I need to vent. This isn’t about me. This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a colleague. I was out of the office for a couple weeks on business travel, and we have a new colleague who supports customer visits to our location. Normally I support these visits as well but because I was out of the office this visit that happened over two days a couple weeks ago, fell on my manager, who waited until the last minute to try and work details. My newer colleague he’s only been with us for a few months got dragged into the last minute preparations for this meeting and one of the attendees was a very important customer and a high-ranking individual at their company so it was really important that for that person that the meeting and everything to include check-in and meetings, space went smoothly because this was a business development Type meeting.
When I returned to the office, I asked the new individual how the week was, how he is liking the new job. I wanted to check in to make sure everything was going smoothly and to help in anyway that I could if he was having any issues adjusting in the new role . Now I should say I am not a manager. I’m not a supervisor. I am just a mid-level employee I have no authority. I’m an individual contributor, but I really do like to check in on especially our new hires because I know the first few months in a new job can be stressful during new sometimes things get really crazy and I think it’s really important to support individuals as they’re adjusting.
Anyways, he told me that during that meeting and for this very important customer that there was an issue with the visitor badge system and he was trying to resolve that in real time and ended up missing a conference call with our VP . I asked about this meeting and if it was a one on one and I was told that this meeting was just a conference call with all of the new hires with RVP and it was just a welcome to the company time just for them to get some FaceTime with RVP so it wasn’t just him on the call. There were a handful of others. Everyone who were was hired in the last two months I think and he missed the speeding because he was focused on a very important business development situation going on in our office.
However, at the end of the day as he was driving home, he got a call on his personal cell phone from his manager, which is different manager than mine, and his manager was yelling at him, cussing at him and was livid that he missed that meeting because he thought it made him look bad. Meaning the manager felt he was made to look bad because one of his employees was busy working and did not attend this meeting simply because he got tied up. Apparently he was cussing and telling this employee that it didn’t matter that there were things happening in the office that his priority should’ve been to be on that call because now the manager looks bad and he’s not going to tolerate being made to look bad. The manager then made this employee write up a whole statement as to why he missed that conference call and he was made to send that statement along with an apology to the VP. The VP replied stating that it was not a big deal that the customer should have come first and that they can reschedule and he can join the nextmeeting for new hires.
I told this employee that if it were me, I would have gone to ethics and HR and that I would have written that statement, but I would have included every single detail, including that phone call from the manager, and I would make him very much worried about his reputation if that’s all he cared about. Now it’s not at all in my authority or in my lane it would actually be very out of line but I want so bad to have a conversation with this manager and let them know that I know what happened and I would point out all the ethics violations in the HR violations and everything that he did that went against every single value listed by this company and that if you wanted to try and make my life hell at work that that is called retaliation and that I have no problem going up to the VP myself and explaining this situation and why I am very much Advocating for this new employee because at the end of the day this manager went against every value, every ethics training every anti-harassment, anti-bullying training, and overall acted disgustingly as a manager, and I have nothing to lose by speaking up, and to be quite honest, I don’t care. I have actually been dodging recruiters so I know I would have another job very quickly and that definitely makes me feel like I could speak up and I have no problem pushing for my rights in this came from me previously being in a situation where I had a very mentally and verbally abusive manager And I didn’t stick up for myself, and that is my number one regret, but I had intense PTSD coming out of that work situation, and I will never again ever tolerate that behavior again from anybody in the workplace.
So I’m sorry this is very long I’m venting because I feel like if I don’t vent somewhere that I will say something to this manager and I will make a huge situation and normally I wouldn’t care, but I would not want to do that to the new employee because I know that at the end of the day I need to respect his employment and his job situation so thank you for letting me vent
I am also driving to work right now where all of heart leadership is holding end of year ation and if there was ever a day for me to open my mouth and have a word with people it would be today, so thank you for letting me vent. would love to hear your thoughts on the situation and I apologize if this sounds jumbled but I’m using talk to text .