Oh I completely agree with you that you shouldn't put up with abuse of any kind. Unfortunately, one must have an income to survive, and who knows how long the job search will take for something different. Until there's a new job, you kind of need coping strategies and while I agree that changing the boss' behavior probably isn't going to happen in this case because it's NOT a legitimate case of a mental illness, I do think that if it was, some behaviors can be manipulated with the way you handle them. If you think about, for example, a person with a complaint about service or a product they are unhappy with...you can call the customer service and explain why you are upset and ask what they can do for you. That's one option. Another option is to call and scream at the customer service person and call them names and demand they do x,y, or z. Personally, I'd be more willing to help the person who is calm and respectful and just wants a resolution. So how you engage with a person really can make a difference. And that's even without a mental illness. No, a person doesn't have authority over a boss to make him be respectful, but if you start yelling back you might get one end result, if you walk away you might get another, if you burst into tears you'll get yet another, if you try to negotiate there might be another outcome....That's what I mean when I say everyone in the situation has a role...how they act or react will determine what happens. It's not a defined set of behaviors...you don't know how a person will react until it happens. Then you take notes and try something else until you find the way that works.
I'm so sorry for what your family went through....all of you, even your wife. And you have always spoken of her with respect, even though she made things hard for you.
I assumed the boss was "the" boss, because I figured otherwise he wouldn't be there anymore. I had a very verbally abusive boss at Walmart when I worked there. I was working for the Pharmacy department, stocking the shelves, so there was my boss who was directly above me (the department manager), then there was the store Assistant manager, and then the store manager. I ended up having to file a complaint about the department manager and they moved me out of her department, but it wasn't long before she was a cashier instead of in a mangagement position. I had been warned that she could be difficult, but I'm generally able to get along with most people. But this was when my mother was sick and I took 2 days off to go be with her when she was in the hospital. When I came back, the dept. manager yelled at me and told me that I left her with all my work, and that it wasn't fair to her, etc. I explained that my mother was in the hospital and that I had permission from the store manager to have those days off. She told me SHE was my boss, SHE hadn't given me permission, and my mom "had cancer and was going to die anyway" and I "couldn't do anything about it" so why did I have to make her job harder. If she had been the big boss, I couldn't have complained about it...I wouldn't have been able to do anything. But because she WASN'T, I complained, and there were enough strikes against her that she was relieved of her role eventually.
In my current job, several of the supervisors have been let go because of complaints that they weren't easy to work for. There comes a point at which the big bosses are tired of losing valuable employees and having a huge turnover because the people above them are jerks, and they let the jerk go and bring in someone new and hope to stop the hemmorage of workers. In my situation now, old employees were even asked to come back once a particular manager was gone.
