I have been working for a large corporation for the past 3 years in the HR department. Recently, the powers that be decided to “transform” the HR department, When the restructuring was first announced last year, it was given a very lame code name to make it seem innocuous. Meetings about the “effort” included a bunch of corporate mumbo jumbo and buzzwords that really had no effect on us peons. We all just dismissed it as yet another pointless corporate exercise so the vice presidents and senior directors could get high on their own farts.
Fast forward to April of this year and all of a sudden it is announced that the lame code word was actually to mask the fact that the “effort” was really a reorganization of the entire department.
Having to choose from a newly created job wasn’t an issue for me, unfortunately the new jobs also meant having to completely dismantle all current teams in the department. This also meant new managers being assigned to areas they have absolutely no experience in.
The manager for my “new” team has never dealt with the work and processes I take care of and it has been made clear that if I am not willing to serve as a trainer for my new boss that I will not be able to accept my “new” role. Apparently senior leadership are under the impression that managers do not need to be experts, but just know how to lead.
In addition, this new boss has a bad reputation among people in the HR department, has been the subject of several HR investigations (with no action being taken of course) and a large swath of people that the person will be over are livid that the person will now be their boss.
As is human nature, people began to discuss these changes among themselves and made many comments both positive and negative about the changes. Word got back to management and through meetings and announcements they dictated that such conversations are “unprofessional” and should not be occurring as they could hurt someone’s feelings.
Due to bad experiences with speaking out in past corporate jobs, I usually am not very vocal in most situations; however, I made it clear that I thought that their attempt to muzzle discussion among employees was unacceptable.
Apparently this led senior management to reach out to the VP of our “new” department who then reached out to me under the guise of wanting “listen to my concerns” and “gain feedback.”
I had a 30 minute meeting with the new VP and also sent them a follow up email. The VP wrote back that some of my complaints were nitpicky and also parroted the talking point of how discussion among coworkers about changes was unprofessional and just led to people being riled up.
The icing on the cake was just yesterday when I was presented with a write up for making “disrespectful/inappropriate comments during our group meetings. I won’t got into the details as they could possibly identify me or the company I work for, but needless to say the “disrespectful/inappropriate comments” were publicly calling leadership out on their bullshit attempts to silence us. Apparently this really bruised the ego of leadership as they can’t have peons like me speaking the truth in public. I knew corporations were cradles of insincerity and walking on eggshells, but I really had no idea how thin skinned and petty middle managers could be until now.
Anyway, it is clear that the organization is not interested in actually incorporating feedback and leadership will close ranks around themselves and I have unfortunately made myself a target. Thankfully I completed a second interview for a position with another company and I am waiting on a possible job offer.
I really hope I get the job. The sooner I get away for this shit show the better. While I am going to provide a measured rebuttal to the write up, I am just going to keep my head down until I am out the door. After that, the sky is the limit. I have a copy of the write up that I would love to post so the world can see the true thin skinned nature of the management of this company.
I also would love to send an email to the board of directors and the CEO about what a bunch of thin skinned snowflakes their managers are. But alas I still have bills to pay so that will have to wait for another day.