Do this at your own risk. I think **MagicEyes **just needs to send CYA emails every time her boss tells her something, then show them to her boss when shit hits the fan later. Contacting your boss’s boss about problems with your boss can be a career-ending move if they’re tight with each other.
Yeah, keep a paper trail just in case, but whether you tell your boss depends on his/her personality. Some want to know every little thing that’s going on, some are like one überboss I had: if I came to him with a problem, he would say “Really? Do you want ME to handle this… and go through life believing you can’t deal with your own problems? Or do you want to handle this yourself, so efficiently that I never even know it was a problem?”
Why so binary? He should be able to tolerate “I’m okay handling it myself, but I need for you to know it was a problem, so you can measure how much I’ve developed under your guidance.”
Good point. I just wish there was the perfect one-size-fits-all way to say “Hey, if you happen to hear shit about me from X, just be aware that I’ve got the emails to back me up.”
I had one supervisor that was so nervous, he’d hear that and immediately go into Sky Is Falling mode, and want to have a huge meeting to Fix Everything.
But I had one boss that was the opposite. She’d just arch an eyebrow and say “Oh, if I hear shit about you from X, I’ll consider the source… and probably not take it seriously.”
MagicEyes, I just hope you can get work done without worrying about getting stabbed in the back. Having emails to back you up should put your mind at ease…
In any event, “Start looking for another job” is still good advice.
I’m just enough of a mouthy asshole to say “I am handling this. I’m going through the proper channels like I’m supposed to. But I’m sorry, I clearly made a mistake. I thought this would be part of your job. However, since you would rather that I deal with this instead of bringing it to you, I guess I’ll pass on that piece of information to anyone else having an issue with (manager) and start working out what I need to do for my own resolution.”
But yeah, if they’re tight, you’re fucked either way and can only leave.
Well, that’s kind of a funny story. One morning on my way to work, I stopped at a red light not far from her house. The light turned green, and as I started to go, I noticed a person getting ready to step into the crosswalk, and it looked like this person was going to go ahead and run into the crosswalk, even though I had the green light. Then I realized it was my supervisor, and I’m still not really sure if I would have hit the brake really quickly if she had run out into the crosswalk.
This is exactly the problem. My supervisor is best friends with the head of the department, who is her direct supervisor. Also our department is very small. So I know whose side the department head is going to be on, and it’s not mine. Since I don’t have anything in writing, it’s my word against hers, and there’s not a thing I can do about it. **
Chimera**, I have thought about looking for another job, and it might come to that some day, but for now there are lots of good things about my job, so I’m trying to to let her ruin it for me. I’m trying to see the funny side and let these things go. Most of my co-workers are awesome, the pay is good, and the location is better than most other jobs I could have. I’ve had times when I was moments away from quitting, but I’m going to hang in there and try to make the best of it. And hopefully come out with some funny stories.
We’re starting a new evaluation system where we’re supposed to evaluate our supervisors. The problem with this is, our evaluations are supposed to be anonymous, but I’m the only person who reports to my supervisor, so it’s going to be very obvious who it’s coming from. I was thinking about not doing this evaluation, and explaining why, but now I’m thinking I might just let it rip and worry about the consequences later.
For my next installment, I think I’ll tell you all about the time my supervisor didn’t understand what a committee is, even though we have zillions of them.
My not-quite-ex-clients have to run a program which does a bunch of things and then reports the things it has done. It’s automagic, you tell it “do this and this for anything whose expiration date is within [timeframe]” and it does.
Q: “What are these messages? We do not understand them! We have never seen them before!” (seven screenshots, which actually match three kinds of messages, all seen before)
A: “Blahblah same as suchdate blahblah more details in blahblah”
Q: “Why does it list all this? When will it not list anything? Why are there all these errors?”
A: “It’s not ‘errors’, it’s ‘things I’ve done’. You know, like a lab notebook? When it doesn’t find anything to do it gives a message of ‘No data found matching your selection’.”
They run that program every day and send me the list every fucking day saying “we haven’t seen this before!” Sending them the address to the National Blind People Association would be unprofessional, right?
We’re here for you… and we can always use a laugh, or a good eye-roll.
If she’s crazy and hard to deal with, everyone knows it already. Even the department head, who probably has to deal with her as a terrible underling already, no matter how awesome she is socially.
Keeping a paper trail and sending emails for EVERYTHING can only protect you when it comes up later. Hell, just do it for shits and giggles. Another email off to wah wah land!
Do you want her job?
Usually, people like your supervisor get promoted. But sometimes, only sometimes, they get totally fired by the president of the company and their BFF can’t save them. And it feels so good.
Dear Attorney:
I adore you. You’re one of the good guys. You’re thorough and always willing to look at all sides of an issue before giving direction. You understand how I look at this job, and have stated you respect my opinions in all matters regarding how I handle cases. And, heck, you like to salsa in the office.
However.
I brought you a slam dunk. I had everything laid out clear as humanly possible. I walked in stating I do NOT want to pursue action, here is the history, here is my opinion.
And you disagreed.
sigh
You’re making me shop for opinions, and I don’t like doing that. I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree with your summation.
I just discovered that I’ve been casually working with a pretty nasty carcinogen at my lab without any real idea or protective equipment, as thats how I was trained and saw it used.
I want out of this job so bad. As if finding out that a fucking creationist was going to be my new
manager wasn’t bad enough…
I am annoyed with the person who makes out my department’s schedule because he deliberately did so after the deadline, testing to see whether he’d get written up for doing so.
It annoys me, because it’s nice to know whether I have to work on Sunday before the last minute (hereby defined as Saturday afternoon, when the schedule is posted online).
Spoiler: Yes, I do have to work Sunday. (Schedule got made out Friday afternoon, and so was posted before I left work, so I do know it. So really, if I hadn’t overheard two or three discussions about the schedule not having been made yet, I wouldn’t have known, and wouldn’t be annoyed. )
As a professional cook with 30 years experience, let me just say that microwaving fish should warrant the death penalty. Unless you’re talking about fish sticks. Actual fish explodes in a microwave. And I have to clean that shit up.
My workplace gripe:
I work as a cook for an obviously unnamed chain of retirement homes. This corporate chain is insanely cheap. How cheap? Let me tell you.
One of my servers just passed six months of employment with this company, and received her six-month pay raise. Guess how big of a raise she got.
No, don’t guess, I’ll tell you.
Seven. Cents. Per. Hour.
If she was working 40 hours per week, that would amount to an extra $2.80 a week, before taxes. But she’s a high school student working maybe 15-20 hours a week. So … now she’ll get an extra $1.40 or so? Whoop-dee-doo.
I remember when I started in the foodservice business, 30+ years ago, and a coworker at my fast food restaurant being insulted by a 10-cent/hour raise (when the minimum wage here was $3.35/hour).
Here it is, 2014, and these corporate asshats think 7 fucking cents and hour constitutes a “cost of living” pay raise? What fantasy land are these people living in?
I’m coming up on six months with this company myself. And actually, when I was hired, the local general manager told me that I’d get a raise after 30 days, a raise that never materialized. I mentioned to my immediate supervisor (who has since been fired, because he was an idiot) several times that my supposed 30-day raise had not materialized, and would he talk to the general manager and find out what’s up. He kept assuring me that he would, but apparently he never did (I think he was annoyed that my first few paychecks were bigger than his; well what did he expect when I was working a ton of overtime while he went on vacation?) So after he got fired, and I got a new supervisor, I mentioned this issue to him, and he went and talked to the GM. And the GM waffled around about giving me another … 11 cents per hour. My supervisor, to his credit, told the GM, “Can’t we get him at least another 25 cents per hour?” and the GM reluctantly agreed to that.
I should point out that I voluntarily took a pay cut to take this job. I was making $11.45/hour in my union job at the local convention center. But I was willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a regular, consistent schedule. The convention business is largely seasonal, and I spent 7 and a half years of alternating “way too much work” and “no work at all”. And totally inconsistent schedules, where I couldn’t make any kind of future plans because I never knew when I might be needed at work, and I simply had to work when the work was available. So I voluntarily went from $11.45/hour to $10.50/hour. Though I was actually able to talk my current employer into starting me at $10.75/hour, based on my 30 years of experience and the fact that my supervisor was somebody I’d worked with before who knew what I could do.
So for 6 months I’ve busted my ass for this company, and they want to give me another 11 cents per hour? Fucking-A, even before that union job at the convention center, it had been at least 10 years since I’d last gotten a raise of less than 25 cents/hour!
I wonder if these corporate overlords realize that fucking Denney’s starts cooks here at $12/hour? With my fucking experience, I could probably demand $13-$14/hour to start at fucking Denney’s! But dammit, I like working for my new supervisor. He’s a 62-year-old chef who, as near as I can tell, is simply doing it because he loves doing it. From what I know of him, he doesn’t need the money. He’s got money, and he’s married to the general manager of the local branch of a major high-class hotel chain. I’ve only worked with him for 6 months (he was actually hired a couple weeks after me), but he’s already taught me more in 6 months than three Executive Chefs taught me in 7 and a half years at the convention center.
But damn, these corporate overlords don’t seem to know what’s what.
I spent way too many of the last 10 years working in that $10-12/hr bracket. And those wages have been stagnant for 15 years.
Fucking corporate asshats who think that’s a Livable Wage. The whole lot of them should be stripped of their possessions and bank accounts, given two changes of clothing, a job that pays $10.50 an hour and dumped on the streets to find their own housing on that wage.
I remember one job (summer after high school) where the trio of pranksters were called into the manager’s office. We thought someone had ratted us out, but after a long speech he proudly announced we were each getting a two dollar raise. Two dollars per week, he was quick to add.
Danno bowed his head, literally wiped the smirk off his face as he raised it and said “Thank you, sir, now little Jimmy can get those shoes.”
It’s the same in the temp world. I’ve been an office temp for 17 or so years now, and the wages when I started weren’t a lot lower than they are now. I accept the wages as the trade-off for the flexibility in assignments (which is perfect for me), but still.
Fuck you, you exact changers. You know, while you’re fumbling, and searching, and digging, and scouring, and counting for that 96 cents in change, 8 other people are waiting behind you. You’re not gaining anything in life. “OH MY GOD, I’m giving up 3 nickels for 2 pennies!” Fuck you.
I caught myself doing that (with nobody behind me, in my defense). And I laughed and said “Ever notice how anyone with grey hair has to dig around to find exactly $1.94 in pennies and nickels?”
The high school girl cashier’s eyes got big and she said “I KNOW! It’s like something terrible will happen if they just give me two dollar bills!” The other cashiers joined in and we all ended up doing our best Little Old Lady voices: “Oooh, I jes’ know I’ve got a 1999 Jefferson nickel down in here somewhere…” (Seemed quite cathartic for them; they must have suffered a lot)
And I came up with a revelation: “Y’know, when I only have a few good years left, I am NOT going to waste it counting change or driving 40 on the freeway.”
OTOH, sometimes people do need to get rid of some change. 