The final showdown?

Sorry I’ve been so quiet.  Encountered a technical problem on my blog, for one thing.  But really the issue is that I think I’m heading into the final showdown with Dumb Boss.

He has reverted to bullying me, and using any negative thing someone says as fodder for my under-performance.  He has even committed this to writing – in emails, which he is particularly patronising and belittling in.

The core of the issue is that, after the transfers of funds, I was asked my view by the internal auditors.  So I told them I thought there were risks with the transactions.  He went ballistic, became threatening and now I’m not allowed to raise a risk issue unless he agrees with me.  This includes to the auditors.  He reckons that I’ve been running my own agenda, but all I’ve done is express concerns about a transaction that (a) the regulator is sniffing around, and (b) I warned them not to do in the first place.  Being the General Counsel, THAT’S MY JOB!

Yet again, he’s also let another Senior Exec complain about some advice we gave – and even though I tried to brief him on the issue more than once (he declined) he is not interested in hearing my side of the story and is slamming me in my performance review.  I have said I want an independent person to review what was done, as I stand by our conduct and the advice given.  He says he doesn’t want to “re-litigate” it – “there’s no point”.

He also has given me no credit for working around the clock for 3 months to sort out all sorts of disasters that were going on.  Instead, I got criticised for making decisions instead of letting the business do so – problem was, there was no-one from the business around and, when they were around, they were unprepared to make the decisions…leaving a massive and dangerous gap given the complexity and speed with which things were moving. 

He also failed to actually meet the promises that he made to me in our half yearly discussion – that he would meet with me every 2 weeks, and we’d discuss issues and he would raise any negative feedback in a timely manner so that we could discuss it.  He has done that twice.  No more.  And now he’s raising issues without notice or interest in my version of events in my performance review.  I feel like I’m suffocating.  I can’t move.  There’s no room – it’s his way or the highway, and I have no way of knowing his way until well after the event.  Naturally, since I can’t get in to meet with him, I can’t work out what he’s thinking…he now tells me he has no time to meet with me.

So, I am now pondering how to deal with him.  Do I:

(a) resign – in an environment of GFC crap where I may not get a job

(b) formally respond and go all “legal” on him

(c) roll over – but compromise what I regard as the core part of my role, for which I will be criticised if I don’t do it!  (he is asking me to stop being concerned about whether the Boards are meeting their legal obligations, and focus on assisting management.  My working assumption is meant to be that management knows what it’s doing and will never cause the boards to be in breach of the law…except I know different.  Few people in this business seem to know or understand their legal obligations, and there have been numerous things done that compromise the Boards…how can I ignore this when it’s my job to help people navigate through it?

(d) ask him to change my position description to remove the things that he doesn’t want me to do - things that are crucial for a General Counsel, like ensuring compliance? 

(e) something else – report him to the regulator?  Sue him? 

So, we have another meeting tomorrow.