Bullies: Where Are They Now?
You remember the bully that pushed around on the playground back in grade school? The same that later would take your lunch money in junior high? Same one that would pick on you about the one girl you actually got the courage up to talk about kind of sort of seeing as a girlfriend. And then in all of those cases, if confronted with any authority, regardless of teacher, principal, or the girl in question would not hesitate to lie and claim the story as it happened was actually the opposite of what really took place. Ever wonder where that person is today? I think I have found them.
I have more than a few friends who for various reasons work in places like the retail box stores across this fine country. That is not a bad thing. It is honest work and honestly work that I would generally not be good at doing. It is thankless generally, perhaps as a shelf stocker, or customer service counter, or the checkout at the cash register – not the mention the various specialties from photography desk, key maker, or cake decorator. The first time I had a potential customer throw a fit in my direction about something that was totally beyond my ability to do anything about I would be in a pissing contest with them and giving them what for especially if I was already having a bad day.
Anyway, over the various years as I have known folks in those kind of positions, the stories I have heard (and some of them I have been privy to enough first hand information and site to know for sure it happened) gives me full insight to what the bullies from my youth are doing now. They are the middle management at the box stores from the big ones like Wal-Mart to the smaller ones like the Dollar Store and it seems every one of them in between.
Some examples of things that I have heard about include the follow:
- One manager knocking over shelves of goods and hitting an employee, followed by then writing the entry-level employee up for the incident, said incident in this case was caught on video and later remedied, but only after the employee made a big stink to the corporate offices.
- Managers making sure to schedule themselves off for maximum days off during the weekend (understandable and perhaps justified) but who are unwilling to work through the schedule (when there are plenty of employees to do it) and give them even two days off in a row.
- Another employee who was told lie about someone else or be prepared to lose your position to someone else.
- More the one incident where manager just could flat be a bully about a given situation and used a write-up, even if blatantly false, to justify it or keep it under wraps later.
- Manager who would not order sufficient stock for the shelves, but then blamed employees for the problem of not stocking correctly when no dog food of certain brands was to be found.
Obviously the behavior would not reflect well on the corporate offices, but most of it is kept very hushed. And especially for someone in such a position, they are not apt to typically rock the boat very much for just such a fear of reprisal and possibly even a loss of a job that usually very needed. I think in some cases, often maybe, the corporate offices actually prefer mid-level managers of such a nature as it keeps full-time employees below to a minimum – instead using mostly part timers who are in and out a lot, thus also keeping pay closer to the starting typical minimum wage with out the overhead of many benefits.
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