Hostile Work Place

United States
March 11, 2007 12:02am CST
Well, I just left a very hostile job with emphasis on the word 'very.' I would like to tell you about it and would love it if anyone would share their experiences. first off, I want to say I'm glad I left. As for how I left I'm not happy about, but I felt like I was on the brink of a breakdown. I'm not the type of person to just walk out, but I won't put up with being yelled at and degraded. I was with this company for a year and a half in which most the time I really enjoyed my job. Of course it had its days, but every job does. That's something none of us in the working world can escape. Anyway, I was running a successful sales program at one store so I was asked to transfer to a poorly performing store to improve its sales program. Well, that store manager was let go and a new one brought in. I worked with this guy before and told the market manager how I felt about the whole thing, but I was willing to give him a chance. Things went well at first, but after about a month his temper started escalating, he was constantly on us about very small things, and even called one of my co-workers 'fat.' This manager was always telling me that this particular co-worker said things about me and told the co-worker the same thing about me. He would always say to me, 'You and J**** get along awful well." I don't see how getting along with a co-worker was such a big deal considering only four of us worked in this store. Well, that employee left and another one was brought in back in November. This new co-worker was working on a chair and accidentally broke a piece of it. Well, the manager grabs the chair, slams it on the ground and breaks it into about 20 pieces. He was constantly screaming and yelling about things, degrading the new employee, degrading the rest of us, and causing us to lose customers with his temper. The customers would tell him they were not coming back because he was rude or mean to them. His response would be, 'that's a fact of life.' It got to the point where we were afraid to breathe pretty much because of his temper. Finally, the new employee ended up leaving because he was tired of feeling 2 inches tall. We ended up with another new guy who after only being employed with us for a couple of weeks told the manager how he felt his behavior towards us was unacceptable. Humiliating us in front of each other, cussing at us, yelling at us, breaking things, slamming things around, handling things in an unprofessional manner, and other horrible things. This comes a day after he screamed a horrible obscenity towards me that was heard all the way in the back room. Well, we all ended up telling him how we felt about him and he turned it totally around on us. He said we 'make' him that way. In the midst of all this, the market manager was aware, the corporate office had been notified by another co-worker and nothing was ever done. Even when he avoided paying sales tax on something he sold to himself and the home office caught him, they did nothing. They weren't concerned. Well, this past Thursday he wanted myself and another co-worker to go home and write a paper about how we felt about him. I wasn't going to do it at home because my time at home was my time away from my 50 hour work week. I asked him the next day what the difference was between telling him and writing it down unless he intended on doing something with the papers. I told him it didn't make sense to me and that if he wanted us to do that for work, then it needed to be on company time, not our own. He proceeded to tell me he was writing me and the other co-worker up for not doing our 'homework.' He proceeded to yell at me about things he feels is wrong with me and that I can't take anything he says to me. I ended up telling him it's because he never has anything positive to say, that he constantly has to yell and degrade, that it gets hard to take all the time. That's what myself and my co-workers talked to him about that he felt was our fault, that we were 'making' him. So, on Friday I told him I quit, that I wasn't going to take it anymore. I would normally put in a notice, but I couldn't take another minute of him in my face. I called my market manager who offered very little help. All he said was, "I know how he is." And I'm like, "Why don't you do something about it?" He said no one else wants that store. I've even heard the market manager say to him, "don't talk to me that way." I've told the market manager that the manager would call me up to six times a day on my days off, I hardly ever got a lunch break. I was always left alone in the store, which was located in a bad neighborhood and I am a woman. I never got 15 minute breaks, which I was tempted to report to OSHAA. I am calling the Human Resources department to let them know why I left. I just hope something happens for the ones who are left there. I hope the corporate office gets him out or my former co-workers find something that makes them happy if the coporate office doesn't do anything for them.
2 people like this
1 response
@lilaclady (28206)
• Australia
11 Mar 07
Oh dear, how awful, I think it is very important to be happy in your job, you spend many hours working a good part of the best years of your life you might as well be happy, in fact I would say you have to be happy in your job for the sake of your health, life is way too short to be stressed out over a job...
• United States
11 Mar 07
Oh honey, I so agree! That's what I was thinking the whole time I've dealt with this is that life is too short to have to deal with this sort of thing. I have a heart condition too and my doctor told me to avoid stress as much as possible or it would worsen the condition. Well, I found out last week after some tests that it has worsened and my job was stressful enough without him doing what he did to me and my co-workers. I've already had a job offer that I believe I'm going to take and I had the offer within 24 hours of leaving the old job. They found out I left and called me. I have till Monday to decide.
1 person likes this