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How should I handle Boss not doing his job?
PhairBall
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So first off, yes this is an alt. But I really need advice, as this is bizarro stuff I am dealing with. Apologies for the long post.
My boss, "Cory", is a volatile "silly goose" of epic magnitude. Screams at people, irrational, and a total delegator.
For the past six months, I have been doing my job, the job of the person he chased off, and his job. I can never get ahold of him, via email, mobile, or text reliably. He dumps stuff on us at the last minute (after 5) and requires it the next morning. He disappears for a week or two at a time. Everyone on the team wonders what the hell he is doing, and where he is.
We have long suspected he has another job, or is looking for one. Customers are upset, and it is hurting business. It is hurting my family, as I am forced to travel extensively, work weekends, and insanely long hours. (Last day off was Feb 27th and I am averaging about 90+ hrs a week)
I am forced to travel several hours one way to where he lives to do what he should easily be able to do, but he is always "busy". When I have asked where he is or what he is doing, he gets defensive, and starts shouting. Somehow, he has managed to keep his job, even with complaints from customers. I keep having to make excuses to these customers as well.
Here's where the bizarro kicks in.
So today, on one of the networking sites I am on, I get an update about his new business address.
Being the curious sort, and wondering if this is some sort of screw up, or that he has quit. I employ my Google-Fu.
Curiousity may not kill the cat, but it can definitely traumatize it.
I find the address, and it lists a business, not the one we work for. I google the business, and it comes up with a whois and a website. *shudder*
Not a porn site, thankfully, but it turns out Cary is having something of a midlife crisis, and has decided he would rather be Carrie. Not what I wanted to see here. I was thinking Amway, or Real Estate or something.
Not a forced feminization, and transgender site/business.
Before the "Silly Goose" comments come out.
My uncle is gay. I could care less what Carrie/Cary does in his free time. Be it guys, girls, or machinery, whatever floats his/her boat, and as long as it does not impact me or mine? More power to Carrie.
But the problem is, it is severely negatively affecting me, my family, coworkers, and the business with an unfair, unreasonable workload, while Carrie is off marching in parades, and clubbing. If Carrie wants to discover herself, cool, but do it on personal time, and not business.
So here is the real problem. Carrie is an OK person for the most part, (we all have our flaws) and has recently gone through a divorce in the past year. He is a little unbalanced, and while my first instinct was to call the HR Hotline, several things came up.
1. How in the hell do I report this?
2. What would be the impact on Carrie? He tends to get loud, and I have been in the car when he starts shouting at people or co workers. I don't want him to go psycho on me, nor do I want to ruin the person's life. I don't know if this was the reason he got divorced, or if it is a result of the divorce. He has kids, and if it affected him being able to see/support his kids, I would feel horrible. Not to mention if he commits suicide or something else similar.
3. Even if I say nothing, I am still going to feel odd being around Cary when we do interact.
I have been agonizing over this all night, and really don't know what to do.
Some options I have considered:
1. Call it in as him having another job, and just tell them to google the company name.
2. Tell a coworker to google up the company name, and let them deal with it, or at least get their opinion. (not a preferred option, as it seems pretty manipulative and chicken shit)
3. Telling the coworker who left, and letting him get some revenge on Carrie, who played a large role in ruining former coworkers relationship.
4. Talking to Boss, and calling him on the BS. (worry it could come across as blackmail, or a threat which he would negatively respond to.)
5. Ignoring the whole thing, and playing Ostrich.
What the hell should I do? I swear this sounds like some sitcom plot. I honestly thought it was an April fools' thing at first, but there is way too much of Carrie out there dating back at least several months.
tldr; boss is dumping his responsibilities to discover fem side, worried he will go postal or worse if turned in.
My boss, "Cory", is a volatile "silly goose" of epic magnitude. Screams at people, irrational, and a total delegator.
For the past six months, I have been doing my job, the job of the person he chased off, and his job. I can never get ahold of him, via email, mobile, or text reliably. He dumps stuff on us at the last minute (after 5) and requires it the next morning. He disappears for a week or two at a time. Everyone on the team wonders what the hell he is doing, and where he is.
We have long suspected he has another job, or is looking for one. Customers are upset, and it is hurting business. It is hurting my family, as I am forced to travel extensively, work weekends, and insanely long hours. (Last day off was Feb 27th and I am averaging about 90+ hrs a week)
I am forced to travel several hours one way to where he lives to do what he should easily be able to do, but he is always "busy". When I have asked where he is or what he is doing, he gets defensive, and starts shouting. Somehow, he has managed to keep his job, even with complaints from customers. I keep having to make excuses to these customers as well.
Here's where the bizarro kicks in.
So today, on one of the networking sites I am on, I get an update about his new business address.
Being the curious sort, and wondering if this is some sort of screw up, or that he has quit. I employ my Google-Fu.
Curiousity may not kill the cat, but it can definitely traumatize it.
I find the address, and it lists a business, not the one we work for. I google the business, and it comes up with a whois and a website. *shudder*
Not a porn site, thankfully, but it turns out Cary is having something of a midlife crisis, and has decided he would rather be Carrie. Not what I wanted to see here. I was thinking Amway, or Real Estate or something.
Not a forced feminization, and transgender site/business.
Before the "Silly Goose" comments come out.
My uncle is gay. I could care less what Carrie/Cary does in his free time. Be it guys, girls, or machinery, whatever floats his/her boat, and as long as it does not impact me or mine? More power to Carrie.
But the problem is, it is severely negatively affecting me, my family, coworkers, and the business with an unfair, unreasonable workload, while Carrie is off marching in parades, and clubbing. If Carrie wants to discover herself, cool, but do it on personal time, and not business.
So here is the real problem. Carrie is an OK person for the most part, (we all have our flaws) and has recently gone through a divorce in the past year. He is a little unbalanced, and while my first instinct was to call the HR Hotline, several things came up.
1. How in the hell do I report this?
2. What would be the impact on Carrie? He tends to get loud, and I have been in the car when he starts shouting at people or co workers. I don't want him to go psycho on me, nor do I want to ruin the person's life. I don't know if this was the reason he got divorced, or if it is a result of the divorce. He has kids, and if it affected him being able to see/support his kids, I would feel horrible. Not to mention if he commits suicide or something else similar.
3. Even if I say nothing, I am still going to feel odd being around Cary when we do interact.
I have been agonizing over this all night, and really don't know what to do.
Some options I have considered:
1. Call it in as him having another job, and just tell them to google the company name.
2. Tell a coworker to google up the company name, and let them deal with it, or at least get their opinion. (not a preferred option, as it seems pretty manipulative and chicken shit)
3. Telling the coworker who left, and letting him get some revenge on Carrie, who played a large role in ruining former coworkers relationship.
4. Talking to Boss, and calling him on the BS. (worry it could come across as blackmail, or a threat which he would negatively respond to.)
5. Ignoring the whole thing, and playing Ostrich.
What the hell should I do? I swear this sounds like some sitcom plot. I honestly thought it was an April fools' thing at first, but there is way too much of Carrie out there dating back at least several months.
tldr; boss is dumping his responsibilities to discover fem side, worried he will go postal or worse if turned in.
PhairBall on
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that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Everything he is required to do, gets done, just not by him.
if they're not willing to do anything then nothing can change, and your best bet is to leave the company. that might be hard to swallow, but a work life like this is only going to hurt you in the long run and the sooner you tear off the bandaid the better. if you had to leave, mention that you'd be happy to return assuming something has changed regarding your supervisor - it sounds like once you're gone, he'll be out soon after, since you're taking on his burden
If so, you could show those hours to HR, perhaps make them see that it's already costing them money, and dangerously overworking an employee.....
"The boss is secretly a transperson" isn't going to get you any response either (not the one you want, anyway.) If everyone in your office is collaborating to cover for him, well... maybe you should stop doing that.
edit: what you should do is go to HR and say 'these are the days he has been absent, this is the work/shifts/travel/whatever that I personally have been asked to handle on his behalf. Then ask them what sort of resolution is possible. They don't care about his personal life any more than you do.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This.
As long as he isn't his own boss at least (at which point the only solution is to quit or confront)
Also, do keep in mind that, "Someone else said something and nothing happened," is a typical complaint that people make everywhere. The problem with this type of thinking is that it defers responsibility of your work environment to someone else, and it's not reasonable to expect anyone with a legitimate amount of authority to do anything significant based on the complaints of one or two people. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to appoint the fool. You need to also say something to, at the very least, legitimize the opinions of others. Then if everyone is saying the same thing and nothing happens, you'll have a real reason to have doubts about the process.
If you reach a point where you and others have made repeated, reasonable appeals to HR/senior leadership with sufficient proof, and nothing comes of it, then I would suggest you look for work elsewhere or transfer to another environment. Given the economy, that's a bit difficult, but you never know what will happen. It never hurts to ask around (discreetly).
PS - Don't bring up the transgender thing. Just make it clear that his behavior at work is unacceptable.
The company shouldn't care that he's apparently transgendered, but they should care that his personal life is his top priority even during business hours.
It's a tough situation, but you've got some good advice already. Document everything. Try to see if you have emails, overtime payment records, whatever it takes to show that you're being overworked to compensate for his choices.
And don't let the lashing out slide either. If he's yelling at people on a regular basis (using anger and intimidation against coworkers and others) it's worth noting as well.
I'm not an HR man myself, but such actions are inexscuable in my opinion, and I'd hope that your HR department would feel the same.
Secondly, stop doing his work, do only work that's covered it your contract. Go to HR and tell them that your boss is delegating things that aren't your responsibility and are severely impacting your work, and your responsibilities.
Lastly, start looking for a new job. Jobs like this usually don't go away, and he's probably got significantly more pull than you do. If your situation doesn't get resolved by HR, start looking.
Document the times he's not available. Develop a pattern. Document other people doing specific tasks on his behalf... especially things they aren't authorized to stand in for. Then, turn it over to HR/his boss.
That's all you can do.
Don't go anywhere near his sex life. That will get turned around on you in a heartbeat. The only exception I could see making is if he's marching in parades when he's supposed to be at work and he hasn't been given time off. We got someone on that once... wasn't a pride parade, but another parade. She called in sick. She was in the fucking paper the next day. On the front page. Giant photo. We taped it to her door. Moron.
Seriously man. There may be some reconciliation in the end, but not at the price of your sanity.
See that's the the reason this is so weird. If he was doing this on his own time, really would not care. The problem, and what would get him fired is the fact that he is running a separate fairly time intensive business, during work hours. It just so happens, it's his feminization business. I also am not sure if I should tell my coworkers, because quite frankly, some of them are vocally anti gay. So if they find out *KABOOM!*.
But if I don't tell them what is going on, they are just going to keep complaining, and not really doing anything.
Like I said, if he was running some other business, I would just send the link off to corporate, and and the coworkers, and be done with it. But this could have some very severe repercussions to the person.
Face to Face with this guy is hard, as we work remotely, he is in another city, and I haven't seen him in over 6 months. When I have been in his city, it is to cover for him being "out of town" on business. Which going onto his twitter page, corresponds with his other business...
And is not at all where he is responsible for, or even supposed to be.
Mention that you don't care about his personal life but if he's on the companies paid time to do whatever it is the hell he's doing, I doubt it'd sit well with anyone. Regardless of what he's doing, he just shouldn't be doing anything that isn't his job he's getting paid for during that time.
Though, it'd be pretty funny. This is a pretty common, but serious, thing to get sued for unless it's been okay-ed by the boss and HR.
Listen, if you put it out there that he's undergoing a sex change, you're making a huge case for your company to not fire him/her due to discrimination lawsuits and bad PR for the company if they are sued/accused of discriminating against him/her. The only way to handle this is to document everything.
I have a few questions for you. 1) Are you being compensated for gas/mileage on these trips that are necessary to do his work? 2) If work is coming to you on a short or bad timeframe due to his/her ineptness, have you made note of it and can you prove that his/her ineptness resulted in unhappy customers? 3) Are you at a point in your career and in a location that can facilitate you changing jobs?
Confronting him/her about the other job and/or sex change is a bad idea because it provides him/her warning of your documentation and also decreases the company's plausible deniability in the case of a wrongful termination lawsuit. If you do confront him or her about the professional problems he/she is having, be calm, bring up specific instances that have caused you to do his job and times you have been personally inconvenienced on your time due to his/her ineptness. Record this conversation with a small MP3 player with a built in mic or small audio recording device. If he/she verbally abuses you, you'll have a clear record of what you said and what he/she said. You will want to check to make sure that such a recording is legal to do in your state (many states prohibit recording without consent of both in the case of phone conversations but not in the case of face-to-face). Do not lose your temper. Do not mention your knowledge of his/her personal life/business, and do not back down because he/she starts yelling.
You seem to have some irrational fear of being yelled at by this person. Every time he or she loses it, they are making themselves a target for employment termination, especially if it is in front of customers.
Oh, and stop covering up for him/her with customers. Don't fall on your sword for this idiot. Simply apologize for the wrong, and rectify it, while recording the instance for future reference with HR.
It took my father's company two years to get rid of this Silly Goose who made a completely baseless discrimination claim that he decided to sue for $TEXAS.
Outing your boss to HR will only gum up the works and is a dick move.
My advice would be to stop doing his work. If he asks you to do his work, politely decline and tell him that you are really swamped right now with your own work. Heck, I would probably call in sick for a week straight, and let him flounder while I looked for another job, or go to a doctor and go out on short term disability for stress. But I would also leave an anonymous note that the boss is running another business on company time instead of doing his own work.
I understand that you don't want to ruin his life, but he made his choices, not you. Any repurcussions would be based on his actions, not yours. He is being negligant of his responsibilites, and should have resigned. Toss that silly goose under the bus.
Every time he pushes his work on you. Every hour of overtime you work. Every time he acts unprofessional (screaming and acting irrational is unprofessional). Every customer complaint. Give them the new business address and let them Google it themselves. (Don't mention what the address leads to; just that it's a possible conflict of interest, especially if your company has a "non-compete agreement".)
Present it to HR. Then let them do what needs to be done.
And if nothing is done? Call your local labor department.
This is what you SHOULD have limed.
The fact that your boss is coming to terms with being transgender could very well be causing these problems. And saying "I'm fine with it" and then following it up with comments like "while Carrie is off marching in parades, and clubbing" is fairly bogus. Saying you have a gay uncle buys you no cred.
Your comments to HR should ONLY entail the fact your boss is failing his job and/or making your work life bad. If you are foolish enough to bring the transgender issue into it, if your boss is fired as a result and sues your company and/or you, then I would suggest not whining, as that is your fault.
And before you say "Oh I AM understanding/etc" then why even bring up the transgender thing at all? It is 100% none of your business. All you should need to do is talk to HR about the fact he isn't doing his job. Fullstop.
Those are things that should be reported after some proof-gathering
"No proof?!" Everyone on the team knowing he is AWOL and being pissed about it isn't "proof"?
What the fuck does HR want?
Seems to me like you need to have a group effort on this.
Also, don't mention the sex-change stuff, that's not the problem.
I mean if he is putting everything out there as a business, I don't think he is too intent on hiding it.
I'd say, go to him, try to deal with it person to person and THEN go to HR. Document EVERYTHING (not the non-work issues) and go to HR.
As I understood the op the reason he brought it up is because the dude/dudette is running a business around 'feminization' when he/she should be at his/her job with subby doing his/her own work.
The problem Neville had with the post was that the guy was being super ignorant what with the "going out clubbing/parades" and the "I have a gay uncle" comment. Having a gay uncle has nothing to do whatsoever with anybody being transgendered.
Exactly.
He is not the most calm or reasonable guy to deal with.
A good example you say?
My wife was 9 months pregnant, a major hurricane was expected to hit that Friday night, and he was complaining that I was not answering my phone immediately, and that I hadn't turned in a report that he had to have in the following Monday. After securing as much of my home as possible, I stayed up late and finished the report and submitted it. During the night, the hurricane hit, wiping out power, phone, water, and blocking and flooding most of the roads. I had $35k+ of damage done to my house. Temperatures were in the 100s+, and we had no air conditioning. (Anyone who has ever been pregnant, or known a pregnant woman, would understand hot! = unhappy pregnant person) Seriously thought my wife was going to go into labor.
My boss left a loud cell phone message at 7AM that morning, complaining about the lack of detail on the report, and saying I had to get it finished, or he would fire me.
I managed to get a hold of him, and explained the whole, no anything! situation to him. He told me to suck it up, and find somewhere with power and internet access to get the report turned in.
I am just glad he was several hours away, or I probably would have beat the silly silly silly silly goose with a tire iron.
So having calm and rational talks with the silly goose are really not viable, due to a history of actions such as this.
Explain to that boss that the responsibilities they are assigning you aren't part of your duties, OR if you feel threatened by that boss, go to the boss above him and tell them.
If you want to mention what you found out about him running another business on the side, go ahead, don't say "he's running a tranny-fetish porn site" but say something like "My LinkedIn/whatever account said he'd updated his work address and its to somewhere thats not here. I googled it and it looks like he's assigning his work to his subordinates and then leaving to run his own business."
I disagree on the 'nobody cares what he's doing with that time. If he's depressed, sick, having a hard time with the family life or whatever else then I can cut someone some slack and pitch in. If they are using you to make money for them, which he is because the OP is doing his job for him so that his boss can go make more money by doing another job, then he deserves no slack and should receive the consequences of his actions.
Basically, keep the complaint strictly to the necessary information. It isn't 'chicken-shit' to complain, and its not homophobic/transgenderphobic to complain if you keep it simple and stay to the basic information, but that doesn't mean they won't accuse you of it even if you technically didn't say anything wrong. If they ask what type of business, simply ask them to google it and say you don't feel comfortable saying it.
The HR guy probably does not know, because all the work is getting done.
The fact is if you're unhappy with someone who is not going to change, you need to analyize the fairness of the situation (you've done that and concluded it's unfair to you).
Then you need to decide what action you require and who can help you with it. Then you need to convince that person to take that action.
Ask the highest placed HR person you can access to make a time to meet with you, just to hear your concerns. Show them your conciencious documentation of his absenteeism and abusiveness. Tell them he's running a business on their time and travel. If this doesn't work, directly approach someone outside of the HR chain but above them in the company. I guarantee your company's top level team doesn't endorse this behavior. (The business and the travel manipulation and the employee abuse, not the transition)
I mean, it's really cool you're sensitive to not outing him, but if it's googlable and given that it greatly alters his public bearing, it must not matter to him that it's out there and he must not be averse to attaching it to his "real" identity. It also means you have a barometer for evaluating your HR's actual investment in investigation - they should find it on their own as fast as you did. So, in other words, you don't need to worry about outing him.
I always have problems with issues like these because I tend to end them earlier than most h/a posters
I host a podcast about movies.
Really? That's what people were saying? Did you read the thread, because it doesn't sound like you did.
What people SAID was people should tell the HR that Carrie isn't doing her job and to leave the transgendered issues out of it.
Yes, Neville, several people clearly said the solution was to start looking for a new job because his HR should have figured it out already. Post 4 and 12, which, in fairness, isn't "everybody" - but it made up more of the thread when I started typing. And to be fair, I didn't suggest he use the man's sexuality as blackmail, I answered his actual question of "should I worry about outing him in the course of complaining about this."
He also said that an unsubstantiated complaint hadn't gotten results and he wants to know how to most tactfully supply that proof, when the supervisor's trans status is central to the business he's moonlighting with.
His concern is that he cannot leave the "transgendered issue" out of it, because the transgendered issue is very central to the other business. It will thus clearly be discovered quickly if HR looks into the issue. The decision to complain is tatamount to the decision to out, whether he leaves it out of his own presentation (as I personally feel he should) during the complaint or not. Simply saying "YOU don't mention it" covers his ass legally, but it doesn't fully address the question he asked, which is effectively, "Must I let this man abuse me over concerns about his privacy?"
My answer is that it's the obvious source of the workplace disruption, it's transparently discoverable and he need not walk on eggshells to keep it secret. He should not attempt to "use" it, nor should he act without tact, but he need not withhold his complaint for fear of revealing it.
I host a podcast about movies.