Boss making me feel bad for not working over Christmas

glider3560

I work a job with normal office hours, albeit with informal flexitime. Whole place closed down between Christmas and New Year, so we were all forced to take these days as annual leave. I therefore didn't do any work!

Boss turns up this morning and starts asking how x, y and z are going. I tell him I've only been here 10 minutes so literally only just started and will update him throughout the day. He didn't look particularly pleased.

He then continually throughout the day tells me about how he was working over Christmas. Every single time he told me about something it was always "I did that on Christmas afternoon" or "this is how I spent my new year's eve" or "I did this at 3am one night". None of these things have tight deadlines, so they could've all waited until this year.

Other than thinking how sad his Christmas was (mine was great, BTW), what's the best way of approaching it? Just ignore him?

sangie595

You are the one making yourself feel bad. He's doing nothing except telling you what he did! Ignore it...

BorisThomson

Get on with your job and make sure you keep to your deadlines. Simple as that.

I wouldn't assume that someone's Christmas was sad because they did some work during their break. Some of us just don't subscribe to the overly commercialised guff of it all!

TELLIT01

The place is closed so you can't work. If your boss decides he is so important that the place can't cope without him, even when closed, that's his problem. There is absolutely no reason for you to feel guilty.

ACG

When he tells you that you have to take Christmas/New year off at the end of this year, just tell him you would rather take your holidays at different times so you dont have to listen to him moaning about how he worked and you did not.

I did some admin on Xmas eve and boxing day, and also new years eve (only up til 6pm) and also on new years day. But I am self employed, I chose to work and I am quite happy doing it. I might tell people they are lazy for not working when I did but only as a joke, only as a one off and I definitely would not expect anyone else to work at those times. I also did it sat on my couch with my feet up and a drink in hand.

As others have said, just ignore it. Or if you can get away with it, maybe just do the snoring noises when he starts doing it.

jobbingmusician

Or.... a good initial response for this boss would be....

'You'll already know I wasn't working over Christmas. I did have some ideas about the projects I'm working on, however. Let me mull these over for a few more days now I've got the office data to hand, and I'll come back to you if they come to anything'.


(Makes your boss think you've been working to resolve issues, but doesn't commit you to anything I sympathise deeply, as however bad the problems are at work, I forget about them totally if I have more than a day off! )