Manager, Manage! Part 7

Many years ago, I had a bad manager. She based our reviews on walking thirty seconds to the elevator from wherever she was in the office. She even noted this IN THE REVIEWS. When I called her out on it, as that was not an accurate representation of my work (or that of the other staff), she wrote me up for insubordination and threatened to fire me if I didn’t sign it. I signed it and immediately began looking for another job — as one should after that BS.

Faced with any conflict, [Manager] would run to her office, lock the door, and cry, leaving the reception team to deal with whatever the issue was. Our office was three floors of shared office space. Three others and I were that reception team — one to a floor with the fourth girl being a floater. We answered the switchboard for about twenty clients per floor and would patch the calls through, as well as accept deliveries, etc.

Well, we got a new phone system in and it glitched, bad.

Rather than [Manager] taking responsibility as the manager and contacting the company who installed it to come out and fix the issue, she hid in her office. WE took care of it instead. WE apologized to our clients and listened to them yell, placating them and advising that WE had a service call in and they would be there shortly to fix it. 

So, I job hunted and interviewed during my lunchtime. I found a new job and wrote my clients a nice note saying I was leaving and why and that I would miss working with them.

I also wrote [Manager] my letter of resignation, detailing why I was leaving, basically calling her out on being a bad manager, which included her poor management style, the unfair reviews, her lack of respect for the reception team, etc. I gave it to her at 4:30 pm on the Friday before I started my new job. A coworker later told me that [Manager] got off the elevator reading my letter, white as a sheet, and then ran to her office, locked the door, and cried.

I also found out that after I quit, not only did the other girls quit one by one as they found new jobs, but also, several of the clients moved out of the building because they realized that WE took care of everything, and since [Manager] didn’t know anything, she couldn’t train the new hires on the phone system. It was a train wreck with tons of calls being dropped or sent to the wrong client, and it was hurting their businesses, so they broke their leases and left.

Moral: don’t treat your staff like s***e and it won’t come back to bite you.

Related:
Manager, Manage! Part 6
Manager, Manage! Part 5
Manager, Manage! Part 4
Manager, Manage! Part 3
Manager, Manage! Part 2