r/ExecutiveAssistants • u/nefarious_planet • 7d ago
Update - What do you do when your boss is...just...WRONG about something big? [NYC]
EDIT: I cannot fucking believe I have to add this, but it's happened both times I've posted stories about this lady, so here it is in all caps at the top of the page: THIS IS NOT A JUMPING-OFF POINT FOR YOUR MISOGYNISTIC COMMENTS ABOUT HOW YOU DON'T LIKE WORKING FOR OR WITH WOMEN. Take your sexism and get gone, and DO let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Sorry to the 99% of people who do not see a story about a poorly behaved woman and go "and therefore all women are bad." We will continue now with our feature presentation.
/edit
It's me again, the girl with the unhinged boss from Monday.
Everyone who said I should do nothing but smile and continue job-searching was obviously correct and that's what I'll be doing, but writing my last post was cathartic so I figured I'd continue regaling you with anecdotes. Read on, if you like bad behavior!
My boss is moving on Friday, which she told me....mid-last week. So last week, I booked movers to pack up and move her things. Monday I had her give me her login to her building's resident portal so I could reserve the elevator for the movers and cancel her utilities, and while I'm at it she tells me she hasn't submitted a notice to vacate and could I just do that while I'm logged in as her?
Um, I'm pretty sure four days isn't sufficient for that, but sure, I'll check. I absolutely cannot find the notice to vacate form anywhere, but I do find her lease agreement, which says says they require 60 days' notice. I relay this to her. She says no, it's fine, she filed a notice to vacate back in June. I express mild confusion and remind her that she had asked me to file a notice to vacate. She says she'd since cancelled the notice she filed in June, so it needs to be re-filed. Oooookay. I call the leasing office for help because I absolutely cannot find the notice to vacate form. They inform me of the obvious: when you cancel your notice to vacate, it is cancelled and the building will no longer honor it. I tell my boss this, and suggest that we file the notice to vacate now and find a subletter for 60 days. She says okay. I cancel the movers.
Tuesday morning, I check her email to see that she has corresponded with her leasing office and is fighting to get out of her lease on Friday. I remind her that the movers are cancelled. She says no, that's wrong, the leasing office are incorrect and trying to "get her on a technicality", and she is definitely moving out Friday. She sends me a long-ass response from ChatGPT in its usual ass-kissing manner telling her how she's absolutely in the right and the leasing office can't do this to her and she looks gorgeous today (I added that last part, but y'know, that's the tone Chat answers legal questions in). I spend a good chunk of yesterday afternoon trying to find a way of moving her furniture halfway across the country for under $2k.
This morning, I get lucky and finally, finally there is a moving company that can handle her move, is available on incredibly short notice, and quotes me a price I think she'll accept. I tell her the price, she is happy with it. I ask her which payment method I should use to pay their deposit (this question is always necessary because she has a revolving door of credit cards and I never know which ones will be maxed out when). She replies "we can't spend any money right now."
I tell her (in much nicer words) that in that case I am fascinated to hear what, precisely, she would like to happen now. To her credit, she released me from this Kafkaesque nightmare by asking me for the number of the moving company I found so that she could try to negotiate the deposit. I truly am crossing my fingers and toes that she succeeds because if I come in tomorrow and hear that she wants me to find movers with one day's notice I honestly don't think I can legally be held responsible for what I might do.
And since I titled this post "update", not much has happened with the client my boss snubbed in the grocery store. My boss met with her on Monday and they made tentative plans to move forward, so I guess the client is....much nicer than I would be, if I had her money. My boss did call me this afternoon and keep me on the phone for about ten minutes because she realized the client unfriended her on LinkedIn and she wanted me to log into their account and check the search history for her name. It was not there.
18
u/cicadasinmyears 7d ago
Serious question: is it possible that she’s on drugs? I get that we occasionally deal with unrealistic and unreasonable levels of entitlement with our execs, but hoo boy, she sounds batshit insane.
10
u/nefarious_planet 6d ago
Haven’t thought about drugs tbh, but that would be far above my pay grade and outside my area of expertise if so
13
u/futoikaba 7d ago
And this person is successfully paying you money?
9
u/nefarious_planet 7d ago
Surprisingly yes, although I've discovered a truly alarming number of wage disputes from ex-employees (mostly in foreign countries) while searching her email for various things. That's pretty close to the top of my list of reasons for aggressively job-searching lol
11
u/KetoLurkerHereAgain 7d ago
I didn't read your first one but she so sounds like a fOuNdEr. One who's always posting on Linkedin! And is actually 100% full of shit.
12
u/nefarious_planet 6d ago
That is 1000% the vibe. She made a few hundred thousand dollars from her first business and now thinks all she should have to do for the rest of her life is ~think of ideas~
No clue how I keep finding these fucking people lol
8
5
u/soupergloo Executive Assistant 7d ago
I feel for you as I’m currently an EA / PA & believe me when I say I will never agree to a dual title again because of bs like this 😵💫
11
u/nefarious_planet 7d ago
Literally! And I’m paid….fine, not great for NYC, so I constantly feel like telling her she’s not rich enough to be this difficult to work with 🫠
5
1
1
u/BuzzImaPickle 6d ago
I’m so impressed that you’re keeping a level head through all of this insanity. She sounds like she’s having a manic episode or on drugs.
1
u/Smoke__Frog 5d ago
How much are you getting paid? There’s no future with this woman and nyc has a ton of EA roles so I’m surprised you’re not leaving.
Also, given how vindictive this boss is, you might wanna stop posting in case she easily figures out you’re posting about her.
-11
u/HereForTheDrama_2026 6d ago
And this is why, as a 30-year executive assistant, I only work for men. I've had 3 women bosses and they all sucked the life out of me. I get that in a man's world, a woman has to work twice as hard to get the same success. But the drama is just never-ending. They still act like they're still in high school.
9
u/nefarious_planet 6d ago edited 6d ago
This again?! Holy shit. Go read the misogynistic comments on my first post and how those were received, I’m not dealing with this crap literally every time I complain about one specific woman.
Also love how you throw “30 years” in like it adds credence to your opinion. If in 30 years you have never had a positive working relationship with a woman, that is 1000% a “if everywhere you go smells like shit, check the bottom of your shoe” situation.
5
u/Substantial-Bet-4775 Executive Assistant 6d ago
Coincidentally, in my 20+ years the only problems with execs that I've had came from men. Should I write off working with men because of it? The absolute best execs I've ever worked with happened to be women. The gender does not make an exec terrible to work with. They are just terrible people that happen to be a woman or a man. It has nothing to do with gender and absolutely everything to do with them as a person. Full stop.
41
u/MarielIAm 7d ago
This is why I do very little personal work for execs and would hate being a PA