4. Tell us about the best and/or the worst manager you ever had, and why they were best or worst.

I almost didn’t want to do this one, mostly because if you’ve read my blog since 2018/19, you might remember this person. Plus, it’s kind of negative. But hey, let’s delve in anyway!

Ok, so let’s see if I can paint the picture here. I worked in the FSU English department from 2006-2019. It’s hard to really explain the chain of command within a university department but how it worked for me was that I was the assistant to the director of the first year program. Deborah was in charge of the classes (curriculum, etc…) that only freshmen took and she also taught the pedagogy classes for incoming grad students who taught said freshmen. I got the job right after graduating from there with my MA and props to Deborah for giving me that chance because I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing. All I had going for me was having been a grad student.

My job entailed creating all the undergrad English classes in the system (creating, picking a time for it, choosing a suitable room for the cap, etc.), ordering books, running the copy machine, and liaising with the graduate students. That was a big one before we had online onboarding because I literally sent them employment packets they had to sign and return. If Deborah wasn’t around, I had to know the answers to questions grad students had, which was a lot! My office was a very busy place most days.

Anyway, two floors above where my office was, the main office sat, where they had a front desk person, an accountant, my counterpart for graduate only classes, the department chair and his assistant, and an office manager. At first, it was Debra Brock, who I didn’t think liked me at first but we became friends. Then she retired and a woman named Carolyn came in, who was a nobody. She did her work and basically ignored everyone. When she left, they hired a very young woman – probably only 24/25 – who shared my name. She was nice at first. In fact, we ended up talking a lot because I was sort of going through a political shift myself and it turns out she was a conservative.

She became pregnant and took her leave for about 4 months. When she came back, she was a changed woman. But not in a good way! Her first order of business seemed to be reorganizing the department “rules.” To be fair, I do think the university implemented a sort of overarching department that ran that stuff. It was University Business Systems or some such nonsense, and it included little nit-picky stuff like cracking down on people taking their leave when they wanted, making sure people didn’t sit on their phones, making people take out of office lunches. I can’t even remember what she got me on first but she literally came in my office to tell me I had violated a rule. When I questioned it she was like, “Oh yeah it’s new. Here’s your writeup.” How can you get in trouble for breaking a rule when it had not even been a rule?

She did this to just about everyone though, not just me. And sadly, it kept spiraling from there. I typically worked 8-4:30 with a 30 min lunch. Deborah never cared and even said that after 4:30 TAs weren’t around anyway so it made sense. She was cool with it. And that’s one of those weird things: Deborah was my boss, technically, but the office manager still did hold sway over all admin type employees. Well, there were some other issues like this as it got time for Deborah to retire. I began to panic, too, because I could see evil manager pouncing on that opportunity. Evil manager told me no more 30 minute lunches AND I couldn’t just eat in my office AND I had to literally leave it and the building. And one time, I did this, and she was waiting by the building’s double doors for me to come back and she attacked me, saying I was 30 seconds late. Wow, I mean, this was insane.

I also used to take a half day every other Friday and Ash and I would go to a meal and a movie. This was when we had small children so it was a nice little date day. Yeah, you guessed it: she told me I couldn’t do that anymore.

Deborah went to bat for me and went to evil boss’s office to demand I get to take 30 minute lunches. Evil boss yielded but… only until Deborah finally did retire. I began working with the new guy and it was…ok. He was new and all so he didn’t get the culture there and had no frame of reference for the different dynamics within the department. I believe it was only a couple weeks after he began that evil manager moved my office! That was about the time I started to wonder if she was utilizing push-out tactics. After all, she was doing similar things to other employees. My office had always been on the second floor in the rhet/comp suite, right next to the director. Well, she moved me up to the main office in the ONE office with no window. It was pretty evident she wanted an office overhaul and was making people miserable to get them to quit.

I hated working up there; I was constantly being watched and questioned. It made me feel like the last 13 years where I had perfect scores on all my performance evaluations didn’t even matter. It got worse and worse. She took away my 8-4:30 and forced me to leave at 5. Everyone in the office would pack up around 4:50 and wait by the suite front door to go but the one time I did, I was told I was not even allowed to begin packing my stuff UNTIL 5 on the dot. Like, I really started to wonder what she had against me. I thought we had a connection and were friends. But I guess she thought a good boss was one who whipped everyone into some kinda shape. I honestly cannot figure what was stuck in her craw but she ruled with an iron fist once she got back from having that baby!

I finally got to the point where I knew I had to leave so I started putting things in place to work elsewhere and had even finally given my two weeks. You can read about the Wednesday 2 days before my last day there at this link; it’s a doozy!

I was pretty traumatized by the whole experience but so thankful i chose to do at-home work after that because only 6 months later, Covid happened and I was already acclimated and employed for it! I heard Evil Boss got promoted some time after I and about seven other people left. It goes to show how unfair the world can be but I believe she’ll get hers some day. Karma is a bitch!