MANAGERS: BAD VS GOOD

04/04/2021

Let me just start off by saying that lots of things have changed the last time I wrote a blog post. A whole lot. I got a new job and so did Nick, I finalized my immigration stuff, I live in a different place, and Mocha is unfortunately not with us- but we have since gotten 2 new cats, Minnie and Moxie. I can probably talk about updates in a different blog post, or maybe if you follow my Twitter you’ll already know these things.

Anyway, I always get good ideas for blog posts but forget about them in an hour. This time, though- I caught myself thinking about it and jumped on my PC right away! I wanted to talk about my experience with managers, both the good and the bad. Truth be told, I’ve had more bad managers than good ones. I’ll go into detail about each job and explain what I liked and disliked about each one.

I’d like to start off by saying I’ve had the same position for the majority of my jobs. I’m always something along the lines of a customer support representative, product support representative, brand ambassador (aka a representative), etc. I have some that don’t fit that criteria, but I just wanted to put out there that the majority will be based around the same kind of job.

Alright, onto the first one! My first job was as a video animator for this small music theory company. I did exactly what my title suggested- I drew little animations that fit my employer’s request. My employer was also my manager and boss. She was a good manager! I wish she had called me out more on my procrastination, though. She wouldn’t give me deadlines so I wouldn’t get started on an animation until she checked in on me. If I could go back, I would have let her know I prefer to work with concrete deadlines so I can pace myself to meet the deadline in time.

My second job was as a design intern for this mysterious and interesting company. They produced a niche product and I got to learn the secrets to production and even create a fake version of a product. My manager here was really nice and understanding. Whenever I had questions, she had the answers. I also had others to rely on as well, like the project manager and any of my coworkers during those two months. Overall, a good experience for my first internship.

Let’s move onto my first job after I graduated, which was to be a leads generator of sorts for another music related company. I should have known this job wouldn’t be a good one when my manager called me right after I applied, asking if I could come in for a “training shift” where I wouldn’t get paid and would be learning from one of the other leads generators for half a day. My manager called me at around 4PM, which is ridiculous, considering I had to commute all the way to Toronto. I ended up only learning a little bit and then leaving to go home. I did get the job, but that’s no surprise…

This job was an absolute nightmare. As a leads generator, I had to commute to different parts of the Greater Toronto Area to go to malls and generate leads (as my title suggests). The issue here was that I never had a set schedule at any given week. My manager would just text me to see if I was free to work one week, and then I would be working that week. Some weeks I wouldn’t even hear from him, which sucked because I was always checking my phone to see if he needed me on a shift, even while I was hanging out with friends or doing something else.

My manager up-sold the role to me, saying it was a great opportunity to get to talk to all sorts of people and that it would be fun. As an introvert, being in a position where I had to willingly approach people who are minding their own business if they would be interested in signing up for the music company, I was suffering. My manager should have known by my demeanor that I wouldn’t be the right kind of person for the job, but he needed quantity over quality. My position had a high turnover rate, which is why he immediately called me right after I applied to the position.

The position called for long hours and sometimes required me to commute to places that were 2+ hours away from my home. I told my manager I could only work at locations close to my area, but he still continued to make me go to places like North York or Scarborough for shifts. They were long shifts, too. I think they started at 10AM and ended at 8PM, which is a 10 hour shift. On these shifts, I would be alone at a booth and look for people to talk to.

My role left me bored and frustrated every day because I knew that there was a better way of getting leads. I thought of countless ideas that could be better than generating leads this old-fashioned way, like creating an online presence or holding giveaways. I wrote these ideas on the back of my shift log. However, my manager reprimanded me, saying the administrator that logged my hours didn’t appreciate my notes on the back. He told me to write them down on a separate piece of paper and that he would look at them later, but nothing ever came of it.

My manager also made it incredibly difficult to get my paycheck. Instead of sending it to my home, or even direct depositing it into my bank, he gave us company checks. As well as that, we had to pick these checks up at our closest corporate location. Whenever I would go to to pick up a check, the front desk was always empty and my check was “locked in a drawer.” I feel that as a manager, he should have made it easier to get our checks. Whether that be him coming by each month with the key to unlock the drawer, or by letting his higher ups know to change the way us leads generators were paid.

My manager at this position was definitely one of the worst that I’ve had. He didn’t really care about me, and just cared about my leads. He would just tell me little things of what not to do, like “don’t write on the back of your shift log sheet” or “don’t sit on the job, be standing constantly.” It was endlessly frustrating and it made me want to quit every day on the job. And one day, I finally did quit.

My next job was as a customer service rep for a certain Korean grocery store. I was essentially a cashier for the first part of my job, but then I moved over to customer service as they needed someone who spoke both Korean and English. I also recorded the weekly sales announcements every week, in Korean and English. Let’s just say that I did a lot more than the position called for. I was the one who spoke English fluently, and so I needed to translate everything.

I want to preface this part, to say that my direct manager was great. She tried everything she could so I felt comfortable in my role, and acted like an auntie to me. It’s most likely because my manager was a family friend, and so she wanted the best for me. Unfortunately, it was just everyone above her that made things difficult for me.

The big head honcho store manager was the type to be nice in most cases, but incredibly scary when he got mad. It’s a very Korean trait to have, in my opinion. He would be nice when greeting me and when he saw me working, but if he saw anything wrong or misplaced, he would yell at me. The overall vibe of my workplace was ingrained in Korean culture, but I was used to working at western places. Needless to say, it was a lot of culture shock that made me dislike my time there.

It also annoyed me that I had to do a lot of things outside of my role, just because I spoke English fluently. These are the times when you should hire a translator, or a separate person for that role that speaks both English and Korean. I honestly feel like they took advantage of me and made me do a lot more things than I was capable of doing. I also got yelled at when I did something wrong, even though I wasn’t trained to do that thing. I shed a lot of tears at this job, but thankfully all my coworker aunties consoled me and treated me like their daughters, which helped.

Just to summarize, my direct manager didn’t do anything wrong. She did all that she could to make sure I was happy. It was the store manager, and the managers of different departments, that made my time there miserable.

Now onto the job I love talking about- my job as a brand ambassador for Nintendo! This is the only one I’ll name, because Nintendo has a lot of brand ambassadors around the world. My job was basically to play games with others and show how great Nintendo games were. If anyone had questions regarding a Nintendo product, I would answer it. The role started off fun and eventually started to get repetitive, but I still enjoyed my time there.

This role required us to commute to different events and retail stores, like my leads generator one. However, my manager gave us a month in advance to check our availability and to make our schedules. In addition to that, the events weren’t too far from my home, which was nice. The one thing I disliked was that the shifts were set to 2 seasons: summer and winter. In summer, we went to conventions and big events. In winter, we went to malls to promote our games for Christmas. This meant that I only really worked during those two seasons, and spring and fall didn’t have much going on. I had to take a second job in the middle of working here because I needed to make more money.

As for my manager, he was a good person but failed to manage us well. There were a lot of mix-ups in communication and inventory. He would always put out a survey with what shirt sizes we needed (as we had to wear designated Nintendo shirts as part of our uniform), but the survey was useless because I would get to my shift and would end up wearing an XXL shirt because there were no smalls left.

In addition to that, I feel like the team leads he hired weren’t capable of managing us. They needed to be more strict on the 30 minute lunch rule, because when one person is late to come back, then the whole schedule is pushed back. One time, I was supposed to have lunch at 12 but it got pushed back to 1:45. I was really starving by then. The team leads didn’t seem trained enough to help us set up and take down the booths, and they felt like they were just there to manage us and weren’t interested in Nintendo at all.

All in all, my manager was nice but I feel like most events were disorganized and he needed to hire better team leads for events. I feel like if the events were more thought out and if we had team leads who were hired with a harder interview process, then it would have been a better experience. Even so, I still like to tell people I worked at Nintendo just because it’s a nice flex.

My next job is one I mentioned in my last section, the job I took on while I was also a brand ambassador. I worked as a customer service associate at a big office supply store. Just your standard customer service job where you work as a cashier and also help put items back on the shelves. The job itself was pretty standard, but my manager and coworkers were pretty subpar.

I’ll talk about my coworkers first. I came into the job, ready to learn everything there is to learn to excel in the role, and I got training from my coworkers that taught me maybe half of what I needed to know. The other half I just learned by being at the job for almost a full year. They didn’t care about their jobs, and they definitely didn’t care about coming back on time for breaks. Like at Nintendo, breaks would be pushed back because people didn’t come back when they were supposed to from their breaks.

My coworkers were nice enough as people to talk to about random things, but all of them worked there for a while so that they had already created a close knit group. I definitely felt like an outlier whenever I came into work because I would be at the cash register, while the others would be in a group talking about stuff together. I would always dread going to work as it would be another day where I’d be checking my phone, doodling random things on paper, and waiting for the next customer.

Now onto my manager. I had two managers, the store manager and the customer service manager. The customer service manager never smiled at me and would just tell me to do things. However, he would always joke around with the coworkers I talked about previously. It just made me feel even more like an outlier as they would be talking in a circle while I did my job.

The store manager was super nice as a person. However, he was terrible at giving breaks. In Ontario, it’s a law that you have to give two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch for an 8 hour shift. However, I found myself only getting a 30 minute lunch as my coworkers would always be late coming back, and by the time they came back it would be busy so that I would have to work until the customers were gone. I felt shaky during a lot of my shifts, as I’m the kind of person that needs to eat on a regular schedule or else I’ll start to feel faint.

I told my store manager multiple times that I needed to take a break, but he would say I could take a break the next time it would get slow, and then it would just be busy for the rest of the day. This job is one of the jobs I really considered reporting to human resources, as I felt like my managers needed to learn that it’s important to give their workers breaks so they can rest. I didn’t end up doing it, but if I could go back, I probably would have.

All in all, I was really glad to have gotten out of that job. I think the only good thing that happened to me at that job was me finding a $100 bill outside of my work. I spent that money on Popeyes and other fast food, if I remember correctly. That was a nice day.

Next job incoming! This job was a contract job just for 2 months or so, as a customer service agent for a photo company. See, I told you a lot of these jobs would be the same. This one was fairly easy, honestly. I was trained to do only emails, and we didn’t have phones, so I would just be watching Netflix shows while answering emails. This one was a nice job and I wouldn’t have minded continuing to work at this one.

My manager was a nice person and a decent manager. He did kind of suck when it came to responding to emails when I had to get tax documents and such, or when I wasn’t getting my direct deposits, but other than that he was fine. The people who trained me were also nice as well, and they taught me everything I needed to know to excel in the job. Not much more I can say about this one!

My last job to talk about before my current one! This one, I worked as a client happiness team member for a certain student loan company. My title is just a fancier way of saying customer support rep, as my duties were essentially the same as the ones I did in my last jobs. For this one, I did both emails and phones, and I was scheduled to learn chats as well, but I had left before I could learn that.

The job itself was straightforward, and all the information could be found either in our help center or on Confluence. We also had a questions channel on Slack where I could ask any questions and I would be helped by a fellow coworker. This was especially useful when it came to phone calls, as I could just put customers on hold and then ask the question in the channel.

However, my manager was most likely the worst manager I have ever had. She was a micromanager, and so she would check in on her team constantly on whether we were working, if we were on the proper block (phones/emails/both), and such. I may like to have deadlines while working, but I do not like to be micromanaged. She also was the one manager who truly never cared about me or my well being. I mentioned in the beginning of this post that we don’t have Mocha anymore. This is because Mocha went out one day and never came back. As a first time pet owner, I was absolutely devastated and so was Nick. After an unsuccessful day of trying to find her around our area, we decided to check the animal shelters. I had work, so I decided to take the first part of the day off, as this was during our current pandemic and animal shelters were only open a few hours per day. I told my manager I was taking off some time in the morning, and she approved it.

However, 5 minutes after I submitted my request, she sent me an email basically saying that I took the first half of the day off and that I wouldn’t get any reprimanding this time. This time? I took only half of the day off because I wanted to look for my cat, whom I love, who has been missing for a few days. My manager had no sympathy for me. She didn’t ask how I was doing, she didn’t check in on me after it, and she made me feel bad for taking time off because it was an unexpected leave and we were short staffed. Seriously?

My manager was the biggest reason why I left this company. The other reason was because I felt bad working for a company that declined so many people for refinancing their student loans or for getting a student loan. I don’t want to get into too many details, but I had to tell people going through a lot of issues due to the pandemic that they couldn’t refinance/get a loan with us.

I also got a lot of escalations in this position. I got yelled at and ridiculed not because of my service, but because of the company policies. I cried a lot in this position too. I was happy to look at other jobs because I felt like I was just another number in the company, just one that needed to hit their numbers for the week. I knew my manager didn’t care about me as a person, and only cared that I was doing well. Our 1:1’s were just her telling me I was doing a great job (which I was) and to keep up the good work. Never did she bring up the Mocha situation, or ask me how I was doing. Not even once.

I’ll also note that they did want to bring me on as a full-time employee, as I was previously a contractor. However, the background check company they hired made a mess of my application, as well as my fellow trainees. They needed all this useless information and threatened that they couldn’t hire us if we didn’t provide it. Seriously? In comparison, my current job’s background check took 1–2 days to finalize. They didn’t require all the information that the other background check company needed. Honestly, that was a waste of time.

We’re onto my current job now. This job, is probably the best job I’ve had. I’m a product support rep for a tech company. I may have the same kind of job as my last positions, but I have a better team and manager that cares about me. I am under less stress than previous jobs and I come into work wanting to work. It’s a nice feeling to have, to wake up and look forward to the day instead of dreading it.

My manager is the type of person to genuinely care about her direct reports. She will always ask me how I’m doing in our 1:1’s. She even reached out to me when the shooting in Atlanta happened with the 6 Asians who were murdered. She asked me how I was doing and if she could do anything to help. It feels odd having someone genuinely care for your well-being at a job, but I know it shouldn’t feel that way. It should be standard and I should feel this way at every job.

In conclusion, I think having a good manager and a good team is important to fully enjoy your job. You may not be passionate about what you do in your job, but as long as you have a good support system that cares about you, you will be able to succeed. At least, that’s what I think.