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Boss is on my case.
Lurk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I hate my boss...
...and my boss hates me.
It has been likes this for a long time and I work at a gas station, the car wash specifically. It isn't a glamorous job, but it's something and I have flexible hours. I do it well and often get praised by customers (yay morale boost) even though its sort of mindless.
The issue I have with the station manager (my boss) is that he is crooked and generally pretty bad at what he does. This primarily attributed that his primary way of managing is to avoid direct contact with employees and if he does, he expects flattery. This is reinforced by him having a habit of hiring people to work for cash (often seniors who want to earn some extra money) and others who are in precarious situations. One of my favorite anecdotes of his behavior is when he walked passed me, to tell a co-worker to tell me "close the carwash at 6". He is incapable of standing up to people face-to-face.
The issue he has with me is that I actually know the employee rights and tend to undermine him when he tries to pull fishy things.
The gist is that recently we had a scandal where the company sent him an e-mail (it was posted in our building) that someone was stealing bonus points from customers. Everyone knew who it was (woo crookedness) and this e-mail was conveniently sent a couple of weeks before the person in question (let's call him "tim") went on his 2 month vacation that he planned a while beforehand. Tim before his departure, made an agreement with most of the employees (including me) to share the days amongst us until he comes back. It saves us the trouble of training a new person to work only 2 months and the days get divided up conveniently for all involved. What instead happens, is that one of employees (that worked a single day) is given all of his days and is promoted to assistant manager. We think "whatever, easy come, easy go".
Fast forward to when Tim comes back and wants his shifts back. The manager does not want to give him original shifts back because he likes his new assistant manager, so he gives him two night shifts that we had vacant. The guy originally worked 7 shifts, so he is obviously not pleased. Though to be honest, he should be fired instead.
So I am working one of my busier shifts and the manager is in line to get his car washed. I have to leave the carwash and go to the main cashier to get a ticket redeemed. The manager calls the main cashier after I come back to say "He is taking too long to wash cars and why is he walking? Tell him that he should run. If he does not want to hurry up, I will find someone else who can." He tells this to the cashier who cannot leave her booth and has no way of contacting me. She tells him that and asks him to tell whatever grievance he has with me personally.
He does that. Tells me that I am washing too slowly and I am doing too many excess things. I should just get rid of cars as fast as possible and if people want rewashes, they can get one (this is a time consuming process). I tell him that the 10 seconds he wants me save per car would result in people getting worse washes (needing rewashes) and washing people cars first, then getting their ticket is a terrible idea (people sometimes don't know that they have to buy tickets beforehand and when they find out how much it will cost without gas, tend to say "I will do it later then"). I have no interest in doing a worse job for almost no benefit. He just looks at me, has a small temper tantrum and walks off.
I only later find out his "hurry up" comment. I am just dumbstruck. Over half the employees are over 60 and incapable of moving quickly. The person who works the shifts before mine is 76 for god's sake and he has a busier shift.
He is gunning to find an excuse to take some of my shifts to please Tim. He has been getting under the skin of some of the other employees as well. What pisses me off even more is that he is not going after the people who actively get complaints. That guy who works the shift before mine routinely denies people rewashes if he thinks their car is clean enough. Rewashes look bad on us and that is why I try to avoid them by not being old and awful.
In all fairness, I see my boss maybe once a month and he generally avoids me thankfully. I am just getting sick and tired of his antics.
What is the best way to deal with my boss? I not am trying to go the vindictive route, but there are great stories of people, before leaving the station, causing all sorts of havoc.
EDIT: Grammar!
...and my boss hates me.
It has been likes this for a long time and I work at a gas station, the car wash specifically. It isn't a glamorous job, but it's something and I have flexible hours. I do it well and often get praised by customers (yay morale boost) even though its sort of mindless.
The issue I have with the station manager (my boss) is that he is crooked and generally pretty bad at what he does. This primarily attributed that his primary way of managing is to avoid direct contact with employees and if he does, he expects flattery. This is reinforced by him having a habit of hiring people to work for cash (often seniors who want to earn some extra money) and others who are in precarious situations. One of my favorite anecdotes of his behavior is when he walked passed me, to tell a co-worker to tell me "close the carwash at 6". He is incapable of standing up to people face-to-face.
The issue he has with me is that I actually know the employee rights and tend to undermine him when he tries to pull fishy things.
The gist is that recently we had a scandal where the company sent him an e-mail (it was posted in our building) that someone was stealing bonus points from customers. Everyone knew who it was (woo crookedness) and this e-mail was conveniently sent a couple of weeks before the person in question (let's call him "tim") went on his 2 month vacation that he planned a while beforehand. Tim before his departure, made an agreement with most of the employees (including me) to share the days amongst us until he comes back. It saves us the trouble of training a new person to work only 2 months and the days get divided up conveniently for all involved. What instead happens, is that one of employees (that worked a single day) is given all of his days and is promoted to assistant manager. We think "whatever, easy come, easy go".
Fast forward to when Tim comes back and wants his shifts back. The manager does not want to give him original shifts back because he likes his new assistant manager, so he gives him two night shifts that we had vacant. The guy originally worked 7 shifts, so he is obviously not pleased. Though to be honest, he should be fired instead.
So I am working one of my busier shifts and the manager is in line to get his car washed. I have to leave the carwash and go to the main cashier to get a ticket redeemed. The manager calls the main cashier after I come back to say "He is taking too long to wash cars and why is he walking? Tell him that he should run. If he does not want to hurry up, I will find someone else who can." He tells this to the cashier who cannot leave her booth and has no way of contacting me. She tells him that and asks him to tell whatever grievance he has with me personally.
He does that. Tells me that I am washing too slowly and I am doing too many excess things. I should just get rid of cars as fast as possible and if people want rewashes, they can get one (this is a time consuming process). I tell him that the 10 seconds he wants me save per car would result in people getting worse washes (needing rewashes) and washing people cars first, then getting their ticket is a terrible idea (people sometimes don't know that they have to buy tickets beforehand and when they find out how much it will cost without gas, tend to say "I will do it later then"). I have no interest in doing a worse job for almost no benefit. He just looks at me, has a small temper tantrum and walks off.
I only later find out his "hurry up" comment. I am just dumbstruck. Over half the employees are over 60 and incapable of moving quickly. The person who works the shifts before mine is 76 for god's sake and he has a busier shift.
He is gunning to find an excuse to take some of my shifts to please Tim. He has been getting under the skin of some of the other employees as well. What pisses me off even more is that he is not going after the people who actively get complaints. That guy who works the shift before mine routinely denies people rewashes if he thinks their car is clean enough. Rewashes look bad on us and that is why I try to avoid them by not being old and awful.
In all fairness, I see my boss maybe once a month and he generally avoids me thankfully. I am just getting sick and tired of his antics.
What is the best way to deal with my boss? I not am trying to go the vindictive route, but there are great stories of people, before leaving the station, causing all sorts of havoc.
EDIT: Grammar!
Lurk on
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Seriously. Its an unskilled labor position - a carwashing gig.
You might get advice thats gonna tell you to go over his head and complain to the powers that be, or contact the state about him creating a hostile work environment, but in all reality, the best move for you personally is to quit.
Most upper management in retail is going to protect the status quo in their managerial staff - someone has to usually mess up big time in order to be let go. They believe that the structure of the organization must be maintained above some of the petty disputes that occur in an retail environment. This is why you will see people who are in the wrong get backing from the district/regional manager. It isnt about fair, its about getting X work achieved with Y measurements. If the manager has that, then he's good enough.
Make some plans and hop to a new job.
the fact that you give him more grief than his other employees and are (to him) harder to deal with... but still he keeps you employed.... means that he finds some value in you working there or is just to scared to fire you.
most likely he finds some value in having someone that isn't 80 years old working at his car wash.
the real question is, do you want to figure out how to deal with a boss who's riding you, or do you feel underappreciated and want to move to a different job that appreciates your talents more? career advice or people advice. which do you want?
either way, you should not be causing any sort of havok.
I need advice on how to deal with superiors when their heads are not screwed in properly.
My usual response to him is to give him a cold stare and then tell him how he is wrong. I got into the habit of doing that because he tried pulling shit on me soon after since I started working there. He tried not paying me holiday pay and when that didn't work, tried to pay me the student wage when I was older than 18 (and not in high school anymore). I didn't like that he purposefully kept an outdated copy (by two decades) of the employee rights handbook either.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
wait it out and then get a new job.
You're in school. At this point your options are smile and nod and silently laugh with a "LOL Fuck you! You bitter incompetant goosey car wash manager", or quit.
For the love of God break out of this habit now before you get a real job. If you pulled that shit on me, it wouldn't matter if I was so wrong they made me the mayor of Wrongtown, you would be fired pretty much immediately.
As far as advice for dealing with a difficult boss, it just varies from case to case. In this case, he's not going to respond to reason, and as little as you're seeing him, there's really no reason to go out of your way to associate with him. You need to avoid letting yourself get involved in the petty drama of your work. Nobody cares if the manager of a carwash is a little corrupt, the world will keep spinning regardless. "Mind your own business" is great advice in the face of a lot of work drama.
I used to think this but to be honest this is BS. Don't get me wrong LOTS of jobs you will deal with a silly goose boss or co-worker. But you can find a job where everyone is great to work with and I'll tell you what, it makes your job a hell of a lot easier and more pleasurable.
You are not helping the situation by trying to always tell him how wrong he is. Doesn't matter if he's wrong or not he is the one who hires and fires and to be honest if I had some kid who always gave me grief and always tried to prove me wrong I would fire him in a heart beat.
Your not working for big dollars and your not saving the whales, your washing cars, find something else.
I do really need to beak the habit. Maybe my next boss won't try to pay me less illegally right out of the gate.
*sigh*
I will try to stay under the radar for the two months. I should technically be save unless some big drama happens in regards to Tim.
If you don't need him for a reference, then just go to work and do your job. You can make the most of your time left at this job, or you can stress yourself out by trying to one-up someone who you can't beat. He's the boss, you're the guy with the hose and washcloth.
The way I see your situation you have 2 options.
1) This is the smarter of the two options, find another job as soon as possible, and once you have one quit. As was stated earlier, there is little to no chance of this guy getting fired so the situation is not likely to improve. In addition to this you dont want to stick around because when there's shady buisness practices going on there's always blame to spread around. cash could be missing from the drawer, supplies could be missing, he could be reporting less car washes being done so he can skim cash off the top and not pay taxes on it. whatever it is the easiest way for him to cover it up is to blame it on someone and fire them.
2) Stick it out and try to get the guy fired. This is a bad idea, but if you choose to go this way you have to do it right. First of all, you have to keep yourself perfect, by the book employee. Secondly you need to record any unethical/illegal actions he takes. you dont need pictures or video, just make sure to write down the date, time, and any other employee's who would have witnessed the act. This is extremely important. when you talk to HR about the manager if you vaguely reference things he did "this one time" or stuff that takes place "every once and a while" or "usualy" it sounds like you've got nothing real to bring against him, but if you can say that on january 15, 17, 19, 20 and 25 he closed the store early even though there were still customers to be served, its something tangible that can be easily checked and verified. lastly dont try to report him to his boss, go through a Human Resources Department or its equivilent because they know the laws regarding this and are more likely to keep it anonymous, go about checking it out in a serious manner instead of just calling your manager up and asking if its true, and they are less likely to fire you right off the bat
once again the first option is the smart option, and the second option is likely to just be a months worth of hell with you being fired at the end.