My very emotional former boss has become my friend. Please help me learn how to deal with her/mine/our issues. Long explanation follows. Alright, so I worked there for eight years. A year or so after I started, my manager decided to retire and trained me to take over almost all of her duties as well. She retired and suddenly, I was spending most of my time with the owner of the company, right across the desk from her, every day, and I was the only employee. I got a lot of on-the-job training, and I also became her very close friend.
With every day that passed, more responsibility was shifted onto my shoulders. After three years or so, the situation had become strange, although I didn't realize it, based on my limited experience in situations like this. Every morning I woke up and within twenty minutes she was calling, asking when I was coming in, letting me know what she expected of me, what the highest priorities were that day (this usually changed overnight and sometimes duting the work day) and I was on 24-hour call every day of the year. She called me on more than one Christmas to wish me a merry Christmas, but she followed it up with, "well, I wasn't going to ask you to do this, but since you're already on the phone..." It was difficult for me to just not answer the phone. We had last-minute crises, that she seemed unable to handle, and when I missed an emergency call, she would guilt me for months afterward. I expressed to her that I would never do anything to willfully harm the company or her, and she would say, "oh, I know. I'm just mentioning this bad situation because of how it's affecting us now, etc., etc." I fluctuated between feeling guilty and feeling manipulated and used. She was completely computer illiterate, and insisted on me handling all of her paperwork as well as my own, but she critiqued everything, down to every single word, but she was indecisive on what to write instead, to the point that we would spend more than a half-hour writing a single paragraph email. She was an extreme micro-manager - she would ask me to do something, and not thirty seconds later, as I was doing the task, she would ask me if I had finished it yet, and here's something else to do right now. On top of it all, I had no benefits, no sick/personal days and my pay was always just a few dollars above minimum wage. [She thought my pay was right in the middle of what was fair for what I was doing, regardless of the fact that I was working about 3 jobs every day.]
Upside: she was flexible with my time, she was sometimes understanding and she bonused pretty well, although not reliably. I eventually fought for and got sick pay, and I got raises, but it was based on her "feelings" of my productivity and not my actual productivity. [She didn't know everything that I did throughout my time there to make that office run, and she never tried to figure it out. Also, I never knew if I would be able to afford Christmas presents, for anyone, even my kids, until the absolute last minute. Some years the bonuses were huge, and some years the bonuses never came.]
Fast forward five years. The week before this Christmas, she got nervous and antsy, and she made me antsy. I began to snap at her, almost without being able to control it, and she snapped back and asked me why I was angry with her. All of my explanations were met with "I didn't say that, and I don't think that I could ever say that." I got frustrated and eventually walked out.
The company is in its busiest season right now, possibly the busiest since I started there, but I'm at a point where I can't turn back. I've looked into some other jobs, and I've been offered nearly double what I was making with full benefits and a third of the workload. I worked with her yesterday, to finish end of year taxes, and she broke down crying several times. She's also been crying on the phone. I can understand that she's in a bad spot right now, and that she's stressed. But I think that I'm being manipulated all over again, and I don't want to go through that again. I also don't want for her, as a friend, to feel that I don't care about her.
How can I express to her that I need to move on, but that I still want everything but the best for her? I've tried, but it doesn't seem like she believes me. Am I just being manipulated into coming back?
(Yesterday I went back to take care of employee and contractor taxes. I need to do my personal taxes, and I've already been contacted by several of the contractors for their info. I see yesterday as much for me as for her.)
With every day that passed, more responsibility was shifted onto my shoulders. After three years or so, the situation had become strange, although I didn't realize it, based on my limited experience in situations like this. Every morning I woke up and within twenty minutes she was calling, asking when I was coming in, letting me know what she expected of me, what the highest priorities were that day (this usually changed overnight and sometimes duting the work day) and I was on 24-hour call every day of the year. She called me on more than one Christmas to wish me a merry Christmas, but she followed it up with, "well, I wasn't going to ask you to do this, but since you're already on the phone..." It was difficult for me to just not answer the phone. We had last-minute crises, that she seemed unable to handle, and when I missed an emergency call, she would guilt me for months afterward. I expressed to her that I would never do anything to willfully harm the company or her, and she would say, "oh, I know. I'm just mentioning this bad situation because of how it's affecting us now, etc., etc." I fluctuated between feeling guilty and feeling manipulated and used. She was completely computer illiterate, and insisted on me handling all of her paperwork as well as my own, but she critiqued everything, down to every single word, but she was indecisive on what to write instead, to the point that we would spend more than a half-hour writing a single paragraph email. She was an extreme micro-manager - she would ask me to do something, and not thirty seconds later, as I was doing the task, she would ask me if I had finished it yet, and here's something else to do right now. On top of it all, I had no benefits, no sick/personal days and my pay was always just a few dollars above minimum wage. [She thought my pay was right in the middle of what was fair for what I was doing, regardless of the fact that I was working about 3 jobs every day.]
Upside: she was flexible with my time, she was sometimes understanding and she bonused pretty well, although not reliably. I eventually fought for and got sick pay, and I got raises, but it was based on her "feelings" of my productivity and not my actual productivity. [She didn't know everything that I did throughout my time there to make that office run, and she never tried to figure it out. Also, I never knew if I would be able to afford Christmas presents, for anyone, even my kids, until the absolute last minute. Some years the bonuses were huge, and some years the bonuses never came.]
Fast forward five years. The week before this Christmas, she got nervous and antsy, and she made me antsy. I began to snap at her, almost without being able to control it, and she snapped back and asked me why I was angry with her. All of my explanations were met with "I didn't say that, and I don't think that I could ever say that." I got frustrated and eventually walked out.
The company is in its busiest season right now, possibly the busiest since I started there, but I'm at a point where I can't turn back. I've looked into some other jobs, and I've been offered nearly double what I was making with full benefits and a third of the workload. I worked with her yesterday, to finish end of year taxes, and she broke down crying several times. She's also been crying on the phone. I can understand that she's in a bad spot right now, and that she's stressed. But I think that I'm being manipulated all over again, and I don't want to go through that again. I also don't want for her, as a friend, to feel that I don't care about her.
How can I express to her that I need to move on, but that I still want everything but the best for her? I've tried, but it doesn't seem like she believes me. Am I just being manipulated into coming back?
(Yesterday I went back to take care of employee and contractor taxes. I need to do my personal taxes, and I've already been contacted by several of the contractors for their info. I see yesterday as much for me as for her.)