Seems as if as I get older I have less and less time or respect for people who bully other people. I"m the first one in there to say go fly a kite. For 4 years now I've worked for a smaller company in Wisconsin and I will say I've been bullied a bit myself. The above image is so like my old boss. He would say things like "you better fuckin make sure that happens"....or " Its your fucking Job on the line here"....He would try and do these things in a group session so as to "Try" and not single out one person.... As I've mentioned in an earlier story( see Eu Tu Brute/ This Boss Was Bad/ September) this would happen on a weekly basis.
Now the thing is the President of our company would not do anything about it nor would HR. They were both scared of the Vice President and to be honest the HR person was fearful of losing her job. So you see I think there are many smaller companies (1-6 Million in Sales) where the HR really does not exist. If they do they will not help the employees because they themselves are afraid of what might happen to them. Whats more in my 20 years of Manufacturing my honest opinion is HR adds no value to a company. They do nothing to save money, they do nothing to make you money. And when you come right down to it they don't' do anything for you....
The other day I took a photo on the floor of a friend. I emailed it to my computer and I got a call from the HR asking what the photo was for. To make a long story short she was now trying to make sure I was not harassing someone with my camera. Oh I said so now your afraid I'm harassing someone because I took a photo? And yet for 4 years you let some tyrant boss yell and intimidate people whenever he wanted?
Um Yea that did not work for me. So I brought in the President and I showed him her email to me. I then pointed out several instances where employees and me had been bullied and he had done nothing about it. Then I told him He's dam lucky I haven't hit him with a law suit as of yet. After that I told him I don't give a Fuck what his HR lady monitors on my computers or phones.
Now I know what your thinking that was not to smart of me. But sometimes and you have to know when.......When to push certain buttons and keep people thinking. And your right I had a 50/50 shot of getting fired that day myself. To be honest I don't care anymore. The only reason I had to watch my P's and Q's with the VP was he owned my house for a bit. Basically I used him as an investor to buy my house out of my bankruptcy. By the time I found out what he was really like it was too late. It's amazing what you can concentrate on and make happen to keep your kids in a house and fed. I'ts also amazing how you can make yourself get out of bed each day and deal with reality even when it sucks.
I'm just one guy in one State. Just think of how many people out there deal with worse than what I did.
The Moral of the story is treat people with respect. If you don't get respect back you probably dont want to know that person anyway.
The Black Widow
I Love your backbone...
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