Bullying coworker terminated seven years later

[haapai]

We were dreadfully short-handed when this guy showed up.  A month later, most of the crew wanted to release him back into the wild.  At three months, he was on the chopping block but then the boss was called out of town for a funeral and we were stuck with him. 

He lasted seven years and was finally terminated for fighting loudly and profanely and possibly physically with his girlfriend at work, in front of customers, on tape. 

The girlfriend that he was fighting with will also lose her job.  Our boss (who had turned a blind eye to his behavior) is on some sort of leave for the next few weeks.  (We don't expect him back.  The leave probably has everything to do with maintaining insurance coverage for as long as possible.)  We'll also be losing one of the bully's useless proteges some time soon. 

We've just lost a third of our crew and we still consider ourselves lucky. The damage that this guy did to everyone that he came in contact with him is immense but all we can think of now is that the worst is over. 

Just a little parable about the necessity of careful hiring and pruning.  I hope it gives backbone to those who need it. 

[Tennesseer]

Sounds like a manager, bully, and protege from hell along with a girlfriend from purgatory.

[haapai]

It has been hell.  There was plenty of dereliction.  I'm working on recovering my humanity.

This guy was an excellent manipulator.  Pretty much everyone who didn't push him away got hurt badly.  Even the folks who kept their distance from him got pretty comfortable using him as a negative example.  It's that old "Wanna look thinner?  Stand by a fat person" dynamic.  Only it was much more Jerry Springer than some loveable Vaudeville character. 

I have to admit that I am one of those people who got comfortable pointing fingers at him.  He was around a long time and he definitely became a benchmark of sorts. 

The boss who is "on leave" has nine dependent children and a wife.  Over the course of several years, he stopped trying to fire this guy and apparently became his drinking buddy. 

The man is evil and very, very good at bringing out the evil in others. 

[haapai]

There are a lot of theories floating around about how this guy finally got the axe.  A lot of my coworkers will say that his life was in a tailspin or that he got too cocky or that the folks that were protecting him weren't around.  All those things are true.

But I'm thinking that what really brought him down was four new faces.  We've recently replaced two of his superiors and two of his peers. 

People who were not inured to this guy were repelled.  They rightly saw his behavior as well over the line.  They fought back. 

Don't get me wrong.  The motto of this story is not "new broom sweeps clean".  We didn't get deliverance from outside as much as we sickened every outsider that looked. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Yuck. I'm glad it's over for you.
Do you know if they'll be filling his position or the girlfriend's or protege's?

[haapai]

I don't know if they have any bodies in the pipeline.  Supposedly, this all just blew up in the last two weeks. 

Perhaps, if we were on top of our game, we could have anticipated the need to replace at least one of the two and will be able to expedite things.  It's also possible that the manager on leave has been exaggerating our difficulty in finding replacements.

We're going to be shorthanded for a long time even under the best of circumstances.

OTOH, being shorthanded without DB (douche bag, not that other acronym) and his punching bag is a heck of a step up from being shorthanded with him still in the picture.  He had a tendency to attempt to take all new hires under his wing and either turn them into stooges or former employees.  

There isn't much chance of replacing the manager on leave until his situation gels a bit more.   (He probably used FMLA leave.)  We don't have much of a substitute corps so his position could very likely be empty for weeks if not months.  His absence puts us down a body, but should improve the hiring and training of replacements.  He hasn't been much of a manager for the last six months.  Good riddance!

[Deleted]

I'm glad you're rid of both of them. I can't imagine why it went on this long except that maybe with the economy the way it was, no one had other options so you didn't lose good people. This hits home because a month ago I fired a guy who'd been a problem since before I got here 6 months ago. Boss knew it but really bent over backwards to give him chances to shape up. I could see the morale problem it was creating among some really good people who were so disgusted they were about ready to leave. It was easier than I thought and the smartest thing I ever did. Morale has skyrocketed, even during the awful week when we had to clean up all his messes and finish all the work he'd told people was done, or in review, when he hadn't even started it. He has a wife who's a full-time student and they were living paycheck to paycheck but I that was immaterial. He wasn't pulling his weight, he lied, and he messed up a lot. Now we're recruiting to fill his position and we're scared witless of making another mistake.

Anyway, that's my rant. I share your happiness in getting rid of these losers and hope you get support to bring in new people soon.

[haapai]

Thanks athena53!  I can't really celebrate at work.  It's unclear how much is official yet and there's just a ton of work to be done.  There won't be much opportunity to celebrate before being overwhelmed by the extra workload. 

None of the folks that are gone were particularly productive.  Morale and training were abysmal.  It will be interesting to see how well we adapt to the increased workload.  One person with a decent work ethic could probably replace the bad-apple pair.

The thought of not having to work with a nasty bully and his enablers  makes me feel five years younger. 

Replacing the salaried boss will be more difficult.  He was spending a lot of hours doing grunt work that he had failed to get his crew to perform. 

The guy survived this long because he ground down his bosses until they stopped documenting his transgressions and started actively making excuses for him.  Once he had his direct supervisor in his pocket, he was pretty much untouchable. 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Good luck haapai!  I hope your job keeps getting better and better with this pair gone. 

[Deleted]

What an awful situation.

 

Enjoy your freedom!

[alabamagal]

Reminds me of a guy that I used to work with at a large corporation. Not violent though. He was a "golden boy" who kept getting promoted, but to his coworkers he was a liar. Nothing you could ever catch him in though. Finally got caugt in a big lie, and got fired. Many were shocked. Those of us who had to deal with his lies were not shocked.

Good riddance.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I worked with someone similar and he still hasn't been fired.  Ahh tenure. ..what a great thing you are.

He hasn't secured his own funding or been first author on a paper in at least a decade, he manages to bully/manipulate his way into being a collaborator and ride other people's coat tails.

I want to know what kind of dirt he has on the higher ups.  His lab has a list of infractions as long as my arm and the last one was a FEDERAL offense.  Yet he's still on the IACUC board and his lab hasn't been shut down.  All that happened is he had to fire his tech.

He's driven tons of graduate students out of the biomedical science program and has driven a lot of people to quit their jobs.  He's had a few professional harassment complaints filed against him. 

So glad I don't work at that university anymore.  It was a toxic environment thanks to one bad apple.

[gs11rmb]

"His lab has a list of infractions as long as my arm and the last one was a FEDERAL offense. Yet he's still on the IACUC board and his lab hasn't been shut down. "

How can a university retain an IACUC board member with animal care infractions?  I would think he would be removed, even if it is only a political gesture.  That's the strangest thing I've heard in a long time.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

How can a university retain an IACUC board member with animal care infractions

Good question!  A friend of mine and I theorize he has a sex tape somewhere that includes another board member.  We sure as hell can't think of any legit reason he's still on the board.

The last offense should have had him kicked off the board, fined out his ass and resulted in his lab being shut down immeadietly.  From what my friend said the powers that be who should have reported it hushed it all up since they'get get in trouble too.

Meanwhile all the rest of us were at the mercy of a vet on a rampage who runs the facility as her own little empire.

So glad I don't work there anymore!

[swamp]

How can a university retain an IACUC board member with animal care infractions

Good question! A friend of mine and I theorize he has a sex tape somewhere that includes another board member. We sure as hell can't think of any legit reason he's still on the board.

Maybe he has a sex tape of the board member with the animals?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Maybe he has a sex tape of the board member with the animals?

They aren't authorized have anything bigger than rabbits.  That must be one hell of a sex tape.

[swamp]

Apr 24, 2013 11:22:08 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Maybe he has a sex tape of the board member with the animals?

They aren't authorized have anything bigger than rabbits.  That must be one hell of a sex tape.

Maybe he's, um, "underendowed"?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Maybe he's, um, "underendowed"?