When a Job Goes From Dreamy to Dreary

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Letters may be edited.Morale KillerDear Work Friend,About three years ago my company hired an incredibly toxic person to oversee my software engineering team.That person has slowly made things a living hell, taking what was creative work and transforming it into a dead-end, robotic job.

As a result, 12 people have quit in the last six months — around 20 percent of the team.The only way to please this new lead is to jump through hoops and do exactly what we are told, and as evidenced by last year’s performance reviews, there is low probability that even that will get rewarded.I’ve tried talking about the problem with my director and senior director, but no one seems all that concerned.

I’m only a couple of years away from retirement, have a remote work situation and earn a good salary, so I’m pretty sure I want to stay.But I’m having trouble enduring the day to day.

Do you have advice on how to suffer through?— AnonymousWhat you need is a group chat.The misery of working under a bad boss can be bearable if you have sympathetic and comradely co-workers.

The loneliness of working remotely can be alleviated by a humane and motivating boss.But working remotely under a bad boss is the worst of all possible worlds: all the misery and toxicity and none of the enjoyably seditious long lunches or after-work vent fests over drinks.So I would seek out and gather some sympathizers into an app — needless to say, a separate, nonwork app to be used only on personal devices.

A good group chat of similarly disaffected and frustrated colleagues may not be able to wholly replace the cheering experience of making meaningful eye contact in a bad meeting or gathering in a galley kitchen to complain in whispered tones about a new policy.But having a text box to type your frustrations into, and receiving a su...