Posted by denised in In this post, Buck told the story of his first encounter with a classic low self-esteemer…
A Napoleonic Tyrant
A classic case study of such a dangerous low self-esteemer was at my first job at a grocery store in a small town in western Massachusetts. The store manager, Mr. Blowhard, was a Napoleonic tyrant that all of the employees were afraid of, rather a Caine Mutiny captain Queeg kind of guy whose low self-confidence anxiety made him a monster. I dreaded coming to work and he made it difficult for me to do my job. Nothing was right for Mr. Blowhard and every encounter with him brought on a storm of abusive. He would often stand by me while I was packing groceries and once he harangued me so badly that my nervousness caused me to fumble and drop a bag full of goods. It was a real spectacle with grapefruit, oranges and canned goods rolling around the check-out area, while I made the whole situation worse trying to recover the spilled articles.
He and I just didn’t hit it off. I was his whipping boy because I was only seventeen at the time and I needed the job. And he knew too that kids my age respected their elders. Heck, it was my first job and as far as I knew all bosses would be this way. Fed up with having to deal with me he transferred me to one of the other stores in a neighboring town some twelve miles away, somewhat of a hardship for me at the time given that I didn’t have a car and each day had to find my way to and from the store.
“You made me look bad, kid”
The manager there, Ralph, was glad to have me. When I reported to him on the first morning, standing there ready for duty in my grocer’s apron, dress shirt and necktie, he shook my hand, welcomed me to the store and gave me the details of what I needed to do for the day. Well, I reported to this remote store for the entire summer, worked overtime and weekends and it seemed like I never had enough time to finish my job, stocking shelves with goods, working the cash register, packing groceries and rounding up shopping carts in the parking lot. The time flew by each day, I loved the job, the customers, my happy coworkers and I loved Ralph the super-confident manager. His store, by the way, was the most profitable in Berkshire County.
At the end of the summer when my tour with the store at the neighboring town was over I reported back to Mr. Blowhard, ready for work. He berated me and accused me of holding out on him. I was perplexed by his accusations and the confusion showed on my face, which prompted him to tell me that I had received nothing but praise from Ralph for the work I had done all summer. “You made me look bad, kid”, Mr. Blowhard said and this was no doubt because when arranging my temporary transfer he had promised Ralph the worst one of the lot, me. I learned some years later, by the way, that Mr. Blowhard was fired from the company for embezzling, a felony he committed to cover a huge accumulation of gambling debts.
Buck Hamilton is a sales and marketing executive who’s spent over thirty years working in the paper distribution business. He’s a prolific writer who’s presently working on a book which narrates the stories of sixteen Vietnam War veterans. You can read his weekly series “Managing the Meanies: A Survival Guide” every Tuesday here on Really Bad Boss.
