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Admin
Oh you poor naïve soul…
Admin
I believe @mott555 gave away the entire article in that first paragraph...
Admin
What the fuck? Are there seriously this many offices with bosses that shout at you needlessly and nobody bats an eye?
I guess I'm lucky to work under a pretty cool boss. I've rarely seen him mad, let alone yelling (I don't think he ever has).
Admin
You'd be surprised.
NOW GET BACK TO YOUR DESK!
Admin
The moment my boss claims he didn't authorize a project, I would hand him (a copy of) the project charter with his signature on it. If he didn't accept that, I would simply respond with, "well damn, looks like my employment wasn't authorized either. Sorry about that folks."
Admin
Was there really no signature from the boss on some sheet of paper to indicate that this project was authorized?
Admin
You have to have some knowledge about how things are done. And if it is your first job and you think you can trust in your boss, especially in a small company, it can be assumed you were too naïve to require something in writing and signed.
Admin
Many small companies don't formalize this process and its 100% verbal. That's been my experience (almost entirely < 100 person, privately-owned companies). If you're lucky MAYBE you have an email the boss replied to once.
Admin
And most of them have bosses that remember what they'd said the other day.
Anyway, during the first week(s) at my jobs I was asked daily about my progresses and achievements. This has been missing here, too.
Admin
'Project Charter' -- Now there's a phrase I've not heard in a great many years.... a great many years.
Admin
Schizophrenic/psycho boss. Nothing new here... move along...move along.
Admin
Competence challenged boss faced with someone who knows too much and might be a threat to their job, attempting to persuade them to leave without it passing by HR who might spot what was happening. And it worked.
(I've been in a vaguely similar situation; I got a lift to the gates returning from a 3 day field trip, working on an armoured vehicle computer system on Salisbury Plain, I had a rucksack full of protective clothing and was still wearing steel capped boots. I was stopped by a director who demanded to know what I was doing, coming in at 10 a.m. in scruffy clothes with a rucksack, suppose clients were watching, what would they think? I was in big trouble... So I went and told my boss, the engineering director. He laughed and made a phone call. The next day I was walking across the yard at lunchtime, the same director emerged from the building, saw me, turned 180 and went back in again. For the rest of my time there I was invisible to him. It was like a superpower.)
Admin
Never work under women. Unless you are a masochist.
Admin
:giggity:
Admin
NAUGHTY COMMENTER!
Filed under: SPANK SPANK
Admin
A competence challenged boss would just have not have 'approved' the project. As we have seen in previous DWTF's such a person would have said: "We've always done things that way. There are many systems that depend on it. If you touch it we'll fire you. If you think hard about replacing, we'll fire you."
Like your story though.
Admin
TRWTF is that
Admin
Depending on his jurisdiction, Tony may have made a tactical mistake in resigning rather than letting himself be fired. If fired he could be eligible for unemployment insurance, which can be a very helpful bridge to the next, better, job.
Admin
That's what I was thinking when I read that, too. If you show up to quit and you get fired, accept the termination because that lets you get unemployment. In the vast majority of situations quitting/resigning means you don't get it, so having that old counter of "You can't fire me, I quit!" is usually a bad idea because then the company can say you quit instead of being terminated, and boom no unemployment.
Admin
Depending on jurisdiction and availability of proof, he might have given an extraordinary notice of cancelation for exceptional reasons and demanded they fully pay him (maybe even including overhours) for the usual period of notice.
If HR would be any wise, they'd dismiss his (former) boss for exceptional reasons and asked him to stay. (And maybe even squeeze Tony's wages for the days he wasn't there out of her, fully legally and imho justified.)
Admin
There's your problem right there
Admin
Also, if you quit, you have a much harder time suing for wrongful termination in situations where that applies (which, alas, does not include this one).
As far as what really happened: She felt embarrassed by the answer to her question about who authorized the project, because he had just publicly made her look like an idiot (which she was, but never mind). The impossible deadline was a tactic to ensure that either he quit or she had justification for firing him. And in a company this disorganized, the higher-ups didn't notice.
And I've seen male bully bosses do the exact same thing, so this has nothing to do with working under women.
Admin
I have too often seen competence challenged bosses "giving people the rope to hang themselves" to agree with this. Encouraging someone to go off and do something that will be allowed to go nowhere, but with nothing in writing, is an effective way of getting them out. What the CCB doesn't want is for the new person to start fixing line of business problems, and doing it quickly. Deflection helps.
Admin
Woman on top and spanking? Have I got the right website?
Admin
Yes. I think it's actually more likely than not, but I'm a bit cynical by this point.
Admin
I have never in my life had a paper signed by my boss saying that the work I did was authorised. I suppose I was lucky enough to never have had a boss where that would have been necessary. Nor at a company where any such manager would survive.
Admin
No idea how this is regulated in other countries, but here in Belgium developers (I'm not talking consultants) usually work under a statute that makes it illegal for the company to even ask to work overtime. This is some protection put in place by the government, as under this statute overtime doesn't get paid.
I've never had a shouty boss, but if I had he/she would have received exactly one warning. At the next shout-out I'ld have quit.
Edit: for some reason the name of the country between France and the Netherlands gets censored by discourse :confused:
Admin
Yeah, Belgium triggers a weird bug in the censoring code that causes it to blank out the name. Kinda weird.
Not really. We just added it because it would be funny.
Admin
The first meeting where the boss shouts at you angrily, for whatever reason at all, you request a private meeting with your boss, in which you state calmly and in a dignified manner that you are unused to being spoken to in such an unprofessional manner. You request an apology.
If she continues to treat you like one of her misbehaving offspring, you request a meeting with HR and her superior in which you express your grievances.
Admin
It was suggested as the word to block by one of your countrymen when it was noticed that Discourse had included censorship into the core software. The fact that at the time we had (elsethread) recently talked about the US's censorship of H2G2, replacing the word fuck with Belgium, probably helped the idea along.
It remains there to provide amusement and puzzlement.
Admin
Goal achieved :smile:
Admin
This may vary from state to state, but at least in Maryland, it's been ruled that saying, "You can't fire me, I quit!" is irrelevant, because the person has already been fired.
Admin
FTFY.
My Supervisor at my main job for the past 11+ years has been the most sane person I've ever had to work with. It's the reason I still work there. Oh, we've had our moments of conflict (work long enough with anyone, it happens, but they get sorted out.) Having a sane boss isn't just rare, it's priceless.
And yes, she happens to be a woman.
Admin
Yeah, too bad it apparently doesn't mean anything, as we've missed several deadlines due to the approving party not approving anything we send them. My manager last reported the status as read. I suggested the next status be necrotized purple.
Admin
You must be knew here... ;)
Admin
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Admin
Admin
I don't quite get how my refusal to be shouted upon would infer I'm new here (I've been visiting the site on a regular base for several years now BTW).
Admin
The YMBNH was in reference to not knowing the (other) meme, not about the post content :)
Admin
It happens. One of my bosses had a major meltdown, literally screaming at me, because I dared to highlight text in red in a message I sent.
Admin
This is why my coworkers now highlight in blue. ;P
Admin
I'm going to assume this was the critical mistake:
The inefficient system Tony was trying to kill was probably their sacred cow, and his boss threw him under the bus because it wasn't the time, place, or way she wanted them to find out she'd secretly been having one of her minions work on a system to totally replace it.
Admin
Or pink :smile:
Admin
Sounds like a good start to a social engineering experiment. I'm so going to try highlighting things in pink now...
Admin
Before the dark time... before the Empire.
(Sorry.)
Admin
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?
Admin
You don't even need a signed charter. Who doesn't send email followups to meetings? I do this for internal and external clients. Reason number 1: forgetful people who don't take notes. Secret reason #0: backstabbing, capricious, incompetent people.
Admin
Considering everyone is an admin here, and it's rather easy to inject e-mail into the CEO's Lotus Notes file, nobody trusts e-mail here....
Admin
Depending on the jurisdiction and the cause, termination for cause may also result in denial of unemployment.
Admin
i usually use purple. it's almost as good as pink and is easier to see on a light background