Set up

posted March 13th, 2020 at 2:55 AM

I confess, I was once employed in a managerial role where I was set up to play “bad cop” by the only person who was senior to me. It was a unionized workplace. The senior guy was a complete jerk who did nothing all day but have so-called meetings in his office with a bunch of other guys who all sat around bs’ing each other with stories that had nothing to do with work. Either that or he monopolized my time by sitting in my office bs’ing me with stories that had nothing to do with work. He had this “project” where he wanted me to scrutinize a couple of the staff who he thought weren’t doing their job well enough (they were). Their collective agreement was up that year and he was in cahoots with their union boss behind closed doors. Of course the staff had no idea about that fact. So, I was put in the position of having to come down hard on the staff, which of course made them hate me. No matter how many times I resisted his pressure to “find something wrong” , I was told that my own job was on the line if I refused to go along with it. So I did what I was told to do, and the staff walked out one day. Then they filed a union grievance about me specifically. When that happened, I was thrown under the bus by my boss, who blamed me for everything. I was set up to be the fall guy. The stress of being in such a toxic workplace was just too much and I had to go on a medical leave. I ended up suing him and the organization for harassment, and settled out of court. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I never had the chance to tell those employees the truth of what happened. I’ve felt terrible about this ever since. I swore after that situation I would never again work for any place where my own integrity had to be ignored in order to please my boss. I wound up working as a consultant after that, so I could just fulfill my contract obligations and stay out of the office politics. I just wish I could go back and apologize to those people for carrying out the wishes of such a creep.

9 Comments

Been there

Mar 13, 2020 at 1:36pm

I had a similar experience with my Strata Council. New to town and to property ownership, and about to start a new job, the Strata President befriended me and talked me into running for Council. I was excited about getting involved in my new community and eager to contribute.

Over the next few years I was working insane long hours and rarely home, so the President got into the habit of ringing me at work around dinnertime and inviting me to join her if I had time to run home. Faced with an empty fridge and loth to go for yet another crappy 7-11 sandwich, I gratefully accepted when I could.

She would use these dinners to fill my head with vicious lies about any of the residents she didn't like (who, interestingly enough, usually tended to be immigrant owners - all living on site, as there were only a few rentals in the complex). She used me to do a lot of free repair work around the place in my rare free time, so that I became well known to the residents, some of whom would approach me with their concerns about the way it was being run, and the heavy-handed tactics this Queen Bee was pursuing with them.

When my schedule eased up a bit, she started having me serve as her deputy to deal with overdue maintenance fees and bylaw infractions, so that I became her de facto bad cop. Thanks to her outright lies about not only these "offenders" but also the "violations" that they had committed, I was secure that I was in the right.

It was only after a year of this that I discovered the truth about what was going on. I quit the Council and got together with a group of residents who tried, unsuccessfully, at the following AGM to pass some reforms and bring the Council into compliance with the Strata Act.

After that failure, I not only became a target of the Council for bogus "infractions" of my own but, thanks to the antagonism created by my previous "bad cop" role, I found myself on the wrong end of a number of my fellow residents, many of whom wanted to get on the good side of the Council to escape the President's wrath - who probably lied to them about me.

Between the threat of fines from the Council, auto vandalism and anonymous threatening notes from my neighbours, I finally couldn't take it any longer and sold up.

I left my job and Vancouver entirely and bought a detached house; I made certain not to ever be part of a homeowners' association again.

@OP

Mar 13, 2020 at 3:38pm

NDAs typically have life time, has yours expired?
If it doesn't have a specific date, it is implied that it's till the end of time but in fact it's not. No lawyer would take a case to sue you where the NDA time was not written in stone.
If it's vague, look them up.

So you were

Mar 13, 2020 at 3:42pm

A Dick !!
Give me a million dollars and say 10 hail marys and all is good.
You are revoked.
Ok.

Coquitlam strata

Mar 13, 2020 at 11:27pm

Strata people are an unusual group of folks and 90% have issues. I live in one and have resigned to get away from the catty strange behaviour the majority display.

Do you still work for

Mar 14, 2020 at 10:25am

The BC Public Service? The NDA was a dead giveaway. This is the new norm I guess, those in charge of firing staff need medical leave as a result. Let’s just forget the generous amount of pay and benefits you received while making your co-workers stressed, tired and forced out of their job. Congrats on getting your Green Belt in the LEAN program, you’re officially an asshole without a conscience who now needs stress leave. Where ideas work apparently lol.

@Do you still work

Mar 14, 2020 at 1:09pm

No. I wasn’t in the union. It wasn’t that union either. I was management, the staff were union. An NDA is common everywhere. You’re projecting.

Now this a confession!

Mar 14, 2020 at 5:28pm

Only problem is that your previous employer got away with lots and apparently you as well. Sad story of being a true corporate dick without a moral spine. I’d like to sympathize with you but having faced similar issues in the past and with NDAs as mentioned earlier, I can’t go into specifics but basically you have an ass plus a hole. Just this one time will I give lawyers more credit than you and that’s saying a lot. If you want real forgiveness, track down those you’ve demeaned and generously share the proceeds from your settlement. I must admit I had a big laugh after writing that last sentence, please forgive me too.

@now this

Mar 14, 2020 at 9:16pm

No again. The “settlement” was peanuts. It barely paid me 3 months of salary. I didn’t fire anyone. I went as easy on them as I could, given that I was threatened. I was under an employment contract. I was threatened with significant penalties if I quit. You have no clue what you’re talking about. You are PROJECTING!

@now this

Mar 17, 2020 at 10:00am

No, not projecting, just stuck inside due to self isolation due to Covid-19 and going stir crazy as I haven’t had human contact in only a week. To make it worse, I’ve ran out of batteries and running low on toilet paper.