Comments on: When your boss forgets to be the boss

By: GHS

GHS — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:59:50 +0000

Heather, the same thing happened to me. Within the first month, the person who was my co worker accused me of threatening bodily harm because I made an off hand remark that “I would just love to strangle” one of the technicians because of his racist remarks towards blacks. The co worker went to the manager and told her. It went down hill from there. The co worker kept running to the manager with every little complaint she could come up with. Meanwhile, behind the manager’s back she would insult, criticize, and do things that would get anyone fired. One example was when she wanted to take time off or have a 4 day weekend, she would call in or come in and start to “miscarry”. I kid you not. I felt insulted by this because I myself have experienced 5 miscarriages trying to have a baby. My late husband and I decided that it was taking it’s toll on me both physically and psychologically. We decided to give up and never had any children. However, the one thing I know about a miscarriage is that there is massive amounts of blood and not your normal minstration flow and color. I kept asking “Where is the blood?” so that I could help in the clean up. Well, she finally told me what was going on and that I was blowing her act and to stop. The manager, on the other hand, wanted to know where my compassion was.
After working for 3-4 months I was nominated Employee of the month. When I received my evaluation, I received the highest scores and the biggest raise of anyone in the Admin staff. Not only that but most of the customers and corporate management were requesting to talk to me rather than her, even though she had seniority and seemed to know more about the biz than I did. Then, two months later I was fired. Why? I still to this day don’t know. When I applied for unemployment, I was refused and when I asked why, I was told that I was fired for verbal confrontation. I don’t know where that came from because when I was told I was fired for something the manager said I was warned about (which the manager didn’t elaborate on) I was so angry, and knew that if I said anything at that time, it would have been held against me. So the only response I gave was “Fine”. I got up went to my desk, cleaned it out, put in my last time sheet, turned in my keys and left without saying anything to anyone. Later, I learned that the manager and the co worker had a personal relationship outside of the office and the manager would have never believed anything I had say if it was against her or defending myself agianst her sabotage. To me, this was the work of a professionally jealous individual. It was in March of 2008 when I was fired. It still affects me today in probably the same way it does you. I have three degrees from three different prestigious schools in the country. I have never been fired from a job before in my life so you can only imagine what is going through my head. I haven’t found another job due to the economy and had to move home. I am still having difficulty with trying to collect my unemployment. However, I do feel blessed to be out of that environment because if I had stayed or fought for my job, I think I would try to strangle the little alcoholic lying theiving female dog. I was one of their best workers and my work record, with the exception of this incident, bares me out. Just remember the old wise saying, “Karma is a B_t_h with PMS”. I believe that while we go on and live our lives, perhaps with the help of a little therapy of some kind, come across a better work environment and job or otherwise constructively using this time we have off, these individuals will be fired for the right reasons, replaced, demoted, dressed down in public, or in some other way dealt with in the same manner as we were only 3-7 times worse. Hopefully, in this diatribe you have found something to make you feel a little better about your situation and yourself. If someone like me can get fired on the grounds of professional jealousy, then as far as I am concerned, you did the right thing. Life is too short and even though there is a recession (like the Great Depression was a blip on the economic radar screen in the 1930s), there is a job out there for you where the environment is perfect for you, the boss treats you and your ideas with respect and you feel you have at last found your niche or home. You just haven’t found it yet and need to keep looking. Just remember, they haven’t found you yet either.

By: Nina

Nina — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:28:59 +0000

Thank you, that is the reason why I had to skip his entry. I could not bare to read past the third sentence.

By: Corp Mgmt Burnout

Corp Mgmt Burnout — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:58:39 +0000

Your answer, while it has some good advice, also reflects the callous attitude so prevalent at many corporations. Fostering this type of corporate culture does not make for productivity, but political and backstabbing behavior that undermines any focus on common corporate objectives. It is no wonder that so many American companies are struggling in the global marketplace. Unfortunately I find this to be the “standard” attitude in HR departments, reinforced by ignorant and self-absorbed C-suite teams interested more in an early retirement than building a sustainable business in which they can take pride.

By: Corp Mgmt Burnout

Corp Mgmt Burnout — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:35:55 +0000

@#5 Heather – Your idealism, while inspiring, will not serve you well in the competitive Atlanta (or any other) job market. Yes, the boss should have and should use management skills. But the corporate environment is not a place to find compassion, and your boss probably felt he was just operating in the way his management taught him to, reflecting the corporation’s culture… Having been dumped on – given an employee he felt resentful about having to train (he may have said “babysit”), especially since he didn’t have a say in who it was or the experience level of that person. (An entry level person is often initially more work than help, causing the boss to have to spend many late nights at the office catching up on their own work after the newbie goes home for dinner so the corporatino can save a few bucks in salary rather than hiring someone who already has skills and experience.) That doesn’t justify your boss’s behavior towards you. Nor does it remove responsibility from you for your own behavior and attitude. In the future, I suggest that when the boss comes up short, you’ll need to find a way to help yourself, and your boss, or you will continually find yourself on the run.

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