A while back I was hired to work at Ironclad Developments. They are a medium residential condominium developer and property manager. Very highly rated and have all the “Top X company in X” accolades. When I was approached by a recruiter to interview I thought it was a great step for my career. I'd be managing a team again(was just a senior worker at the time, having come off 5 years as a manager for a pay bump and to leave a horrible boss). I love managing even though it can be like adult babysitting.
I smashed the interview and got on well with my eventual director. He loved me and what my vision was. It was easy because their company was so young and I had come from corporate so the framework was empty. Anything was better than the nothing they had.
Day 1 I get to the office and meet my new team. I'm always very friendly and polite and I do my usual thing but they seem stand offish. Okay no problem. We'll work around that. Normally people try to get on with their new boss but it is what it is. I didn't think anything on day 1 of it. They had a shit manager before who moved to a new role and this guy was straight up Littlefinger from GoT. Just toxic and spreading weird stuff, even on my first day! I saw him for what he was immediately and just smiled and nodded. Dude is trouble, but not my problem.
Day 2 I try to get on with the guys again but they are having none of me. I could feel some animosity and clearly they didn't like me, despite not knowing me at all. I saw the vision and just told myself it will work itself out, people tend to like me a lot. I'm laid back and I joke a lot, support and help people, mixed with trying to be one of the hardest workers in the room…it tends to lead to a lot of positive work culture. My boss still loves my vision and all the projects I'm laying down.
Day 3 I ask one of the guys to do something minor and he tells me no. No? It's a simple ask, wtf? I said okay I'll do it and show you what the end result is. It was this interaction and them ignoring me that confirmed something was completely wrong. They also refused to speak a common language when I was around. (I'm White, they are SE Asian). That night I went home and told my spouse that I think this place is going to be a problem.
Couple weeks goes on. My director kept loving me and these employees kept being insubordinate, dismissive, rude, and honestly? Assholes. It was so unacceptable but I'm in the mindset of trying to win in these situations so I just keep modifying my strategies, trying to win them over and do my thing for the company. I brought up these individuals to my director and he had been trying to fire one for almost 2 years but the company kept telling him not to. I was so confused because the problems were real. They took crazy long lunches, were disrespectful, unprofessional, and didn't even communicate in a way that was effective at all. No grammar, punctuation, and avoided English(everyone's language). One guy was almost 50 and said he wasn't from this country but lived here for something like 30 years….no excuse. It was clearly intentional. My director said we'll monitor then and just document the things they did. Coincidentally I was already documenting the insanity so I agreed. It was in everyone's best interest that they just started acting maturely and stopped this crap and I continued to pursue that goal.
The next 2.5 months of my life went to hell. The gaslighting and the abuse was insane. I stopped eating and sleeping and my mental health took a nosedive. It was pretty solid going in, coming out of it I was a huge mess. They petitioned against me to the HR director who ended up being an absolute psychopath. It was all under the guise of other things but I knew what was happening. Again, just stick to my goals and ignoring the childish stuff but when that director of HR came down on me like the wrath of God I knew something was off. Without any discussion prior, brought me into a meeting to yell at me and tell me how to be a good manager. I was baffled, I am a good manager. This doesn't make sense. I asked her what the context of one of her comments was(it seemed specific but I couldn't draw the line). She yelled at me and asked why I was getting defensive. I was absolutely stunned. The gaslighting was crazy. I left shaking, I've never had that in my entire life. I've never been in HR because of me. This is where my mental health started to dive and I questioned my whole life and career. I became a broken person.
Time went on and one of these employees quit. I expect they burned my name on their way out because HR director lady was mad at me. The guy was taking interview calls during work, I knew it was happening. He was doing this by week 2 of being there. It wasn't my fault.
Another employee, the worse one, a real piece of shit who is nearly 50 at the time was a man child. He was a terror in my life. Everything that happened he went to HR. I just stuck to my goals and ignoring his petty BS. Well one day he wanted me to authorize 3 hours of OT for a measly 15 minute task. Not even. Resetting someone's WiFi. Is that 3 hours? Nope. Looked at his notes and saw he was just so shit at his job and asked questions (didn't attack, just asked). He absolutely lost it and threw a tantrum. Slamming doors, brink of crying, calling me names, calling me racist. EVERYTHING. I battled for 45 minutes to calm him down from the ledge but he just kept calling the HR director.
I was fired a couple days later for not being a “cultural fit”.
Launched into clinical depression and questioning my whole life, I was majorly affected by this. How can I go my whole life being the star and then being fired. It was crazy. It took a lot of therapy and some medication, plus the support of my spouse but we got me in a better headspace and I am now against extremely successful. But that 6 months of not working and being at the maximum edge of depression was a serious bump in the road of my life. All due to the gaslighting, lying, crazy HR director, and the employee man child.
Everyone in the department except him quit, and they made him a manager. It was like putting Satan himself in the driver's seat but whatever, I was free and doing well. But I never did get the answer to my issues of what the hell happened until much later.
WELL, turns out this guy wanted my job and was refused it when they hired me(because he's awful as an employee and human). And he also knew of one of the owners cheating on the other. This was revealed to me later and it was a huge weight off my shoulder. Of course it wasn't me. How could it be? Thank god.
Ironclad Developments is a toxic work environment and they have all the accolades of being a best employer. They just laid off 50 people they were under a year and in our province you need a full year to get 2 weeks pay when being terminated or laid off. They targeted these poor people and fired them then tried to frame it like they were GRACIOUSLY giving them the 2 weeks of pay instead of 1.
Word of advice? Heed caution when applying there and expect yourself to be put through the ringer.
Happy ending for me, not for others. Good luck team.