My last job, before I left to be a full time stay at home dad, was super toxic. There was a very Us vs Them mentality when it came to management vs employees.
Our Supervisor, Sally, was absolutely terrible. She was promoted from within and called the Queen of Eligibility, mostly because she knew how to play the game, since she knew very little about the actual work. She had no management skills to speak of and took out frustrations on anyone around her, except her chosen few.
I started in the department, given generic “new hire” training I didn't need because I had already been with the company for years. I had no training on the actual new position, so I made mistakes at the beginning. This apparently made me enemy number 1 for Sally. I could never improve in her eyes. I eventually got in the swing and my errors went down to near 0, and I caught those before they went for processing so it didn't matter. I also had some of the better numbers for account building. I wasn't the best on the team or anything, but I was proficient at my job and worked above the standards.
At review time I got a raise that was tiny, like $0.10 an hour. Whatever, I had been grandfathered into the department and was making $3 more an hour than other people.
Year 2 and she sat down with me, talked about how well I was doing, but told me I wouldn't get a raise this year because of my performance in year 1. She wanted me to react.
Now, I could have argued, she wanted me to. But I said nothing. She asked if I had any questions and I said “nope”. She kept trying to get me to talk and I would either say nothing or just say “It's fine, you gotta do what you think is right”.
With no ammo to pick a fight she called an end to the review. But then she went and bad mouthed me to HER boss, Bertha, who called me in to ask what had happened. I told her that nothing had happened, I got my review, signed it, and Sally ended the meeting. She asked for more detail and I said I had none to give.
Then Sally, her boss Bertha , and their boss Steve all went into meetings with each other all day and at the end of the day I was given a write-up for insubordination. I asked how I was insubordinate and was told it was my attitude. I asked “what attitude” and asked for HR to review the case. HR got involved and I wasn't allowed to speak to them first, because Sally, Bertha, and Steve wanted to get in a poison the well.
I talked to HR and told them what I told Sally, she had to do what she had to do and that I signed off on the review. Since there was nothing there nothing happened and the write-up went away.
Imagine that, a boss that wanted to fight me so badly that it ended up getting multiple levels of management involved, a write-up, and HR. All because I wouldn't fight.
And people wonder why there is no loyalty to “the family” anymore.