A few weeks back, Dave shocked me into temporary (and very rare!) silence by telling me my boss is a b*tch. He’s a polite, well-spoken man who doesn’t really use much strong language. When I got over the shock of hearing him say something so violent, it occurred to me I didn’t really know what he meant.

You see, I work for myself. I do some work for clients but it’s short pieces of consulting.

I realised he was talking about me!

I asked why.

He said “she expects you do to more than is humanly possible, she makes you work huge numbers of unpaid hours, she has impossible standards, and she’s a bully”.

Woha.

I’m stubborn and argumentative, but I couldn’t come up with a comeback for this. He was totally right.   

When I’m looking at my workload and my priorities, I’ve started asking myself if it’s something I would think was reasonable if another person (a boss who is not me) was telling me to do it. If my reaction would be panic or indignation, it’s a good sign that I need to re-scope.

This week I realised I was having a bit of a melt-down in being assertive with my boss, so I’ve told her I’m going to take a couple of days off. I’m going away to the beach to clear my head. 

My boss is not invited. 

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Do you work for yourself? What things help you?