What can we learn from arrogant bosses?
Tags: softskills, work
Published: 2017-11-28 21:09:56

---
title: What can we learn from arrogant bosses?
published: true
description: It's difficult to work for a toxic boss. But, what's a toxic boss in the first place? What are the advantages of working for one?
tags: soft-skills, work
---

I believe, everybody encountered an arrogant boss through her career. An arrogant boss is somebody who… Well, someone who looks like an arrogant boss to me, he might be fine for you.

Nobody is perfect, not even the managers. There are some kind of personality flaws that I can hardly tolerate while it might be fine for others. Also, there are personality flaws that I tolerate well, while others can’t handle it that well.

The fun fact is that we can even learn from this kind of bad experiences.

### So, how do you know you’re working for an arrogant boss?

Arrogant people in general don’t respect your personal boundaries. They judge you. They criticize you. They make you work overtime a lot. They use language that you don’t like. And so on.

So, your boss does something that you can hardly tolerate. He is pushing your buttons a little too much. He makes your life miserable. Too bad that you didn’t foresee it during the interview process. What now?

### How to deal with it?

You can try to tolerate it. I’m serious. Tolerance and self-composure are like a muscle. The more you train them, the stronger they become. You can practice how to calm yourself down in stressful situation. It’s going to be useful through your life.

You can look at your boss and try to guess what he needs from you – give it to him if you can. You can learn how to read other peoples body language.

### What are the advantages?

In the previous paragraphs you already saw what you can learn in this kind of situation. I.e. you might become stronger and more resilient. But that’s not all!

You might learn how this craziness is possible within the organization. So you can level up your systemic thinking skills.

If you can get hardly anything right, then you get to decide what’s important for you. An arrogant boss is a great opportunity to get more conscious about your values. Some people want to do a good job. Some want to do god for the organization they are working for. Others need stimulating tasks. Some folks are people pleasers, and so on. So, if your boss fails to give clear priorities, then, ironically, you get to decide what’s important.

If you work on monotonous tasks, then you’ll learn how to tolerate monotony. Also, you’ll learn how to deal with that kind of tasks. Say for instance, lots of maintenance work is going to improve your problem-solving skills. Believe or not, there is a [book](https://pragprog.com/book/pbdp/debug-it) about debugging [effectively](https://tamasrev.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/applied-science-debugging/). It’s a really good one.

Do you have to work on a code base you can’t stand looking at? Come on, there’s a [book](https://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052) about that too. Distasteful it might be, a legacy code base is a good place to enhance your analytical skills. Moreover, you’ll learn how to pin down the problem to a couple of classes. You’ll learn what to focus on. It’s an incredibly important skill.

### When to stop?

Tolerance and self-composure are like a muscle. You can chronically exhaust them.

Look for signs of burnout and depression. If you’re frequently moody, tired or irritated then it’s probably getting too much.

Again, it’s about knowing your priorities. You need to know how much convenience you want to sacrifice for the sake of learning. However, when it’s getting under your skin then it’s time to move on. You should not trade your mental health for a job.

Anyway, these skills you’ve just learned at your job, they are going to pay off well – in your next position. Don’t stick to a bad job for too long.

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Originally appeared at [tamasrev](https://tamasrev.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/what-can-we-learn-from-arrogant-bosses/).