I found this really old post that I wrote waay back when and never published. I had just started working with a really toxic team leader and well…let’s just say that I didn’t know how to handle it:
So I’m typing this from work.
Work at 5:19PM where I should not be. Where I have already told my parents that I am not coming home. Honestly I do not remember my exact words. I just remember being consumed with anger and hate and so I wrote something to the effect of I will not be going home.
So I’m typing this from work in the hopes that eventually I am going to look back at this and laugh.
“Hey, Shanice. Remember when you had a crappy day at work and you decided not to go home because your parents wouldn’t let you quit your job.”
In the back of my mind, the rational responsible part of me is realising that I am probably creating a issue where they shouldn’t be. I cannot find it in me to care.
I have had the worst possible week in my life. We got a new manager at work. She is incompetent at best and at worst, she is hell personified. She expects ten million spreadsheets and she expects the impossible. She knows very little about the job- something that wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t for the fact that she is very fond of acting like she knows everything.
I keep saying how I can’t deal with stupid but this is another level. This is a woman who is controlling, demanding, unrealistic and rude. This is a woman that is slowly but surely driving me crazy.
So when she spoke down to me yesterday I begged my parents to let me leave. They refused.
Today I spent most of the day in meetings. One meeting with my ex-manager (who is now in a supervisory role for our team) where she clearly asked me what was going on with me. I denied her accusations that something had changed in me and that my work ethic was slowly but surely being eroded away.
The other meetings were with my new manager. One for her to go over the rules with us (gosh, years in this company and we don’t know the rules. Someone is obviously filled with her own self-importance). The other was for her to painstakingly go over every aspect of my job.
I discovered that I was missing parts of my work. That I didn’t update the system I used to(something I did because my new manager gave me spreadsheets to track the work). However after asking me if the spreadsheets were too much, she went ahead and gave me two additional ones (I swear that woman has something wrong with her).
So at half 4 as I was rounding off my work I realised I was the only one in the office. So I asked if I could go home since everyone else already did. Her reply was that I could go once the work was done.
“The work” was 30 callouts. 30 callouts that would have been done if not for her and her spreadsheets. When she asked me if I thought I “deserved to go home”, I snapped.
I went to the bathroom, crying and sent whatever message to my parents. I don’t even remember what. I just remember feeling the vindictive pleasure because yes, I will stay and do callouts. ALL 30 OF THEM. Lets see how the parents like not having a child at home.
I felt even better when I realised my parents had no way to contact my manager (both old and new). So I sat at my desk ready to prepare to work when my senior manager approached me with a phone. The look on her face told me everything. That phonecall was for me.
“Who?” I choked out, desperate not to start crying enough.
“Your delivery guy.” (This was an inside joke since I was always shopping online. I received deliveries so often that I was on a first name basis with most of the courier drivers).
I took the phone tentatively. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
The voice was of my friend, a co-worker who was off on maternity leave. With a sickeningly jolt, I remembered that my mother had her details. Damn me and my closeness with my mother.
“Hi,” I managed to spit out.
It felt like my throat was closing.
“Where are you?”
“At work.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“When I’m done,” a sob slipped out.
“I spoke to your mother.”
“I figured,” I said, struggling to swallow. In the back of my mind I thought of a coworker who, a few weeks earlier, had a very public panic attack and had to be hospitalised.
“What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
“She said you’re not going home.”
“I’m not.”
Now the tears came faster, accompanied by gasps of breath as I fought to control myself. My manager was two seats down.
What followed was possibly the worst ten minutes of my life. I struggled to speak through the tears while my manager watched from the corner of her seat. My friend, not knowing where she was, complained about her freely.
“I told you she’s a bitch. Don’t let her affect you. You need to go home. Promise me you’ll go home. You know its dangerous.”
I remained silent.
“Shanice, I mean it.”
“Fine.”
“Say you’re going home.”
“Alright fine.”
I stood in the corner hiccuping in silence, waiting to calm down. Once I was sure I had control of myself I handed the cellphone back to my senior manager before resuming my work. I had 30 callouts to do.
Typing that story only makes me sadder. I still do not feel like I should go home but honestly where else can I go?
I don’t remember too much of that day. I know it was October 5th. I know the senior manager managed to talk me into going home. But that day changed my perspective on my job and the company itself. When I returned to work the next week, I no longer cared about my job. Instead I focused on getting out of the department. I would go on to leave the business while my toxic manager ended up a department head. I cried when I heard that news. Among the staff it was no secret that she was awful. But since she was close to her manager, he was able to promote her when the opportunity arose.
I chalk alot of that horrible period in my life to a lack of working experience. I thought that because she was a bad manager, it would even come out and management would think of the staff first. I was wrong. But working with her was a catalyst for me deciding that was it and I would not tolerate such behaviour. The second a position opened up in a new team, I took it. And that changed my career for the better…for a while. Then I got another toxic manager and the pattern repeated itself. But it was okay- NOW I knew how to handle it!
