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Ok, that may sound a little dramatic, but it's close.  I'm not sure it's the micromanagement that's going to take me out, but I've resorted to searching the web for resolution so you know I'm in dire straits.  I guess the first problem would be that my boss is incredibly insecure.  Myself and the rest of the team might be the only ones who are aware of it, but it certainly has had an extreme effect on the practice.  To start, my boss is one of four owners of a practice that employs approximately 55 team members.  I'm very proud to be a part of this organization as everyone who works there brings so much to the practice.  Of the four owners, my boss is the only one who is not a doctor.  He's supposed to be the Hospital Administrator; however, he has delegated most of his responsibilities to me and my assistant.  I say "my assistant" but until recently, he has made her HIS assistant because he felt like he needed one more than me.  I hired her to be a receptionist, but with her skillset I transitioned her to more of an administrative role. She worked directly for me (in my office) for a little over a year when he changed her role.  She still works in my office, but now she works directly for the Hospital Administrator, which is weird in and of itself.  Shouldn't he have hired an assistant?  Often he will tell her to "just have Judy take care of it".  This blurs the lines between management & subordinate, as she is still my employee.  That's a problem all on its own.  

Regarding the micromanagement, Bob wants to have weekly meetings that consist of 10 minutes of productivity and 45 minutes  of activity (ie. him talking about what he did over the weekend or fishing or hunting or his new way of keeping organized or how incredibly busy he is with ....shows me his list). Note: His list is extensive, but it's three pages of:

JM (me) to call insurance company 
DA (his/my assistant) to organize my files
JM to contact payroll about PTO on paychecks
JM to update photos on website
JM to contact client 4501 regarding refund
DA to enter bills into Quickbooks

Literally, it's a list of all the tasks we do on a daily basis that he merely has to check off.  So, needless to say, I'm not a big fan of the weekly meetings.  I do very well at avoiding these meetings because he's not very organized or focused on consistancy.  To date, he has had three major overhauls in his organization.  Originally he organized himself on a google calendar (6 months), then the Outlook calendar (8 months), and most recently with Asana (still going strong).  Each time he finds a new sense of organization, he calls me in to share how organized he is, showing me all the details of said organization.  I'm embarassed for him.  At any rate, his list of all of my job responsibilities (as well as any "to do" items that he has for me) is part of the problem.  My role at the hospital is significant as I'm responsible for all of the Human Resources (hiring, firing, benefits, payroll, mentoring, etc.), Marketing (all consumer marketing & web development), all things customer service (ie. client relations, invoicing concerns, conflict resolution etc) and the general operations of the hospital.  I am the GO TO person to have anything and everything taken care of.  This is the paradox of my role; while he wants me to handle all of the above, he drills me every time I handle issues in the hospital.  Often I will resolve a problem at the hospital and he will call me into his office, where he and his wife will take turns asking me why I did what I did and I will have to defend myself.  In recent episodes, it has become very heated as they have asked me if their partner (one of the other owners) has asked me to (insert shifty behavior).  I will often say, "This is not a Judy issue, perhaps you should ask your partner."  To which that causes a huge argument, "NO!  We are asking you." I generally proceed to tell them that I am very uncomfortable and it just goes downhill from there.  Towards the end of the episode, the wife will leave and my boss will ramble on about how amazing I am and that I get everything done so efficiently, I'm his glory employee...I do so much for the practice...etc etc.  It's truly an abusive relationship, but honestly...take them out of it and it's the perfect job.   

The catalyst for my post today is the fact that we took on a new physician.  He is arrogant and pompous; makes broad statements; finds problems, not solutions; complains to upper management with untruths (of course they'll believe a doctor over an employee in spite of no complaints until his arrival).  My biggest gripe with him is that he's judgemental.  I hired a southern belle.  She has a serious accent, but she is very good with the clients and the 1500 tasks that she has to complete on any given day.  Seriously.  One day, this guys says to me, "You need to fire everyone in reception, they're all horrible!"  I asked if he can be more specific and tell me what the exact problems were...to conclude it was a nurse issue, not a reception issue; however, I did speak to him long enough to have him tell me that the girl with the accent "sounds like a damn redneck and should be fired because we don't need a redneck representing the practice."  Are you kidding me?  YOU FRIGGIN' JUDGMENTAL JERK!  I never lost my temper with him (that's not to say I didn't want to hold a pillow over his face for 20 minutes), but I did address all of his concerns.  To date (3 months), he still hates the "redneck" and to top things off, his wife is a physician at a doctor's office that refers to our practice.  That practice has referred to us for years without incident and they are now threatening to quit sending referrals if we don't fire the "redneck".  Worse, my boss wants me to fire her for that reason.  He is the owner, I am the manager....I'm being asked to fire someone for "sounding stupid" ..."not being the impression we want to give our clients".  How do I write that up?  I was asked to fire her a month ago and have managed to keep her on until now, thus avoiding a lawsuit is my guess.  These are just a few of the things I'm dealing with right now with this owner/manager.  This morning, he was timing how long callers were on-hold at the practice and calling me to vent about it.  Four years ago when we opened this practice, we had two receptionist for 3 doctors.  We now have 8 doctors and still 2 receptionists.  I hired on another receptionists (my assistant) who was taken off of reception and made to be my boss' assistant.  She has the only other desk that allows for another receptionist....and he doesn't want her to answer phones anymore because "she's my assistant".  Help!  This is truly just the tip of the iceberg.  

Sibshops's picture

I think a lot of the issues would go away if you focus less on physchology and more on behavior. 

For your boss, it doesn't matter if you feel he is insecure. Insecure is not behavior. The chief complant seems to be that the boss is telling your direct what to do. I don't really have a solution for that, other than just stay in the middle, these podcasts may help.

https://www.manager-tools.com/2013/03/never-step-out-middle

https://www.manager-tools.com/2009/11/my-boss-skips-me

For the doctor, I would use the feedback model for him. "I just thought I'd let you know, when you said that some other doctor is a redneck it really makes my job harder." Look up the feedback model and peer feedback models for some more guidence.

Most of all, good luck.

xxxfearlessxxx's picture

This was very helpful and allowed me to discover the other more helpful podasts. Thank you.