▲ 85 r/FinalRoundAI
You Won't Give Me the Manager's Contract? No Problem, I'll Go by the Contract You Gave Me.
I used to work at a large retailer in the UK. I spent 11 years there in total and got promoted step by step until I eventually became a manager.
Getting into management wasn't exactly easy. There were countless training sessions, assessments, and a lot of time doing basically the same job without any extra money. I went through all of it and eventually got officially signed off as a manager.
When my salary went up, though, something strange happened. My new contract never appeared. I asked for it several times and kept getting the same answers: "We'll sort it out." So I waited.
About eight months later, another large retailer nearby started hiring managers. They were offering around £9k more than I was making for essentially the same role, so I applied and got the job.
After being with the same company for so long, I was pretty rusty with interviews, so I spent some time practicing beforehand. I came across interview vip while getting ready and used it to run through some questions before the interviews. It was actually helpful for getting back into the rhythm of talking about my experience.
Once I had the offer, I went in to hand in my notice. Here's where things got interesting. Managers were supposed to give six weeks' notice, while General Assistants were only required to give ten days. And the only contract I had actually signed still listed me under the General Assistant terms.
So I gave them ten days.
They were not happy. I got pulled into the office and asked why I was only giving ten days' notice when I was a manager. I explained that I'd asked repeatedly for my management contract and they never gave me one. The only contract I had signed said ten days, so that's the notice period I was following.
They were furious, but ultimately there wasn't much they could do about it. It's amazing how important paperwork suddenly becomes when it works against the company.
They had eight months to give me the correct contract. They didn't. So when it was time for me to leave, I went by the contract they actually gave me.
u/dogfish_repeats — 2 days ago
▲ 9 r/LockedIn_AI
I worked under an American manager, and honestly, I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with that work culture.
I used to work at a small law firm, and almost all the staff and managers were immigrants from English-speaking countries, except for the boss, who was American. She brought in a new office manager because he had an MBA from some random university in the States that I'd genuinely never heard of. As soon as he started, the atmosphere in the office changed. He would pressure people to stay late even though the salary wasn't anything special, and he'd make little comments about how often I went to the bathroom even though my work was always done on time, things like that. He also told me that because we were short-staffed, I had to eat lunch at my desk in case the phone rang. Legally here, they only have to give you 35 minutes for lunch, but in practice it comes down to what you're willing to put up with when you have skills people need.
The boss was also exhaustingly passive-aggressive. At one point, she basically stopped talking to me and started giving me work in this weird way, as if she were talking about me to someone else, sending an email to someone else and CC'ing me. She also made racist comments all the time. Anything that wasn't white/European/North American enough for her, she would call "rough" or "sketchy," in her words.
In the end, I was asked to attend a meeting they framed like a termination meeting, and I'm almost certain the goal was to scare me into shutting up and accepting whatever nonsense they wanted. Instead, I resigned immediately as soon as they sent me the meeting invite, because the place was giving me anxiety, and with my background I knew I could find something with better pay and less insanity. The office manager who had been trying to get rid of me suddenly got nervous when he realized they didn't have enough staff, and told me that legally I had to work the 9-day notice period. Thankfully, my doctor had no problem writing me a sick note:)
While I was there, the other person doing the same role as me was also struggling mentally, and he had told people in the shared office space that he was looking for a job. I have no idea whether he left or not, but if he did, the boss would have been in serious trouble, because she cared more about polishing her image in front of people - interviews, podcasts, LinkedIn posts, all of that - than understanding how her own work was actually being done.
I still have a job alert set up for the company on LinkedIn, and I feel a bit of satisfaction when I see that after around 14 months, my old role is still open. I had also become friends with the receptionist at the coworking office we were based in, and she told me that people in my position never stayed long, because the boss was completely unhinged and the atmosphere was awful.
Now when I do job interviews, I'm much more careful before accepting anything where the manager is from North America. They seem to have this strange belief that hiring me is some huge favor they're doing me, even though my skill set is in demand, and I'm not desperate enough to accept being treated that way again.
u/dogfish_repeats — 9 days ago