Welcome To Salt Lake City!
What’s the best part of your job? There are many answers to this question, but we’re only focusing on one: coworkers. These are people you spend ‘X’ amount of hours per week with so it’s not unusual for bonds to be created, turning the work team into a work family. But what happens when an outsider decides to take advantage of a member? This is where this story comes in. An office team noticed their sweet secretary was getting taken advantage of by their new manager so they decided to take matters into their own hands. Names have been changed.
In the 1980s, “Marie” was a secretary adored by everyone in her small office in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you’re not already aware, Salt Lake City has a huge emphasis on family in its culture. This even applies to the work environment. “Leave your personal problems at home” is definitely not a saying used in this city. Local management not only knew of this tradition but allowed their employees to take family matters as a top priority rather than their job responsibilities.
This being normal in Salt Lake City, however not so much in other areas of the world. Once a certain manager in the corporate headquarters found out, that was where things got complicated for the office team.
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East Coast vs West Coast
East Coast manager, “Honcho” was in a disagreement on how the Salt Lake City’s office team conducted themselves. He had been told there were “some slight irregularities in timecards, like days off without pre-approved vacation requests” at that location. So he took it upon himself to be the one that would ‘improve’ their structure and “straighten” the team out. He made the decision to transfer himself from the corporate headquarters to the small office in Salt Lake City. This meant he would be the middle manager in charge at the office. The other two were “Scott”, the local Vice President and “top” manager, and “Thomas”, Marie’s main boss.
The team and management at the office were a close-knit family. They helped each other out and respected one another. They expected Honcho to be a part of the office family as well until they met him. Realizing he was a prick and had “a strict ‘by the book’ mentality,” he was not well-liked by the rest of the team. Things eventually escalated when one day he became especially spiteful to the well-loved Marie.
One morning, Marie received a call from her daughter, who happened to be in town and wanted to have lunch with her. Before she could agree, Marie went to ask Scott and Thomas for their approvals. Without hesitation, both gave her their okays. Yay! Or so she thought.
For so long, she had only had to ask Scott and Thomas for time-off, not thinking to ask her new manager Honcho. However, somehow and someway he still found out about her time-off request and he was not happy. He didn’t like the fact he wasn’t asked and that the request was last minute versus the standard “week advance approval policy.” This ticked him off to the point where he decided to make it his business.
Since it was too late to blatantly reject her time off, he decided on another scheme to punish her.
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“This Needs To Be Done ASAP”
As time was getting closer for Marie’s lunch plans, Honcho decided to drop a “last-minute urgent travel request” on her desk.
With a smirk on his face, he said, “This needs to be done ASAP. I need to leave this afternoon.”
What a prick move. He knew how excited she was about spending time with her daughter. Why did he have to kill the mood?
Mind you, this was in the 80s so booking a flight, a rental car, and a hotel room were completely different from how it is done today. Everything had to be done by a phone call. There wasn’t an app or a smartphone that showed Q-codes of airline tickets. People needed the good ol’ paper airline tickets with “the red carbon mess” to fly. It took more time and effort to make a reservation than just a few clicks that we’re used to now. Marie knew the prolonged time for it too.
Marie was not only a sweetheart but she was also a good worker. She was devasted when she realized she would have to miss seeing her daughter for lunch. However, as the office’s secretary, she knew her work responsibilities were a top priority. As she was about to call her daughter to cancel their lunch date, the lead engineer on the team, “Mel” came into the office. He was only meant to be there for a quick minute to drop off paperwork, but couldn’t help but notice that Marie wasn’t her usual chipper self.
He asked, “You seem a tad down, what’s going on?”
Remember, this team saw each other like family, so he was genuinely concerned.
She replied, “Well-” She explained to him what had happened with Honcho.
This infuriated Mel. He thought, ‘Who does this guy think he is?’
He said, “He has no authority to do that. You had approval from Scott and Thomas. Look, you go ahead and have lunch with your daughter. We’ll take care of it.”
Wow! That was kind of Mel to do that for Marie, helping her when in need. But how did Honcho feel about that? Or does he know?
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How Was The Trip?
The conversation between Mel and Marie spread like wildfire in the office. Once Thomas heard about the incident, he was just as furious as Mel. He got his team together to make sure Honcho’s travel package was completed on time. By the afternoon, Honcho was out the door and on the plane, heading to his meeting. Everything went smoothly until the second he landed.
His itinerary was plain and simple. Once landed, he would drive from the airport to the hotel, where he would stay until the meeting. Once the meeting was done, he would then fly back to Salt Lake City so he could continue being a prick. But before he could do any of that, he realized he was in a bit of a dilemma.
He had no rental car. His rental car reservation was “invalid.” The car rental agency did not have any available cars for him to use, nor did other agencies in the area. Their reason was that “All the cars had a ‘hold’ on them pending confirmation from some clients.” Honcho was in disbelief. But after making a few more phone calls, he was able to get a car from a place called “Rent-a-Wreck.”
That did not sound like promising transportation, but Honcho had no other choice.
Once he got to his hotel, he was told that his hotel reservation was no good. Similar to the rental car incident, the hotel did not have any available rooms. They told him he had to wait until the “tentative reservations” were expired later that evening. Honcho had to wait hours before he could rest in a room. He was in disbelief that this was another hiccup to this “simple” trip.
Just out of curiosity, he looked for his return flight ticket. To his surprise, he didn’t have one. His ticket was only a one-way.
How was he supposed to fly back home? He was beyond the point of frustration. He couldn’t believe how ignorant Marie was!! At that time, he wasn’t aware that Marie wasn’t the one who booked his reservations. So for the rest of the trip, he was pointing the finger at Marie.
The next morning, Scott arrived in town for the meeting. He met up with Honcho to give him a packet that was “marked extremely urgent” that was meant for him. To Honcho’s surprise, it was his return ticket. That was the last straw. He thought, “How could she have forgotten to give me this? She had one job.” Then he came up with another scheme to punish her.
On his way back to Salt Lake City, he decided to make a small detour to headquarters. There he convinced senior executive, “Mary” that the Salt Lake City office had “very serious personnel problems” that needed to be addressed immediately. So both made their way to the small office.
That doesn’t sound good. Hopefully, his ‘scheme’ doesn’t jeopardize Marie’s job.
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Backfired
The next morning, Honcho came into the office with Mary, calling everyone in for a meeting. Everyone thought it was going to be an important meeting, but it was actually a public humiliation session towards Marie. He went off a rant on how Marie was incompetent and how she couldn’t do a simple task like booking valid reservations. Before he continued his rant, Thomas stopped him.
Thomas then made eye contact with Mary and said, “It would have been impossible for Marie to had made those mistakes since she was approved time off during that time. She was out on lunch with her daughter.”
Mary, now confused, said, “What’s going on here? If Marie didn’t mess up the tickets then who did?”
She looked at Honcho, who was looking upset.
Honcho said angrily, “Yes, who did?!”
Then like a domino effect, everyone started to step forward to take the blame. First, it was Thomas, then Mel, and then the rest of the team stepped forward. The office team was not going to let Marie be belittled for their own actions.
Scott and Mary looked at each other as it clicked in their heads on what had happened. Everyone on Thomas’s team (except Marie) had a scheme of their own. And it was against Honcho. That day when they decided to help Marie with reservations, they also “had burned up the phones making ‘tentative’ reservations for rental cars and hotel rooms.” That was the reason why he was having even more trouble finding other reservation options. And they were the ones that booked his one-way ticket. It was straight sabotage.
They proceeded to tell Thomas and Mary all about Honcho’s vile behavior toward Marie and the rest of the team and within an hour, Honcho’s desk was cleared and his badge was turned in.
What happened to him is still a mystery to the team in Salt Lake City. They weren’t sure if he got fired or was transferred somewhere else. They couldn’t have cared less though, they were just pleased that he was no longer at their office. Even Mary could tell the change of energy in the office since Honcho’s departure. She left the office, impressed by the unity and respect the team had for one another.
Since then, that incident has been told to every new hire that came to work in the office. Mel would always end the story with, “Don’t mess with Marie. We love her, and we WILL make you pay if you upset her.”
Anyone who had worked at that office could vouch for that statement. Marie was the sweetest person and no one could ever understand how anyone could be so conniving toward her. Anyone who did was definitely put in their place. The Salt Lake City team was more than a team, but family. They stuck up for one another, which was how Honcho’s schemes backfired and got him removed from the office.
Hopefully, this taught him a lesson on better management skills and respect. To earn respect, he must give respect. The outcome of this story would have been different if he wasn’t a prick.
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Thoughts From Author
This story definitely shows the importance of unity in the workplace. If the team didn’t have that bond, then who knows how long Honcho’s behavior would have lasted toward Marie. I was happy at the moment when the team all stepped forward to protect Marie from getting blamed for the reservations. It was a very heartwarming moment. It taught Honcho a lesson: “Don’t mess with Marie.”
I just don’t understand Honcho. Why did he feel so obligated in the first place to straighten these folks out? Didn’t he have other things to worry about or focus on? I can’t believe he got himself transferred to a whole other state and job title just so he could intimidate the team basically. I felt there were better ways to go about ‘improving’ the team. Maybe an email or a meeting with management would have been sufficient instead of that huge move.
Even when he moved there, it didn’t seem like there was much of a difference, Marie still took time off without the week advance timeframe. If anything, he made it worst with all his schemes. Instead, he should have discussed the matter with Scott and Thomas. Maybe they could have worked together to improve the team. But overall his actions were uncalled for. I was pleased that none of his schemes worked and he got removed from the office. No more of that dark cloud intimating the team.
He should have taken the one-way ticket as a warning that he was not welcomed back.
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