Blow me, you souless excuse for a manager!

The BBQ Pit
1

A little setup - my company has a web application where you can enter the hours you work every day, tying those hours into whatever project you’re on. Timesheets are due bi-monthly, on the 15th and the end of the month, whatever that may be. If you miss the deadline, you “default” and have to do some slightly annoying paperwork, and that’s it. We are encouraged not to default because it screws up budgeting, and I have defaulted twice in my three years at the company.

I was on vacation last month for a week, and completely forgot to do my timesheet before I left. Yesterday, I got the email below. In the “To” field were 15 people’s names, including my own. In the “CC” field was the “Central Region - all” mailing list, which goes to literally hundreds of people, most of whome have never met me.

The email:

We received the expenses for July today. You are among the 15 people that failed to submit your timesheet. Please submit the appropriate timesheet adjustment. In the future, please submit your timesheet on time. We are a professional services firm and our ability to declare revenue is based on the timely completion of timesheets.

I am copying the entire region because I want to be sure that everyone gets this message. Also, for those of you on travel, remember to submit your expenses in a timely manner.

Time & Expense Processing for Exempt Employees:

Each person is responsible for doing their time and expenses on a timely basis. Both of these directly impact the financials of our region.

Time
Timesheets need to be submitted twice monthly on the 15th and 30th of the month. If you will be out of the office when a timesheet is due, submit your timesheet ahead of time. For every person that does not submit their timesheet on schedule, their timesheet defaults and we are charged for the time on an indirect project. In the month of July alone, this totaled over $43,000. This amount is not credited back to the region until the timesheet is submitted.

Fuck. You. Do not put me up on display in front of hundreds of people, you miserable ass! Do you think I defaulted on purpose, just to make your job more difficult? Do I care that your numbers are off for a week or two? Furthermore, how is it appropriate to try to “send a message” to all of the people in the central region, when they obviously did not default, and may not have ever defaulted?

I understand that it’s probably a pain in the ass to make the budgets balance. I am infuriated at the tone and condescending maner of the email. I am not a kindergardener that can be told to stand in the corner as an example to others!

(incoherent growl)

2

What an ass! I’d go to HR and complain. It’s not necessary for you to be put on display in front of hundreds of people for forgetting to fill out your timesheet.

3

So, you messed up twice and are upset cause you got your little wrist slapped in front of your friends? Grow up. They want to make sure that you and people like you don’t screw up their budgeting. They’re in business to make money, not hold your hand and coddle you. Take a lesson from it.

4

I’d be worried about the chaos that cc’ing hundreds of people could cause when some people start using “reply to all” for their “why did I get this?” queries. Sounds like a stupid idea to me for that alone.

5

Hmm, personally directed disciplinary advice given in a manner which was, for all intents and purposes, public?

That’s just completely inappropriate. For all the talk about being a “professional” company, someone decided not to act like it.

I would write an e-mail to the superior of the person who sent the e-mail out, cc’ing the original writer and your head of HR, pointing out that there was absolutely no reason for some kind of public shaming of this type over a matter that’s already been rectified. (I’m presuming that you have turned in the late timesheet/paperwork, right?) Point out to them that if they wish to have employees act as if it is a “professional” company, then interdepartmental business needs to be conducted professionally. Communications to employees from payroll/HR need to have a tenor somewhat elevated above the principal calling students to the office over the PA system.

You’re not a child or, presumably, an idiot. You’ve been with the company for several years. Given that, a single defaulted timesheet shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to treat you with such demonstrated disrespect. Make a stand, and make it for the record. Make them think twice about ever pulling that kind of bullshit move again.

6

I think you’re missing the point, Q.E.D.. Getting an email with his boss cc’ed on it would be getting his hand slapped. Getting several hundred people cc’ed on it could be called public humiliation. Granted, I wouldn’t call it that, but it’s still very inappropriate IMO.

7

Maybe. But honestly it wouldn’t bother me much. I mean, really, how many of those people on the CC list even know the OP? I just think he’s overreacting a bit.

8

Yeah, I don’t see how having that e-mailed to hundreds of people was necessary.

“Making an example of” someone is classic movie bad-guy behaviour.

9

Consecutive Thread Titles!!
Fucker’s that work at Wendy’s; A.K.A A tribute to the crew that work under me!

Blow me, you souless excuse for a manager!

10

I have no problem getting my hand slapped. I know I screwed up, but I fixed it as soon as I got back, and the problem should have already been resolved by the time that email came out. If it wasn’t, their rectification process takes to long - not my fault.

I’m not expecting them to “hold my hand” dammit. I’m just expecting them to act in the same “professional” manner that they expect of me, and which I believe I deliver.

  • tlw, that’s an excellent analogy. I’m not devistated or anything, I just found it really unprofessional.
11

I agree with you Q.E.D. in the sense that the OP is taking this a little too personally, but disciplinary actions and warnings really should be kept private. I’m not sure what the laws are specifically in the OP’s area, but there are laws against what kind of disciplinary records have to be kept private between HR and the employee. This might fall under one of those regulations. Employers have to be incredibly careful how they discipline employees. It could have been handled a lot better. They should have sent a general reminder to the entire company separately, without naming any names. I’m not sure that it technically is a violation of any employment law, but it’s bad manners in the least.

12

My take is the manager has too much time on his hands with the trivial pursuit of “Teaching you a lesson”. The way I see it is, you don’t hand your timesheet it is you who waits for your pay, not him. And there should be a three step disciplinary program that he should conduct with you one on one while being sure not to compromise your dignity. The only time I ever included another individual is when I teamed up with other managers/HR reps. to ensure the process was conducted professionally and no one was uncomfortable or felt they were treated unfairly. Two heads dealing with disciplinary issues is always better than one. If you fail to comply you have only yourself to blame for your own actions through a disciplinary process.

Otherwise…

The guy is a tool.

13

Unless the message was something along the lines of “Scyrob is a freakin’ moron and loser,” I wouldn’t think much of it. Heck, odds are that most of the folks who got the CC: simply deleted it as spam – unless I was one of the fifteen folks listed, I sure would have ignored it.

14

I agree, that is rather annoying… especially for something one of your “loving”… “aware”… coworkers could easily handle and hit you up for it later if they have to. These things are, from a company perspective, bad practice, of course… but what about the rest of your work, you do “nail it”, right?

Then again it could be a misinterpretation on your part… your all knowing boss could be seeing similar trends in the company’s practices in other similar instances and simply used this small, very visible situation of this instance, ie The timesheet thing, as an example.

If this is the case, being put on display should not be a big deal to you in my opinion, because you could be known to him/her in theory as one of the best workers at your company, and to see you do this is a sign of problems with the infrastucture… which of course should mean some kind of shift an how upper management will be handling things in the future. Putting the spot light on you means, hey you can take it… wait to see people’s reactions on the subject and then address them. What were others reaction to this situation? was it “oh well, at least it was not me this time” or was it “I better tighten things up a bit with my timesheet, this for whatever reason seems to be a big deal for management”

More than likely, their is a little of both out there.

But, hey, after being put up on a stick for my beliefs at the very forum several times I hate to say I can relate… but people here don’t know me and I doubt you hang with your boss.

I’m also betting you work for like a low end fortune 1000 company… these things seem to matter more for companies in this range for some reason.

15

I can assure you that every one of the hundreds of people who recieved the e-mail are thinking “Why the fuck did you send this to me? You must be a true nimrod”.

16

The “you” being the manager who sent it.

Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

17

Sorry, I work in Accounting, and I have very little sympathy for you. As far as I can see, the only thing the manager did wrong was send the list of tardy employees to everyone. Maybe the payroll people got tired of dealing with late timesheets from hundreds of people every stinking payroll (just my WAG based on past experience). You’ve only defaulted twice in three years; how about the other couple hundred people in the region? Also based on past experience, I would guess that each missed timesheet is a poopload of extra work for the accounting department; make adjustments so that the tardy people can still get paid, chase down the timesheets from the tardy ones, then make even more adjustments to correct the original adjustments.

I would like to work at your company; at least your accounting department seems to have someone listening to their problems. You should work at my company; everyone does as they please and cause no end of problems for accounting, and nothing is ever done about it.

18

Don’t see a problem with this approach.

19

featherlou, I completely agree with you. I work in the accounting (billing) department for an IT company with a large, extremely remote contigent workforce. I know that you’re in Canada, but I swear that you we work at the same shop.

More than half of my job entails doublework - chasing after timecards, re-doing billing that is crap because crap information comes in when the work orders are set up.

Yes, sycorob, you’ve only defaulted two or three times. But, add up all of the other people that submit their time just like you, and factor in that not everyone is as diligent as you are, and you can imagine how many issues that your accounting people deal with on a semi-monthly basis. And trying to resolve an issue after the fact as a rule takes about twice as long as processing information correctly the first time. When you add in the cost of the corporate people having to spend extra time on all of this backtracking, reclassing, etc., I can well believe that the cost to your company was over $43K - probably even more.

I agree that cc’ing EVERYONE was a tad on the heavy handed side, but, if you do have that big of a problem with it, by all means go to your HR department. But, understand the level of frustration on the other side.

20

You are blowing this on so many levels.

Observing someone get caught, take the hit, apologize and indicate an understanding of the situation and move on is admired more often than not. Instead you’re mortified that your peers see that you didn’t properly process a time sheet and now you’re chewing on you own intestines and angry like some small, powerless child.

Stop bellyaching. Take the hit (slap really) like a man. In fact you could have turned this around and used this minor infraction as an opportunity to make a personal call to the head of accounting or some similar muckety muck to let him know you appreciate how difficult his job is, and you will endavor not to have this happen in the future etc. etc, blah, blah in a concerned, staightforward (but not supplicant) fashion. This would have more than likley impressed him or her and gotten you some major “team player” points.