I worked for a large hospital system. My director was an absolute tyrant. It was his first upper management position and he was one of those “I have the final say” type of managers.
Right before COVID, I had a serious kidney infection. Even with temp of 102 and weakness, I went into the office. I locked myself in my office and crawled under my desk to get close to the mini AC I had. The next day, I sent a text saying I was going to the ER. He responded with “k”.
By the time I got to the ER, I was septic and had to be admitted. I was admitted into a hospital within the system I worked. He knew exactly where I was. After about two days, he texted me about a project I was working on. Mind you I had almost died, am in the hospital and on several medications.
I have my family bring my laptop to the hospital because he wanted me to forward him what I had already done. I barely remember even looking at the file because I was on strong pain killers. Apparently, I thought the project needed some modification. Needless to say, it was all messed up.
I return to work a few weeks later…just in time for annual reviews. He wrote me up for the errors in the file! I was literally in the hospital…off the clock…on a morphine drip!
Fast forward a few months. He stressed me out to the point of short term disability. I had to go into therapy and everything. When I went back to work after STD was over, he was okay at first. We were all adjusting to a fully remote environment. Then, he started micromanaging EVERYTHING I did. He wanted access to my personal workflow trackers and would change my formatting because it didn’t “work for him”.
The final straw was after I put in my 60 day notice. I was training my replacement and he wanted to sit in on the Zoom meetings. My position was one of those high skill positions. You can’t really create training documents and expect anyone to understand. He would interrupt my training and say how he would do it. I eventually said something along the line of “you should just do this yourself”. He sent me a private IM and said he needed to meet with me in the morning.
I packed all my equipment up. Told my daughter to get her shoes on. Drove to the office. Cleared my desk. Took a picture of where I left everything. I sent an email saying I couldn’t take it anymore and how he had single-handedly killed all passion I had for what I did. I copied the entire leadership team, including his boss. I let them know where my laptop was and went home feeling a sense of relief.
I didn’t work for almost 9 months after and am still in therapy dealing with workplace PTSD. I have extreme anxiety about work performance and making errors.
I recently went on a business trip for my new employer and suffered yet another kidney infection. I was rushed to the hospital but was able to fly home. I ended up in the same hospital I was in before COVID. From halfway across the country, my new director sent care packages, DoorDash gift cards for my family, and offered to fly home with me in case I felt too sick to travel. My previous “leader” never even asked if I was okay when I almost died.