Job Stress: Two Bosses, One Victim
Marilyn had a most unusual situation. No one intentionally put
stress on her. Marilyn had worked for her company for two years.
She held an assistant manager's title and she was extremely
competent at her job. And, she was popular with the other
employees.
However, she was seriously considering quitting. She was earning
a very nice salary and the company offered excellent benefits
and bonuses as well as special trips and social gatherings. But
Marilyn had an unusual situation that caused her a great deal of
anxiety. She had two bosses. They had been college frat brothers
and were very competitive. And she was the one they competed
over. Not in a social or sexual way, but in a business way.
It seemed that neither one liked it when she was working for the
other. And instead of settling it between themselves, they left
it for her to make the decision as to whose work came first.
When she was helping one with a project, the other made it very
plain that he felt she was favoring the one with the project..
And if an emergency arose and she had to stop something she was
doing to handle it, the one whose work she put aside would be
miffed.
Marilyn was under a great deal of anxiety and stress. She could
not relax at her work. She was constantly on the lookout for
anything she did that would upset one or the other of her bosses.
She tried talking to them, both separately and together. She
tried to point out how childish it was. She suggested one of
them hire someone to do just his work, but neither wanted to
take someone new. They both said O,K. as long as the other one
got the new employee.
It got to be a contest that Marilyn couldn't cope with. She went
to upper management, but got no support. They told her she
should be glad she was so much in demand. But this didn't cure
her headaches or her anxiety.
Finally she took it in her own hands. She decided to stay home
from work until her twobosses worked it out between themselves.
She knew she was taking a chance on being fired, but she also
knew she couldn't work under those circumstances again. On the
fourth day, she got a phone call to come back to work. Both of
the bosses had been transferred to another department. Sometimes
even job stress problems solve themselves.
Copyright 2006 Robert T. Lewis
*The above case has been fictionalized and neither the persons
or the incidents are identifiable to any real person or
situation.