Boss Brings Me (and others) Down

by Tammy
(Texas)

I work for a great company. I love my job about half of the time. The other half of the time becomes almost unbearable because I have a chronically depressed boss. When he is clear minded, work is great. He can be warm, caring, thoughtful, funny. BUT, when he falls back into his black hole, as I call it, he becomes a totally different person. When he is clear, I am great according to him and I do great work. When he is in the hole, it seems, I do NOTHING right. His mood starts to slowly deteriorate over a matter of days or weeks. I can now tell when that starts that soon he will be in the hole and I will be in the dog house. It makes me hate coming to work. He will barely speak to me. When he does speak he is short with me. He leaves without a proper goodbye - meaning, I'll say "Have a good evening" and he walks out without saying a word. Very rude. If someone did that to him, he would be very angry. I read your description of "Blamers" and it fits him to a T. I have ordered the book and hope to learn from it, but in the mean time, do you have any advice I can start implementing immediately? I really don't want to quit my job. I like what I do. I need the money and the benefits. Moving on is not an option yet. Any comments and advice would be greatly appreciated!