When I first started working at my job, one appealing aspect about it was that the employees/managers were fairly tight-knit. Everybody was very friendly with each other, and often they would enjoy activities after work. Many times this included the entire staff.
I really liked this sense of cohesion. It made me more empathic toward my counterparts/superiors, and it was easier to take feedback/criticism from others.
Then the managers, for individual reasons, decided to pursue other jobs. The manager that replaced them was very different. I can’t put my finger on it, but things got…colder, so to speak. The managers aren’t really interested in fraternizing with employees outside of work, and in general the coworkers that are there now (some moved on since the transition) don’t have the same ‘closeness’ that used to exist.
I’m rather sad about this whole transition, since the way things were at the beginnning made the job much more bearable. I’m curious if anybody else has been privy to this type of change at their job.
I’m going through this exact same thing right now. The paper I work for was bought by a major corporation, and the entire climate has changed. Prior to the purchase, the 5 employees (4 sales reps and me, the lone writer) worked together as a team with the two owners. While we didn’t exactly sit around the campfire and sing “Kumbaya” at the end of the day, we worked together very well and had a friendly relationship with each other.
The corporation brought in two people to replace the owners, a sales manager and a production person. The new overlord is never in the office, has not a clue what is going on, and I don’t think he cares. The sales people have turned on each other, accusing each other of stealing clients, and they have turned on the new sales manager as well, blaming her for new policies that the corporation demands. They have also become little backbiters about the competence of the production person, who is doing her level best. They are barely civil to each other. Me? I sit and observe, keep my head down and try to do my job.
The thing I miss the most about the “old days” is that the owners took the time each day to thank us for our hard work. It sounds stupid, but it was nice to be appreciated.
I had hoped that everyone would have rallied to work to make this transition smoother, and display some of the camaraderie they had exhibited in the past. But new people in the dynamic has just really brought out the worst in everyone.
Yup. A previous job of mine involved creating a new department that I joined. About six months in they kicked the department supervisor up to manager and bumped a senior rep to a supervisor position. She wasn’t ready for the position and her interactions with the team suffered to the point where close to 100% of the original department had left within six months of her promotion.
i used to work for a large corporation. my branch was known throughout the country as the “friendly” branch, at least by people who had previously worked there, or even just come for a training session.
then, we got a different branch manager, and the backstabbing began.
I work for a small/medium sized company and we went through a rather drastic social-climate change. We hired a consultant that had worked with us in the past because he was so personable. His role is a project manager for a new ERP system. We all loved the guy when he was a consultant but since hiring him about a year ago we all very much regret it. He brings nothing but backstabing, deceit, and uneffective change. Its messed up our little empire enough that we are all wishing he would just get the message that he’s not wanted here and move on.
I just started working at my local library and this seems to be happening too. When I started work one of my supervisors was gone. She returned a bit ago and the atmosphere immediately changed. It’s strange how one person affects the workplace climate so much.
I saw it happen when my small, rapidly growing startup company was suddenly sold out to a huge corporation. The warm, friendly feeling that had pervaded the place was instantly gone. People began leaving immediately. It was nice while it lasted. Those of us who’ve worked closely together are looking at finding one with better benefits (since the corporation cut our benefits from 4 weeks vacation to 2, does that suck or what?), or maybe just starting our own with the brainpower we have amongst us.