Dear Choices

My boss is sooo intimidating. I’m pretty good at my job but whenever he’s around, I just do stupid things which make him mad and, even though he tries to hide it, I know he’s mad at me, which just makes it worse and then I make more mistakes. I have no idea why I can’t do the exact same thing I did 10 minutes before he walked into the room and it’s so annoying. 

My co-workers all think I have a thing for him and that’s definitely not true. 

I’m worried this is going to lead to a low performance evaluation and slow career advancement. 

What can I do?

Thanks Choices

A modest mouse in Wichita Falls TX

Dear MM

I hear ya! Sometimes bosses are intimidating simply because they’re bosses. It’s the basic power differential that does it. And it only makes matters worse if your co-workers are actively talking about it behind your back/in front of you.

I have a trick that will make him powerless, at least as far as intimidating you. 

Sit in a quiet place where you’re not going to be disturbed and exhale. It doesn’t have to be at work. It can be any old time. You can do this at night before going to sleep. 

Always begin with an exhalation. It helps to clear the mind before you take a deep breath and hold, and then release to relax. You want to exhale longer than you inhaled to help your parasympathetic nervous system take over. Take a couple more deep breaths, filling your lungs from deep down as if you could breathe into your belly until you reach the top. Hold for a bit and breathe out slowly. Let your breathing return to normal.

Now imagine your boss’s face as if it’s printed on a regular piece of copy paper, not glossy or professional in any way. Yet it is strangely stretchy so take a corner of that picture in your mind’s eye and pull it way up to the right, distorting his face as you go. Take the left side of the picture and pull it way out to the left until it’s so distorted you can barely recognize him. Now crumple up the picture into as small a ball as you can make it. 

When you uncrumple it, it turns into a balloon. And he’s talking to you in that voice when he’s trying to hide that he’s mad at you but it changes as he’s talking and he sounds like Donald Duck. The balloon slips out of your fingers as he’s talking and flies all over and his Donald Duck voice gets louder and softer and sounds even funnier as the balloon zooms around with an inexhaustible amount of air until it flies over a lush green hill in the distance and is gone. 

Let me know how it goes.
C