Recently, my wife’s boss’s friend died of a brain tumor. My wife’s boss knew he was sick, and he kept saying he meant to go see him before the end. A couple of days before the guy died, he called the office to talk to my wife’s boss, but said boss was in a meeting. The guy with the tumor said something like ‘That’s ok…I’ll try and call him again tomorrow’. My wife asked if he wanted her to take a message, but the guy said no, it wasn’t important, that he just wanted to say hi.
Unfortunately, that night the friend of my wife’s boss went into a coma, and died a few days later.
It’s a sad story, as the guy was pretty cool. Unfortunately, my wife’s boss blames her and is now completely torturing her at work for failing to give him the non-message that his friend called. Myself, I think my wife’s boss is feeling totally guilty for not having gone to see his friend in the 2 months(!!) he’s been in the hospital after having the tumor diagnosed. He is making my wife’s life a misery now, however…he won’t speak to her, threw the cookies she made for him and her other boss in the trash can, and in general being a total and complete dick to her. My wife, unfortunately, does not have the thick skin I do, and she takes this kind of shunning to heart. Myself, I’d tell the guy that instead of trying to place the blame on her that he should man up to the fact that he put off going to see his friend over an over, and that in the end he waited too long, so never got to say good bye.
Anyway, just wanted to vent some, as it’s painful to me to see my wife in tears every night, and to hear about some of the things he’s doing to make her life and work a misery for her. A hearty ‘Fuck YOU!’ to you, man, and you best hope that we don’t meet face to face or I’m going to give you a piece of my mind that you won’t appreciate.
That’s outrageous. I wish I could say I’m shocked and surprised, but I’ve seen this kind of crap too often. Is she the boss’s secretary? Let me guess, he’s an executive of some kind? They can be the biggest babies and very unprofessional with the temper tantrums. Can her other boss run some interference and get this guy to grow the fuck up?
He’s a lawyer…one of the senior one’s. Her other boss is actually working behind the scenes to get this guy moved to a different floor and a better partner moved in. I’m hoping he manages to pull it of, though they are both senior partners, so who knows?
Oh, god. That’s even worser. But it’s good news that her other boss has got her back. Let’s hope Good Boss is more popular with the partners than Bad Boss, or that Bad Boss has a reputation and this only worsens it.
This may not help, but I often have to remind myself that bad boss behavior (“bad” modifying behavior or boss as need be) is a reflection on their character. I try to focus on the fact that all reasonable people would be and are shocked, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Someone who would take out his… whatever… on someone he knows can’t fight back is a pig. A pig who doesn’t deserve to take up space in her head. She should feel pity for the schmuck. When he’s on death’s door, I bet no one will take his call.
The guy sounds like the toxic bitch I worked with for a month. She was always going on how this company owed her and her selfless ass for working and letting her daughter die without her there at the hospital. Every employee of that depot and the head office apparently was at fault for her shitty decision skills. This is the only person in the world I truely loath and I haven’t seen her for almost two decades.
Even if friend didn’t leave a message, wouldn’t you make a note to boss he called? (I would). “Friend dying of cancer called” is kinda the sort of thing you should mention, even if he didn’t leave a message.
Yes boss is being a douche because ultimately its his fault, but I think your wife should have passed on the info that friend had called.
If she never told her boss (let’s call him Mr. Peabody) that DyingFriend called, how did Mr. Peabody find out that he’d called?
In any event, after a few weeks, if your wife is still coming home crying, then she needs to talk to HR and request a new assignment. If Mr. Peabody is truly this unreasonable and nasty, then he’s probably already established a track record for going through assistants, which will reflect more negatively on him than her.
At my work, more than one executive secretary has accepted a demotion back to rank-and-file secretary vs. working with dickfaces. The higher pay just wasn’t worth it.
Oh, and FTR, I always make a note when someone calls for my boss. I give the date, time, name of the caller and then “No Message” or “Said they’d call back.”
Yes, she left him a note (friend X called, no message)…that’s how he found out that the guy called and that my wife took the call. But she didn’t put any special priority on it (since the friend said that he’d call back and there was no message) and left it in his box. He didn’t find it for a couple of days…and by then it was too late.
At any rate, it seems that things are progressing. My wife’s other boss is already making arrangements to have this guy moved to a different floor, with a new secretary, and a new partner will be moving in to his old office after the new year.
You left out the part about her leaving a message. She needs to tell Mr. “I’m too important to check my box” to take his grief out on someone else. I’ve never been in an office where management didn’t check their in-boxes regularly throughout the day. Using “I didn’t check my box for 2 days” excuse would get them fired or seriously dragged over the carpet by the next person up the food chain.
He doesn’t even check his email…he has her do it. What he blames her for is not telling him directly that he got this call (even though there was no message). It doesn’t matter that she was totally busy with stuff for him, the other senior partner and 3 interns. None of that matters. It also doesn’t matter that she left him a note in his in-box, since he doesn’t check that regularly…SHE is supposed to check that for him and apprise him of anything important (or anything that MIGHT be important). She didn’t tell him his friend called, now his friend is dead and he missed the chance to say goodbye (he was busy going to the gym and such for the other 2 weeks prior to this)…Q.E.D. my wife is to blame and he’s going to make her life a misery to punish her for it. He can’t fire her because she is damn good at her job, and because the other senior partner she works for loves her.
Of course the other partner is rubbing his hands with glee (he doesn’t see her pain either, just advantage for himself), since the two of them are constantly fighting over who gets her to do the work at any given time. They are almost like children, but this incident goes beyond the pale. I’m about as pissed as I ever get over this whole, stupid thing.
I’m glad you clarified that she did in fact leave a message, because I was a little hesitant to post the following otherwise:
Yes, your wife’s boss is a class A jerk. Just because she didn’t put super-duper-ultra-priority-notice on said message is no excuse to act like a jackass. And for days on end no less.
He’s a lawyer…not that they are all bad, but a lot of them are like this (i.e. don’t read their messages, don’t read their emails, expect their secretary to take care of everything). He doesn’t consider the note in his in-box to be acceptable, and he blames her for not telling him directly about the call. She was supposed to know that it was important, was supposed to know that this would be the last chance he could talk to his friend, etc etc. Since she didn’t do so, it’s all her fault.
I can definitely understand that this guy is feeling guilty right now. He had plenty of chances to go visit his friend but never did. But this situation is bullshit. Had she told him about the message, he STILL wouldn’t have done anything, since all his friend had to say was that he just wanted to say hi and would call back. Her boss would have been annoyed with her had she dropped the work she was doing to ensure he got the non-message…and her other boss would have been pissed at her for dropping HIS work to give this guy a non-message.
Basically, she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. That’s what I was trying to tell her last night…that, and to not take this kind of thing to heart. She is just too sensitive about this kind of thing. She is used to bosses that fawn all over her, telling her how great she is, etc etc. She isn’t used to people doing bizarre stuff like this, or blaming her irrationally for stuff that wasn’t her fault.
