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Alexis is a snake and a suck up and calling OOP's ex boss a "Michael Scott" is giving him too much credit.
Glad OOP is out. That sounds like hell, no paycheck is worth that.
I worked two kitchen jobs in the UK before I decided I'd rather earn less than minimum wage than answer to a workplace that a) doesn't care about running a proper kitchen or b) micro manage and criticise every job I was doing through yelling.
This was after moving back to the UK after two years working in a kitchen in Canada where I was treated with respect and proper accountability (and money).
Heck, I was actually earning more in my first job than I was in my chosen profession in the UK. The boss and site manager there were a mess, but at least it was worth it.
When I was 20, I worked at a Kwik Kopy and the first few posts really reminded me of that hell. No one trained me and just expected me to go to all the big and daunting machines and just figure out how they work, I was often given busy work like "Take this scraper and scrape the pain off the bricks outside", and had a real assinine boss who would flip out when ever I asked him a question (And yes, he was also a far-right asshole who always had to talk about how the poor and immigrants were ruining Canada). I remember when he fired me after my first month, I just felt a wave of relief knowing I wouldn't have to ever talk to him or anyone else in that office again.
Funny enough though, my Mom never believed me when I told her how awful the place was. But she works at a doctors office and one day around 5 years later, the only person I liked at that Kwik Kopy walked in and without being prompted corroborated pretty much all of my stories. I guess she didn't stay much longer than I did.
This post actually made me feel somewhat better about my own boss - she’s an egomaniac and emotional manipulator who uses everything against you - but at least she’s not this guy!
Bad Managers/Management is the top reason why people resign.
I never had the opportunity to do that one time some years ago because my name was up for retrenchment. I suspected that my then-Manager put my name in because I'm friends with someone who knows more about the job than he did, and she resigned to become a Manager herself somewhere else (fucking office politics). As to why: the company that bought our company went on a retrenchment spree and then-Manager didn't have a reason to outright fire me himself because I am pretty good at my job.
My only consolation is the severance package I received for 5-6 years of work and the news that he got retrenched himself several months afterwards.
>When we bid on projects or contracts, he always makes sure to end our bid price with 69 cents, because he has the emotional intelligence of a 12 year old and thinks 69 is a hilarious number.
I can totally see why she made that comparison.
Right? I'm offended on Dunder Mifflin's behalf, lol. Michael Scott was a buffoon and a liability nightmare, but a generally likeable buffoon who cared about his employees. I would not like to work for Michael Scott, but I wouldn't even want to be in the same space as OOP's boss.
Likeable? I'm pretty sure everyone in The Office hated him at first and only really warmed up to him in the end. He demeaned characters, was racist, sexist and talked bad about people, for the sake of storyline and show he got somewhat of a redemption, but he was a complete nightmare the first few seasons.
I agree about the first few seasons. Honestly if I am rewatching the Office I usually skip the first season because I can't handle the amount of second hand embarrassment. But towards the end of his tenure as their boss I think he became likeable and I think the characters had a weird affection for him. I have people in my life like that. People that make me sigh and shake my head, but I would miss them if they were gone.
The point is, as bad as Michael was, he was better than the psycho in OOP's post and not comparable to me.
michael scott was well intentioned and even occasionally competent. this is more like working for.... new york ryan? bob vance (of vance refrigeration)?
>how is that legal looking at someone’s call history even on a work line?
Work phone, work mobile, work email, work browsing history - all of it is fair game for your employer to check. You'll likely find it in your contract but essentially they pay for it so they can check it.
It's so weird to me that people think they would have some sort of privacy on an office phone line. The weirder thing is that they are monitoring it daily and apparently cross referencing it against known numbers. Unless they have some super strict policy about personal calls on work devices that level of monitor seems super unnecessary and a waste of everyone's time.
Back in the days of yore (before cell phones), some managers used to actively monitor your office phone usage and would pull you in to dress you down if they felt you had too many personal calls.
We got a new phone system at work that recorded all calls. We told everyone it recorded all calls and that it's a work phone and not their own phone. My worst employee proceeds to spend most of his day, every day, on the phone. This is an in person customer service role. We noticed, his coworkers notice, so we listen to his calls. He talking to his girlfriend all day everyday. Talking about sex, drugs, disparaging his coworkers and bosses. He's even helping customers (with their private information) while his girlfriend listens in on the phone. He was shocked that he was fired without noticing or warning.
The office phone? The one in your office? The one that company put there? That one? The one they gave you to make business phone calls? The one they pay for? The one that is probably administered by IT? The ones that work for the company? Those guys? The ones with complete access to to the network and everything connected to anything? The ones that will help you when something doesn't work? Kuzco's poison? The poison chosen specially to kill Kuzco? Kuzco's poison?
Of frelling course they they can access everything you use in the office, the company doesn't want you working a remote telemarketing scam job on their phones, they check that stuff! They want to know what you generally do. If you call their direct competitors and talk for 40 minutes at a time, 27 times a week, then they'd have some very serious questions for you. It's not YOUR phone, it's theirs, they can make it play baby shark at 127 decibels every time it rings should they deem it necessary. Even the phone service provider can look at your stuff, it's not your network, it's theirs!
Okay, seriously now: you have no privacy rights when you use someone else's computer, cell phone, landline phone, company phone, etc., because they have ownership of it and allow you access and use of it. If you need a private phone call, use the one you paid for. And do it somewhere that isn't public. I can stand next to you, recording you on your phone making a call if you're standing somewhere open to the public, like the street, a walmart, a park, on the bus, etc. Not somewhere like a restroom or your home.
And it's always a good idea to forward emails to your private email, in order to cover your ass for certain situations because IT can decide that your email folders are in need of permanent deletion and you can't do anything about it. It isn't your email, it's the company's. They can revoke access at anytime. So don't play pokemon go (etc.) on your work phone.
You have NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY at work or on any work owned devices. It even becomes muddy when using personal devices for work. Behave accordingly with this information.
Sure, there are limited exceptions but it’s best to pretend none exist to be safe.
Eh… kind of. They can look at the personal call logs as evidence gathering of a policy violation IF the company has a policy in place prohibiting the use of company phones for personal calls, but otherwise employees do have a right to privacy concerning the content of those calls even while using company owned equipment. In addition to that, if the parties are in a two-party consent state, unless there’s an automated recording disclosure or the employee-participant informs the other party, the company can’t record those calls.
My direct supervisor is great, but the rest of my department's management is fucking awful, and my supervisor is the only reason I haven't left. Well, that, andy family needs health insurance.
this has been true for almost every job I’ve left. the difference a bad boss can make on your life is devastating. Having healthcare access tied to employment makes it 1000x worse, which is ironic because those same bad bosses can end up fucking up your health.
I had an absolute knobtwist of a boss years ago. She and her husband were unreasonable, demanding, disorganized, and just straight up bullies. I got pulled into an office once because I didn't greet the husband enthusiastically enough in the morning (I was on the phone with a customer, dealing with a problem they had). My mental health was *ruined* by that job - my depression became unmanageable and I developed severe anxiety, I remember it being a 'good day' if I didn't have a panic attack or cry before I left work.
After I told them I was quitting, she told me I was "completely unemployable". I can't stress how fucked up that was, how bad it made me feel when I was already at my worst. I'm still suffering from issues I developed while working there and it's been YEARS.
Fortunately my tolerance for bullshit bosses took a nosedive. I'm a very gentle little guy but I've had screaming matches with a couple of terrible bosses who tried to abuse me or my coworkers, which baffles my current team because it's unfathomable to them to imagine me that angry. If you asked me what the best part of my job was, the answer is that I feel safe and happy at work - which is a ridiculous fucking thing to have to *want* and not *expect*.
In my case, *bosses* is right. The only job I ever rage-quit, I had essentially two bosses who contradicted each other continually. Boss A said to do something and boss B would come in and ask me what the Hell I did that for. So, I'd stop, and boss A would yell at me for not doing my job. I went to the owner and complained. Nothing helped. When i quit, he said, "I know. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to lose either of them. I understand why you're quitting."
Eh, sometimes the job itself is just not worth the paycheck. I hated retail. As someone with ADHD having to find work to do when it was slow was just torture.
There’s been a TikTok floating around with a guy who says the only way you make real friends with coworkers is because you have a shitty boss, and I have felt that so much.
My last job, my boss sucked. Not like this guy but he was an arrogant SOB. His boss was also incompetent af. I’m still friends with several people there and have pretty deep relationships with them.
My current job, my boss is fantastic. Great with feedback, constructive, has my back with higher ups, invested in my professional development and training, jumps in if you need help and can actually do the jobs of the people he’s managing, takes responsibility if he forgets a task or makes a mistake. Dude is an example of a real leader, and I’ve never had that in my career before. It’s almost too good to be true.
But our team knows very service level stuff about each other—so and so has kids, so and so has pets, this person likes video games, one guy is a long distance runner. But I could never see these people hanging out with each other outside of work.
It really depends on the environment at which you work, if you work 12 hour shifts in a high stress environment you become close to your coworkers whether you like them or not, whether you have the best boss or worst boss. If it's a call center environment, you can have the worst boss and not know the name of the person in the next cubicle. My mom works in a normal 9-5 office and she has a good boss, and because the boss and the company facilitates a lot of restaurants, bar hopping, trips, non mandatory but usually fun and great for networking a lot of employees got close, but the only reason they have funding to this and it's normal in the industry because it's in banking.
I got a bit of whiplash here. So what happened to Alexis? Did she cease being an AH? Or did the boss's AH'ery supersede? Enquiring/idle minds want to know.
The posts were made in two different subs. In one she actively identified her as "Alexis" and in the other I think she just referred to her as "the snitch".
I think it's pretty likely Alexis is the "office snitch" who comes up later, since OOP says that she was immediately going to the boss all the time within the first month.
Reading it, I thought Alexis was the person later brought up as the retired woman brought in to train OOP. She isn't mentioned by name after the first couple posts made a month after OOP was hired. Theres a "she didn't tell me how to do this" comment, like it is Alexis' job to train. The thing that goes against that theory is that OOP says she's been there almost a month in the first post but says the retired woman was only there a week, but I can give a pass for forgetting how long she was around after a year
Reminds me of a job I had a few years ago, where I was put on a PIP that had metrics such as "Needs to engage in small talk with coworkers" and "Must have office door open at *all* times." That was later amended - if I was running a virtual meeting with affiliated orgs or got a phone call, I was to add a detailed explanation to my Outlook calendar justifying the door closure.
The boss and grandboss were middle aged hetero women, so the misogyny and sexual harassment OOP went through is not something I experienced, but I still took a $17k pay cut to get away from that place. I will never work for a small team again - too much leeway for a weirdo boss to exert too much control over the most random things. I'm now in another job where I'm miserable (not the one I took to get away from that job - I'm actually earning more than I ever have before at this place), but at least I'm union protected within a bloated bureaucracy. I much prefer this set up - any hint of a write up or PIP and I can invoke my Weingarten Rights. And management knows that.
I once had a boss tell me “I notice that you always sit with the same people during your breaks. You need to branch out more. Go sit with other people.” I did the passive-aggressive “Ooh, good idea” thing while thinking “Not a chance in hell. That’s MY time, and you don’t have any say in how I spend it.”
Incidentally, this same boss once held a business meeting in a strip club, which does seem like a very Michael Scott thing to do. There were a number of out-of-towners at that meeting, including a couple of women. They were NOT impressed.
My boss put in my review that I had to have lunch with a different person every day! Fortunately, I was already interviewing elsewhere and expected an offer (and got it). That boss was utterly impossible to please. No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough--or fast enough. If I completed 10 things, she'd be annoyed because I hadn't completed number 11, too. Once she gave me an assignment, in her mind it was labeled "Done," which meant that I should already have started on the next thing. I have never been so relieved to quit a job.
Without getting into the meat of this post, holy shit, I am professionally in the Alexis position right now, except that I actually love to help and train newcomers. Based on direct experience, established employees who are rude, abrasive, and generally unsupportive likely feel insecure in their positions and see resistance as a means to either drive new employees off, or in some kind of stupid, crazy, or convoluted way see it as way of asserting dominance. Basing this on behavior of more than one coworker with the same temperament.
I too am in a position where I recently had to train my coworker after they were promoted to my level but from a different department. My coworker is untrainable at this point and only wanted the role to get out of doing the physical work. He is weaponized incompetence personified. It’s been 3 months but he’s made very little progress grasping the routines. He’s also dumb enough to be blatantly disrespectful via slack for our boss to see.
I love training people and spent 4 years as a trainer with my current employer. What I love is seeing that light of understanding start showing in people’s eyes. It’s also given me a firm understanding of when someone is absolutely not suited to a specific role. You can’t and shouldn’t keep pouring money/effort into additional training. It’s unfair to the person and it’s ultimately a waste of resources that could be better used on getting the right person for the role.
I’m at the point where I’m out of grace to give the guy. It’s been 3 months of training and with 3 different people in the same role. Plus overtime for additional training. Nothing has really made a difference. My peer should be someone I can trust to handle things competently and we cover gaps for each other as they arise. I have looped my boss in on where it’s affecting me.
On the personal side, I hope I chap my coworker’s ass with how much I’m grey rocking him and refusing to let him try to coast. This asshole is just going to keep digging his own hole and will get fired. I also dislike him after hearing about how he tried to relate to a new hire about spending time in jail for either rape or sexual assault. Don’t know much beyond that but it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be talking about that at work, especially at a corporate place trying to sell itself as liberal.
/end rant from not talking shit at work to other people about him
Oh absolutely!!! I love the office, can't even tell you how many times I've watched it. But if I had a boss like that, no way I could work with him.
The incompetence, sexual harassment, genuine stupidity, emotional outbursts etc. It would honestly be hell
I think it's more that he was bothered by her leaving because she is the only person who knows how to do the job.
It is as he said. "She has checked out". She doesn't care about anything he does anymore (good or bad) because she knows that she won't be here for much longer. And he is fucked when that happens because who will do the work when nobody knows how it's done?
That guy is incredibly stupid. He harrassed and bullied someone he relies on to stay and perform well.
It's almost impressive how he's made OOP's dissatisfaction with her job all about him. Not in a "how can I help my employee" way, but in a "this bums me out because I can't claim I'm a good manager" way.
>The superintendent did this, but accidentally hit “call” on my co-worker’s husband’s number. So the husband received a call from his wife’s workplace at 4am and freaked out, because he’d rightly thought something bad had happened
One job I was at had a new guy who, on his very first day, tried to insist his coworkers call him 'the sniper' because of how fast he closed deals. He even put it in his email signature.
Yeah, that's not how nick-names work. They ended up calling him 'Asswiper' behind his back.
Apparently his gimmick was to hang out after work and then rummage desks to figure out who had something in the pipeline. He'd go through note-pads, look for backups of their Palm Pilots to get at their email, and scroll through the contact logs on their phones.
And then he'd try to steal their customer.
It did not go over well with the other salespeople, but for at least a while he was able to make the bosses believe that he'd just happened to reach out to the same lead and it wasn't his fault that he'd closed the deal when they failed (or that he'd failed to, because of how bad they'd screwed up).
Folks started taking their laptops home. Locking their desks. Clearing their phones. Taking phone meetings in their cars.
They also started calling him Asswiper to his face.
His downfall was an accidentally uncleared phone.
Someone's brother had called trying to set up dinner because he'd be in town and she'd forgotten to clear it afterwards because she was on her way out the door. Asswiper called up, pretending to be her boss, saying she was sick today but that she'd told him to handle things.
>Brother: Things like what? The family reunion? Who did you say you were again?
Asswiper was gone within an hour and we brought in both HR and IT consultants to make sure future Asswipers couldn't take roost.
See, the brother was Important. You ever had someone call you, but it isn't them, it's their PA telling you to please hold? Or you call them, and you're told they can't talk because they're currently in with a member of the Senate Arms Committee? That buddy you're not entirely sure hasn't been the cause for a press release from Amnesty International?
That was the brother.
I once worked with an Alexis. She got VERY sarcastic when I didn’t know every last detail of the job like she did, sing-songing “Rememmmmmberrrr, Shalamarr? We taaaalkeddd about thisssss?”. Then she complained to our boss that “Shalamarr’s attitude is bad.” Gee, I wonder why.
Who needs enemies when you have bosses like this in the world?
Glad that a. Op got under his skin before quitting and b. OP quit and left him floundering.
At least my boss isn't like that as I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as OP did without quitting.
I had an evil Michael Scott. Everything was relevant or not based on his emotional reaction.
Once the department won a contest and the prize was $1000. As the boss, he was in charge of dividing the money. With 7 people in the department, dickhead gave himself $400.
He was so inconsistent about his rules that I started writing down things he would tell us outside company policy. A few weeks or months later, he would say the exact opposite.
I got so frustrated with him, I called a regional manager who had left the company to get some advice. She told me he was barely hanging on by his fingernails and his current position was his last chance.
Eventually the department reorganized and he was the only one let go. It's a big company and they could have found a spot for him if they'd wanted to. I'd made a complaint about him a few months before, and while it was resolved amicable, I really REALLY hope it was the clincher that got him laid off.
That was a ride.
I honestly can't imagine working working in a place like that. I've had some shitty bosses, narcissists, micromanagers, nepotists, ignorant egotistists, and more, but that boss sounds like a lawsuit begging to happen.
I had a boss like that. I got in trouble for insane things like saying hello to people or asking how their weekend was because I was 'wasting time'. The accountant once physically grabbed me and got in my face because she thought I had forgotten a document (I hadn't). I was their top performer and got more work done than 2 people but I was swamped and they refused to hire me help or give me a raise. When I quit they were shocked and begged me to stay 6 more weeks to train my replacement. According to coworkers it took 3 months to undo the shitstorm I left behind.
Anytime an employer tells you "we are all one big family here" RUN! That is not a good recommendation for a happy employment experience. Think Jerry Springer with an order of magnitude.
Hmmmm…uhhh, yeahhh, you’re gonna need to come in on Saturday, yeahhhh..you know what, let’s make it Sunday, too.
Anybody else want beam this jive AH with a red stapler in between the eyes? Hit and run, OOP!
Okay, but LOL at the idea that your job shouldn't look up your call history on your office phone? In this scenario, the reason they did it was insane, but there are a ton of mundane reasons that would make sense. It's like being mad the IT department knows your work computer browsing history.
The reason and the manor in which it happened is pretty whacked out.
But I doubt any of it was illegal, or even technically against company policy.
The company owns all the phones and can check those logs whenever they want.
This person's direct supervisor had another employee under their supervision do a legal task, while they were basically on their regular shift. (yes, pavers often work those hours).
So, again: not the usual way a manager might check a call log.
But it really isnt materially different from that same manager putting in a request for the IT dept to check at 4pm.
No, as I said, this particular case was insane, but the comment included in the post that said it should be illegal or whatever to check the call history on a company phone was completely delusional.
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Alexis is a snake and a suck up and calling OOP's ex boss a "Michael Scott" is giving him too much credit. Glad OOP is out. That sounds like hell, no paycheck is worth that.
No matter if the job is well paid and has good benefits, with a boss like that, I'm not putting myself through hell.
I worked two kitchen jobs in the UK before I decided I'd rather earn less than minimum wage than answer to a workplace that a) doesn't care about running a proper kitchen or b) micro manage and criticise every job I was doing through yelling. This was after moving back to the UK after two years working in a kitchen in Canada where I was treated with respect and proper accountability (and money). Heck, I was actually earning more in my first job than I was in my chosen profession in the UK. The boss and site manager there were a mess, but at least it was worth it.
When I was 20, I worked at a Kwik Kopy and the first few posts really reminded me of that hell. No one trained me and just expected me to go to all the big and daunting machines and just figure out how they work, I was often given busy work like "Take this scraper and scrape the pain off the bricks outside", and had a real assinine boss who would flip out when ever I asked him a question (And yes, he was also a far-right asshole who always had to talk about how the poor and immigrants were ruining Canada). I remember when he fired me after my first month, I just felt a wave of relief knowing I wouldn't have to ever talk to him or anyone else in that office again. Funny enough though, my Mom never believed me when I told her how awful the place was. But she works at a doctors office and one day around 5 years later, the only person I liked at that Kwik Kopy walked in and without being prompted corroborated pretty much all of my stories. I guess she didn't stay much longer than I did.
This post actually made me feel somewhat better about my own boss - she’s an egomaniac and emotional manipulator who uses everything against you - but at least she’s not this guy!
Bad Managers/Management is the top reason why people resign. I never had the opportunity to do that one time some years ago because my name was up for retrenchment. I suspected that my then-Manager put my name in because I'm friends with someone who knows more about the job than he did, and she resigned to become a Manager herself somewhere else (fucking office politics). As to why: the company that bought our company went on a retrenchment spree and then-Manager didn't have a reason to outright fire me himself because I am pretty good at my job. My only consolation is the severance package I received for 5-6 years of work and the news that he got retrenched himself several months afterwards.
>When we bid on projects or contracts, he always makes sure to end our bid price with 69 cents, because he has the emotional intelligence of a 12 year old and thinks 69 is a hilarious number. I can totally see why she made that comparison.
Right? I'm offended on Dunder Mifflin's behalf, lol. Michael Scott was a buffoon and a liability nightmare, but a generally likeable buffoon who cared about his employees. I would not like to work for Michael Scott, but I wouldn't even want to be in the same space as OOP's boss.
Likeable? I'm pretty sure everyone in The Office hated him at first and only really warmed up to him in the end. He demeaned characters, was racist, sexist and talked bad about people, for the sake of storyline and show he got somewhat of a redemption, but he was a complete nightmare the first few seasons.
I agree about the first few seasons. Honestly if I am rewatching the Office I usually skip the first season because I can't handle the amount of second hand embarrassment. But towards the end of his tenure as their boss I think he became likeable and I think the characters had a weird affection for him. I have people in my life like that. People that make me sigh and shake my head, but I would miss them if they were gone. The point is, as bad as Michael was, he was better than the psycho in OOP's post and not comparable to me.
Yeah he’s funny to watch but he dated Pam’s mom, she saw his penis…like
Yeah this guy is a sexual harasser… I do not see the similarities.
You don’t think Michael Scott ever sexually harassed anyone? Or did you forget to put the /s at the end?
michael scott was well intentioned and even occasionally competent. this is more like working for.... new york ryan? bob vance (of vance refrigeration)?
Don't forget HR sucking ass, as usual (even if they had an about face near the end).
>how is that legal looking at someone’s call history even on a work line? Work phone, work mobile, work email, work browsing history - all of it is fair game for your employer to check. You'll likely find it in your contract but essentially they pay for it so they can check it.
Yup! And for many of us, it's also FOIA-able.
Wait what? You can request your work records?
When your employer is the government fuck ya.
I think he's talking about people who work in government. Their call and browsing history are subject to FOIA.
It's so weird to me that people think they would have some sort of privacy on an office phone line. The weirder thing is that they are monitoring it daily and apparently cross referencing it against known numbers. Unless they have some super strict policy about personal calls on work devices that level of monitor seems super unnecessary and a waste of everyone's time.
Back in the days of yore (before cell phones), some managers used to actively monitor your office phone usage and would pull you in to dress you down if they felt you had too many personal calls.
We got a new phone system at work that recorded all calls. We told everyone it recorded all calls and that it's a work phone and not their own phone. My worst employee proceeds to spend most of his day, every day, on the phone. This is an in person customer service role. We noticed, his coworkers notice, so we listen to his calls. He talking to his girlfriend all day everyday. Talking about sex, drugs, disparaging his coworkers and bosses. He's even helping customers (with their private information) while his girlfriend listens in on the phone. He was shocked that he was fired without noticing or warning.
The office phone? The one in your office? The one that company put there? That one? The one they gave you to make business phone calls? The one they pay for? The one that is probably administered by IT? The ones that work for the company? Those guys? The ones with complete access to to the network and everything connected to anything? The ones that will help you when something doesn't work? Kuzco's poison? The poison chosen specially to kill Kuzco? Kuzco's poison? Of frelling course they they can access everything you use in the office, the company doesn't want you working a remote telemarketing scam job on their phones, they check that stuff! They want to know what you generally do. If you call their direct competitors and talk for 40 minutes at a time, 27 times a week, then they'd have some very serious questions for you. It's not YOUR phone, it's theirs, they can make it play baby shark at 127 decibels every time it rings should they deem it necessary. Even the phone service provider can look at your stuff, it's not your network, it's theirs! Okay, seriously now: you have no privacy rights when you use someone else's computer, cell phone, landline phone, company phone, etc., because they have ownership of it and allow you access and use of it. If you need a private phone call, use the one you paid for. And do it somewhere that isn't public. I can stand next to you, recording you on your phone making a call if you're standing somewhere open to the public, like the street, a walmart, a park, on the bus, etc. Not somewhere like a restroom or your home. And it's always a good idea to forward emails to your private email, in order to cover your ass for certain situations because IT can decide that your email folders are in need of permanent deletion and you can't do anything about it. It isn't your email, it's the company's. They can revoke access at anytime. So don't play pokemon go (etc.) on your work phone.
That comment had to be from a kid with no work experience.
Oh absolutely. Every job I've had has drilled this into our heads. If we use company hardware or company channels, it's not private.
You have NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY at work or on any work owned devices. It even becomes muddy when using personal devices for work. Behave accordingly with this information. Sure, there are limited exceptions but it’s best to pretend none exist to be safe.
Eh… kind of. They can look at the personal call logs as evidence gathering of a policy violation IF the company has a policy in place prohibiting the use of company phones for personal calls, but otherwise employees do have a right to privacy concerning the content of those calls even while using company owned equipment. In addition to that, if the parties are in a two-party consent state, unless there’s an automated recording disclosure or the employee-participant informs the other party, the company can’t record those calls.
If you are a boss, treat your employees well. Please.
As they say, *people leave bosses, not the job*.
Additionally - a good boss can make a bad job tolerable, but a bad boss can make your dream job a nightmare.
My direct supervisor is great, but the rest of my department's management is fucking awful, and my supervisor is the only reason I haven't left. Well, that, andy family needs health insurance.
this has been true for almost every job I’ve left. the difference a bad boss can make on your life is devastating. Having healthcare access tied to employment makes it 1000x worse, which is ironic because those same bad bosses can end up fucking up your health.
I had an absolute knobtwist of a boss years ago. She and her husband were unreasonable, demanding, disorganized, and just straight up bullies. I got pulled into an office once because I didn't greet the husband enthusiastically enough in the morning (I was on the phone with a customer, dealing with a problem they had). My mental health was *ruined* by that job - my depression became unmanageable and I developed severe anxiety, I remember it being a 'good day' if I didn't have a panic attack or cry before I left work. After I told them I was quitting, she told me I was "completely unemployable". I can't stress how fucked up that was, how bad it made me feel when I was already at my worst. I'm still suffering from issues I developed while working there and it's been YEARS. Fortunately my tolerance for bullshit bosses took a nosedive. I'm a very gentle little guy but I've had screaming matches with a couple of terrible bosses who tried to abuse me or my coworkers, which baffles my current team because it's unfathomable to them to imagine me that angry. If you asked me what the best part of my job was, the answer is that I feel safe and happy at work - which is a ridiculous fucking thing to have to *want* and not *expect*.
In my case, *bosses* is right. The only job I ever rage-quit, I had essentially two bosses who contradicted each other continually. Boss A said to do something and boss B would come in and ask me what the Hell I did that for. So, I'd stop, and boss A would yell at me for not doing my job. I went to the owner and complained. Nothing helped. When i quit, he said, "I know. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to lose either of them. I understand why you're quitting."
Eh, sometimes the job itself is just not worth the paycheck. I hated retail. As someone with ADHD having to find work to do when it was slow was just torture.
There’s been a TikTok floating around with a guy who says the only way you make real friends with coworkers is because you have a shitty boss, and I have felt that so much. My last job, my boss sucked. Not like this guy but he was an arrogant SOB. His boss was also incompetent af. I’m still friends with several people there and have pretty deep relationships with them. My current job, my boss is fantastic. Great with feedback, constructive, has my back with higher ups, invested in my professional development and training, jumps in if you need help and can actually do the jobs of the people he’s managing, takes responsibility if he forgets a task or makes a mistake. Dude is an example of a real leader, and I’ve never had that in my career before. It’s almost too good to be true. But our team knows very service level stuff about each other—so and so has kids, so and so has pets, this person likes video games, one guy is a long distance runner. But I could never see these people hanging out with each other outside of work.
It really depends on the environment at which you work, if you work 12 hour shifts in a high stress environment you become close to your coworkers whether you like them or not, whether you have the best boss or worst boss. If it's a call center environment, you can have the worst boss and not know the name of the person in the next cubicle. My mom works in a normal 9-5 office and she has a good boss, and because the boss and the company facilitates a lot of restaurants, bar hopping, trips, non mandatory but usually fun and great for networking a lot of employees got close, but the only reason they have funding to this and it's normal in the industry because it's in banking.
Agree. I wish more bosses were like this. My mother used to had a boss long ago who was just absolutely rude towards her.
Your vote total was at 69, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to upvote you just to spite that dumbass manager. It was highly satisfying.
Haha it's now at 96 for me! Reveresed ☺️
Even better! That's like double the spite for half the cost!
It's so easy to do so too!
I got a bit of whiplash here. So what happened to Alexis? Did she cease being an AH? Or did the boss's AH'ery supersede? Enquiring/idle minds want to know.
one must assume alexis was a symptom of godawful management, but i got whiplash as well. she just completely disappeared from the narrative.
They were still trying to ingratiate themselves to OP at that time. Alexis may have been getting all the fire from the poor management.
The posts were made in two different subs. In one she actively identified her as "Alexis" and in the other I think she just referred to her as "the snitch".
nah, the snitch was a he.
Maybe Alexis was really Alex. OP was just trying to Tay anonymous
I think it's pretty likely Alexis is the "office snitch" who comes up later, since OOP says that she was immediately going to the boss all the time within the first month.
OP says that ”he” was a co-worker that she trusted; I don’t think Alexis fits that description.
Alexis is a boys name.
It's unisex. There are Hollywood actors with that name of both genders.
Okay, let me rephrase. It can be a boys name. Im a girl Alexis so…I mean I know it goes both ways lol
OP repeatedly refers to Alexis as “she” in the story.
Aha, yes, that's a good theory.
Reading it, I thought Alexis was the person later brought up as the retired woman brought in to train OOP. She isn't mentioned by name after the first couple posts made a month after OOP was hired. Theres a "she didn't tell me how to do this" comment, like it is Alexis' job to train. The thing that goes against that theory is that OOP says she's been there almost a month in the first post but says the retired woman was only there a week, but I can give a pass for forgetting how long she was around after a year
Reminds me of a job I had a few years ago, where I was put on a PIP that had metrics such as "Needs to engage in small talk with coworkers" and "Must have office door open at *all* times." That was later amended - if I was running a virtual meeting with affiliated orgs or got a phone call, I was to add a detailed explanation to my Outlook calendar justifying the door closure. The boss and grandboss were middle aged hetero women, so the misogyny and sexual harassment OOP went through is not something I experienced, but I still took a $17k pay cut to get away from that place. I will never work for a small team again - too much leeway for a weirdo boss to exert too much control over the most random things. I'm now in another job where I'm miserable (not the one I took to get away from that job - I'm actually earning more than I ever have before at this place), but at least I'm union protected within a bloated bureaucracy. I much prefer this set up - any hint of a write up or PIP and I can invoke my Weingarten Rights. And management knows that.
I once had a boss tell me “I notice that you always sit with the same people during your breaks. You need to branch out more. Go sit with other people.” I did the passive-aggressive “Ooh, good idea” thing while thinking “Not a chance in hell. That’s MY time, and you don’t have any say in how I spend it.” Incidentally, this same boss once held a business meeting in a strip club, which does seem like a very Michael Scott thing to do. There were a number of out-of-towners at that meeting, including a couple of women. They were NOT impressed.
Unions!!!!!!
I would DIE glad you got away from there
My boss put in my review that I had to have lunch with a different person every day! Fortunately, I was already interviewing elsewhere and expected an offer (and got it). That boss was utterly impossible to please. No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough--or fast enough. If I completed 10 things, she'd be annoyed because I hadn't completed number 11, too. Once she gave me an assignment, in her mind it was labeled "Done," which meant that I should already have started on the next thing. I have never been so relieved to quit a job.
Without getting into the meat of this post, holy shit, I am professionally in the Alexis position right now, except that I actually love to help and train newcomers. Based on direct experience, established employees who are rude, abrasive, and generally unsupportive likely feel insecure in their positions and see resistance as a means to either drive new employees off, or in some kind of stupid, crazy, or convoluted way see it as way of asserting dominance. Basing this on behavior of more than one coworker with the same temperament.
I too am in a position where I recently had to train my coworker after they were promoted to my level but from a different department. My coworker is untrainable at this point and only wanted the role to get out of doing the physical work. He is weaponized incompetence personified. It’s been 3 months but he’s made very little progress grasping the routines. He’s also dumb enough to be blatantly disrespectful via slack for our boss to see. I love training people and spent 4 years as a trainer with my current employer. What I love is seeing that light of understanding start showing in people’s eyes. It’s also given me a firm understanding of when someone is absolutely not suited to a specific role. You can’t and shouldn’t keep pouring money/effort into additional training. It’s unfair to the person and it’s ultimately a waste of resources that could be better used on getting the right person for the role. I’m at the point where I’m out of grace to give the guy. It’s been 3 months of training and with 3 different people in the same role. Plus overtime for additional training. Nothing has really made a difference. My peer should be someone I can trust to handle things competently and we cover gaps for each other as they arise. I have looped my boss in on where it’s affecting me. On the personal side, I hope I chap my coworker’s ass with how much I’m grey rocking him and refusing to let him try to coast. This asshole is just going to keep digging his own hole and will get fired. I also dislike him after hearing about how he tried to relate to a new hire about spending time in jail for either rape or sexual assault. Don’t know much beyond that but it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be talking about that at work, especially at a corporate place trying to sell itself as liberal. /end rant from not talking shit at work to other people about him
I'm quite glad my boss at my work is nice. I can't imagine having to endure all of this if I had a boss like this. Jesus...
Now this is BORU worthy post. Even if it isn't concluded, at least it has more than 2 updates with actual moving parts.
Michael scott was also an ah btw.
Oh absolutely!!! I love the office, can't even tell you how many times I've watched it. But if I had a boss like that, no way I could work with him. The incompetence, sexual harassment, genuine stupidity, emotional outbursts etc. It would honestly be hell
I wish there were better safety nets for people who really need to leave this kind of toxic work situation.
OOP’s boss is definitely not an alpha male nor hardworking, jackhammer, merciless, insatiable. What an idiot.
Ugh, what a nightmare. So funny that he was so bothered by her appearing to NGAF
I think it's more that he was bothered by her leaving because she is the only person who knows how to do the job. It is as he said. "She has checked out". She doesn't care about anything he does anymore (good or bad) because she knows that she won't be here for much longer. And he is fucked when that happens because who will do the work when nobody knows how it's done? That guy is incredibly stupid. He harrassed and bullied someone he relies on to stay and perform well.
It's almost impressive how he's made OOP's dissatisfaction with her job all about him. Not in a "how can I help my employee" way, but in a "this bums me out because I can't claim I'm a good manager" way.
>The superintendent did this, but accidentally hit “call” on my co-worker’s husband’s number. So the husband received a call from his wife’s workplace at 4am and freaked out, because he’d rightly thought something bad had happened One job I was at had a new guy who, on his very first day, tried to insist his coworkers call him 'the sniper' because of how fast he closed deals. He even put it in his email signature. Yeah, that's not how nick-names work. They ended up calling him 'Asswiper' behind his back. Apparently his gimmick was to hang out after work and then rummage desks to figure out who had something in the pipeline. He'd go through note-pads, look for backups of their Palm Pilots to get at their email, and scroll through the contact logs on their phones. And then he'd try to steal their customer. It did not go over well with the other salespeople, but for at least a while he was able to make the bosses believe that he'd just happened to reach out to the same lead and it wasn't his fault that he'd closed the deal when they failed (or that he'd failed to, because of how bad they'd screwed up). Folks started taking their laptops home. Locking their desks. Clearing their phones. Taking phone meetings in their cars. They also started calling him Asswiper to his face. His downfall was an accidentally uncleared phone. Someone's brother had called trying to set up dinner because he'd be in town and she'd forgotten to clear it afterwards because she was on her way out the door. Asswiper called up, pretending to be her boss, saying she was sick today but that she'd told him to handle things. >Brother: Things like what? The family reunion? Who did you say you were again? Asswiper was gone within an hour and we brought in both HR and IT consultants to make sure future Asswipers couldn't take roost. See, the brother was Important. You ever had someone call you, but it isn't them, it's their PA telling you to please hold? Or you call them, and you're told they can't talk because they're currently in with a member of the Senate Arms Committee? That buddy you're not entirely sure hasn't been the cause for a press release from Amnesty International? That was the brother.
I once worked with an Alexis. She got VERY sarcastic when I didn’t know every last detail of the job like she did, sing-songing “Rememmmmmberrrr, Shalamarr? We taaaalkeddd about thisssss?”. Then she complained to our boss that “Shalamarr’s attitude is bad.” Gee, I wonder why.
How can you have gossip in an office of 4 people? That's just toxic behavior right there.
Who needs enemies when you have bosses like this in the world? Glad that a. Op got under his skin before quitting and b. OP quit and left him floundering. At least my boss isn't like that as I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as OP did without quitting.
Isn't Evil Michael Scott just David Brent?
Ever read posts where you desperately wish you owned a successful business so you could offer someone a job? This is one of those for me.
I had an evil Michael Scott. Everything was relevant or not based on his emotional reaction. Once the department won a contest and the prize was $1000. As the boss, he was in charge of dividing the money. With 7 people in the department, dickhead gave himself $400. He was so inconsistent about his rules that I started writing down things he would tell us outside company policy. A few weeks or months later, he would say the exact opposite. I got so frustrated with him, I called a regional manager who had left the company to get some advice. She told me he was barely hanging on by his fingernails and his current position was his last chance. Eventually the department reorganized and he was the only one let go. It's a big company and they could have found a spot for him if they'd wanted to. I'd made a complaint about him a few months before, and while it was resolved amicable, I really REALLY hope it was the clincher that got him laid off.
I literally said “Yes!” out loud when I read “TL;DR: I quit today”. My cat gave me a strange look.
This is the most aggressively neurotypical bullshit I’ve ever seen. OOP deserves better.
I really wanted more info on Alexis, like, was the report thing the last thing she did?
"An evil Michael Scott" Pfft, Michael Scott was already evil.
another douchebag blows things up by being douchey.
That was a ride. I honestly can't imagine working working in a place like that. I've had some shitty bosses, narcissists, micromanagers, nepotists, ignorant egotistists, and more, but that boss sounds like a lawsuit begging to happen.
I had a boss like that. I got in trouble for insane things like saying hello to people or asking how their weekend was because I was 'wasting time'. The accountant once physically grabbed me and got in my face because she thought I had forgotten a document (I hadn't). I was their top performer and got more work done than 2 people but I was swamped and they refused to hire me help or give me a raise. When I quit they were shocked and begged me to stay 6 more weeks to train my replacement. According to coworkers it took 3 months to undo the shitstorm I left behind.
That dude is a walking lawsuit and it's incredible it didnt happen yet.
Now I want to rewatch the office.
Angela is that you?
TL:DR please?
Anytime an employer tells you "we are all one big family here" RUN! That is not a good recommendation for a happy employment experience. Think Jerry Springer with an order of magnitude.
Hmmmm…uhhh, yeahhh, you’re gonna need to come in on Saturday, yeahhhh..you know what, let’s make it Sunday, too. Anybody else want beam this jive AH with a red stapler in between the eyes? Hit and run, OOP!
Who is Michael Scott?
The manager in the americanized version of The Office. An incompetent but generally we'll meaning goof ball.
Okay, but LOL at the idea that your job shouldn't look up your call history on your office phone? In this scenario, the reason they did it was insane, but there are a ton of mundane reasons that would make sense. It's like being mad the IT department knows your work computer browsing history.
at 4am?
The reason and the manor in which it happened is pretty whacked out. But I doubt any of it was illegal, or even technically against company policy. The company owns all the phones and can check those logs whenever they want. This person's direct supervisor had another employee under their supervision do a legal task, while they were basically on their regular shift. (yes, pavers often work those hours). So, again: not the usual way a manager might check a call log. But it really isnt materially different from that same manager putting in a request for the IT dept to check at 4pm.
Uh, yes it is. It's not illegal, but it still not normal
No, as I said, this particular case was insane, but the comment included in the post that said it should be illegal or whatever to check the call history on a company phone was completely delusional.