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Work Politics: What's the worst you've ever experienced?

SketchMaster

SketchMaster

Diamond Member
Politics are everywhere you find more than one person occupying the same space; that is a fact. You need to have tact, know temperaments or likes and dislikes when talking to people. Understanding how to manage people in all directions is an important skill needed to be successful. That being said, there is a line between politics (normal ebb and flow of human emotions) and drama (power struggles, ego stroking, vindictiveness)

I've been at my company for three years, in that time I've watched people get their bosses fired, plenty of people get thrown under buses, and a member of upper leadership walked out after being pinned as a scapegoat for a bad deal no one wanted to be at fault for. Drama is nothing new to me but I've tried my best to keep out of it and stay in my space.

Yesterday, I found myself sitting in a meeting room listening to a small group of people gleefully talking like they were in Game of Thrones. Who's favor they'd have to win, who to play dumb with, how to skirt around rules, etc... That was my tipping point. In that moment I realized "This is insane, I need to find a new job before I live long enough to become one of these people or get caught in the crosshairs.".

Politics are everywhere, but what's the worst you've ever seen and how did it affect you?
 
Oh man - I worked at a toxic place a while back. VPs straight up yelling at each other in front of subordinates at meetings, using promotions to consolidate business units to squeeze out people who didn't agree with their clique's viewpoint that type of stuff. I kept my head down and avoided most of it for a few years as a low level underling. 2.5 year in I was used as a scapegoat by my manager without knowing about it until the CIO chose to yell at me during an all dept meeting. I had no idea what she was even talking about because I hadn't ever been involved with the situation being discussed. But my boss was part of her clique and so he was backed over me even though it was his mistake. She said I either had to take a pay cut or make it an HR issue. Most people in the dept were afraid of the CIO so they were surprised when I said "Ok, I'll go talk to HR then." Long story short I had CYA ingrained in me by my previous job and education (architecture due to litigation concerns) so my case was pretty easy to win. (It helped that my boss was kind of an idiot and forgot that our exchange server held all logs for several years). The downside was that winning it involved a shouting match between the VP of HR and the CIO (who already disliked eachother) so I knew I needed to find another job.

Lots of other stories but the result the lack of politics is one of the reasons I am still at my current job. I could make more elsewhere but, after 2.5 years here, I've found very little politics within much of the company. There's some but its child's play compared to what I've had to deal with in the past. Probably helps that its a crazy low stress job esp for IT
 
My employer also employs a brother, two nephews, an adopted sister and her husband, and a brother in law of the owner and CEO. It's not ideal.
 
True and pretty good story.

I got canned from a job in marketing at a magazine publisher so one of the heads of marketing could hire his long term mistress in my place. They were both married, with kids.

People that were there longer than me and knew him well told me he'd been trying to get her in there for awhile. So I had come there with a purchase of a few magazines by this publisher. My job was event coordinating and event promotion/management. Turns out that was her background as well. So he now had a perfect job to fit her into. It was a boys club there, the VP of Sales/Marketing, Director of Marketing, and this other dude high up in Marketing were all buddy buddy. So they set me up and got me fired. People didn't like them much but liked me so hence the warnings and support. Unfortunately these people were not in positions of power to help save my job.

But luckily I knew what was up due to being warned and seeing the signs. So for over a month I'd been running my outlook email client off of an external drive I brought to and from work. IT had no other backup of my emails. When they canned me they didn't have security escort me to my desk to get my shit so I took all my paper files and distributed them around a few cans outside of our department. I then unplugged my hard drive, took my shit, said my goodbyes and left.

I had good colleagues there that I'd bonded with and they told me that later that day when they went to my desk to find my files and check my emails, the guys who canned me couldn't find shit and were freaking out. I was pretty good at my job so there was plenty of data missing from the last 5-6 weeks of working I'd done, planning for months of events. They never asked me where it went.

The event I was coordinating? A year and change later the large corporate sponsor didn't renew the contract so that was done. It was a big contract for this smaller-ish publisher. The mistress that replaced me? She didn't last either much past a year, and my ex colleagues told me she was a mess while she was there too. The guy who had the mistress who instigated this whole thing? He got fired a little over a couple years later, for basically doing nothing at work.
 
Virtually none, but that's by design. I've made much less money than I could have by jumping to a bigger company, and from one job to another, but I like regularity, and little bullshit. I'm ok with my choices.
 
My company is relatively good but you can see that they've built a "cult" like following out of their company "culture" with many of the lifers. Most of the younger people see right through it and know that the company in the end doesn't give a f about you and is only out for themselves.
 
AznAnarchy99 said:
My company is relatively good but you can see that they've built a "cult" like following out of their company "culture" with many of the lifers. Most of the younger people see right through it and know that the company in the end doesn't give a f about you and is only out for themselves.
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Same at my current employer. Though, I hear they used to have a great set of morals and ethics ~15-20 years ago. Slowly the "old guard" settled into their roles and built their little empires, leaving no room for anyone to move up within the company. No one gets promoted in this company without a group vote from leadership, so if they don't like you they can keep you at a junior level for years. I know a guy that has lead projects on a senior level many times. Got turned down for a promotion from Junior to Professional for the 2nd time. Most people give up after building up their resume enough to jump ship, leaving an empty spot for months because the company doesn't want to pay what someone is worth. "You're a DBA that knows Oracle? How does $65k as a senior sound? 🙂"

The worst part is that this has built a culture where everyone is afraid to say "no". Say no to someone, they just go to their leadership and it comes back from yours telling you to do it anyway. If someone says no enough times they'll "help them move on.".
 
Corporate politics are why I took a 50% pay cut. My entire life and.professional background is performance based. Corporate politics are all about power bases and building fiefdoms. I had this moment of clarity while dangling a vp over the edge of a roof of a multi story building. They're always so surprised when someone holds them personally responsible for the lives they've trashed for personal gain.
 
I tend to avoid shit storms due to my general introvert behaviors. That said, the small thing's Ive run into in life:

1) First job I was laid off - our jobs were being sent to Guadalajara. I was only there for ~2.5 years. I was probably on the chopping block from just being so new - there were plenty of old ladies that were doing the job for 10+ years. Also my "team lead" wasn't too fond for me claiming I wasn't doing well performance wise. I made Excel tables to show my results and put it in a graph form to rub it in her face. Thankfully, the actual manager never had a problem with me, but essentially he had to turn 3 departments into 1, it wasn't a surprise. I started my next job less than a month later, so really I just enjoyed the 3 months of pay.

2) Second job I left due to a micro manager always looking for status reports and annoying shit. I'm not the type to have status reports off the top of my head, if you want to have a call then setup a call so I can prepare. Don't call me while I'm working and look for a 20 minute conversation where I immediately know the answers to things that I might have to lookup. I had never experienced anxiety till this job.

3) Went to a competitor of Job #2 in an almost identical field. Manager was ridiculously butt-hurt when I announced my leave. That brought me tons of joy. Overall enjoy my current job. It has it's moments, but I haven't had any issues. Worst situation I've had is dealing with a manager that EVERYONE hates. I kept a tally of the number of people that have come up to me and told me "Sooo, is it just me or is <Name> a bitch?"
 
PixelSquish said:
True and pretty good story.

I got canned from a job in marketing at a magazine publisher so one of the heads of marketing could hire his long term mistress in my place. They were both married, with kids.
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Heh - this happened to my wife several years back. She is an accountant by education, but at the time was running a private gym. She was doing a pretty good job but the gym was sold and the new owners moved her into a back office accounting position. She was fine with that as it was more of a 9-5 job and less stressful, but they started cutting her hours from 40 to 30 to 20 per week. As she was about to quit anyway, they brought in a new girl to work "with" her. Turns out it was one of the owners' mistresses and she was dumb as a stump. My wife quit, but this girl would call her several times a day with extremely basic accounting questions. My wife got tired of it and sent the owners an invoice for her time and the girl finally stopped calling.

The original owner called my wife a few months ago. He was considering buying back the gym at half the price he sold it for and wanted my wife to run it again. She wasn't interested but was glad the new owners' incompetence had bitten them in the ass.
 
We recently had a Principal fired in our county. Had some people at my school who worked with him before pretty upset as he had been a decent guy. Found out a week ago what got him fired...

He and one of the lead teachers at his school had been having an affair. Unfortunately for them the other school lead teacher decided to place a camera in his office and caught them on tape. For some odd reason this other lead teacher then took still shots from the video, made them into Christmas cards and sent them to the superintendent and various other higher ups in the county.

So uh... Politics?
 
My company is too small for politics, and I don't play them. However I have had bosses who try to take credit for my work. Many years ago I heard one boss on the phone to his boss take credit for what I was doing. After that every piece of paper I gave him had my name on it. (This was before e-mail, if you can imagine that).

One time there was a problem on a Saturday. My boss was an idiot and his boss questioned everything I did (different set from above) I wrote a memo to my boss that was really directed to his boss, talking about the problem and what we did to correct it. My boss passed me on Monday morning on the way to his bosses office. He had my memo in hand, he even held it up and said "See buddy, I am going to keep you out of trouble." My first thought was, did you just take credit for my work, to me?
 
Many years ago I worked on the help desk for a large health care company. I was on pretty good terms with many of the executives and talked to some of them on a regular basis since they asked for me personally to fix their problems, mostly because most of my coworkers followed the department policy of "Fix it as fast as possible and get off the phone", which I hated, so I did my best to take as long as necessary on difficult calls in part because I enjoy solving problems and in part because my direct boss knew that his bosses wouldn't let him fire me because I actually tried to help them, and I didn't like him much so annoying him was fun. (there's the politics part)

So, I had been dealing directly with one particular VP for a long time, helping him with computer problems and with simple data entry stuff like setting up mail merge templates for marketing emails and things like that since he, despite being a VP, didn't actually have a secretary/administrative assistant to do it for him. It was a chance for variety in the work, and he was a really nice guy, so I liked it when he called. One day, I got a call from a lady (I'll call her Bunny, since that was her name 😉) who told me that she was his new administrative assistant and she would be the contact for his issues in the future. I was a bit disappointed since he was a lot of fun to talk to, but also didn't mind since she had a REALLY nice voice.

Over the course of the next 4-6 weeks, this person called me many times (sometimes several times per day), asking for help doing the same things that the VP had called for (Mail merge, Excel spreadsheets, document formatting, etc). I thought it was weird since it was supposed to be her job to do those things, but I didn't mind too much since she usually called at times of day when I wasn't normally too busy. (And I believe I mentioned that she had a REALLY nice voice... 😀)

A while later, the VP called me for help with a problem since Bunny had the day off. He asked if I had talked to her yet, so I said that yes, she had called for help with some things. He asked for details, so I told him. He said, "Oh, really? Please send me a list of the dates, times, and reasons that she has called you." I did. A week later, he called me back and said that Bunny had been fired. Turns out she had had someone create a fake "Microsoft Office Expert" certificate for her (since she didn't have the skills to do it herself) and had been hired for the job based partially on that supposed expertise, and also because the person who interviewed her was extremely impressed by her two primary 'job qualifications' that she liked to keep only partially contained in her blouse, and that were probably just as fake as her diploma. 😉
 
Majes said:
We recently had a Principal fired in our county. Had some people at my school who worked with him before pretty upset as he had been a decent guy. Found out a week ago what got him fired...

He and one of the lead teachers at his school had been having an affair. Unfortunately for them the other school lead teacher decided to place a camera in his office and caught them on tape. For some odd reason this other lead teacher then took still shots from the video, made them into Christmas cards and sent them to the superintendent and various other higher ups in the county.

So uh... Politics?
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ROFL. Oh man. Christmas cards.... hahahaha.

No politics, really, where I work nor at previous jobs. My last job did seem pretty "cliquey" though, if that makes sense. There was a lot of talking behind others backs and shit-talking about people. It also had much younger employees than my current position and had more of a young company/start-up feel to it, if that makes a difference. I was kind of a part of a "mini-team" with a couple other guys after I started there and they talked shit a lot of times about this other developer. I didn't care for him too much myself but never took part in their cutting him down. I ended up leaving that "mini-team" and working with that developer until I left and I came to like him quite a bit actually. He had some personality quirks but he was a FAR better dev than those other clowns and one of the best I've worked with honestly. He was really nice when I was let go and shook my hand and offered his reference anytime I needed it. No one else at the company said a single word to me when I left.
 
Majes said:
We recently had a Principal fired in our county. Had some people at my school who worked with him before pretty upset as he had been a decent guy. Found out a week ago what got him fired...

He and one of the lead teachers at his school had been having an affair. Unfortunately for them the other school lead teacher decided to place a camera in his office and caught them on tape. For some odd reason this other lead teacher then took still shots from the video, made them into Christmas cards and sent them to the superintendent and various other higher ups in the county.

So uh... Politics?
Click to expand...

I hope the other lead teacher got fired too.
 
Working with someone who is at the same level as you but been there longer so they treat you like a subordinate.
 
Lots of politics at my company but generally we arn't caught too much in the crosshairs. I work at a NOC so it's pretty much the type of job where you show up, do your shift, and leave when done. And that's how I like it. There's some politics but I'd say it's pretty standard office stuff. Though we do get caught in the BS that is caused by the politics. For example, they refuse to hire someone to replace the person that quit about a year back and we've been short staffed since. They basically tell the one who makes the schedule to "make it work". They also refuse to buy us any needed equipment, from basic stationary to computer related hardware. They keep giving us more stuff to watch, which is great, but we have no monitor real estate room to actually place all these new programs. Have to overlap windows and squeeeze everything in so you see maybe 2 alarms per program.

At my previous job which was IT, it was politics galore though. It was one of the many reasons I left that job. It's funny, since I went to school wanting to be an IT server tech, at one point in school I had a co-op at a NOC/telecom office as it was the closest thing they had to IT that they could find for me. I found it interesting but not what I wanted to do. Fast forward to after I graduate college and get a job in IT, and I quickly find out that IT is like 80% politics, 20% actual IT work. After a while I just got fed up and realized it was not actually what I thought it was like. Now I work at a NOC, and we are actually in the process of merging with the NOC I originally co-oped at in high school. Funny how those things happen.
 
SearchMaster said:
Heh - this happened to my wife several years back. She is an accountant by education, but at the time was running a private gym. She was doing a pretty good job but the gym was sold and the new owners moved her into a back office accounting position. She was fine with that as it was more of a 9-5 job and less stressful, but they started cutting her hours from 40 to 30 to 20 per week. As she was about to quit anyway, they brought in a new girl to work "with" her. Turns out it was one of the owners' mistresses and she was dumb as a stump. My wife quit, but this girl would call her several times a day with extremely basic accounting questions. My wife got tired of it and sent the owners an invoice for her time and the girl finally stopped calling.

The original owner called my wife a few months ago. He was considering buying back the gym at half the price he sold it for and wanted my wife to run it again. She wasn't interested but was glad the new owners' incompetence had bitten them in the ass.
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Indeed. That's karma for them and thankfully there is karma sometimes, even though it can take a year or few to manifest itself. I wonder what happened to everybody's marriages? I'm pretty sure the girl who was hired to steal my position had her marriage ended, which is what my ex-colleagues heard her crying about in her cubicle during the end of her stay there. Fuck that bitch.
 
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