I work from home for a major company that provides tech support services. I have a team lead whom I love. He really cares about us as people and tries to get us time off the phones and time to unwind. He’s very laid back with us and will deliberately run meetings longer than needed in order to give us a mental break. One day, I was near tears due to several difficult calls and so were several coworkers so decided to give us a bit of time to cool down and unwind before going back to calls. I have thick skin when it comes to my calls but these customers went on long tirades and I had to end interactions with them due to abusive behavior. So my boss treated me and my teammates like humans and he gave us a breather.
Well, the next week we all heard about it. Our team lead was out that day but our Site Supervisor led our team meeting instead. And she drilled us and lambasted us like we were naughty children. She went on about how we were lazy, dishonest, etc. and that he shouldn’t be giving us much time off the phones for meetings. The time off the phones is needed though. We use it for a mental break. Without it we’d never be able to have a mental break, bounce ideas off each other, answer emails and learn new products.
I’m addition, she went on a tirade about unprofessional behavior and writing several employees up after they mentioned unions or striking. I was highly shocked and asked if we didn’t have the rights to unionize. She stated that we didn’t and I let it rest.
Meanwhile, several months later my team lead manages to assign training and time offline. And I decide to look at our handbook. Found out my site supervisor lied and the handbook stated we can’t be disciplined for actions related to unions and organizing.
TLDR: terrible boss thinks we’re cogs but good leader gave me time to be human and I discovered union rights in handbook.