Work Drama - Part II
By Keiti | May 31, 2007
When I accepted my previous job, I thought that it would be my chance to have something lasting. I firmly believed we were providing an invaluable service and I knew the product we sold was helping people, many of whom weren’t helped by anything else. It was because of those two points that I took the job despite the fact that it was a new company that offered ridiculously low pay, and initially only part-time hours. It was both a completely new industry and position for me, and I was looking forward to the challenge it would provide. I was fed the company line that we would grow and I’d all be an integral part of that growth. We were at base camp and could only climb upward. So I strapped on my proverbial boots and began the ascent.
Looking back on it now, I should have realized from the very beginning that this company didn’t give a shit about their employees – that they were intent on getting something for nothing. Granted, it was a start-up company and very small, so I can understand the need to keep spending of any sort to a bare minimum; I also recognize that profits are the bottom line, but as far as I’m concerned that is no excuse to jerk your employees around and use them as convenient scapegoats when your attention is supposed to be on the company at hand, not starting another business that diverts your attention and blaming your employees when things don’t go as planned – especially since there was no plan. Nothing was ever in place long enough to see whether it would work the way it was supposed to or not. With start-up companies, it is pretty much a requirement to roll with the punches and expect things to change and be perfected as you go along – but instead of building from what we started with, things would be scrapped and we’d essentially have to start back at square one. Had the company been at a point of stability, it would have been one thing, but when you’re starting something, you don’t get halfway there, throw it aside to focus on something else, then wonder why sales have dropped. It doesn’t do the employees (all of whom were new to this) any good to have questions that need to be answered, but can’t get hold of the bosses for clarification. So we’d have to be creative in terms of finding the answers, which got us reamed on a fairly regular basis. It got to the point where the bosses (hereafter referred to as “David” and “Maddie” – pseudonyms, obviously) were very rarely in the office, very rarely answered their cells, and very rarely ever bothered to return phone calls. We employees were capable of doing what we needed to do, but with the constant back and forth of micromanaging, giving us free rein, and taking us to task for their inability or lack of desire to do what they said they’d do began to take its toll. As a result of our concerns about there being no one to go to for questions, etc, they brought in a series of managers, all of whose hands they effectively tied. The first one was great – she was firmly interested in gapping the bridge that existed between the employees and management and wanted to help streamline the processes we were trying to create. From the beginning David and Maddie essentially sabotaged her and she didn’t last very long. The second one was an outside rep who’d been with them from the beginning who couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be our friend or our boss – that and she was so firmly up Maddie’s ass, it made things virtually impossible. Everything she was told in confidence went straight back to Maddie. Number two, as I was to discover, was on her own side only and played both the employees and employers in a bid to get solely what she wanted. The last one I liked because he was a straight talker, and I genuinely felt that he wanted to get things in order. But he was put in the position of cleaning up after Maddie and was stuck in the middle of a situation that was already volatile. It didn’t help that he was friends with both David and Maddie, having worked with them previously and as a result I don’t think he was able to see the situation from an unbiased perspective.
David and Maddie were infamous for telling us one thing, then not following through, making decisions and not bothering to fill us in, setting sales goals that were always just out of reach so they wouldn’t have to pay out bonuses. Not to mention being paid late twice (which Maddie defended by stating that they were only a day late and which she conveniently blamed on our payroll company – she must think that everyone around her is an idiot – the fact of the matter is that the payroll company can’t pay us on time if she doesn’t bother to call the hours in on time – and as far as I’m concerned a late paycheck is a late paycheck and they should have been on time) and having to fight with them about our expense checks which were never on time and they were the ones who came up with the timeframe for dispersement. I probably sound paranoid, but these things happened on a regular basis, and to say that the working environment was a nightmare would be an understatement. I should clarify that I really have no beef with David. I firmly believe that, in spite of everything, David is a good guy. His biggest mistake was allowing Maddie to take charge of everything, which brings me to say that Maddie is a completely different story. To say that I have issues with her would be the ultimate understatement.
Topics: Work |