When your best friend becomes your worst boss

I can't bring myself to be happy for my friend who just became my supervisor. And before you say it — no, it's not jealousy. I have zero career ambitions at this company and have been thinking about changing fields for years now. It's just that I've lost my friend, and I don't know how to get him back.

Mike and I go way back to our college days. We've been through thick and thin together — bad breakups, family drama, that awful summer we both got laid off the same week. He's always had a bit of an ego, sure, but when we were equals, it was easy enough to knock him down a peg when he got too full of himself. That's what friends do, right?

He's the one who got me this job in the first place. He had some connection here, and when a position opened up, he called me right away. I'll always be grateful for that because I was going through a really rough patch at the time. My husband had just been laid off, and we were drowning in bills.

The thing is, I never loved this job. Pushing papers and sitting in endless meetings isn't exactly my calling. But the pay is decent, the benefits are good, and it's allowed me to quietly look for something better without the panic of an empty bank account. So I've always done my work well — I didn't want to embarrass Mike after he stuck his neck out for me.

But even before his promotion, things were getting complicated. Mike was always gunning for that corner office, and sometimes he'd lose his cool at work. He'd raise his voice in meetings, blame everyone for problems that weren't their fault, and act like a completely different person than the guy I'd grab coffee with on weekends. He'd always apologize later, but he could never stop talking about work stuff during our personal time. I wanted to keep "Mike my friend" separate from "Michael the difficult coworker," but he made that impossible.

Then his dream came true — he got promoted to department head. And honestly? He didn't earn it. He played office politics, stepped over people who deserved it more. As a friend, I get it — we're not in kindergarten anymore, and everyone's looking out for themselves. But as someone who now reports to him directly, I can see he's in way over his head.

Working under him is exhausting. He was never great at watching his mouth, but now that he has a title, he doesn't even try. He doesn't understand half the processes our team handles because he never bothered to learn them, which leads to ridiculous demands and unfair criticism. And the rest of our team isn't stupid — everyone knows he got this job through politics, not merit. Some of his decisions are just… power trips.

I've tried, gently, to give him advice. I've hinted at what he's doing wrong. I've offered suggestions to help him succeed because despite everything, I still care about him. But he doesn't hear me. He just keeps complaining about how everyone around him is incompetent and how he's going to "show them all." Including me, apparently, since I'm part of "everyone."

Lately, I've been making excuses to avoid hanging out with him. I'll say the kids have activities or that I'm not feeling well. And I hate myself for it. It feels like I'm betraying a friendship that's survived fifteen years.

With everything going on in the economy right now, I know I need to hold onto this job. So the way I see it, I have two choices: either stop being his friend entirely, or tell him the truth about what kind of boss he is and watch our friendship explode.

I just wish there was a third option where I could keep my friend and lose the terrible manager. But I'm starting to think that person doesn't exist anymore.

Has anyone else been through something like this? How do you handle it when someone you love becomes someone you can barely stand?