Senior Accountant

Stuck with a toxic project lead during probation – don’t know how to handle this

Stuck with a toxic project lead during probation – don’t know how to handle this I need to get this off my chest because it’s eating me up. I work at a data storage company that, overall, is actually pretty great. Pay is good, WLB across the company is solid, and my manager is genuinely supportive. I did an 11-month internship here before joining full-time, and during that time I worked on whatever came my way without setting any boundaries. Now the problem: I got assigned to this legacy PHP project that’s being led by *X*. He’s an old-timer, been here forever, and has basically made himself the sole custodian of this mess of a codebase (spaghetti code, zero documentation, everything has to go through him). He’s miserable, manipulative, and somehow has made himself irreplaceable. Here’s what I’m dealing with: * Logs in around 2–3 PM (everyone else works \~9–5) but still expects me to stay late because he just started. * Super controlling about personal stuff. Has literally tried to tell me where I should live so I can “reach office early.” Comments on what I eat, wear, even which hackathon team I should join. * Creates fake urgencies and microaggressions daily. * Treats subordinates like slaves. * Other teammates who worked with him had similar experiences and left. * Manipulates managers and plays politics. * Doesn’t take leaves, just lurks and builds dependency. * From what I hear, he’s even been involved in shady stuff like gifting managers during promotion cycles. I actually went to my manager about this. At first, she told me to wait 10 days and she’d move me to a different project. But somehow, he found out, manipulated her, and now I’m told I need to stay on his project. I’m only 3 months into probation (3 more to go) and had planned to switch projects after a year, but now the constant friction with him is killing me. I love going into the office (good food, gym, workstation setup), so I usually reach by 9 AM and leave around 7:30 after dinner. But X rolls in late, makes me stay back, and I can’t say no. My work-life balance is gone, and honestly, I feel like I’m burning out just a few months in. I don’t know what to do anymore. Do I escalate higher? Just survive probation and hope to move later? Start looking elsewhere already? This one guy is making an otherwise great job feel miserable.