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Warning: this is a long post. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I'm not about to touch the poop in E/N - please tell me if there is somewhere else I should ask this. I work for a company with 15 employees. It is a computer company that is open 24/7/365. I am the manager on nights / weekends (I work graveyard, midnight-9AM). The day shift manager is my boss, and the owners work remotely and only come to the office perhaps 2-3 times a month. I am often left in charge of the entire company when the bosses go away for the weekend. They give me their satphone number and say call if there is a massive problem. My judgement alone is what goes on night shift when they are not around. I am not 100% sure of my title however I am the guy they trust the company to on nights when the bosses are asleep; I have the ability to call people in to work, etc, and when they go out of town it's just me calling the shots. I am having a problem with a fellow employee. This guy has been my friend for a long time and has worked there longer than me (5 years as opposed to my 3yrs). He is semi-management I guess (we dont really have titles in such a small company). He routinely comes in about 1.5-2hrs late to work which the bosses seem to tolerate when I mentioned it (the only issue with him I have previously reported to them, and only once - which resulted in the bosses saying "DU -HAST SAID..." which caused a conflict about a year ago, though no change in behavior). He then goes directly to sleep. When you ask him a question, ie "hey where is this" or "hey can you do this" he gets aggressive and angry at the mere request and rarely does it, to the point that it is just easier to let him sleep. Something important to note: this guy is pretty close to the day shift manager, who is essentially the Fuhrer of the company - what he says, goes (and the bosses always agree with him). I absolutely respect this guy as well, and would do anything and everything he says; if he said to the bosses that they should fire me I would agree with his judgement - that's how much I (and literally all other employees) respect the day manager. That said we are buddies, I really like(d) this guy though he is essentially a giant douche. My problem is this: Yesterday, I asked him a question "hey where is this switch so that I can plug a cable from it to this device". He said "somewhere near <location> (and gave the wrong location) and its the last plug on this switch". I asked him to clarify and he said just look, its the last plug on this switch (without giving the details). I said "Well can you show me". This is where things get weird. He said "quit acting like a loving bitch" (and not jokingly). He continued to berate me ("you're lazy, trying to get me to do all the work, etc" - despite having come in 1.5hrs late and gone directly to sleep). I told him "Hey please do not call me a bitch, that word is kinda off limits for me". He continued to call me a bitch and said "gently caress you for $20 I'll show you, but you've gotta grow some balls." This was at the end of the shift so the other guy that was there quickly and wisely beat his retreat. I did not escalate, just saying things like "hey I just need to know where this thing is located". I told him, after being called a bitch approx 10 times, "Hey look, please don't call me a bitch, that's like insulting my mother or something to me - it's off limits. Call me a shithead and then show me where this thing is." He paused for 10 seconds and said, "OK, you loving bitch." I said, come on man don't call me that. He eventually showed me where this thing was. The distance between our locatation and the item is approx 45 feet so its not like I'm asking him to march around. So we came back and I said look man let's sleep on this and talk about it tomorrow. Then I made the mistake of telling my boss "hey he's calling me a bitch, I told him to stop and that word has real meaning to me and I calmly asked him to stop calling me that - and even told him he can call me an rear end in a top hat, but that word is off limits for me". My boss then talked to him and asked him what was going on (I don't know exactly what was said) and why there was an issue going on. (The boss is remote, all of this is done through messaging applications and not face to face). So today I figured we'd smooth it over and all would be good again. Today: "Hey are we gonna talk about this or not?" I then basically said look man, you're my friend, I just would like an apology for calling me a bitch like that after I asked you to stop, then we're good to go. He proceeded then to go on a rant about how he would have not interaction with me until I "grow a loving pair" "stop acting like a bitch and I won't call you one" and quit "snitching to the boss and be a man." I tried yesterday to smooth this over and tried again today; I don't need this loving conflict as it interferes with my ability to do my job properly since if there is an emergency then I will need him to help, ie if a whole power strip fails and 15 servers go offline, I need him to come help me move them or be available to tell customers that we're working on the problem. I know he probably will not comply now. I feel I am really in the right on this situation; I did not call him names or say anything like that. I will admit that about 10% of the issue is that we have some similar characteristics - if you stand up and yell at me that I'm a loving lazy bitch I'm going to continue to escalate the conflict, and he is the same in this; this time I wanted to make sure that this went away and I behaved appropriately so I was polite through-and-through. Another 10% of my anger, and all 20% of this I fully admit is "my poo poo" is that he comes 2 hrs late, goes to sleep, and leaves me to do his job as well. This is normally fine but sometimes, since he's been here longer than me, I don't know where something was set up 5 years ago before I worked there and he is the only one that would, since he has been there longer. He continued to label me a snitch which I think is due to my personal relationship with one of the bosses. Sometimes I'll talk to him about dumb poo poo when he's online and nothing is going on - guns, dating life, "is a hot dog a sandwitch", and dumb poo poo. This does not stop said boss from being my boss, and the amount of flak I get for any mistakes made when they are asleep proves that. I don't think this relationship is inappropriate in any way - it's a small company (15 people spread over 3 shifts a day 7 days a week) but the relationship is EXTREMELY clearly on both sides that he is my boss first and sometimes my friend second. I explained essentially everything that I've written here to that boss today and asked him to take no action. I told him I felt disrespected by this and uncomfortable working with someone that behaves this way. I also (probably made the mistake of) said that this is the kind of thing that would result in termination anywhere I'd ever worked before. I stated that I wasn't sure what to do on this issue, that it bothered me that this was the result of the "make up". I also asked the boss to take no action since it would validate his point that I came running to them and "snitched". Currently I am at a loss as to what to do here. I need this job and can't quit. I am probably higher than (at very least equal) to him in employment status, but his work ethic is awful; his response to customer rate is about 20% of what mine is and 40% of the next lowest rate (we aren't judged by this - clients open tickets more often during the day - his shift - than night, he comes in 2 hours late (which I mentioned to the bosses once and apparently they took no action on) and does no work. What should I do here? I can't talk it out with him and going to the bosses would cause significant strife especially since it's just me, him, and another guy on the shift and its a small company - I don't want to be the guy that calls in HR to solve his issues, but I am unsure what to do. edit: to clarify, my shift is midnight-9AM, his is 5AM - 2 though he generally comes in at about 6:30 edit2: also the highly respected day manager is out with apparently an extremely bad injury - apparently he got hit by a car while on his bike or something edit3: sorry. another thing is the word bitch for me has a distinct meaning - I was gang raped multiple times when I was 20 and that word was a common theme during those incidents - he is aware of this, since I've know him for years and we've talked about life, etc du -hast fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 19, 2017 |
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Sep 19, 2017 20:20
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Hey guys Thank you for the responses - sorry I didn't return to the thread earlier. I work grave as I said so I posted this on my "Friday night" and then proceeded to wallow in a BAC .3+ stupor for a couple days. I talked to a good friend of mine who is a lawyer and he recommended two things: a) freeze the guy out. clearly he wants more conflict and, like you guys said, feels like he can walk all over me. I'm a way way way more important assest to this company than he is. That said, the bosses seem to know he's late all the time and take no action to correct this, which makes me wonder like where his connection is. He's good friends with the day manager, who, had he been here this would not have happened or gotten sorted out quicker. Anyway I'm just gonna ignore him. I'm working on my CCNA (though I already do the job) and am trying to make my escape in a few months. While it's tempting to drop all of this on the bosses desk and refuse to work with him, at this point I don't think that's too viable. b) record everything: specifically write down the time that he arrives. He's supposed to be here at 5 AM, so keep a record of all times he's late (which is gonna be every day). I can't quit at this time, though it is tempting, because this company actually likes me and treats me well (ignoing this conflict, I like the people I work for and they seem to have big plans for me). I don't want to be the one that starts the next drama - that's excatly what he wants I think. He's been here a long time and so has some sort of protection/senoirity that I am not seeing, as far as I can tell. So I'm just gonna say "hello" and then let him go to sleep and continue to do his work. I am planning on leaving this company eventually (depending on raises at the end of the year). I'm not sure if it will blow over - the first time I will be seeing him since this last incident is between 2-4 hours from now, depending on when he shows up. Also my other coworker has to leave early so it's just gonna be me + this guy. I'm just gonna hold the line for now and see where this goes - I told the bosses the whole thing but asked them to take no action since I don't want to escalate it further. Anyway the ball's in his court; I'm gonna record / video any problematic conversations with him, and see how things go. I need this job and am comfortable in it- if necessary I can hold out until I have the certification and am able to quit comfortably. The last thing I want to do is lose this job; not getting cucked by this shithead honestly comes second here. I'm 99% sure he'll gently caress up again in some way or another and hopefully the previous issue + recording times he comes in + whatever the next problem is will make a difference. Thanks for all the suggestions and if you have any more ideas on this please let me know.
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Sep 22, 2017 11:23
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Hey guys: I'm sorry that I didn't update this thread - I thought it had died and gone several pages back. The conflict simmered down and after a week it was sort of a semi-normal detente. That said, having talked to the bosses about it and no action was taken, I've been looking for another job - have two more interviews next week. It is disappointing that things had to turn out this way but I basically agree with everyone here (including the above poster) that I was viewing this as normal / something I had to cover for, rather than the actual objectively serious workplace issue that it is, and not being proactive enough in dealing with this problem. So I'm biding my time here now but not for long; had to get a certificate to increase my changes at another job place (which I did early this month). Anyway, I really appreciate all the suggestions - I think it's time to leave this place behind. I will definitely be making ta big point of this whole thing in the exit interview. I have also documented his incredible lateness to the day since this issue happened. Average is 1 hour and 42 minutes, if you are wondering  Sorry I forgot to reply, and thanks again for the suggestions, they added to the impetus to get another job that doesn't allow bullshit like this to happen.
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Dec 15, 2017 13:28
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