New Boss

[twhfan]

Feeling a little bit sorry for myself today.  I'm getting a new boss in the next month or so and I'm a bit apprehensive about the whole thing.

I've known for quite a while that my current boss was leaving.  While I really like my boss, I was looking forward to getting some "new blood" in the department.  Now I've been told that they are promoting from within and the person who will be my new boss is someone I've never particularly liked or respected.

I plan to take the high road and be professional and courteus to the Nth degree, but I don't want to appear to be a "brown nose" either.    From what I gather from the current assistant, this person is extremely "high maintenance", essentially wanting to be spoon-fed from the moment of arriving in the office until leaving at night.  I've never worked for anyone who required such intense attention all day and I have other people I report to as well as my own work to do.  As I stated earlier, I'm a bit apprehensive about this.

I plan to meet with the current assistant to get some pointers, but would appreicate any advice from all of you.  Has anyone out there been through a similar situation?  How have you handled yourself??  Have you grown to like/respect the person eventually??

[radaro]

Something similar happened to me about two years ago.  My boss, J, who I thought I really liked, left our company to go to a startup.  At that time, our CEO promoted his friend, H, from account manager to executive vice president with no stops in between and he became my boss.

At the time I thought this was really awful.  Many of the people who reported to J, and I had worked closely with, left the company.  Either H fired them or they quit.  For most of the month of December and into January, I could barely motivate myself to get out of the bed in the morning.  Then, I spent the next few months looking for a job elsewhere.  

However, at the same time, this became a big opportunity for me.  For one thing J had, in addition to me, a coordinator who was close to him and had done most of the work that should have been mine (all she left for me to do was e-Mail, snail mail and calendar management - BORING!).  H fired the coordinator so I was able to reclaim many of the duties that should have been mine.  It made me realize that J had never had the backbone, although I had pushed him several times, to decide what duties were mine and what duties belonged to the coordinator.

Also, H didn't have any experience as an executive so relied on my heavily to help behind the scenes.  Over the last two years, we have developed a rapport that I have never had with any of my other bosses.  We respect each other yet can joke around with each other.  He appreciates the work that I do and lets me know.  He understands that I have a family life and makes accomodations for it.

Anyhow, recently H moved to another, newly-formed department with our company.  I expected that I would remain in my same position and report the the new executive vice president for the department.  Instead, H asked me to move with him to the new department and gave me a promotion.

So, the moral of the story is, what looked like a really bad situation, turned out for the best.  While I'm not saying that your situation will end the same way, keep an open mind and think positive.

You are right to remain professional and as long as you are professional you are not a "brown noser".  I had the same worries (would people see me as a traitor to J?) but people understand that you have to do your job, no matter who you report to and if you act professionally, they should and will respect you.

Good Luck!

[charity]

In addition to what Radaro has said, I would add, since you also work with and for several others, YOU NEED to call a meeting right at the beginning, when new bossie starts, with all of them and agree on the level of support you provide. (I trust you have a job description - which you can use as the basis of your meeting).

Since you are the one who would have called the meeting, (a) it shows initiative (b) being pro-active and assertive and use the meeting as a review of your duties/support level but at the end of it making sure that everyone agrees at the meeting what level support is expected of you.

Good luck

Charity

PS On the other hand you might find it quite fun/challenging working with this person as they might not be that high maintance at all - at times the problem does lie with some of us the support system (when we 'mother' our bosses)

[spitfire78]

I agree with charity - sometimes the problems lie between personalities.  I got a new boss a couple of years ago.  His former admin told me that absolutely she couldn't change a word of his letters because he would have a fit.  He is not a U.S. citizen and, while his language skills are by and large pretty good, sometimes his sentence structure and punctuation need rearranging.  I try never to let others influence my opinion, so I decided to fix a few things in some of his letters.  I have now worked for him for 2 years and have done a little rearranging and correcting here and there in almost all of his letters.  He has never said a word to me.  But then again, I just quietly do it and don't make a big deal of it.  Perhaps the other admin made a lot of noise over it or did it very obviously and offended him.  I don't know.  I just know that I have not had a problem in that area at all with him, and she apparently did.  Hopefully, your situation will be similar.