Ask Lemmy

I have never quit a job. I have, however, quit managers.

Changing jobs is stressful. You never know the shitshow you're walking into, so I have to have a boss terrible enough that pretty much anything is a step up before I quit.

Hell no. Your manager has a direct influence over your wellbeing, and the wellbeing of your family, by way of being able to demand things of you, with a power differential that lets them hold your employment over your head. You really want your manager to be on your side. There is no way I would step into a role where the manager wasn't agreeable, unless the pay was so good I could quit at any time and be undoubtedly better off financially than I am right now, as in needing like double pay.

​I worked with a manager who lived by the rule "everyone is replaceable"! Whenever conflict happened between employees, he would simply let them go, or fire one of them, instead of trying to resolve the conflict, completely ignoring the team chemistry and the dynamic they had built, as well as the time it would take to hire and train someone new from scratch. Sometimes, he’d even pull someone from a completely different department just to fill the gap. He didn't believe in specialization at all! To him, anyone could be dumped into any position, it's as simple as that!

I used to work for a manager who treated employees as worse than expendable. He was known for picking someone every year or so to fire on BS pretenses just to remind everyone else they could be fired. It didn't matter if you were the one who licked his boots clean after his trip to the latrine yesterday. He'd fire you just to create fear. No one stuck around.

Yuuup, had a manager that brought the whole team in for a meeting right before we got switched to 12 hour shifts with 0 notice, said out loud to the room that we were all replaceable

Certainly made giving notice easy 😂 why should I worry about documenting anything or KT to other workers, I’m replaceable, replace me

That manager was a piece of work, kept getting on me about my ‘challenging facial expressions’ during meetings, and that time he blew up me for daring to take a nap in one of the nap rooms 🙄

Every job I've ever had.

Maybe. It depends if you have an exit strategy.

I once was a customer advocate for a big hosting company. Most of my supervisors were fine but one kept telling the employees to find ways to reduce claims, even if the customer was right and we didn't respect our SLAs. I pushed the issue a bit but he ended up replying with the French expression "tu ne vivras pas d'amour et d'eau fraîche" (you will not subsist on love and water), meaning that I needed money, a job, and that I should do what he's telling me to do.

So I went on my lunch break, composed a resignation letter and sent it. When I came back from lunch, that supervisor was incredulous. "You're not serious, are you?" It was indeed not a good financial decision for me, but I simply went back to my previous employer, whom I left in good terms.

Now it's a decadeater, I have another job with a big company that's trying to force everyone back to the office, even if your doing desk work. I don't have to deal with this, am overqualified, and my supervisors know that I will probably find something else before being forced into useless commuting.

All this to say, I'd avoid it if possible, but if they are really that short handed, and I keep in mind that this may/will not last, I might also try for a while. It really depends on how much trouble all this would be personally for me.

Most jobs I have had, we are expendable. I worked in the customer service rep industry.

Would you work for a manager like this? Because some coworkers want me to apply to work for this guy. I’m not asking because I need this job, but because it’s always good to know what other options you have.

Honestly, only if I knew I could get the manager back somehow, e.g immediately transferring to a different workplace so he's shorthand, or creating an exposé on him.

Why do your coworkers want you to work for him?

Yes. The manager was fired because all the useful people were suddenly no longer with the company.

I used to work for a skip-level manager who openly expressed that he would not approve spending corporate funds on employee certifications, but he would approve spending money on training. He believed that employees who got the certs were more likely to take the knowledge outside the company, while those with only the knowledge were more incentivized to stay.

I exited that company less than a year later, the company itself was bankrupt less than 3 years later.

Why are they telling you what to do in the first place. Maybe you're terrible coworker hahaha! But for real, I'd only do it for the cheating. Being a slack, not caring shit, and getting paid. Surely not your thing. Then don't.

Only when I had a summer job at a large corporate place. Even then, I didn't feel personally subjected to poor management.

I did have a manager who probably wanted everyone to be easily replaceable.