Who's the Boss? - I've had it with my boss, Gary. He's already been treating me like shit lately, but today was the last straw. At a "fire drill" meeting with the marketing group, he interrupted me while I was patiently answering their technical questions. He cut me off in mid-sentence by saying, "Shut your mouth and don't speak unless I tell you to speak," and then proceeded to answer a question by parroting the information that I had drilled into his thick skull earlier that day.

Even the marketing people were taken aback by his words. I was fuming for the remainder of the meeting. Since Gary doesn't have a clue about our marketing database, virtually all of the questions were directed at me. Before answering their questions, I would turn to Gary and ask sarcastically, "Do I have your permission to answer the question?"

Whenever the idiot spoke, I would roll my eyes in my head or give him a look of utter contempt. Everyone could tell that I was seething underneath. Later, a few people came to me to offer condolences for having to work with such an prick.

At the end of the day, the asshole came to my desk and started barking orders at me. What made me blow my stack wasn't what he was asking me to do, but rather it was the demeaning manner in which he spoke to me. After I answered each of his requests with a simple "yes", he pretended that he didn't hear my responses and would repeat what he just said, only more slowly--as if I were one of the several learning-disabled staffers in his group.

That did the trick. I screamed back at him, "There's no need to repeat yourself--I'll finish all the crap you shovel at me."

Gary seemed initially startled by my words, but then recovered and asked me if I needed to get something off my chest.

"You're damned right I do. I'm pissed at you, and you know very well the reasons why," I said.

Vinod, who happen to be standing between us, was shaken by the exchange and seemed embarassed to be there. He turned his back on both of us.

Sensing that I was about to rip out his throat, Gary asked insincerely if we could meet in his office. I turned down his offer with a flat "no" and informed him that his data request would be on his desk the first thing on Monday morning. I turned my back at him, and that was the end of our conversation.

On Monday, I'll be looking to hear back from the Private Client Services (PCS) group that interviewed me two weeks ago, and I will call another group that expressed interest earlier this year. I'm no longer willing to work for a tyrant, and I'm not afraid to let people know it, too.