You Get What You Give.
A couple of weeks ago I bitched about my manager who was, thoroughly, a bitch in disguise.
My hatred to her grew even more severe when she gave me a verbal warning because I left the monthly R&D team meeting after the working hours. Yes, it might come as a shock to you all, but the people at work have no life whatsoever. They think it’s normal to stay behind and work overtime and if anyone leaves at exactly four pm (that’s the end of the working hours), they call it ‘leaving early’.
The meeting wasn’t finished when I left, but I finished my presentation and even then they were only discussing the leftovers from last month’s meeting.
I had my own reasons too. The last time we had this meeting, it dragged over until to eight in the evening and I really couldn’t be arsed listening to the managers complaining and blaming other departments, even though they only had themselves to blame for not being smart enough to solve their own problems.
So my manager called me round to her office, and the first thing she said was, “Did you know what time the last meeting finishes at?”
Which was weird, because she knew I left before it was finished. I mean, why would someone ask a question they already knew the answer? Did she think I was stupid or something?
I said I didn’t know. I knew what she was onto. So I decided to play the game.
Right as if on cue she started going about how it was rude of me to just leave like that, how unethical it was and that it was a real working world in here and if I still wanted to work here then I had to follow the culture, not the other way around.
“Oh,” I said, “So if the meeting dragged over until ten in the evening then I should stay too?”
To which she said of course because that was what she and all the other managers had to do as well when they had a big meeting with the board of directors.
“So what is the point of setting up working hours from seven thirty am to four pm if that rule does not apply?” I threw back at her and all the time I kept looking into her eyes just to show that I wasn’t at all intimidated by her.
She started going on again about Code of Ethics and how important it was to respect other people. Which was a full on joke because she always bitched about other people behind their backs and badmouthing other managers whom she didn’t like, as well as gossiping about people at work and asking things that were not related to work at all just to find some more juicy details. Of course I could’ve spat all of that out to her face just to shut her up but I felt sorry for her because I knew it would just embarrass her.
Then she said,” So I can’t never really know the actual reason why you left because you didn’t tell me and I didn’t give you the permission to leave.” She concluded.
I said to her, “I have no reason. I just wanted to go home. Working hour was from seven thirty to four. I left at five. I shouldn’t have to give you any reasons. I don’t want to be like the others here who feel the need to give a reason just because they wanted to leave at four on the dot.”
She was dissatisfied, I knew. Then she told me that according to the company policy, she should have given me a warning letter but she told me she would only warn me verbally because she was not at all happy telling her staff off and she didn’t like it herself that there was a ‘problem’ in her own department.
I was a bit disappointed then. I was actually looking forward to getting the so-called warning letter everyone was so scared off. Just to see what it looked like.
The funny thing was, I was the one getting told off but she was the one with the trembling voice and the shaky hands. Right then I knew why - she had never come across into something like this before, and it scared her off because it showed how inexperienced she actually was. Which was both sad and pathetic, since she’d been in that company for a decade.
This was the second time she told me off for invalid reasons and she was making big deals out of nothing because I knew she disliked something about me that had nothing to do with work and she was trying to find an excuse just to piss me off.
I am good with what I do and if it wasn’t because of my designs, her ass would’ve been gone by now. If there was something, my attitude to her has been a bit disrespectful but then again I’m only reciprocating what she does to me and I know she can’t say anything nor have the guts to do it.
I told my boyfriend about this and he told me that the same things always happened to him - managers or other staff looking for trouble and bringing up shits just because they had a personal problem that had nothing to do with work. He was so used to it and he was never worried because those people were always taken care of. They always reap what they sow.
I guess he was right, because just yesterday my manager was demoted from being a Packaging Development and Documentation manager to just Packaging Development, and she had to share her own office with the other new manager who was now in charge of Documentation. Most of us had heard about her not holding Documentation anymore but none of us were prepared for the rough transition and how inelegant the whole process was.
The shame must be unbearable for her, because her office was visible from just about every direction and everyone could see what was going on, and out of all the managers in the office, she was the one who had to share with someone else. She used to be so proud of her own position, and now she had nothing else to show off about.
What was even worse was that everybody knew Documentation did jack shit because most of the staff there were infamously known for distributing daily junk mails and they did a lot of presentation for sharing knowledge because they had so much spare time it was such a joke. There was even a time when some work from other department had to be allocated to them because they had nothing to do.
Now everybody knew that my manager could not lead let alone manage the easiest department in the whole R&D, and everyday she had to be reminded of it, because of the presence of the new Documentation manager in her own office did just that.
I felt so sorry for my manager and yet at the same time I wanted to go at her and yell, “Eat shit motha*****!”
