Former Community – We Moved

🆕 Coached community here, for posts & feedback public community here.

ForumPublic Forum: Business / Work / CareerWorkHow to reject my former narcissis …

Please or Register to create posts and topics.

How to reject my former narcissist boss' offer smoothly

#1 · July 22, 2022, 6:09 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2022, 6:09 pm
Hello everyone,
as you guys know I manoeuvred to get a letter of recommendation from my former narcissist boss (head physician) who mistreated me, along with his colleagues. When I finished there I swore I would never come back.
Yesterday I received this email from him:
Hi John,
Your letter of recommendation has been sent by mail today. If you agree (good: power-protects), it would be good that you come to see us to discuss your career plan. Next week Monday 25, Thursday 28 and Friday 29th of July we could receive you at 9am.
Otherwise, give us your availability and we will summon you (French translation: they send you a letter for you to come) for an interview.
Beautiful next part of the day (literal French translation)
Narcissist ex-boss
So he's definitely one of the most narcissistic person I encountered. He has his nice side: comes from Argentine so has cultural knowledge, has ok-good medical knowledge, he's a ruthless politician and of course he's all about power. After talking with a nurse who worked there some time ago and left because of the toxic environment: she noticed that he succeeded in corrupting his head physician colleagues. Now they became low-warmth high power, mistreat people and manipulate them. I know, I've been there.
Of course he uses the letter as a bean/token so I would feel obligated to come. Which I don't because this letter is owed to me. I worked hard, I worked tens if not hundreds of hours of overtime over a year which were never paid nor compensated to me. On top of it, the letter does reflect my good work and attitude. So it is owed to me. So now they cannot pretend I'm a bad employee if a written letter says the opposite. So I'm good on the reputation side within my field in my region. Even if I refuse their offer. Even if they are being called on the phone by a potential employer, they would look dumb and lose credibility to say: "Yeah, actually he sucks at his job, but we still wrote him a nice recommendation letter". Who would look dumb and fake now?
My question is: how would you reject the offer while keeping the peace/good relationship?
My answer would be a lie: to pretend that I don't want to do the daily train trip for personal reasons (1 hour door-to-door, so 2 hours per day commuting).
Something like this:
Dear narcissist ex-boss,
Thank you very much for the letter. I would have love to come and meet you for an interview. However, I decided for personal reasons to look for work closer to my home from now on.
That being said, I wish you a great end of the Summer and will see you at a paediatrics conference with pleasure! (It's true, I actually like to talk about stuff with him)
Kind regards,
John
What do you guys think? I could also expand the threads of the reasons why I don't want.
I'm planning to answer him on Monday. Of course it's up to you if and when you respond. I give you this information to let you know I'm on a tight schedule on this one as he put pressure on me from the start with proposition to meet next week out of the blue. I could answer him later in the week, but it would look like a power move and lower the credibility of my response.
First, I'm working next week so I'm not available, moreover this proves that he's a taker as in: "I want it now".
Cheers!

Hello everyone,

as you guys know I manoeuvred to get a letter of recommendation from my former narcissist boss (head physician) who mistreated me, along with his colleagues. When I finished there I swore I would never come back.

Yesterday I received this email from him:

Hi John,
Your letter of recommendation has been sent by mail today. If you agree (good: power-protects), it would be good that you come to see us to discuss your career plan. Next week Monday 25, Thursday 28 and Friday 29th of July we could receive you at 9am.
Otherwise, give us your availability and we will summon you (French translation: they send you a letter for you to come) for an interview.
Beautiful next part of the day (literal French translation)
Narcissist ex-boss

So he's definitely one of the most narcissistic person I encountered. He has his nice side: comes from Argentine so has cultural knowledge, has ok-good medical knowledge, he's a ruthless politician and of course he's all about power. After talking with a nurse who worked there some time ago and left because of the toxic environment: she noticed that he succeeded in corrupting his head physician colleagues. Now they became low-warmth high power, mistreat people and manipulate them. I know, I've been there.

Of course he uses the letter as a bean/token so I would feel obligated to come. Which I don't because this letter is owed to me. I worked hard, I worked tens if not hundreds of hours of overtime over a year which were never paid nor compensated to me. On top of it, the letter does reflect my good work and attitude. So it is owed to me. So now they cannot pretend I'm a bad employee if a written letter says the opposite. So I'm good on the reputation side within my field in my region. Even if I refuse their offer. Even if they are being called on the phone by a potential employer, they would look dumb and lose credibility to say: "Yeah, actually he sucks at his job, but we still wrote him a nice recommendation letter". Who would look dumb and fake now?

My question is: how would you reject the offer while keeping the peace/good relationship?

My answer would be a lie: to pretend that I don't want to do the daily train trip for personal reasons (1 hour door-to-door, so 2 hours per day commuting).

Something like this:

Dear narcissist ex-boss,
Thank you very much for the letter. I would have love to come and meet you for an interview. However, I decided for personal reasons to look for work closer to my home from now on.
That being said, I wish you a great end of the Summer and will see you at a paediatrics conference with pleasure! (It's true, I actually like to talk about stuff with him)
Kind regards,
John

What do you guys think? I could also expand the threads of the reasons why I don't want.

I'm planning to answer him on Monday. Of course it's up to you if and when you respond. I give you this information to let you know I'm on a tight schedule on this one as he put pressure on me from the start with proposition to meet next week out of the blue. I could answer him later in the week, but it would look like a power move and lower the credibility of my response.

First, I'm working next week so I'm not available, moreover this proves that he's a taker as in: "I want it now".

Cheers!

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#2 · July 22, 2022, 9:18 pm

Have you already read the recommendation letter?

I'd first make sure you get it, and that you 100% like it.

It will be a lot harder to amend it after you refused -the law may different and give you the right to pursue it, but... It's gonna be a lot harder anyway, and probably still not as good-.
Edit: I'm theoretically still waiting for the recommendation letter from my last employer that I didn't depart too amicably with, and that albeit it's due by law. Good thing I told myself that "if I need the recommendations from these turkeys, I'd rather end up under a bridge", or I may have actually needed to get a lawyer to get my rights respected, and you don't wanna waste time with that.

After that: why not show up to that meeting?

Not just for political reasons, but it's still good to get all offers on the table, see what they say, learn a couple of things from the meeting... You may even ask for some intros wherever you want to go -a bold move, but you'll also learn from that, how and if they refuse-.

John Freeman and B have reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.

#3 · July 22, 2022, 9:47 pm

Mmmh smart. I’ll answer in more details later. I’m out. Yes I did get the recommendation and it’s good. It’s not stellar, it’s not mediocre it’s good.

#4 · July 23, 2022, 3:43 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 23, 2022, 3:43 pm
Thank you very much for your quick answer Lucio!
It's true I have not thought about going to the interview for emotional reasons. These people hurt me, abused me and gaslighted me. To give you an example: when I was making progress working as hard as I could, they were saying it's not enough.
Another colleague of mine who was there 1 year earlier was told as he was making a lot of effort to make progress that they were feeling like he was giving up. People in neonatology did this to me as well.
The gaslight is:
"We are not satisfied with your performance, you have to do better" (or else...)
After the performance increase and effort: "Well, it feels like you've given up": meaning "give even more" or "we won't give you credit for the progress since there is no progress, it's even worse than before" (meaning: you owe us even more).
Rinse and repeat every 6 months with new (naive because in experimented) resident physicians. They pick 1-3 of them with whom are beginners to play this game on them. So these people are master "squeezers" to get all the juice out of you. The positive is that you give your best. The negative is that since you're not compensated for it, you feel like you've been scammed/robbed.
I had the same in nephrology and this is why I did not want to do a thesis with the head physician. Yes, you achieve something but they slave it out of you.
Going back to the current situation.
Following your advice, I will go to the interview as I could gain some intel. I won't ask them intros (as for people like that they would take it as an offence). I will say that I'm still applying to other hospitals and evaluating the different offers. Being manipulators, they will tell me that there is a short timeline and that I must decide quick.
From there, I'll take my time and find something else. If they find someone in-between, even better. From there it won't look as I reject them but more that the timeline did not work out.
All this shows you how much of takers this category of people are. They take, take, take. And as soon as they can take again, they take some more. In exchange you get a letter of recommendation which was due from the beginning, which is credit inflating to the max.
As you guys might know from my journal, now I decided to only work with benevolent, honest, supporting people. Because they exist. Why choose the scum when the cream exists. Of course I have to rise to the occasion now.
As said in my previous short answer, the letter is good: highlighting that it was my first experience, that I was professional and enthusiastic. That I got along with all the staff, parents and children. They recommend me dearly to any employer.
The only catch/power move (but it could be considered standard though), he wrote: "I'm available for more information if need be". So he always try to keep his dirty sticky hands in your career. What's on my side though is that EVERYONE in my field in my region knows he's crazy/difficult.
I'm going to win. I'm going to create the life of my dream. I believe it.

Thank you very much for your quick answer Lucio!

It's true I have not thought about going to the interview for emotional reasons. These people hurt me, abused me and gaslighted me. To give you an example: when I was making progress working as hard as I could, they were saying it's not enough.

Another colleague of mine who was there 1 year earlier was told as he was making a lot of effort to make progress that they were feeling like he was giving up. People in neonatology did this to me as well.

The gaslight is:

"We are not satisfied with your performance, you have to do better" (or else...)
After the performance increase and effort: "Well, it feels like you've given up": meaning "give even more" or "we won't give you credit for the progress since there is no progress, it's even worse than before" (meaning: you owe us even more).

Rinse and repeat every 6 months with new (naive because in experimented) resident physicians. They pick 1-3 of them with whom are beginners to play this game on them. So these people are master "squeezers" to get all the juice out of you. The positive is that you give your best. The negative is that since you're not compensated for it, you feel like you've been scammed/robbed.

I had the same in nephrology and this is why I did not want to do a thesis with the head physician. Yes, you achieve something but they slave it out of you.

Going back to the current situation.

Following your advice, I will go to the interview as I could gain some intel. I won't ask them intros (as for people like that they would take it as an offence). I will say that I'm still applying to other hospitals and evaluating the different offers. Being manipulators, they will tell me that there is a short timeline and that I must decide quick.

From there, I'll take my time and find something else. If they find someone in-between, even better. From there it won't look as I reject them but more that the timeline did not work out.

All this shows you how much of takers this category of people are. They take, take, take. And as soon as they can take again, they take some more. In exchange you get a letter of recommendation which was due from the beginning, which is credit inflating to the max.

As you guys might know from my journal, now I decided to only work with benevolent, honest, supporting people. Because they exist. Why choose the scum when the cream exists. Of course I have to rise to the occasion now.

As said in my previous short answer, the letter is good: highlighting that it was my first experience, that I was professional and enthusiastic. That I got along with all the staff, parents and children. They recommend me dearly to any employer.

The only catch/power move (but it could be considered standard though), he wrote: "I'm available for more information if need be". So he always try to keep his dirty sticky hands in your career. What's on my side though is that EVERYONE in my field in my region knows he's crazy/difficult.

I'm going to win. I'm going to create the life of my dream. I believe it.

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#5 · July 24, 2022, 11:10 am

Cool, sounds like you well adapted the general idea to your situation.

As for "I'm available for more information if need be" I think that's relatively standard, albeit indeed it's also convenient for I'm as it keeps giving him leverage over you until you'll go through one or two more hospitals/clinics -after which the odds of people calling may decrease-.

And that's why it's good not to burn bridges, not even with assholes (unlikely) whenever they got any leverage over you: unluckily a negative or even lukewarm feedback on the phone far outweighs what's written on the paper.

There are also some ways you can protect from that -there's (almost) always a way, but they're not very legal so let's leave them up to imagination :)-

John Freeman has reacted to this post.

Community, new content and Confidence University now available here.