I worked for an independent insurance agency about year ago. After I got hired I came to the realization I was replacing a girl they were firing. That happens. People get fired for various reasons. Except they kept gossiping about her after she was gone. I finally asked a coworker why this girl I replaced was fired and her answer was “because she was an idiot.”
I don’t think she was an “idiot.” I think she was under FAR too much pressure to perform flawlessly. It was happening to me. Every little fixable mistake I made I was scrutinized. They listened in on every phone conversation I had with clients and chewed me another one if I said one little thing wrong, or forgot to ask one question. I began to walk on eggshells every day. I was nervous and paranoid I’d slip up. There was almost no way I couldn’t. The split second there was the slightest slip up,mor I got behind, someone was at my desk reaming me a new one in front of everyone. I actually got chewed out for forgetting to get the coffee machine going a couple of times, and using the wrong cleaner on the coffee bar counter (even though no one told me which one to use beforehand.) I could do nothing right. And this was only a couple weeks in! I began to wonder if this what caused the girl before me to get booted. Not because she was an “idiot” or incapable of doing a job, but because they were breaking her like they were me and setting her up for failure.
One day I got curious and looked on their company Facebook page and that’s when I saw lots of faces that were there one day, then gone the next. One person replaced by the next in a span of a few months. Like clockwork. I was at the third person they hired for my position in one year. There were at least 4 before me over the course of a few prior years. That’s about 7 people in the administrative position possibly fired by this agency in less than 5 years! And that’s just administrative. There were a handful of sales and service people too. Countless people that have left that agency in less than a decade. Not ruling out that some of them may have quit. But judging by what happened to me and two other people before me, my bet is on most of them being fired. And fired without any coaching because, again, that was my experience.
After they inevitably fired me, the next person to replace me was gone within a month. Then, what really surprised me, three people who had been there for a few years are now gone. One of them was the girl who bullied me the most. She was the office “darling.” She acted like she was in charge, loved to boss newbies around. She did it to me a lot! (She’s who kept calling the girl before me an idiot.) So I am shocked at her being gone.
Their turnover rate is absolutely insane. And I’d say about 90% of it is them firing people. I have worked in some toxic places but this one really took the cake. Good people just not able to quite keep up while they are still in training. No one committed any misconduct. From my experience, I was expected to have the ins and outs of the office culture down to a damn science in less than a month. And God forbid I show any hint of human emotion. The only reason I was given for being let go was “negativity.” Yet the only thing I was guilty of was coming to work on time, doing my job, and going home. I was scared to death of screwing up and upsetting anyone, so I just kept my head down and did my work best of my ability. I tried to ask what this “negativity” was when all I did was my job, no one could give me an answer. They also didn’t end up paying me for New Years Eve and Day after they said they would. But that’s a whole other bag of worms.
What could cause a place to be like this? Just fire people on a whim over and over again without proper coaching? Without talking to them? Just fire people left and right. Without any consideration of their actual work ethic and abilities. Just…”byeee. Next!” Don’t they care how that will make them look?
Also, of this question doesn’t belong here, please let me know of where I can place it. Thank you.