Your Job Sucks | Abuse without Repercussion

Introduction

I have had some great managers and leaders during my time in the workforce—particularly during my years as an IT professional. Those managers, however, are few. By comparison, I’ve dealt with some absolutely terrible leaders. Each of these had a few things in common, but I’m going to talk about one specific trait shared by all of my worst managers: their awful behavior was never truly punished.

Given that I know at least one of the managers I’ll be discussing to be sue-happy (that’s his primary source of income and he’s somehow proud of that), I will be changing the names of the individuals just to keep myself protected. So, let’s dive into the minds of two particularly terrible managers: Bill Camelot of Serpent Ranch and Moe Gas of Infoline.

The Bad Behaviors

Before I start discussing the fact that these individuals were never punished for their bad behavior, let’s establish what I mean by bad behavior. I know there are some people who are going to assume that I consider most standard managerial practices to be “bad behavior” (and, honestly, I do—most managers have outdated and disproven ideas that are counterintuitive to a rapidly changing workplace), so let’s set the record straight. When I say bad behavior in this post, these are the abuses I’m talking about:

• Brandishing Knives at Employees
• Shouting at Employees
• Mocking Employees for Weight, Height, and Other Matters of Appearance
• Describing Methods in Which You’d Like to Kill Employees
• Deliberately Excluding Employees (without Just Cause) from Work-Related Events
• Refusing to Discuss Concerns with Employees
• Watching Porn in Your Office
• Excessive Flirting with Employees and the Managers of Other Departments
• Throwing Office Equipment (Chairs, Clocks, Monitors, etc.)
• Drunkenly Emailing Instructions to Employees

Basically, anything just shy of flinging feces at passerby and screaming at the top of your lungs.

I could go on, but I hope that you’ll agree that most of these meet your criteria for “bad behavior” or “abuse” in a workplace setting. If you disagree, please email me your workplace so I can make sure I never accept a position there.

Every single one of the behaviors I listed above was committed by one or both of the managers I’ll be discussing, today (Bill and Moe). So, despite the fact that these managers exhibited these behaviors, why did they go unpunished (and why do they still have their jobs at the time of this writing)?

Reasons for Maintaining Employment

In the instances of Bill and Moe, reports of the abuse came from  numerous employees, including those had worked within the company for decades. It wasn’t just me venting about a boss I didn’t like; several employees reported to superiors and HR that they believed Bill and Moe were abusive and even dangerous. So why was nothing done? There are numerous possible reasons, but I’ve selected a few that I believe to be the most prominent (and most likely).

Spineless Upper Management

I would rather have a manager who plays hardball with everyone—including me—over one who is overly soft. Unfortunately, I have dealt with too many spineless managers. They don’t know how to stand up for themselves, their employees, or their company. They don’t take pride in anything they do, they just care about making it home at the end of the day without having rocked the boat at work too much.

This is exactly the sort of manager I had to deal with when reporting issues regarding Bill Camelot. He would sit there, acknowledge that it was a problem, then say “I’ll talk to him”. Talking to Bill, of course, led to Bill becoming more violent and more abrasive toward anyone he suspected may have reported his behavior. This became a cycle that constantly repeated itself. I or a coworker would report Bill’s behavior, Bill would have some mysterious “conversation” with his spineless boss, and then Bill would become worse for a few weeks, directing his awfulness toward one individual rather than the general workplace.

That was just how things worked at Serpent Ranch. Getting fired was nearly impossible there. In fact, I don’t actually know if it was possible. I certainly never heard of someone on the IT side losing a job, there (and there were plenty of people who most definitely had it coming, including Bill). You’d think there would be more talks of firing in a company with nearly seventy thousand employees, but the most that ever came down the pipeline was a list of individuals who had been offered optional severance packages as a way to save money. No one at Serpent Ranch seemed capable of telling bad employees that their time with the company needed to end.

Buddy-Buddy Upper Management

This was more of an issue at Infotube than Serpent Ranch. At Serpent Ranch, upper management didn’t like Bill, they just didn’t have the guts to get rid of him. At Infotube, upper management loved Moe Gas. They’d worked together for an extended period of time and they knew each other well; Moe was never going to be fired, no matter what he did.

If Moe was watching porn in his office and the executives were in town, you bet they were in there watching it with him, having a laugh. If Moe was harassing employees and coworkers, you bet his bosses were doing it with him, whether the harassment was sexual or just general mockery. Whatever Moe did, he was never going to face consequences for it because the people responsible for doling out those consequences were participating in the punishable acts.

No Noticeable Impact on the Workplace

This one applies to both Moe and Bill. Why would an upper-level manager address problematic behavior if there wasn’t a noticeable impact to performance? My coworkers and I always did our jobs to the best of our ability, though we often faced Bill and Moe as obstacles. Bill and Moe’s bosses saw the teams below those individuals functioning well, but never stopped to consider that we were functioning in spite of Moe and Bill, not because of Moe and Bill. The way they saw it, those managers were doing a great job because their employees were doing a great job.

The Solution

What were my coworkers and I supposed to do? Should we have all stopped working hard, day in and day out? Should we have given up entirely, practically going on strike until our bosses were thrown out? Perhaps that would have worked, but it wasn’t a real solution. In the end, the only real solution was to leave, which is exactly what most of us did. When we left, a few of us thoroughly documented our reasons for leaving and our problems with management. From what I hear, those who stayed are still trying to get those managers fired.

For Bill Camelot, it seems to be working; last I heard, he’s actively seeking another position so he can leave Serpent Ranch before he’s fired for his behavior. My fingers are crossed for him getting fired before he gets a new position. I wish there were something I could legally do to make sure he is never in power, again, but to whomever ends up working for him next: I wish you the best of luck, stay safe, and get the authorities involved when he starts threatening your life. I wish I had, because upper management did nothing.

Moe Gas is another story--he’s easy to get along with if you’re a sleazeball, which makes him indispensable… to sleazeballs. The only way he’s ever going to lose his job is if his managers are replaced with people who have solid moral standing and expect the same behavior from those who work for them.

In the end, my coworkers and I were powerless. For situations like those I've described, there really isn’t anything you can do short of quitting or contacting the authorities (in the case of Bill Camelot of Serpent Ranch). I wish that my coworkers and I had simply filed a police report against him, but getting evidence of his misconduct wasn’t easy. I tried a few times, but nothing ever seemed like it would be enough. If you find yourself in this situation, your safest bet is going to be to start searching for a new job.

Conclusion

I’ve made a couple posts about bad managers—I think some of them even mentioned Moe and Bill—but I believe this one is the most important for one reason: sometimes there’s no way out. Sometimes, awful managers get away with being awful and there is nothing you can do about it. I hope that this trend dies as workplaces become more progressive, forward-thinking, and morale-focused. Companies like Serpent Ranch have been around for nearly a century and their business practices have yet to adapt, which is most strongly reflected in the way managers are permitted to treat their employees. Unfortunately, the only way out of situations like those described in this post is… out. You just have to leave and hope that your next workplace isn’t mismanaged.*

Stay in Touch

Thanks for checking out this post! If you’d like to keep up with me, I’m most active on Instagram, but you can find me on my Facebook page, too.

*I actually plan to write an article on ways to tell if a place is not right for you before you actually accept an offer. Not sure when that will be, but it’s something I really want to put out there.