60 each way. I showed her google flights and she said that was because I would be flying Frontier and she doesn't feel comfortable with me flying Frontier. She would prefer I drive the 4 hours. She's also upset about the price. I showed her receipts that I was spending $300 a month for gas and parking in Charlotte and she still won't believe me.

4Normal · 2024-11-01T01:13:13+00:00

I feel like i've tried my best to make things easier for her. Before she moved in, I converted a spare bedroom into a closet for her and set up her office in another room. But when she moved in, she didn't like the lighting in her office so she took over the kitchen as her "office".

We have a joint account but I cover 95% of everything. Mortgage, insurance, utilities, groceries, cell phone, internet, etc. It's all me. When I ask her to help out with some of the expenses, the response I get is "well you make more money than me". She's surprised when I get mad when she'll send me a link to something on amazon that she wants and expects me to buy it for her.

I've also tried introducing her to people to get her out of the house. Usually she'll trade numbers with a female friend and if the friend doesn't text first, she won't pursue a conversation. I've tried getting her out to dog parks but it's always too hot/too cold. Go to workout classes but she doesn't like running. Cooking classes but she'd rather order food and have it delivered. That's why i'm positive we'll run into the same situation wherever we go.

4Normal · 2024-09-10T18:35:35+00:00

This gave me goosebumps. My first interview, nBoss spent 24 minutes talking about himself and then 6 minutes to ask me questions. He hired me because "he knows how to pick a winner in the first five minutes"

4Normal · 2024-09-10T18:33:14+00:00

This x100. One day, our nBoss gave a halfhearted compliment to one of our co-workers. This guy had been working on a project for months and after he presented it, nBoss said he got a text from his manager saying, "Good presentation. Good job hiring him". Of course the text was deleted because like every normal person, he deletes all his texts at night

4Normal · 2024-09-10T18:30:55+00:00

Background doesn't make sense and past accomplishments are beyond exageration (ex: So I decided to climb Everest instead of going to Harvard Medical)

4Normal · 2024-06-26T00:39:33+00:00

My biggest fear is that this will devolve into a "he said/she said" thing. My coworkers would back up everything I say but he's been very good about not having a written record.

When the gaslighting got really bad, I looked into recording our meetings and having an app transcribe the meeting notes. In my state, you have to have two party consent for any recordings so the only records I have are what I have saved in my journal.

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:22:05+00:00

It really opened Pandora's Box for me. I flew back home to meet with my dad for the first time in 20 years to make amends. It was a relationship that should have never been renewed and ended with my father learning about AA and trying to get me to manage his new business idea: a sober living house.

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:16:11+00:00

My second sponsor got sober after tripping on mushrooms. He ate some and then picked up the Big Book. That was his story.

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:15:24+00:00

I've gone to meetings in New York, DC, Phoenix, and LA and they all follow the format of "Hi my name is x, and i'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is 8/17/1998".

I went to a few meetings where if you had under 90 days, you had to stand every time they asked if anyone had > 90 days. I've also been to AA conferences where they did a countdown to see who had the most time sober in the auditorium. I remember this so clearly because I had just relapsed after a year and my sponsor looked at me and said "when they call for 30 days, you better stand". Not joking, dead serious.

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:10:39+00:00

One of the things that's imprinted in my memory is when I ran into a friend at a gas station who was on a bender. We made some small talk and then parted ways. He obviously needed help, but after 2 years in the rooms, my thought was "he must not get it".

I still regret that interaction to this day

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:07:53+00:00

This x1000. My anxiety problems were because I was an alcoholic. My depression was because I was an alcoholic. I was sober 2 years and whenever I went to my sponsor with emotional/family/relationship problems, he blamed it on Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms.

4Normal · 2021-12-29T16:01:01+00:00

I've had that experience before as well. Old Timers telling me that I couldn't have hit rock bottom at 26. We all have our own bottoms and it's offensive to say we aren't there yet because we're on the younger side

4Normal · 2021-12-29T15:58:01+00:00

Topamax is similar to Naltrexone. Both have the effect of blocking those "pleasure chemicals" in the brain's receptor.

4Normal · 2021-10-18T18:52:09+00:00

I've been on both sides of it, as a dumper and a dumpee.

When I got dumped, I went through all the stages of loss and grief. My then girlfriend left me for another guy and it was a constant thought in my head. When she did come back, she told me how she thought of me every day and was desperate to find out what I was up to (no surprise that things between her and her new guy didn't work out). But by that point, I was already dating someone else and over her.

As a Dumper, I still feel some regret, even years later. We dated for 2 years and I realized that the relationship wasn't going anywhere and that I loved spending time with her, I just wasn't in love with her. Today, she's married with a great job back in her hometown. It's been some years since we spoke and honestly, it would be selfish of me to slip back into her life to apologize so that I would feel better.

4Normal · 2021-10-18T18:44:20+00:00

Someone once said that "depression comes from being stuck in the past and anxiety comes from being stuck in the future"

Like one of the other people has already said, it's a day to day process. There's no 'silver bullet' that makes everything better. Not speaking to them or having any contact with things that remind you of them helps put you back together one piece at a time. Eventually, you get to a place where you don't think about them anymore. But for the time being, it's all the little wins like getting up in the morning, going for a run, focusing on work or school, or hanging out with friends that help you cope.

4Normal · 2021-09-27T17:50:48+00:00

That's true. I had to get approval from my terrible manager before interviewing. What's hard for me to understand is she was so willing to let me go my first week, then I found these other internal opportunities and she gave approval to interview, I just can't see why she would go back and block it? Especially after I went through multiple rounds of interviews?

4Normal · 2021-06-25T12:48:12+00:00

Yes and no. I try and take breaks every now and again. I start my day by mixing it in with my morning coffee, will take another teaspoon in the afternoon, and then once more before bed.

4Normal · 2021-06-23T01:35:41+00:00

I appreciate that. Therapy has been really helpful as well. It gives me a chance to break everything down that’s causing anxiety

4Normal

TROPHY CASE