PLEASE get this man some fucking Ritalin!!!

My manager has a BAD case of AD/HD. He's disorganized, easily distracted, walks/talks really fast (hyperactive), has a bad short term memory, misplaces things a lot, talks out loud to himself ALL the time (which can get to be very annoying). I don't have anything against people with ADHD, I know that a lot of people have it, but in this case it seems to be getting in the way of his work (he's a procrastinator, lazy, overall a bad example). My problem is the fact that whenever I'm talking to him (no matter what it is), he'll always laugh afterwards. I don't feel like we can talk about anything REAL..or, if he does ask me "what's wrong?", I'll just tell him "oh, this project is making me frustrated!", because I don't feel like he'd take me seriously. Recently, when I've been around him.. after we're done talk about something, I'll look upset (looking at the floor), but he'll just tell me that we "need to work on my confidence". I feel like I always have to bottle everything up around him, because if I tried to explain to him that he jokes around too much, he'd probably just try to laugh it off. Plus, I feel like I am bending to make things work-out and one of these days I am going to break.
This morning, he was telling me about how he thinks he's "sort of a bad deal", because
people from other stores will call him and ask for advice on how to do a display. I laughed and said "is there a picture of you in the store?" and he said "well, actually they have a small manual with some of my tips, plus a picture of myself and one of the managers in the back", so I laughed more (thinking about how big of a ego this man has), said "maybe you should write a book!" and he said "maybe I will...". Then, he told me that I need to become cocky, so I said "cocky? how about being humble?" and he said "yeahh... I have to work on that." He's only a visual director for a store, yet he acts like he is a celebrity or something. Pass me an advil, I need to bail out.


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Submitted by IHateMyJob on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 22:17.

That sounds like one of my ex-Bosses actually. He had an attention span that was measured in microseconds and was VERY easily distracted. He never got anything done, all he did was push the blame onto others and get them to finish his work.

Nothing was ever simple for him, he had to turn a 10 minute project into 10 days rather than keep it simple. He used to moan like hell when the client never paid him, and used to start threatening us that he would dock our pay.

My advice is to stay more than an arms length from them, they're volatile and when there is a catalyst, they end up exploding. Play it safe around him.