How do I communicate with my boss?

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@dyrope~ Ohgosh, that's awful. D: Sounds like our bosses were evil twins separated at birth. Haha~ It's always good to know others have survived through similar issues. Thank you. <3

@Marky9~ Yeah. I'm pretty much convinced jumping ship the moment I get a chance is the best idea. Thank you so much for all the advice!

@SocofAutism~ Wow. Thanks a bunch. It's disturbing the amount of scary people that do well in business, and that this apparently happens often. Also, thanks for the insight on what might be a cultural barrier.

@Hyperborean~ Thank you so much! <3

I agree with the cultural difference, which I've noticed as well. In India, the religious belief system revolved around reincarnation. India has a caste system of people based on reincarnation. If you are a bad or ignorant soul, you are reincarnated toward the bottom of that caste system as someone who is poor or otherwise in some undesirable situation, like having a birth defect. It is considered shameful. If you belong to the very lowest caste in India, you are considered an "Untouchable." Non-Indian people are considered below the Untouchable caste to Indians. That's some significant cultural difference.

Don't get personal with your boss, I would suggest, because ... how?

You do have to learn to be professional; do make your boss feel good, and put aside your ideologies if you want to have and keep a job. You're there to fulfill a function, so fulfill that function and be very careful getting involved with personal stuff with your boss or other employees or ideological stuff at work. You'll sabotage yourself and your career every time with that. Never argue with your boss (especially about executive decisions such as personnel and target market), just provide helpful suggestions at most.

If you don't like it, spend more time, energy, and thought trying to acquire another job - hopefully where you'll be appreciated - and keep that in the forefront of your mind while you're working at your current, horrid job. If you deviate from the prescribed path of a useful and pleasant employee, you will not get an exemplary reference, therefore you will not be able to get a different job, therefore you'll be stuck there forever until you finally get fired. In which case, you're better off giving two week's notice to leave now, even if you don't have another job.

Generally, communication at work isn't too difficult. Be useful and understand what your boss wants professionally, and let them have it. Help them get it; that's why they hired you, and that's your job. In accepting your position, you have made an unspoken agreement that you will perform that function. When you accept pay in return, it is for that function only. Anything else would be a violation of your unspoken, yet obvious and understood, agreement.

That should help you with your ethical and ideological concerns. You get paid to do what your boss wants; that's it. That's your ethical and moral obligation you agree to when you accept a position and get paid for it. If you work for free, you can rant and rave and argue and cry all you want. If you want to be paid and keep getting paid ... nah.

You're too emotional at work. Work isn't the place for that. I know how difficult it can be, but you have to keep things in perspective, even when you have great personal or professional differences. Otherwise ... you'll just sabotage yourself, and you can quit your career now and save yourself years of agony trying to have a career. If you have a very understanding boss and co-workers, and you're at your job for a longer time and perform well at it, then you can be more yourself at work.

Also, try pasting one of your contended writings here, and see if other people agree with you.

@archetype~ I disagree. Let's say, hypothetically, my boss asked me to do something illegal. Because I facilitated, or even simply for not stopping her, I could be found liable. Doing what is in the contract (and it's written, not vaguely unspoken) doesn't make me an automaton who has no moral obligations. Blindly following orders can do more damage to my career and personal life then getting a single negative review can. Also, there's a stigma of being an employee under a dishonest employer. I don't want people to think I approved of, or facilitated her illegal actions, in any way. I haven't gone to the authorities yet, I've only gone to my boss about the disagreements, and discussed with her alone. Once I secure another job I will probably alert other authorities.

But thank you for the concern. <3 I'm not worried about getting another job, I've been actively interviewing with pretty much all of the companies in my area (I've made it to third round in one, whoo!), and there's no way she could ruin my career. I'm not stupid enough to list her as a reference, and the company's not easy to find online. Because she doesn't listen to me about SEO

As I said before, I occasionally get paid. I'm supposed to be paid bi-weekly. I have been working there for six months and have received exactly four paychecks. Feel free to do the math, but by your admission that gives me permission to rant, rave, and cry at work (which I do not do, I just cry on the commute home) because she's not fulfilling her part of the written contract. Though, I suppose I could sue her. I'm not posting any of the discussions we had on here. WP, after all, is searchable. But if you think you can pinpoint what I did to make her mad or how I threw her under a proverbial bus, and how to avoid it in the future, I could send the string via PM.

Also, thank you for the fascinating information on the cultural differences, but she's married to an American who's not Indian in the slightest, and the intern she abuses the most is also Indian. She's actually the daughter of my boss' old boss. Soooo I'm not sure what to think about that.

I don't think anyone was saying that you're not 100% in the right. My impressions on the other posts were that your boss sounds like a nutjob and maybe there are ways to delicately deal with such a person. She should know better about cultural differences but since we already know she's nuts and likes to kill animals, maybe she doesn't. Personally, I think no matter what you did she would have targeted you. Maybe your biggest crime was being good at your job. Seriously.

It sounds to me like you dealt with the situation appropriately and your next job will be worlds better. I feel bad for whoever has to work for this person next.

I'm guessing you could probably have toned down the bluntness in your email (and it sounds like you know that). There are also ways of communicating opposing ideas in the email in a manner that is more subservient and/or respectful. However, even if you did, it sounds like your boss will still not reconsider.

It sounds like you want to know "how to communicate" and at the same time "how to get your boss to change her mind (about the internships + your blogger friend)". There is no easy answer to this, but its also really not just an Aspie concern, but also an NT concern. You're basically asking, how do you influence someone, who is senior to you, to change their decision without offending them. It doesn't sound like there is much that you can do in your case - you probably needed some level of positive relationship with your manager (she needed to like you quite a bit), she needed to respect your opinions on the matter, and you probably needed to pull a bit of a favour.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. Conflicts happen in the workplace all the time, especially if you are doing something different.