[ SECRET POST #2746 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2746 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 024 secrets from Secret Submission Post #392.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

holy shit, I am so mad.

I just got back from work, more than an hour early, because my manager sent me home.

I really dislike this particular manager and have since he transferred to our store months ago. He's extremely self-important, controlling, micro-managing, overbearing, and occasionally (though not usually) a little creepy. He seems to feel the need to control EVERYTHING in his environment and is constantly telling me how to do jobs I've been doing for months. Today I got placed on front line for the first time in more than a year (I usually work drive thru), which really threw me off, and I made a major error when counting my drawer (for the first time ever) and overdropped by almost $15. I got the error sorted out and accidentally left my money drawer on the counter. I get that this is a terrible thing to do and if I'd caught it or if it had been pointed out to me I would have been very embarrassed and abashed. But instead of just telling me, my manager walked into the office where I had just finished entering my numbers and yelled. He gave me the third degree with (in hindsight) a real vibe of "if I pound this message in as hard as possible she'll never forget it". I was upset and shaken and started to cry after he walked out, and needed a few moments to collect myself. Unfortunately, he came back in before I was done and asked why I wasn't cleaning, and when I said I was going to in a minute he started going off on me with "you need to stop being so sensitive!" which really pissed me off and, unfortunately, I looked him in the eye and told him not to talk to me that way, which was probably a really stupid thing to do, but I was basically at the end of my rope with him. He sent me home immediately with threats to call the GM (which he probably did anyway) and I am now terrified that I'm going to be canned or something and I have to work with this same manager tomorrow fuck my life

(note that I'm a pretty good worker, have never gotten into this kind of conflict at this job, like and respect my other managers, and have never been written up or otherwise given any kind of warning or talking-to for anything at this job. so this is kinda out of the blue and I'm really hoping my GM doesn't just take his word for what happened without talking to me about it first. GM seems like a decent guy, but I rarely work shifts with him so I don't know him very well.)

(also note that I think I'm PMS-ing, so that probably made me more inclined to get upset and cry. but this is the kinda guy who would have just said "ugh, women" or something if I'd told him that. he is really an asshole)

please commiserate with me by sharing your stories of awful managers and co-workers :(

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

The Town Bully of our workplace is getting some much-deserved karma right now, and taking it out on everyone at the moment. I am untouchable for the present (though not indispensable) but Bully is somehow under the impression that the same mindgames which did my head in for a brief spell a few years ago (this ... thing ... took advantage of the fact I'd had a death in my family), will have exactly the same effect it did the last time. Not even close. Every incident is still being meticulously documented. Town Bully has helpfully started sending me shrill emails, which definitely go in the file as well. (It was all verbal, with no witnesses, before.)

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

Glad you're documenting it this time. Town Bully sounds like a crappy person to deal with.

Re: bad managers thread

[flipthefrog.livejournal.com]

I've actually been fairly lucky with managers, since the worst thing my current manager ever does is forget about projects or have unrealistic expectations of timeframes.

However, one summer I worked at a language immersion camp where the director was a petty tyrant of the worst order. She had this thing where every counselor was supposed to be working EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY NO BREAKS. If you weren't teaching your classes or activities, you were supposed to be prepping lesson plans--which is fine, if it wasn't for 12 hours a day, and if I wasn't hired to teach fucking archery. Lady, my lesson plan is "point arrow at target," that does not require a two hour prep period. If she caught you "slacking" (i.e. hanging out in the faculty lounge for the hour between your class and dinner) she would literally make up something for you to do that wasn't even close to your responsibility. Again, if we were working 8 hour shifts, this would be completely acceptable (if annoying), but when your only time off is 24 hours every 2 weeks it goes rapidly unbearable. All of us who had the same off day would go to the pizza joint and spend literally an hour doing nothing but complain about her.

also there's my coworker who does reiki but I've already complained about her enough. she saw a little boy ghost on the stairs the other day! coincidentally, the little boy was about the same age as the 40 summer campers we have running around at work right now, but i'm sure that has no relation.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

ahhh, busywork. Don't you love it?

Your ex-manager sounds awful.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

I get that you're upset, but leaving your drawer on the counter is literally one of the worst things you can do. Try to put yourself in your manager's shoes - he's accountable for all the money and you scared the crap out of him. If he doesn't think he can depend on you, he's going to have to get rid of you. You did react badly and need to calm down, put on your professional face, and be entirely "mea culpa" when you go in tomorrow.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

This has shit all to do with him not respecting my emotional boundaries and hounding on me when I was stressed and upset. Not to mention all the other shit this manager does. And that there are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways to respond to something like that.

So, uh, thanks. I guess.

Re: bad managers thread

[dethtoll]

That doesn't excuse the rest of his behaviour as clearly described in her post.

What amazes me is you think your comment doesn't qualify as a shitpost.

Re: bad managers thread

[a_potato]

While there is some truth to this, diet's manager handled things very poorly. It is "scary" for a drawer to be left on a counter, but an effective manager is in control of her/his emotions, and approaches these sorts of situations in a balanced way.

As someone who has been in a supervisory position, I would have taken the employee aside and a) asked why they left their drawer out and b) calmly explained why leaving a drawer out is a big deal. I would not have acted out of fear; I would not have yelled; and I would not have then further berated the employee for being "sensitive." I would also have considered the employee's history, and if the behavior was out of character, would have sought to discover what had changed.

Diet's manager is not taking the body of her performance into account; is not controlling his emotions; and is not responding to the error in a balanced way. That makes him a bad manager.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you, and I think it's important that you point this out. So many people forget that becoming a manager in a fast food restaurant is 90% being reliable, and actual leadership abilities have very little to do with it. The manager handled it badly, obviously, but bad bosses are life, and learning to deal with it is more important than getting sympathy from us.

Re: bad managers thread

[kallanda_lee]

See, this is why I'm basically unemployable, bcause I doubt I'd be able to be polite/pretend I care in such a situation.

Anyway, *hugs*, that really sucks.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

I try. I really, really do. :( I just make a really shitty doormat.

Re: bad managers thread

[fingalsanteater]

Once I got sent home being insubordinate.

I was pissed because she kept having me do supervisory jobs, including training supervisors they hired from outside, and one day I just told her I wasn't going to do the thing she told me to do. I made minimum wage and they were never going to promote me so I had decided I was going to do the job I was assigned to do and not do any extraneous supervisory level jobs that got me nothing. So, she came out and yelled at me from across the shoe dept., in front of other employees and customers, and told me I was insubordinate and that I should go home. I tried to apologize to her, in her office because I'm not a asshole who airs that shit in front of other people like she was, but she still made me go home. I said fuck it, then, and the next day I came in and gave a week and half notice and got the fuck out of there.

I consider the incident to be fortuitous, tbh, as I then went to stay with my grandmother while she died and got to see her when she still had a few good days. I stayed with her two weeks and she died three days after I had to rush home to help my fiancé with something.

Anyway, I'm sorry you have such a shitty boss. Complaining to the GM or corporate doesn't help, in my experience. At my store, we complained about our boss and jack shit happened.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

Well, our DM is a jackass, so no way would I go to him. And anyway, it's not worth it. I don't want to deal with the red tape, especially because the manager *did* have reason to be upset, he just handled it very, very badly.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

What a fuckhead. I'm sorry that happened to you.

I hate managers at fast food franchises and similar kinds of businesses. I get lecturing and stuff, but there is no excuse for yelling and then dismissing your reaction to the yelling. Fuck him. If he did that to you, he's probably done it to others in the past, and may do so in the future. Hopefully, the GM or someone else has caught wind of what this guy is like and won't punish you.

My story.... well, it's more like witnessing all the stupid shit the managers did to other people, at least in that setting. People getting fired because they couldn't work a set of scheduled hours due to medical reasons, even though they told the manager in advance, taking away what little privileges we had over stupid petty shit, randomly firing people because they felt like it and gleefully cheering about it in front of the rest of us.

Although one time, at a different job, we did have a temporary boss who was like a walking time bomb. If anything went wrong, he would rant on and drop f-bombs and s-bombs for half an hour. Once I got punished because a bunch of important (or potentially important) voicemails were routed to the wrong number, and I was told to listen to each and every one of them (nowhere near my job description) and document everything, name, number, issue, etc. The kicker? The wrong number was set up months before I even became an official employee. Yeah, figure that one out.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

ugh, that's awful, I can't even imagine. I'd probably just quit, even in spite of the horrible hassle of trying to find a new job. :/

Thanks for your support, anon. (And in case it wasn't already obvious, this is indeed fast food.)

Re: bad managers thread

[nightscale]

Christ. That guy sounds like a fuckwit, sure you needed to be told that you'd made a mistake but yelling at you for it is completely unreasonable.

Re: bad managers thread

[diet_poison]

Exactly. Thanks.

My friend who used to work at this same store is pretty confident that the GM will hear me out before making any decisions. So I'm feeling better.

Re: bad managers thread

[riddian]

Guh, sounds like an awful situation. I hope the GM comes out on your side. Managers who drive their employees to tears are the worst. >:( Whatever happens though, I'm cheering at you looking him in the eye and telling him not to treat you like that! Good on you! He was seriously out of line.

When I worked in fast food the store manager was... well-meaning really, but she was not very competent and bad at actually managing people. She would snap at me whenever I made some kind of mistake, and she wouldn't even realize she sounded harsh, because it was kind of her default tone. And I was the only person she yelled at on a regular basis. I felt a little bit better when I figured out that I was the only one she had any expectations of quality from, thus making me the only one worth the effort of being disappointed over (hooray for the quality of fast food workers...), but it still really wore on me because I'm fairly timid and jump whenever anyone sounds angry with me. What a job that was. I'm so glad I don't work there anymore.

Re: bad managers thread

[a_potato]

Sounds like you've got an uptight micromanager on your hands, and that sucks. :(

I'm encountering something similar in my current job. My direct manager isn't ridiculous, but my back office is, and they control most of policy and procedure. They're fixated on unimportant minutiae. Like, what's it matter that I fill out Form A when I add a person onto an account if I've filled out Form B, which captures the same information? Why do I have to send down paperwork if I change someone's fucking phone number?

At my previous job, I had a manager who was some kind of crazy and saw other people in the branch as her competition, so she'd "steal" accounts and loans. She also wouldn't communicate any changes to procedure, so we'd be doing something and suddenly find out that it was wrong and that it had been wrong for months and that the change had been made clear in a managers' meeting, but she'd be like "OH HAHA FORGOT ABOUT THAT LOL." Also she played favorites and would coach her favorites and tell them things that she wouldn't tell anyone else. Her underling, meanwhile, hated her, and would do things to undermine her rather than actually do her job. It was dumb.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

That sucks.

Sounds similar to one of my old supervisors. I made a mistake and she took me out into a corridor and loudly chewed me out for it. I was a bit stressed out and snapped a bit at her (the 'B' word may have gotten throw in the there.

She threatned to send me out in a body bag if I talked back at her again.

I quit one month later.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

That...sounds like a place I used to work, if you changed "manager" to "owner" [the store I was at also doubled as HQ]. She would pull stuff like calling down to the cashier and telling them to get someone to bag when the only other worker in the store was organizing and putting up posters* that he'd spread out on the floor to see which one was which...When there was only one person after the one being rung up.

This isn't specifically a manager or coworker so much as shitty policy but...When I worked at Dennys we were required to smile all the time. Even when the customer couldn't see us - and you would be bitched at if you didn't. Also, there was a policy in place where - if you got a group over a certain size at one of your tables you had to give up the rest. This wouldn't be much of an issue if they'd actually tip like there was 12 [or however many] people at the table...but no. They tipped as much as a single person would, so you'd end up losing a good chunk of your pay when they'd come in for lunch [they always took longer, and you'd lose a lot of tables because of that].

*The kind that can't be rolled and are *really* slick if someone were to step on them

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

The manager at my first job (I was 17) was such an asshole that his assistant manager quit on him after three days on the job because she couldn't stand working with him. Somehow I lasted six months... until he fired me the day after Christmas claiming that I wasn't working hard enough. (I found out later from a coworker that the real reason was that business had been slow so he was trying to cut costs.)

This guy was a real dick. It was a smoothie place, which meant we were getting massive boxes of frozen fruit shipped to us all the time. He would sit around in the back office and do crosswords and tell me (I am 5'3" and about 110 lbs) to move the 30 lb boxes of frozen fruit around. Never once offered to help.

He went through employees like clockwork and he couldn't figure out why no one stuck around for more than a month or two. GEE, I WONDER.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

Oooh DP that sucks so hard. >:( Douchebag managers are the worst.

Last manager I had that was a real f*ckhead played mind games with me. She would set me specific tasks, which I would do. Then she'd call me aside and ball me out for doing them. She played it so that it was her word against mine and eventually got me fired.

Re: bad managers thread

[(Anonymous)]

Years ago, I had a manager very like yours.

I worked very hard at my job, even doing things above and beyond my paygrade because, y'know, I liked it.

Then after years of working there, one afternoon, me and my brigade were absolutely slammed. We got an order for 25 sandwiches right in the middle of lunch rush. My team did a phenomenal job getting them out in under three minutes. Right as we were wrapping and sending up the last couple of sandwiches, Mr. Manager decided to ask "where are my sandwiches?!?" in that "why are you being so slow?" tone.

I gave him a nice, cheery, "Coming right up!" back, smile on my face, sweet tone, everything.

As soon as the rush was over, he came back and took me to task in front of my brigade, telling me to never disrespect him again, and that if I did, I would be fired.

He was absolutely shocked when, a few days later, I handed in my two week notice. He begged me to stay. I refused. He tossed my notice in the trash and said that if I walked out the door, I'd never be able to be hired by that particular franchise ever again.

So I walked.

I went back as a customer months later, and apparently they'd discovered exactly how much I'd been doing once I was gone.

And I ended up with a better paying job with much better benefits.

So let me say.. been there, done that, I'm so sorry you had to deal with a jackass like that.