Recently I received an email from my boss and I felt I was fully blamed, threatened, intimidated and humiliated. Can anyone share similar experiences, tell me what actions you took and how effective that was?
If you find yourself facing anxiety for a long period of time because of toxic workplace, it is better to find a better place. Before you move do a great job so you can find a better opportunity.
What? How does doing a great job before you finds you a better opp? What you should be doing is disengage, do the minimum to not get blamed or fired. And spend the rest of your limited time and energy making a good resume and preparing for interviews.
In my humble experience, the businesses in the same level share the same work culture, I might be wrong but success comes with right culture. Build yourself to prepare for a better workplace.
Once you got one of those emails it is over. Your reputation w your boss is ruined. Your reputation with others ruined as well. Your chances of raises and promotions are 0. Time to hurry and find a new job.
My old boss was too clever to email but I was verbally reprimanded quite loudly on more than one occasion to the point where my co-worker (bless her soul) went to bat for me and reported it to my bosses’ boss. In all of my 10+ years of experience I’ve gotten exactly one bad performance review and it was from this person. Thankfully she retired soon after that but still I had to basically prove all the smack she said about me wasn’t true to really redeem myself in the eyes of my director after she left.
I had a boss who would scream and yell at me all the time. A real terrifying type who would ask questions that were hard to immediately answer ("WHY did you make that mistake?") and then he would cut me off and ask something else while I tried to formulate an answer - no easy task considering that I don't speak his language natively. I dreaded every single day, and had nightmares about him. Now I'm in another department with a much better and more respectful manager.
That’s almost exactly what happened with me too! Only in my case it wasn’t due to mistakes but her entire philosophy. I once asked “if I’m so bad at my job why didn’t my previous boss at the same company bring that up in my last three annual reviews and why are our internal clients sending you so many positive emails thanking me for my good work? ” her response was that “he wasn’t good at his job and not well respected...and your business partners don’t know how to evaluate your performance properly.”
What does the email say? Some threats could be illegal and must be reported to HR. That said, Big-4 is no joke, partners have very high expectations and demands. Some managers have no tact when giving feedback, and as an auditor or consultant, there is little room for error. I’m former EY, and it could be intense work hard/play hard environment. The travel schedule and late nights working, especially during earnings season, could be hell. But that’s offset by lots of perks and good pay. If you want to stick around, work with your boss to find out what you need to do to improve, and don’t take the rants of a stressed out boss personally. It’s usually about making deadlines. If you want to work in a company where everyone is going to be nice all the time, get out of Big 4
"Not taking rants of a stressed out boss personally" is terrible advice. Boss's job is to help their reports not make it worst for them. Get the hell out if your boss can't handle the stress and spilling it over to the team.
Right, killerwhal - it is a boss’ job to help employees, and it is unacceptable to shout or abuse. However it is possible to say something in an email like “if you do not complete this task by midnight tonight you will not have a job tomorrow”. Yes, that’s threatening/intimidating, but not necessarily wrong if true.. And if sent to multiple people, sounds humiliating (and boss shouldn’t do that). Point is don’t take the behavior personally. Just decide if you want to work at that level of intensity. Of course we don’t know what the email says so this is all speculation and based on my experience working on these kinds of environments.
Happens when you work in finance/strategic consultings. You get all the greedy, insecure bastards around you.
get and leak video evidence that can’t be tied back to you. fuck him up. don’t just leave, you’ll wish you’d dealt with him for years and years.
In CA there is a 2-party consent law for recording. Your manager or HR can retaliate by claiming you broke the law.
Please collect all evidence, seek for legal counsel, and report him to HR.
Honestly you’re kind of better off finding another team in the same company or another job: HR is not your friend. The same boss I mentioned above did it to another guy before my time, he complained to HR and didn’t have enough evidence so HR kept her in place. She then retaliated by not signing a release form that would have let him move to another team so he left...guess who is now a successful VP at another company and who retired a bitter divorced baby boomer?
Respond to each point asking for examples and clarification. If you have proof that anything stated there is inaccurate then state the facts. Keep emotion out of it. E.g. "you state xyz. Per my records, abc occurred. Could you clarify what you are referring to?" Or "I am unclear as to what is being referred to here. Could you provide more details/examples?" The onus is now on your manager to provide specifics without which there is no case. Save copies of communication around this in case you need to take it to HR/outside counsel.
And consider finding another role away from this manager. Toxic situations are difficult to reverse. Sorry that you're going through this.
share the email?
He used a lot of passive aggressive language in his emails and also words like “warning” “forgive”. He was trying to sabotage my performance while all other partners thought I have been doing an awesome job on their projects for these years with this firm. I was promoted to senior manager from senior within 4.5 years before he joined as a partner. I also believe this is retaliation because a few months ago he tried to promote the seat shifting and only wanted to move selective people in the team. I requested not to move my seat but he reported me to HR because of this.