gunsmoke on 14/4/2011 at 10:42
So, a friend of mine put in a word for me and got me hired at my current job. All was well at first, but eventually our district manager grew to rely on me and sort of took me under her wing so I can grow in the company. She talks my ear off about every little detail of her job, and unfortunately that includes shit-talking about the other employees she oversees.
Well, recently she started in about my friend. How he is 'worthless' and is a thief, cheat, and liar. See, we get paid for drive time as well as any time we spend in stores checking on our underlings' work. We log in and out of the company time clock through a phone system with various job and location codes. Apparently, he is logging in from the comfort of his couch, because twice now she happened to be where he was logged in, while he was logged in and he simply wasn't there. Not just a few minutes here and there, these were entire shifts and she had to pick up his slack.
Tuesday night I called in my new releases and she told me that she was pretty much fed up and going to fire Gil after he does this HUGE store reset. This is a massive undertaking that takes a couple weeks, and she wants to 'use' him for that before she shit cans him.
So, should I stick up for him, tell him what is going on, or just leave it alone. I don't want to get in the middle of office politics so soon after getting hired, but he is a buddy of mine. However, I plan to make this a career, and it is the best job I can imagine for myself and i don't want to risk something ruining it.
Sulphur on 14/4/2011 at 10:46
The simplest thing to do in this situation is to talk to your boss into having a chat with your friend and explain where things are headed and give him a change to right things.
If she listens to you at all and has something of a conscience instead of letting casual backstabbing do her work for her, I think she'd understand the merits of turning an obstacle around into an asset.
Briareos H on 14/4/2011 at 10:51
The only thing to do is try to convince her to explain the situation to your friend beforehand, give him his chance to make up for his own shit. Dumping someone without warning is equally unprofessional IMO. Sometimes, people who aren't fundamentally cheats just need a boot up the ass.
In any way, do not warn him and take the matter outside the work environment (unless he is an absolutely reliable friend*), this can only bite you in the ass.
EDIT: also, what Sulphur said
*which he is not since he never told you of his behaviour w.r.t. work
Queue on 14/4/2011 at 12:44
In reality, she's the one being inappropriate. A supervisor should never talk shit about the employees to another employee--to what ends would one do that?! It puts you in a bad situation, promotes tension in the work place, and leads me to think that she is somehow playing you for the sap. If she has a problem with your friend (or any other employee), those matters should be discussed with her supervisor, not one of the employees under her.
And consider this, if she's willing to talk shit with you about the other employees behind their backs, then what is she saying about you behind your back?
For me, the one question you should have been asking yourself is, why would she confide company gossip and her intentions to an underling in the first place? My first answer is, she wants to fuck you (most likely in the biblical sense). My second answer is, she is a manipulator.
But back to the issue at hand: If you warn your friend, you are placing yourself on the block by interfering; you will have scorned her by "backstabbing her" in breaking her trust through confiding with you. And, if you try to "talk some sense into her", then you are interfering with how she runs the operation, you are trying to do her job for her--or, at least, that'll be the perception in her eyes.
It's a bad situation that she has created, and one I believe she is creating for her own purposes. If it were me, I'd stay the hell out of it. As far as your friend goes, he is the one fucking up--he has hung himself through his own actions and it's not for you to save him. And the next time she starts "confiding" in you, I'd let her know that this type of discussion is inappropriate since you're not a supervisor. Of course, she'll then go after you (because that's just the type of manipulation you can expect of someone willing to cause workplace drama), so you may want to make HR, or her boss, aware of your concerns and the awkward working conditions you've been thrown into by her actions.
steo on 14/4/2011 at 12:52
stick it in her pooper... surprised no ones mentioned that yet.
Queue on 14/4/2011 at 13:19
I'm surprised at you, steo.... You forgot, "then make her clean it off."
Yakoob on 14/4/2011 at 14:32
She is testing, to see if you are hard enough to survive in the brutal workplace and make a worthwhile successor, sacrificing everything for the ever growing company profit...
Or perhaps, she wants to see if you have a truly compassionate heart which is not afraid to sacrifice material luxury for another human. May I ask, is she, or has she displayed any unicorn-like behaviors in the past?
Mr.Duck on 14/4/2011 at 17:37
Quote Posted by Queue
I'm surprised at you, steo.... You forgot, "then make her clean it off."
I'm surprised at you, Queue. You forgot "....with her mouth".
:D
But I agree with the peeps: A)your boss is doing a no-no by shittalking and B)you should probably thread very carefully in them deep waters.
*Nods*june gloom on 14/4/2011 at 17:49
I agree with the others. You should A) confront her about her behaviour regarding shit-talking, 2) ask her to please confront your friend before doing anything so drastic as firing him (especially if she's waiting until after the reset, which is a completely dick move) and D) stick it in her pooper, in that order.
Maybe if you did her in the ol' balloon knot she won't be such a twat.
CCCToad on 14/4/2011 at 18:00
Queue's pretty much on the spot. While it isn't always inadvisable to bring up something thats going on, it doesn't sound like she's doing it for an altruistic reason. Its pretty unprofessional to use that. There really isn't too much to be gained by involving yourself in the middle of this, and if you do jump in you are probably just going to get blamed by whoever ends up on the short end of the stick.
That said, in a lot of companies the guy would have been insta-fired. I can't really think of a good reason for him to keep doing that. Unless there's any other factors at work (ie, he got dumped or his dog died or something), the dishonest behavior likely isn't going to change on its own.
I don't think talking to the guy will help much. Honestly, I fully support firing him. Either that or make him a wall street executive. Getting paid for doing nothing and expecting everyone else to compensate for your own dishonesty and laziness is behavior that would let him fit in pretty well there.
