2017-01-01 - 6:31 p.m.
I'm going to tell my tale of workplace woe. Skip it if you don't want to read a saga.
I experienced a very unfair act of aggression from my formerly liked boss and I do not know where this aggression came from. I thought we had a pretty good working relationship until recently. The only negative things that have ever taken place between she and I were when I took my annual vacation at a time when she initially didn't want to approve it, but since I really wanted to keep my selected dates (peak Autumn color time) and had already paid for my vacation, she agreed to it against her better judgment and then she bitterly resented it. She couldn't really punish me for it, because I gave about 7 weeks' notice, I lined up my own coverage for my absence, and absolutely no harm occurred as a result of my vacation. She just got really mad for some reason and apparently she holds grudges. She gave me 2 things to dread during my entire vacation. This was just a punitive strike because she was mad at me for taking vacation when she really didn't want me to. She also suggested that I put in 10 hours a day Mon - Thurs each week and then use 8 hours of PTO for each Friday so I could basically cash out my PTO time before it gets taken from me at the end of the year. I thought she was trying to do a good thing for me. I told her that this was an excellent idea and that I would happily do that through the end of the year. Then when I did it - at her suggestion - she acted like I pulled a no show for work that Friday. She could not write me up for it, since she told me to do it. I do not understand what she was thinking and I have no clue why she would set me up like that. Out of nowhere, she seems to have it in for me.
That is all back story. Here's the new shit: She has been trying to get rid of my student who has been unable to reach 95% accuracy in the 9 or 10 months she has been in the training program. She likes to fire people by month 6 if they fail to meet the threshold. She has not been able to fire this girl because the girl is well liked by her facility and the CEO wants to keep her. This has lodged a stick so far up the boss' ass, you can see it when she yawns. Meanwhile, this girl is making huge strides and should be given the time she needs to master the material. She is good. My boss probably thinks I am helping her because she has done so much better under my training than she did previously. She is doing better because I am trying to help her learn instead of trying to hasten her firing. She is doing very well now and it looks like she might make it.
So the boss had one of her "helpers" review everything in hopes of finding something wrong with my reviewing so she could move ahead with that awesome firing she has been dreaming of. There was one case that the "helper" disagreed with me on. It would take too many words to explain this in full so I will try to nutshell it: I had marked wrong the things that were blatantly wrong and I did not mark wrong 2 things that would have required deeper investigation than my student is allowed to carry out, so I did not mark these things wrong since they could not be proven and the additional wrongs would not count since an account with any number of mistakes are only counted as 1 mistake. This was the right thing to do. The "helper" did not know these details, so she just looked at it in a surface kind of way and marked things wrong that were not really wrong.
After the "helper" turned in her bogus findings my boss decided to WRITE ME UP for failing to meet 95% accuracy. This is not even factually correct, because I've done hundreds and hundreds of cases with no errors and the math does not work out. If you took just the month of December, for just that one facility, there were 90 cases. The 1 "mistake" was not even a mistake. It was more of a misunderstanding since the helper didn't have all the facts. But lets say I did make 1 mistake out of 90 accounts. That is still 99% accuracy. Near perfection. So I asked the boss to retract the write up and not have me reviewed for a month over this difference of opinion.
Boss sent back a snippy reply saying that the write up stands. So I called her and said "Is this even a thing? Do you really write a person up for a difference of opinion? I haven't been insubordinate, I haven't committed an act of fraud, I haven't knowingly broken any rules. I do a good job. A write up will go on my permanent record. An unblemished record! This doesn't make sense."
She said that there were "other things" that she could have put on here but didn't. If she could have put her other 2 grievances on, she would have. But you can't write a person up for taking their annual vacation or for following your instructions to the letter. So without any qualifying reasons, she said she was leaving the write up in place. I asked her if this was her way of telling me to look for another job. She said "Noooooooooooooooo. No, no, no, no, no... I need you, but you have to be perfect." I said "Well, I don't know about you, but I am a human being and while I do not agree with any wrong doing on this case, the fact is, I am a human being and I will occasionally make a mistake. So if there is zero tolerance for mistakes, I guess I'm in trouble."
I could feel myself escalating and I thought I should get off the phone before I tell her to roll it up and cram it.
Later I wrote her an email, trying to appeal to her human side which I hoped she possessed. I told her that I have spent 7 years at this job and have a perfect record up till now. I've never failed a test or fallen below 95% accuracy in my whole career with the exception of a series of mistakes I made for a week after the love of my life died tragically. I added that there are differences in how any 2 professionals in our field see things and there is some wiggle room and judgment calls involved in what we do. My plan is to adapt to her way of seeing things, because she is the boss in this situation so we will do it her way. But we don't know where our training differs and if she takes each opportunity to write me up and be punitive, it won't take long for her to ruin my 7 years of fine work experience with this company. I told her that a write up and review was a punitive response to a difference of opinion and I am asking her to retract it and to see it as an opportunity for training for me instead of an opportunity to punish. I asked if we could go forward with a team work approach with the plan of uncovering areas where our training differs and adapt my ways to meet hers. Then everyone would be happy.
Again... she had no human response. She coldly replied that the write up and review stands - as is. She wanted to keep the punishment in place and the write up on my record. Thanks Bish.
So I was thinking about resigning. I thought about how satisfying it would be to turn in my resignation and let her twist in the wind. For some reason she wants to punish me, but she does not reeeeally want me to go because I do a shit load of work and if I leave, somedamnbody gots to do my work. She might even have to do something herself!!! Now THAT is getting a little too serious for her comfort.
I called a friend of mine who is lateral in rank to my boss and asked her what she would do. She talked me down off the ledge. She said to document everything and if she writes me up again, take it all to HR and give my side of the story. I decided to bide my time, because I know that one person has turned in her resignation last week due to my boss's assholery. So, that's one huge work load abandoned. The boss is trying to fire 4 of our trainees because she prefers firing people prematurely to investing enough time to really teach them how to do this work. So if she succeeds in firing so many of our workers, she will create a huge shit storm. Apparently she does not think ahead AT ALL. I decided that if I just hang in there, some vacancies will happen and the boss will realize she'd better be nicer to me because she will get scared about the work volume.
The very next day something wonderful happened! One of the downtrodden trainees has turned in her resignation! This has created a problem for the boss. She doesn't know who the hell is going to do that girls' work. My good buddy called me right when the resignation was going down so we could laugh about the probability of the boss squeezing out a Hershey kiss in her drawz when she got the second letter of resignation in a week's time. Sure enough, within minutes of getting that news flash, boss lady was on the phone with me... being very, very nice. She still has not told me we are down 2 workers. That's 2 large work loads abandoned within a week. She was beside herself with seething anger when I wanted to be on vacation for 5 days. How must she be feeling about these 2 people who are never coming back to resume their work loads?
She called off the review that I was under and she hasn't said anything at all about the write up, but I bet that is not really going on my record. She should hope not, since I can prove it is factually false and she would look like a big smacked donkey if I showed that to HR. She is scared right now, because people are quitting and she doesn't know who is going to do all this work. But when she feels more stable, she might go back to dogging me as a hobby. The "helper" told me I got a perfect score on everything she looked at and the boss doesn't want her to review my work any longer... but boss didn't find it important to let me know that my performance is up to par. Nice. She is not one to ever admit that she was wrong.
So I am feeling much better about things. It would be fun to resign suddenly and unexpectedly and deliver the boss a nice big kick in the ass after she tried to bust an unnecessarily punitive move, but I don't really want to give up my big salary and my medical benefits. So I am glad to have all my jobs still intact. I will not stick around for a lot of cat and mouse bullshit though. If she starts writing me up and having me hassled, I will resign. I could bump up my side job as my main job and take another side job to add extra money. I am comfortable with the jobs I have and I don't want to have to hustle up something new, but I won't play her game. Hopefully it won't come to that.
Maybe she thinks I'm too expensive. I know I make a lot more than her other people and I got transferred to her budget fairly recently. Maybe she got a look at my salary and got mad. When I was on the main corporate budget, the sky was the limit and she had no problems with me. That's the only thing I can think of that would make a boss start messing with someone in the absence of any personality disputes or anything whatsoever.
Go figure.
I'm no fun when I feel like someone is messing with me on the job. I get very serious about that kind of thing.
I feel so unburdened now.
:-)
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