Tag Archives: supervisor

Office Drama, or #WHATSHOULDWECALLTOXICJOB

How many times do you need to come home from work in tears before you start considering a new job? My last job was terrible almost from the moment it started, but I stayed for nine months trying to make it work, and then trying to hoard enough cash to get out. Looking back on this past year, all I can see is the slow buildup of quiet-yet-demeaning incidents that made me question my worth, my abilities, and my general sense of why I am at all interested in do what I do.

Here is a list of the major red flags.

  1. When I started my job, there was no training. None! They actually said: “Here is your computer!” and then left me on my own.
  2. My supervisors act like they don’t trust me, and revise deadlines without telling me. Once, after seeing the timeline for the interviews that I manage, my supervisor approved and implemented it, and then scheduled all the interviews and emailed the schedule to me. She never addressed whether I had done them wrong or late, or any reason why she had done my job for me, even though it was a full week before we had agreed it needed to be done.
  3. There are three people whom I report to. Every time I ask for clarification on whom I go to for what (even things like time off and emergency situations), they tell me that I was hired because I could “work independently.”
  4. And then when I ask one of them for help with one of the other departments, they usually fail to answer the question because they get sidetracked, ranting about how pretentious the other department is.
  5. Once, in a committee meeting, I had an older co-worker stop mid-discussion, turn to me and say “who are you?” I responded with my name and title, and he said, “Oh! I thought you were a student spying on us. Are you even on this committee?” He checked on his phone, found I was, and said, “Oh, well, what can you do?” We had met multiple times.
  6. When I was introduced to one of the departments, which was formerly all-male, and I’m a young woman, several comments were made to the effect of “Well, now we can’t curse in meetings.”
  7. Recently, one of my supervisors has been asking me to help her with Excel spreadsheets, and when I turned in a draft (like she asked me to), she brought me into her office and pointed at a column without borders and yelled at me, “Where is the column?! Where is the COLUMN?!? There is no column there!” and then had me redo it.
  8. I am required to have an autoreply message on my email instructing students how to make appointments. I have gotten back multiple emails from coworkers who are outraged that I would send them appointment instructions. The first sentence is “This is an autoreply.”
  9. This year, one of my papers was accepted to a prestigious conference. When I asked that same supervisor if there was any funding I could apply for, she said “If you get funding, we might as well add a budget line for my cats.” That was about two months into the position.
  10. I am frequently asked when I am planning on having children. These are not subtle hints from people I am close with. Coworkers who I rarely interact with have come into my office specifically to ask me when I am planning on getting pregnant.
  11. After having congratulated me for improving our numbers so much that a particular department might not be at risk anymore, one supervisor came in and told me that the numbers should go up even more because “we haven’t worked that hard

What I’ve learned from this experience is that—surprise!—my happiness really is affected by being treated poorly by the people whom I spend the majority of my day with. I’m really not sure when the turning point was… when I knew I needed to GTFO. I wish I had known when to say something, because maybe things would have gotten better. But by the time I left, I trusted no one that I worked with or for, and I dreaded going to work. I worry I’ll run into coworkers around town and I feel like I’ve developed some really bad work habits (like hiding from my supervisors) that will affect me in the future. My job was affecting my relationships outside of work as well, I was so emotionally drained that I wasn’t myself.

The worst part was that this was supposed to be my dream job—working with exactly the right population in exactly the right role. But my coworkers and terrible supervision ruined it. I put in my two weeks’ notice despite not having something else lined up because not knowing what was coming next was better than being unhappy every day.

Much to my surprise though, leaving my toxic job felt just like a really bad breakup. It probably should have not been surprising, but ah well. My last two weeks were full of utter insanity, and all I could do was hold on to my end date, knowing that it would be over soon. A small sample: My two weeks’ notice was initially rejected so they could “think” (is this legal?). I had more than 12 meetings with all levels of my supervision, where the second question was always “but, your partner isn’t leaving too, is he?” driving home the point that in their minds I was only there because of him. They told me that I would have had a better time in the job if I were “friendlier.” On my last day, none of my supervisors even showed up, wrote an email or left a voice message saying goodbye. And then, as if to tie a big bow on the whole package, about a week after I left, one supervisor sent an email to my personal address about job searching in my field, and how to know if a job is a good fit.

I’ve been free of this job for three full weeks, and let me tell you, life is so much better. If any of the above sounds like your job, get out. ASAP. Don’t wait. If you don’t have a cushion that will let you bail, start sending your resumes faster, network more, do something. It’s not worth being unhappy every day. I also highly recommend just reading the entire archives of Ask a Manager: this helped me figure out the difference between what was simply strange and what actually crossed a boundary, so that I could work up the courage to leave.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

The Time I Worked For The Devil at an NGO

When I moved to India in February 2012, I reached out to a NGO that my family had supported, seeking employment opportunities. Within a few hours of sending out my earnest email, the anonymized “Dr. S” replied, immediately inviting me to his government hospital in a small village town in India. That weekend, he personally walked me through the hospital, school, and eco lodge he had set up to help tribal children gain access to education. This campus was the basis of his NGO, which employed over a thousand people and managed over twenty-five government hospitals in rural areas throughout India.

You see, Dr. S never used his medical degree to pursue a traditional for-profit practice. He never married, had children, or even opened a bank account—opting instead to devote his entire life to offering free healthcare to the poor and forgotten. He is the recipient of numerous awards, has campaigned for health and transparency initiatives in the Indian government, and is the winner of multiple prestigious grants.

Dr. S won me over with his work, lifestyle, and mission. I immediately accepted his job offer to manage family planning initiatives from his head office in Bangalore.

But my first day in the office already seemed… off. The other twelve employees were fluttering around stressed, mumbling under their breaths, barely acknowledging anything around them. Until Dr. S walked into the room and, like a military regime, his soldiers immediately straightened up, addressed him as “Sir,” and bowed their heads when his eyes met theirs.

Initially, I thought it was a bad day. But the day turned into weeks and the weeks into months without any change. He never acknowledged good work, but broadcasted any problems. In fact, he created problems just to gloat in his ability to scream at his employees. Coworkers who had PhDs and Masters were treated like toilet cleaners. Every detail, document, and phone call had to be approved by him, stripping other managers of any real power.

Oh, you want a pen drive? Better email him for approval. Oh, you want to print a legal agreement? First, ask if you can use the printer.

Then I began to observe the day-to-day office dynamics. When Dr. S entered, the entire office came to a standstill. No one so much as whispered. They just stood there and waited for him to bellow out names and commands. Except, he never called any of the employees by their actual names. Instead, he would use derogatory insults in the local language: “Hey Owl! You couldn’t even take notes properly? You might as well shred up your PhD because you can’t be any stupider than a second grader.” “Donkey, how long does it take to show up when I call your name? You better clean your ears out with your degree since it’s not good for anything else.”

I worked six days a week, Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm. The turnover rate was incredible.  In my three months, I saw six people (out of twelve) come and go.

Since Dr. S was the Chairman of the NGO, my direct boss was the executive director, Rekha. In the beginning, she seemed harmless—dare I say, even charming. We sat next to each other, telling jokes (only when Dr. S was out of the office, naturally) and discussing execution plans for our various initiatives. I figured if I just kept my head buried in my projects, I could slip in and out without attracting much attention.

The reality was, though, that I never really handled anything. The executive director would give me instructions, but when I presented the final result to Dr. S, he would shred it apart, yelling and screaming about how awful and horrible my work was. He would outwardly contradict any direction that Rekha had provided, and cut me off when I tried to point out this fallacy. With each outburst (and there were at least two a day), I started to realize that even Rekha was a nut case. Though she’d give me guidelines, she would stand smirking when Dr. S yelled opposing directions. When I spoke up Rekha would dismiss me by saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t you know how to follow instructions?”

Pretty quickly, I started to feel crazy. I would put together a budget just to have to redo it every other day depending on Dr. S’s moods. News flash: the mood was always horrible. Not only was I not contributing to anything (because Dr. S would halt any project or hinder any effort), the general abuse was starting to suffocate me.

I was not allowed to eat at my desk. I was not allowed to eat at any point except lunch. I was not allowed to leave for lunch. Bathroom breaks had to be approved by the doctor ahead of time. When I traveled for a week straight to different Indian villages, I was to sleep in a hospital bed to save money on hotels.  On one visit, I stayed up all night next to three cockroaches and two lizards, picking at my split ends, wondering if giving back to the community was meant to feel this shitty.

And yet, I still craved for those times I would get to travel to the hospitals, just to be out of the office. Honestly, I also secretly wished the Dr. would just get hospitalized in his own rural treatment center. Every time a funding partner would join us in a meeting, Dr. S and Rekha smiled, told jokes, and even served biscuits outside of lunch. I would also laugh uncomfortably, suppressing the urge to shout to the partners “HELP! RUN! DON’T FUND A DERANGED PSYCHO.”

One day, after a long week of yelling, retyping the same document fifteen times, and barely eating, I went to a friend’s goodbye party. By midnight, I received an insanely long email from Rekha, listing out each flaw in me as a human. My clothes needed to be baggier to hide my body, I slouched too much, my legs crossed funny when I was sitting, my walk could be improved, my left nipple was larger than my right. Okay, she didn’t really mention the nipple, but you get it.

After only three months, I felt entirely destroyed. But I was too scared to leave. It was like an abusive relationship. Maybe I was as stupid as Dr. S claimed. Maybe I was just being too fussy and not making an effort to work harder. If I left, would anyone else want me?

The following week, Dr. S called me in for a meeting with his infamous leer. He leaned over the table and finally looked into my eyes and said, “Everything I make, I donate back into the trust. Technically, you make 5000 rupees more a month, but I’ve taken the liberty of withholding that amount as donation. So, we will deposit all the money we’ve taken and you just need to write us a check in bulk, making the donation appear…you know… generous.”

I was flabbergasted at the deceit and fraud. I nodded, frozen in my own thoughts and spent all evening bouncing ideas off my mother who was adamant that I quit immediately. In India, the notice period is generally one month. But I had seen how heinously Dr. S treated those employees serving their last month: I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, the following Monday, my mother came with me to the office. I was the only one there. She had the getaway vehicle waiting while I snuck in to drop off my company laptop. I took the liberty of writing a goodbye email to the entire company stating:

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. However, I will not be a part of an organization whose leadership team strongly conflicts with the humanitarian mission of the NGO. This is my resignation, effective immediately.

Though I was burning bridges and quitting in an unprofessional manner, I couldn’t bear to work for an organization where the employees were treated like farm animals.

Within a few hours, my phone was blowing up with calls and texts from Rekha and Dr. S. I just pulled out the battery and went to sleep.

Clearly, not all NGOs or companies are run like North Korea. However, this three-month immersion in hell showed me exactly how not lead a company and how deceptive a company’s image and media can be. To this day, I have no idea how Dr. S functioned in the humanitarian space as an awful human and why Rekha stayed for over a year with his abuse. I’m just happy I moved onto a normal, functioning company where the CEO must take his meds daily.

More importantly, even on the really tough days at work, I’m grateful that I can always eat lunch.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield