Ah, management. In our careers we will have good managers and bad managers. I, unfortunately for the moment, have a very bad manager.
I can best describe my branch manager as petty, immature, and irresponsible. There are occasions when she may appear to be polite and compassionate, but the bad generally outweighs and outnumbers the good.
Recently we lost our assistant manager for reasons that have not been revealed to me. She was someone who was patient and understanding and provided a sense of encouragement to the employees. She will be missed in our branch. As a way of letting her know that we would miss her, the tellers and customer service reps decided to get together after work Monday night to take her to dinner. Our manager was not included in the invitation.
Now, I was not able to attend this evening out with the coworkers, but I heard about it today. Apparently, at the end of the work day yesterday, someone let it slip that everyone was meeting our former assistant manager for dinner. Manager was displeased. I didn't have to be in until 1:00 this afternoon, so I missed the ensuing fireworks this morning.
Manager was obviously furious about not being included. But the reasoning for her lack of inclusion is that she is not a likable person. Thus, people don't want to hang out with her socially. However, being the petty person that she is, she complained and basically demanded that if the "team" was to have an outing after hours, that all members of the "team" are to be included. I'm sorry, but who is she to determine who any of us can and cannot spend time with off the clock? I'm fairly certain that human resources would have a problem with that little temper tantrum.
And that's exactly what it was. Generally, she has one of these tantrums about once a week. I'm not always around to witness them, but it's really awkward when I am. One of my fellow tellers has decided that from this day on, she will keep a list of the things that our manager does or does not do, whatever the case may be. This way, when things finally come to a head (which I feel certain will happen in the near future), there will be documentation of what she's doing wrong.
Other examples of what's already in the notebook:
- She chooses the monthly Saturday on which she wishes to work. Generally, the full-timers go on a cycle and work one Saturday each month. Our manager, some months ago, signed up for the first Saturdays in both November and December. Last week she realized that Halloween is the day before. Since she is planning on attending a party and getting wasted, she doesn't want to work the following day, as she plans to be hungover. But she can't switch with anyone, because the assistant manager no longer works for our bank, and the other two in-branch reps have unbreakable plans on that day. So what does she do? She complains that she can't be as immature as she wants to be because she'll have to take responsibility for her actions the next day. She then went on to declare that she was disappointed in our two reps and the fact that they were unwilling to be flexible on this issue. I should mention that they also take turns working the Saturdays that fall on three-day weekends. The manager was scheduled to work Memorial Day weekend, but had to switch because something came up. At that time, one of the reps was available to work. But it was determined that it would still count as the manager's three-day weekend, not the rep's.
-Another example of immaturity appears in the form of one of our clients. There is a local business owner who, for one reason or another, our manager does not like. It's a personal issue by this point. It isn't about whether they have accounts in poor standing, she just takes personal joy whenever something bad happens to them. On one occasion, she came out of her office visibly giddy over the fact that this business owner had been sued over something. Would you consider it unprofessional to walk into the lobby with a smile on your face and announce to your employees that one of your regular clients is in legal turmoil? I'm pretty sure it is.
There are many other examples listed, and I'm sure there will be more to come. I was remarking after work today that she shows all the maturity of a ten-year-old. But then I thought about the Greenes' oldest son and realized that I'm giving my manager far too much credit.
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