Likes And Unlikes
Bad managers. We’ve all had them, if not, you will at some point. Hearing who’s opening/closing the store with you on a given day can brighten/darken your outlook for the day. Hollie wrote to me about a particular manager she had the displeasure of working with:
” I was talking to someone who sits next to me in class today, and the topic
of B&N came up (specifically one of the stores I worked at). I was trying
to describe how big it is, and finally decided to just google it and show
him. Unfortunately, the photo of one of my now former managers appeared
on the screen and my instant reaction was to twitch and say {cuss words}.
Believe me, he would give Lark a run for the money – maybe even beat him
without real contest. There is a special place in hell for creatures like
this one. Unfortunately this manager is still with the company.
“When one of my co-workers was diagnosed with cancer, she had been
with the company 24 years by that point, she continued to work on her own
getting everything done without help while going through chemotherapy. She
was trying to get even more done, because she knew she was going to have to
go on leave for surgery. When this same manager found out she had cancer
and at some point she would go on medical leave for surgery, I overheard
him trying to find ways to fire her. Thankfully, he never could find
something on her to do that, but he tried…”
That is the not the bad manager type, that’s the bad human type. With the company having zero tolerance concerning retaliation this kind of scum tries to dig through records and old reports, company policies, references, all to get at someone they don’t like.
That’s probably the most unfortunate side effect of doing all the harassment training, yes, you are showing what NOT to do, but with these types of evil managers you are also showing them what you CAN get away with. Can’t get someone fired on a health issue? Just dig up old availability records! Change their schedule around to something completely insane! Unfairly write up employee reviews due to how you then scheduled them!
There are still plenty of lousy managers out there that behave like this. Usually they’re the ratty, brown-nosing type too. They find all the ways to fire you, and they find all the ways to protect their own stupid faces. And it’s so difficult to get them written up or have any lasting change. Oh yeah, that hotline, what do you call it? We Hear You or something? They may listen, it’s hard to see if they care.
