I received a communication today from someone at the head office that indicates a corporate-level smackdown may be coming for the supervisor with poor impulse control. Probably won’t know for sure until late next week, however. Regardless, I’ll be discussing the need for documenting any future issues of this type with our local HR rep. Thanks to everyone for their comments.
Here’s hoping you’ll keep us posted, if only for the vicarious frisson!
You bet!
I’ve had some pretty horrible office jobs, but never anything like that. Usually it’s just the passive aggresive crap.
About once every couple of months, one of the engineers in our office blows his stack at his boss, and usually over stupid shit. He really HATES this woman—in fact he seems to really despise any woman who has a position of authority—and it only got worse a couple months back when he was taken off a permit and given another one. The permit he’d been working on [and from what I was told, totally fucking it up] was given to one of the new engineers and I guess he’s doing quite well with it, which pissed this guy off.
Well, I guess in last month’s staff meeting, he went bananas over some little trifling thing that he had nothing to do with, and it scared everyone half to death. Of course, what scares people the most is this guy has PTSD big time, and is just waiting for him to explode.
Of course, Upper Management did nothing. That’s state gubment for you folks.
I have worked at my job for eleven years. I think I have overheard one or two screaming matches, max.
Someone needs to get the boss involved yesterday. This is unacceptable behavior and is costing your company good people.
Yeesh. That would NEVER be tolerated where I work, since you asked. Someone who routinely enrages others in the manner you describe is a world-class, unprofessional prick. I hope the smackdown is decisive.
In my experience, a remarkably high percentage of big time workplace blowups are guys who despise women freaking out when one seems threatening to his status.
Anyway, it doesn’t happen at my current workplace. If someone - of any rank - went apeshit, they might be given one warning, and it would be the sort of warning that got written up and all that. Maybe - to be honest I suspect you’d get a package and an invitation not to allow the door to strike your posterior during your exit.
Hostile work environment. Tell the boss that if he doesn’t fix it, you will. Fuck people like that. There are laws against this kind of thing. Your situation may be actionable, but you’d need to contact a lawyer to find out for sure.
Does anyone ever stand up to this asshole?
A few months ago, a worker (whom I will call Myrtle) was transferred to the cubicle next to mine. Now, there are a lot of people I work with who have unusual habits, myself included, but Myrtle was more unusual than most. She didn’t seem to do much of anything - mostly she sat at her desk and made collages which she hung on the inside and outside of her cubicle walls. She also had a stuffed animal that she constantly moved around, sometimes atop the filing cabinet, other times on the cubicle wall adjoining mine. Myrtle did not like anyone looking her in the eye and would say so. At one point, she accused the worker in the cubicle across from her of giving her dirty looks even though the lady in question had not even glanced her way. She also threatened our unit clerk. She barely spoke to me, which I considered a good thing. When she did, I was careful to be as polite to her as possible.
One day, I heard Myrtle had a confrontation with some guy (worker or customer, I never found out which) and slapped him on the face. I was very careful not to talk to her after that for fear of setting her off. A few days later, I missed work. When I returned, Myrtle wasn’t there. It seems the day before, she had had a meltdown. She had been talking to herself, mostly threats about other people in her ethnic group. She walked into the lunchroom, slammed the door, and shouted about how people of other nationalities in her ethnic group should die. Apparently, it was bad enough that the mental health people had to be called to escort her out - she had a mental illness which required medication, which she had not been taking IIRC. She never did come back for her stuff. When we emptied her cubicle out to make room for another employee, we found piles of office supplies she had been hoarding, which were originally issued for all of us to share.
In my experience, this sort thing, while not common, is not exactly uncommon. My last boss used to storm into my office with no warning and start yelling about how I’m incompetent and why can’t I get my job done right. The problem would always turn out to be something like she couldn’t find a file because I was working on a particular project like she asked me to (but forgot). Never apologized. She only started backing down when, after about three years of this, I started getting back in her face. I went to HR, who said “there’s no rule against being a bad supervisor.”
My sweetie has a boss for years who owned the company and so did whatever he damn well pleased. I think boss really thrived on hostility and loved him some conflict. Once boss provoked a screaming argument with said sweetie and it escalated to the point where boss said, “the only reason you don’t reach across this desk right now and deck me is because you’re a fucking pussy.”
Lots of my friends have similar stories to report. “Hostile work environment” is a joke. IMHO.
This attitude boggles my mind. What sort of company was it? Why would people at a company not care if the employees weren’t doing their jobs well (and treating each other well)?
It was a state university. They assured me that, had boss insulted me or treated me poorly on the basis of my being part of a protected class, they would be all over that. They also pointed out that “hostile work environment” applies ONLY to issues regarding protected class.
As to why they don’t care, I asked something similar, and they said, “we don’t like to get involved in disputes between employees.”
I worked for a mortgage brokerage when I was 22 and had a coworker like that. First of all, no one except me, the other processor, and our boss actually worked for the company. All of the brokers were technically self-employed. It was also an extremely casual office (people wore shorts and flip flops to work). The resulting atmosphere was usually lively and fun, but if someone got out of hand, there wasn’t a lot to control them.
This one broker, a guy named Elliot, was a total asshole. First of all, he was Jewish and then he found out I was Jewish, so he thought we were kindred spirits or something and would often share his views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict - which I found repugnant - with me. His brusque and rude manner annoyed everyone.
The kicker was when we had our Christmas party. We could invite a guest, which was assumed to be an SO, but I didn’t have one, so I invited my best friend to come along. (In retrospect this is kind of weird, but I had never been to an office Christmas party before and it seemed like a good idea at the time.) Elliot - who was well into his forties, and did I mention he was an asshole? - took a shine to her and hit on her the whole time. She finally just brushed him off and started ignoring his advances.
On Monday, he came into the office, RAGING at the rudeness of my friend. Apparently, she had no right to be there. And she had ignored him! This little rant ended up with him getting in a screaming fight with the boss.
I worked there a couple more months, during which he refused to speak with me (yay!). I heard after I left the job that he was eventually fired - which, in a company where everyone is officially self-employed, is a pretty impressive feat.
I work in the car business. There are shouting matches between salespeople and salespeople/managers all. the. time.
If the employees were supervisors.
Can you picture any HR person, anywhere, saying “There’s no rule against being a bad employee”? Hell no! They’d find a rule.
Moral: supervisors can get away with shit the rank & file never could. At this company and, I’m sure, thousands of others.
anyone in the office have a video phone? or could y’all get a disposable and get a nice video for the hr people?
If you think “supervisors” aren’t “rank-and-file” you must a pretty lowly position. In a company like that chances are the “supervisors” (i.e., people we can pay 10% more and then not pay overtime) are being treated even worse.
I trust you’ve never been a supervisor. In my experience, supervisors are held to higher standards than non-supervisors in general.
I’ve had some reasonably psycho managers, but they were psycho in quieter ways. I’m not sure if I remember any screaming fits. I have dealt with highly agitated people once or twice, but they were screaming to me, not at me, and about other people. It’s very unprofessional.