A few months ago I posted about my exit from VUMC back in 2019. Several had asked to see the letter and I finally stumbled upon a copy. This has been edited for clarity and personal identifiers.
This letter caused several people including the director in question to be replaced.
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 9:59 AM
To: F, JC
Subject: Resignation
JC,
I've submitted my resignation to my manager, L G effective this Friday March 22nd. After 17 years as a Vanderbilt employee, I've reached the point that I can no longer continue in my position. One of the biggest issues I've had with Vanderbilt as a whole is hiring people for leadership roles who lack the necessary skills to effectively and productively manage people. When I first started working under C T, I had great respect for her as a leader. Over the years though, she's turned into someone who I have absolutely no respect for. Unfortunately, there isn't a process that allows subordinates to report the type of behavior Candace has displayed over the past few years without jeopardizing one’s position and standing within VUMC.
I would suggest that in future community surveys, questions be geared to be able to reflect the leadership above the direct manager. I've been working with LT going on eleven years and have the utmost respect for her and her abilities, however it's almost impossible to answer the questions without it appearing to reflect on her vs the dept. director.
If VUMC is serious about retention of personnel, I would strongly suggest that those in management positions be given some training on how to develop and retain personnel that are key in making VUMC succeed.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Sr. Administrative Assistant
From:
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 5:24 PM
To: L G
Subject: Resignation
L,
It’s with mixed emotions that I must tender my resignation effective March 22nd, 2019. I apologize for the extremely short notice, but it was truly unavoidable. As I stated to you last week during our mid-year conversation, a myriad of factors led up to this, some personal, but more specifically, I feel many of my skills and abilities continue to be overlooked and ignored. Please don’t take my resignation as a reflection upon you or your leadership, but rather towards our director, C. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with you these past eleven years. Leaving you is the hardest part of this decision.
I’ve shared my thoughts and feelings regarding C’s leadership with you over the past five or so years. Unfortunately, I can no longer continue this way. Every day it feels like I’m just existing here, with no clear career path or options available to me. Candace has also made it abundantly clear to me that she doesn’t believe I do a good job in my position or make any type of positive contribution to VUMC. I know that she’s verbalized that to you and some of the other clinical managers. She’s stated that personally she doesn’t like me and can’t stand me, regardless of the fact that not only have I stepped in to support her each time her last three AA’s left that position, but I’ve also taken it upon myself to train her last three assistants. To this day, I’ve never received one word of thanks or shown any appreciation for it. I’ve decided that I’m not going to be looking within VUMC for another position because I can’t be sure that Candace wouldn’t try to sabotage a job change. I’m altogether not sure that she hasn’t done so in the past.
C has multiple times in the past directed either you, or whoever was acting as my direct supervisor at the time, to discipline me with a verbal warning, or threat of being written up, over hearsay without ever investigating the issue or getting the facts. Furthermore, each time it was based on something she misheard or misunderstood. Not one time did she ever come to me and ask for my version of events.
Every time credo behaviors are mentioned, I can’t help but chuckle as I recall the town hall meeting she held a number of years ago when she admitted to us all that she’s very judgmental towards people and lets her personal feelings dictate her actions towards those she supervises and manages. Watching how she’s treated myself, you and some of the other managers, goes against everything that Vanderbilt is *supposed* stand for and promote. It’s not fair and sets a bad example of leadership, especially given how much you and Angie go above and beyond.
Another issue I take exception with is the blatant favoritism that’s been going on for years. Two recent situations have pushed me to where I am today. As you might remember, I went to C for a raise a couple of years ago. I had to fight for it, and I was lucky to get $0.40 an hour added. I might also add, for over 6 years I have fought to get HR and compensation to fix the CATS’ database for “Years of experience”. Until just recently, the “Related Experience Years” section for my job code reflected 0.0 years because the AA job codes weren’t included, or factored into the database. According to Compensation, this is a guide on which to base salaries. My “Years in FTE” is currently at 31.5 years. Even with the addition of my job code, I’m only allotted 17.3 years because it doesn’t take into account relatable job experience, even the 2.5 years I worked as a surgery scheduler isn’t counted.
I discussed this with C over the years, and she instead ignored it altogether. By contrast, last Sept. when N R (PSS in the ECL clinic) let it be known that she was looking for another position, for advancement and increase in pay, C sent the following email to you; which you forwarded to me so that I could investigate and provide you with the pertinent information to take any action, if needed.
In reality, the difference in pay between the two was only $0.95, which could hardly be considered outrageous. In addition, R has been a PSS since September 1996 and just completed her twenty-second year, while N had only been with VUMC less than four years. But as a result, N was given a 2% increase, her position re-classed into the next higher grade, and then given another 2% yearly increase. C herself input the comments in the Taleo requisition stating that N had taken on additional duties, when the reality was that N had taken these additional duties on by her own choosing in order to try to make more money through increased overtime. These duties were not assigned by you and it was merely a ploy to not have to go to the Manpower committee to try and replace her.
More recently, when N L was supposed to be returning from FMLA, decided to take a position with another company and submitted her resignation in, she was instead given an hourly increase of $2.93 so she wouldn’t leave VUMC.
As you know, I held both supervisor and management positions in a large manufacturing company prior to coming to Vanderbilt. In those roles, what I saw as our company’s greatest assets, were the very people I supervised. Without them, the individual parts wouldn’t get built, nor would we have a product to provide to our customers. I was fortunate to work under an amazing general foreman who helped me hone my people skills and shaped me into a successful leader. As such, we constantly saw our production goals exceeded. My people enjoyed coming to work and appreciated that we were all one team with one goal. It gave them not only a sense of purpose, but one of satisfaction and accomplishment at the end of the day. All the things VUMC paid Quint Studer millions of dollars to learn, I was doing years prior to ever hearing the word “Elevate”. Sadly, our director is the antithesis to all that, and I’ve reached a point in my life that job satisfaction is the driving goal moving forward with my life.
They say that good people don’t leave companies, they leave bad managers/directors. Bad managers who make good employees leave typically have these four traits in common:
They don’t invest in their people.
They don’t make expectations clear.
They play favorites.
They lack self-awareness.
Self-awareness. This is the big one. If you lack self-awareness, you never question whether your management skills are positive and productive. How would you ever begin to understand that you are the very reason hard working, long term, dedicated employees suddenly leave? As I’ve said before, Vanderbilt has a terrible problem with putting people into management or leadership roles and never once question whether they possess the people skills necessary to be a positive and productive influence. This September would have been my seventeenth year with VUMC. Even though my anniversary service date has been on C’s calendar for almost ten years, she’s never once acknowledged it. If that doesn’t tell you who she is, nothing will.
I hope that your remaining time here gets better. Thanks for everything!
Sr. Administrative Assistant