where do you vent about your boss?

[mrsmichaelson]

(asking for a friend)

bosses are human and can be jerks. somehow feels more true about entrepreneurs. where does a second in command safely vent about it? i don't want to take that shit anywhere internally and my family doesn't need to be burdened.

would prefer to hear that experience over advice.

[mynewunit]

Multi tier answer.
Vent to him: This may seem counter productive, but it may actually have some results. This cannot have the theatrics of a story for the "gang at the bar", but I would think about saying whatever you want to say in a room by yourself out loud (or in the car as I do it). When you hit on specifics that bother you write them down. A little later have a light meeting with your boss and bring up your specifics and ask him how to handle them.

Vent to the Team: I do a lot of this. I also think you should understand that I have engineers disease, and therefore I have no actual emotions. Our company is trying to figure out how to do a bunch of things better. SO there are lots of things that we are told are very important and urgent and don't make any of our personal day to day tasks faster or easier. About once a week a handful of us will circle up in the breakroom and have a chat about "Do they know how much time it takes to forecast our project loads by week for the next 3 months?" I always cap it off with something positive. "Can you guys see why they are asking these questions? They want to make sure we have enough staff, enough work, and if we don't they would like to have that information to pass to those who can fix the problems".

Vent to the Family: Now don't do the whole family. My wife and I have worked for 12 years to be able to "talk about work frustrations". A lot of it is just understanding the she wants to be emphasized with. I have a similar issue and that is I want a giant "I told you so" sign that I can turn on at the office when someone comes to me with a problem that I foresaw and told them about weeks earlier. Since I am caught up on my HR required training, that could be workplace intimidation so I get to have a much smaller version with my wife. She doesn't get the light, she just gets to hear how smart her husband is.

Vent to a third Party: This is probably the best. These exist in many arenas. Churches have small groups. There are clubs (gun club, elks club, book club). You can get a mentor. You could create a more anonymous username on a leadership forum and thinly vale the actual people/company/organization. This party can get the theatric rant with voices, act-outs, props and the mic drop at the end. My wife does a girls night out every few months and usually has a pretty good routine about something I have done. She gets a few of the wives, girl friends from college and friends from the gym together at some place that has couches and serves alcohol or high end coffee.

I have been bit in the past. One of my neighbors worked for the company that gave my company a bunch of work. He was about 15 years older than me and we would often talk if we ran into each other. Every once in a while I would mention one of the common problems associated with our work. He would occasionally ask a question about my story that would let me know I tipped my hand too far.

Figure out if you want solutions or just someone to hear you out and agree with you. Both are important.