Dealing With An Office Tyrant

We've been dealing with office tyrants since we've been organized into small groups. However, the office tyrant didn't fully come into their own until we developed some sort of office: The person who attempts to rule the office by keeping everyone divided, is more worried about their own agenda than that of the business, and who is more worried about enforcing rules rather than allowing any work to get done.

Fortunately, they have become easier to deal with: Business owners and their executives have become more interested in keeping up morale, rules tend to empower employees, and even the ubiquitousness of technology can help level the playing field. Given the tyrants are powerful when no one is communicating, there is no evidence of their slights, and ignorance is enforced, this has made them that much easier to deal with.

Is It Time to Just Move On?

While it can be relatively easy to deal with the tyrant, there is the question of whether it's worth the fight. Sometimes the business itself is on the way out due to inept management, missing its window of opportunity, or just too far behind the curve to catch up. It's also possible that the tyrant is too entrenched to pry out, or that the other employees are just too demoralized, scared, or desperate for work to do anything. It can also make it nearly impossible to do anything if the tyrant has allies in the upper management or human resources department.

There is the possibility of retribution on the way out, and that retribution may take a number of forms, ranging from termination to setting you up for potential legal issues; the fight could be career-ending. You may also not have the support of your fellow workers, as your fight may make things more difficult for them; they'll make things harder for you. Thus either make sure you have the support of your co-workers or that you're isolated enough from everyone else that whatever happens will only be on your head.

If the tyrant is too entrenched, you don't have co-worker support, or the situation could get turned against you, it makes sense to not fight, but to either put in your two weeks or just run. Try to make sure that you have another job lined up before you start to fight, or at least you have some sort of way to survive the lack of income for a bit or you could be in for some hard times.

Know Where Your Superiors Fall

It can only help to know the opinions of the tyrant's superiors. Most of them will fall into one of three camps: Supporting the tyrant, hostile to the tyrant, or looking to solve potential problems. The best-case scenario is that they are hostile to the tyrant but are looking for evidence of malfeasance; they know something is going on but they haven't been able to get any proof. In this case, it's up to you to provide the needed evidence, but things will move quickly once they have something to work with.

On the other hand, they may not be aware of what is going on, but this just means that you need to get them interested in the situation. Most upper management is interested in anything interfering with business or that is just not working as efficiently as possible; show them that there is a problem, provide evidence of the problem, and then present a solution, and you'll have someone on your side.

However, they may be supporting the tyrant. She may be the daughter of the owners, he may have been put into place specifically to create problems, or they may have something over them; the bottom line is that unless there is one heck of a case against the tyrant, nothing is likely to be done. The case isn't completely hopeless; it just means that you need to look at it as if you are preparing for court. It means that it's time to either start looking into appropriate regulatory organizations (in the United States, OSHA, the Board of Equalization, and the IRS are good ones), or it may be time to get a lawyer.

It's All About the Cameras

With all of the recording equipment most businesses use for security, it can be easy to get all of the evidence you need if the tyrant is sloppy. However, an intelligent person will make sure that they do all of their crimes away from the cameras; this is where your personal phone can come in handy. Photograph and record what you can; it's easy to use the buttons on your phone to record even if it's locked. Don't forget about audio; conversations can be very helpful bits of evidence. Better yet, recordings are usually legal, and even if they aren't legal in court they are okay for in-house inquiries, so record conversations discretely whenever possible.

You should leave audits to the professionals; let the company deal with looking through the paperwork. However, given the sheer amount of paperwork that even the simplest business generates, crimes and even simple "misplacing" can be easily lost; if you can provide some starting points, the audit can go much faster. This also means that you should be keeping any emails being sent to you and possibly downloading or printing them. The evidence trail can sometimes be well-hidden, but if auditors have some points to work with, those trails become a lot more obvious.

The Rules Are Their Weakness

Eventually, you're going to give your evidence to the correct parties. You can either lay low and do your job as you normally would or you can begin a campaign of malicious-compliance; this is when you follow any instructions you're given to the letter with no misinterpretation. While you should avoid doing anything that puts you or others, as well as avoiding illegal actions, you're only doing the minimum to get your job done.

You also need to become a stickler for the rules. The minor irony here is that while the tyrant isn't going to like your new attitude when it comes to rules, especially when they contradict their directives, they are going to respect you more. You don't want to give the tyrant a reason to fire you while you're obtaining evidence against them and/or preparing to leave, and this helps keep protect, as well as you can be. This rebellion should also give you a little added thrill.

In Summary:

• Make sure that you have reason to keep your job. 
• Determine if the current structure can be fixed or if you should start looking for a new job. 
• If you stay, start gathering evidence. 
• Debate a campaign of malicious compliance.
• Turn in your evidence. 
• Hope everything works out okay.

Office tyrants are never good for business. While there is some debate over whether or not they can be good for restoring discipline to an anarchic store, they are definitely not good for long-term store efficiency: They can cause customers to go elsewhere. destroy employee morale, create employee retention issues, and create division between management. This ignores the potential for breaking laws and getting the business fined, making it a good thing to eliminate these people before they become a real problem.

Others will thank you.