Should I confront my E36 M3ty boss?

WWGRMD?

In a prior thread, I bitched and moaned about my E36 M3ty boss, talking about how he's shortcutting the company, and is overall unpleasant.

Well, as previously stated, my BS Bucket is filling up rapidly. My manager once told me to sympathize, but not empathize. Maybe I'm getting that backwards. Point is, don't make friends at work. I guess he was trying to prevent any favoritism in me, iunno.

Anyway, one of my co-workers has turned into a very dear friend of mine, who is a full time college student, in his final semester to be a biology teacher. He also plays guitar is a Christian praise band. He works part time, and understands that he's not going to get many hours. However, next week he has NO hours. NONE. Which I call BS on.

I mentioned it to the boss yesterday, and he said "it's all about availability, we have to be grown ups here and decide when we want to work." He's a college student! He can only work so much, plus he has other, religious responsibilities to tend to. It doesn't effect me directly, but it still pisses me off.

He sat me down yesterday and we had a little talk, telling me he wants us all to work as a team, don't go behind his back, yadda yadda,yadda. Which makes me want to sit him down, like he wants me to, and ask him his reasoning behind him leaving an hour early.

So what say you, GRM? Should I sit him down, respectfully, man to man, and ask him why these things are this way. Or should I shut up, keep my head down, and hope it gets better before it gets worse?

Can you afford being unemployed? or do you have something to fall back on?

It's a retail store owned by a large corporation, so he can't just fire me at will, but he can make my experience unbearable.

I'm just frustrated and want something to change.

I am the last person you want advice from.

But I believe a big smokey powersliding burnout is in order

I am probably the second-last person you want advice from, but... I bet the "large corporation" would surely hate to find out that one of its managers was displaying intolerance and prejudice by reducing the number of shifts assigned to someone who had a complicated schedule for religious reasons.

Just putting that idea out there FWIW.

Stealthtercel wrote: I am probably the second-last person you want advice from, but... I bet the "large corporation" would surely hate to find out that one of its managers was displaying intolerance and prejudice by reducing the number of shifts assigned to someone who had a complicated schedule for religious reasons. Just putting that idea out there FWIW.

Completely agree... but it also has to do with how much faith (pun intended) the higher management has in the manager. Will they side with the manager or the lowly sub-manager person (no offense intended)

I have found that a carefully dropped hint sometimes brings out some helpful information. If you put your heart and soul into squealing, be prepared to either be fired or commended. If you drop a few carefully chosen keywords to his boss you might be able to gauge the timbre of the situation. If you mention something like "yeah, my buddy is concerned that his Christian band's schedule is annoying [insert boss' name here]" you might hear one of three responses: 1) silence or diversion to another topic, 2) "what? I never thought that about [boss' name]", or 3) "Yeah, we've had some complaints" or a simple "I'd like to talk to you about this."

In the case of the first two, you either have a person who is A) unwilling to address confrontational topics with his subordinates, B) a hierarchy who is pleased with his/her general performance, or C) he's sleeping with the boss.

In the case of 3, they're either eager to accept feedback or they have been looking for a reason to ditch the dork and just needed your input.

Either way, here is how I view the situation. You have to decide what is more important - defending the rights of your friend or your job. If you value your job more, skip it and pretend like it didn't happen, but file it away as knowledge about your boss. If you value your friend more than your job, dive in and defend his/her honor knowing that it might cost you your job, your next promotion, or your nomination for employee of the month.

I'm a highly emotional person and I tend to be able to "read" people very well. That means its also hard for my to decipher the details of your situation. I've been in jobs where I could go drinking with the boss and tell him he's a E36 M3head, and I've been in jobs where we all panicked when the boss might be in town. Listen to your feelings and move in the direction they lead.

Edit: and one more thing... decide on something: Is this boss simply being crappy to your friend, or is he/she crappy for the business? Is the boss being crappy to you, or just your friend? That might help you determine your priorities concerning your job, your friend's job, and whether or not you think this manager is bad for you and your friend or actually bad for the business. That's all the big corporate bean counters care about is the business. Is this manager making money or costing money. As you proceed, you'll have to be able to make that argument to his/her superiors.

I'm thinking that he's bad for business. Example.

A repeat customer comes in, this guy used to work for this store, and now works for one of our shops. He's building a Mustang drag car, it's pretty sweet.

New bossman walks by as I'm at the counter and tells me to do something when I'm done.

Customer looks at me, puzzled, leans forward and says lowly "Who's that?"

"New boss" I say, almost under my breath.

Customer then looks back at the manager, who has walked on out of the picture, looks back at me and says. "He's a dick, ain't he?"

"Ehh, so far yeah."

"I won't like him, I can already tell."

I think the moral of this story is that the retail world sucks. Period.

What are the company policies?

How many hours is he expecting? What was agreed to?

Is he delivering (as an employee) what he agreed to?

Is your boss the problem, or is he managing in accordance with the company policies and the real problem is that you don't like the company?

If all those things are cool, then you are right. Your boss is a turd.

As described, it sounds you are over reacting a bit. I'm not sure it is your battle. It sounds like you are reacting emotionally because he is a "very dear friend" of yours.

I also think he should look for another job.

As long as he understands the commitment he is making. When he takes a job, his outside responsibilities should not interfere with the commitment he made to work. If he made it clear when hired that his church band needed xxx hours per week, that's Ok. If he did not and it has become an excuse for not working as hard as he could, then he is at fault.

Your job as a middle manager is not to defend your friends. It's to make the company successful. In fact, letting your friendships interfere could be a really bad professional choice.

BoostedBrandon wrote: It's a retail store owned by a large corporation, so he can't just fire me at will, but he can make my experience unbearable. I'm just frustrated and want something to change.

Worked for radio shack for two years. It was an awful experience, but I learned a lot about screwing people over, soi got something out of it. A few good friends.

I trained my supervisor and was slowly shopping the reigns to him. He mistook it and thought I was getting lazy. He confronted me, I retaliated with my one man version of "Shock and Awe" and ended up going on vacation one day early.

He decided to tell everyone I was fired and obviously this got to me in another state. I called his boss to figure out what the berkeley was going on.

Shortening the long ass story, the DM put me in the highest grossing store in the district. Two days after working there I took my current job and walked. Best decision regarding my job in a long time.

What I'm getting at, you should be able to confront your boss, but keep a cool head and you will be in better shape. I didn't keep a chill head, but had a good DM. Good luck.

nicksta43 wrote: I am the last person you want advice from. But I believe a big smokey powersliding burnout is in order

I LOL'd... Again... At work... In front of e'rbody... Thanks for that.

BoostedBrandon wrote: It's a retail store owned by a large corporation ....

Can you transfer to another store within the Corp?

My son is in a similar situation., His boss is incompetent and insecure about his work so he covers it up by being a bully. He promotes in fighting among employees, stirs the gossip pot, uses subtle suggestions, inuendos and sometimes open threats to keep everyone off guard.

The Corporation is well aware of the situation and no one knows what this guy has, maybe he witnessed a murder or something and is exhorting the CEO, but he keeps coming to work without repricusion.

Have patience. If you believe in the philosophy "What goes around, comes around", then you'll win. If not, make the best of it, transfer of just suck it up. Corporate probably already knows, and you won't change a leopard's spots.

Dan

One of the favorite ways for retail/food places to get rid of people without firing them is to cut their hours to the point where they no longer really work there.

Sounds like what is happening here, and there isn't much to be done about it. Your friend should start looking for another job with more flexible hours, maybe delivering pizzas or court summons or something.

He did make it clear when he was hired on that his band is extremely important to him.

When he was hired by our previous manager.

Apparently this new guy hasn't gotten that memo. Also an update, he now had nine hours.

I've decided to keep my trap shut and tough it out. For now.

BoostedBrandon wrote: I've decided to keep my trap shut and tough it out. For now.

That's why we call it "work" and not "play time." They don't pay you for the work, they pay you to put up with the BS. Find a new job then quit what you have.

I would say most managers, especially in retail or other service industries, tend to over manage. Cutting any 1 persons hours doesn't really save the company any money, because you have to fill those hours with someone else. So, the reality is that this manager is thinking he is doing the company a solid, but really is make no difference. When setting a schedule, the way it should be approached is in priority: capability, seniority, and then availability. Meaning, if other more capable, more senior people are available and have a preference to the time slots your friend is also available, he might get left off the schedule.

I would NOT recommend you say anything to the manager directly. I would advise your friend to have a conversation with him though. You can't really do anything, and honestly the manager can't officially discuss another employee's situation with you. So no value there, just puts you in the cross-hairs. My advise to your friend would be to meet with the manager and question why he was left off... make the manager state specifics. Approach the manager's response pragmatically, providing other options on how he can fill various roles or other job assignments. Offer to cross train to become more capable in different roles and open additional schedule options. He needs to be his own cheerleader. Wise words: "You never get the sale you don't ask for".

sounds like you might work at a parts store? sometimes upper management doesn't know what's going on if a store stays middle of the road and doesn't make waves. when i worked at AZ, the store manager scheduled herself 8-5 with lunch at 12 every day so she could watch her soaps on her lunch break (no E36 M3). it was months before the DM finally figured it out and told her she couldn't do that anymore. basically we never really were top of the heap, but we stayed far enough off the bottom of the barrel that the only time the DM came by was if something happened. like the time someone dumped the used oil that had been left outside all over the delivery trucks. then they put security cameras in the parking lot, but not when one of the employees car was broken into...