4 ms·

I had a horrible experience with the site director for a Fortune 50 company that lasted almost two years. I tried most of the techniques mentioned by others her

I had a horrible experience with the site director for a Fortune 50 company that lasted almost two years. I tried most of the techniques mentioned by others here to protect my team. In the end, the only way we were able to deal with the situation was to play some extreme politics with the asshole's organization to get them to move him to a different org within their company. The company itself (rightly) has a reputation for having an asshole management culture, so things only became marginally better. They were our only client at that site. I helped some of my team move to different sites within our company to get away from that client. Interestingly enough, I found out about a year into this that my company had given up another site for this same client to our main competitor for that business because it was physically very near their headquarters, and so was frequently visited by asshole executives who created even greater levels of stress. I also tried to move myself by out of there, but was unsuccessful by the deadline I had set for myself, so I exercised Plan B and changed careers. That was five years ago and just reading this pissed me off again thinking about that situation. Whatever you do, protect yourself. The damage from enduring that kind of work environment happens faster and lasts longer than you realize.

andrei_says_ 7y ago
Could you share a few specifics on what actions made your experience with this client terrible? “Terrible” and “asshole” are very subjective terms and mean different things to different people.
- sverige 7y ago
  Late reply, but here are the bullet points: * Offered expensive incentives to my employees during one particular crunch time -- incentives that were to come out of our pocket, not his -- then lied about it * Used insulting, demeaning language when addressing me, my direct reports, and some of the first-level employees * Made racist comments within earshot of the targets * Shifted goal posts constantly so that last week's goal suddenly became only halfway there * Tried to get competitive information during contract negotiation time by buying my directs drinks at "social hours" and/or offering seeming insider information to get them to reveal the reasoning behind our negotiating positions I could go on, but that gives the flavor. My boss got him out by pushing very hard with her superiors and his superiors on a (partially trumped up) sexual harassment charge. Normally that would really upset me, but in this particular case it seemed like old-fashioned rough justice.

andrei_says_ 7y ago

Could you share a few specifics on what actions made your experience with this client terrible? “Terrible” and “asshole” are very subjective terms and mean different things to different people.

sverige 7y ago
Late reply, but here are the bullet points: * Offered expensive incentives to my employees during one particular crunch time -- incentives that were to come out of our pocket, not his -- then lied about it * Used insulting, demeaning language when addressing me, my direct reports, and some of the first-level employees * Made racist comments within earshot of the targets * Shifted goal posts constantly so that last week's goal suddenly became only halfway there * Tried to get competitive information during contract negotiation time by buying my directs drinks at "social hours" and/or offering seeming insider information to get them to reveal the reasoning behind our negotiating positions I could go on, but that gives the flavor. My boss got him out by pushing very hard with her superiors and his superiors on a (partially trumped up) sexual harassment charge. Normally that would really upset me, but in this particular case it seemed like old-fashioned rough justice.