I’m counting a boss that bridged the gap between the boss that got fired for a promotion that lost the company millions of dollars, and the boss that thought someone else was my boss. There are no rules here!
But the points matter, right? Right!?
Yeah, with my boss I have definitely had to turn to another woman in the room after the meeting and say, “was I just being hypersensitive, or did you also notice he said X? That was weird, right?” And having someone acknowledge the thing you feel alone in noticing is helpful. Or putting in a different perspective.
We have both agreed he just has a different tempo and we aren’t offended by it, but also recognize that there could come a situation where we need to say something to him because we all deserve opportunities to do better.
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We’ve been watching a bunch of old episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? lately… so… no, no they don’t.
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I will say that in the N years I’ve been an actuary, I’ve seen exactly 2 credentialed actuaries get hired and fired within a year. Both instances were for sexual harrassment, both were so clearly over the line that when it was reported to HR the instruction was “escort them out of the office now, box their stuff up and ship it to them, they’re not to be let back into the office under any circumstance.” Beyond those two, I’ve never seen a company within even 2 years fire someone they hired for a supervisory position, no matter how apparent it was that said hire was a terrible manager and running off others - especially longtime and/or highly respected employees - and ruining morale in their department and between their department and other departments.
Do I think what’s being described rises to that level? No, but someone is still clearly uncomfortable. This is where it’s incumbent on the underling to go to the manager and have a talk. If you go straight to HR, they’ll set up a meeting for you and the manager to talk and try and sort things out. Show you were proactive, made an attempt to improve things before you went to HR. Document what’s going on. The more you have a track record, along with noting other people who were present who might be witnesses, the more credible your story is.
Maybe it’s reconcilable. Maybe it’s not. I say try, unless you’re really unhappy there (ignoring the new manager) and want to leave. If this were a manager bitching about your lack of professionalism because you wear a hoodie to and from work that’s not offensive in any way unless someone gets offended by the nickname of a university [yes, this really happened in one place], … well, there’s bigger issues at play, you need to get out.
Ooh, I saw a marketing guy get hoisted out like that at an insurance company once. Nice.
I was hired to do a project, hired because I had extensive unique experience on that type of project (it’s not unique anymore but it was then). He starts a department meeting with “I think I’ve got the most experience here in this stuff”. He wasn’t there when we finished lol.
as an asian american i’ve a lot of times had to deal with this american style of banter, where everyone lightly insults each other back and forth. don’t care for it and if that makes me an outsider so be it
i even tried it once but my insult was a little too harsh and i saw everyone’s jaw drop
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i think if u grew up with american siblings, this style of banter will be natural for you. But if you’re asian, and if u had said anything even remotely insulting to you elder sibling, you’d get smacked. So this style of banter is really not natural for asians imo
Be glad you aren’t in Mexico then 
Mexican humor is all about mockery. The closer you know someone the harder the mocking.
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i would guess there’s not many mexican-asian friendships
Yeah, maybe that’s the story, but it feels like it’s not to everyone and I’m not sure how appropriate banter is to subordinates, especially to only a few of them. If this were from a colleague, and he talked that way to everyone, it would be different.
just ignore it and resolve to always be an outsider. I do. It works!
I am a sarcastic guy, I banter up, I banter down, I banter sideways.
If I crossed a line and thought I hurt someone’s feelings, it would really bother me.
my boss does it with his direct reports, though we are all a fairly homogeneous group and give as good as we get
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have u thought that maybe it’s not to everyone because those specific people said something to him?
Depends on the relationship you want. I WANT banter with my bosses and my direct reports. I go out of my way to try and cultivate that closeness. But I also am very much on the side of disliking the stiff “professional” feel. My wife is completely on the other side. She is super professional and stiff and likes the formal boundary relationship. To each their own on what they want.
But I would want any direct report letting me know if they were uncomfortable - I would make a note to keep that particular relationship different. Again, I don’t know your boss, but I’ll plug just bringing it up instead of suffering in silence. If he ignores it, gives you another data point to get another job. It could also improve things for you.
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Also, the surprising thing is he started right away, no getting to know you phase, just straight into the joke/insults.
he’s trying to measure u up. Ignore him long enough and he’ll prob stop
I very much doubt it, since he leaves most other people alone, and I can’t imagine they all said something to him, just knowing their personalities.
maybe those people just ignored him long enough