New Boss
Was there ever a time when you didn’t like someone at your job? Someone who got your skin or rubbed you the wrong way? When they entered the break room, it seemed like the whole energy would change. And not in a good way. For some, that person could’ve been a colleague, Toby from Human Resources, or maybe it was your new toxic boss. If you chose ‘new toxic boss’, then join the "Eugene" club. Eugene had loved his work life and his boss until everything changed when he got a new boss.
When it comes to horrible bosses, you could either deal with it or quit. Eugene was no quitter, so he dealt with it until he finally reached his breaking point. Realizing that nothing he did was going to please his new boss, he decided to take matters into this own hands. When an unexpected opportunity approached him at work, he had no other choice but to take it. This would teach his new boss a lesson or two on how to treat his employees fairly. If not his new boss, then definitely the store would feel the wrath of Eugene’s payback – losing big money and a good reputation.
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Good News?
In the early 2000s, Eugene got hired at Target as an overnight crew member. As time went on, there was an opportunity for him to move up the ladder to a specialist position in the receiving department. This would be a major change for him. First, he would go from a 10 pm-6:30 am shift to a 6 am-2:30 pm shift. No more night owl. Secondly, his workload would increase substantially. Instead of one major task, he would be in charge of any issues that he may come across with deliveries. So his current workload times by 20. He would be the main person in charge of taking in all vendor orders from Coca-Cola, Lay’s, and any other special orders that came outside the main merchandise truck. His workday would primarily be around the delivery trucks. With all that being said, he felt confident in himself to excel at the job, so he applied.
It wasn’t long until he received word that he got hired for that position. And he adjusted fairly quickly with the job responsibilities and with the management team. They would at times, bend the rules a tiny bit, for example, even though the store’s delivery cut-off was at noon, management would tell Eugene, “just take things in no matter when they came.” Little things in that nature. Nothing too extreme. Eugene would’ve never done something that would jeopardize his career. He was an honest and hardworking employee.
He always managed his time wisely – making sure anything time-sensitive or important was finished before he clocked out. If not, then he would stay late to make sure it did. Now if it was something minor, let’s say it was the Harlequin’s romance books that could wait overnight to be processed then he would wait until the next morning to do it. But it would be on the top of his morning list. All in all, no work of his was left undone.
His boss, “Edwin” knew that too. He never had any complaints about Eugene’s job performance, he always scored high on his performance reviews. This created a good rapport between the two. Everything was going for Eugene – he was thriving in his new position and was getting along with his boss. Until one day he heard the news that would change it all. Edwin had been promoted, which meant he would no longer be Eugene’s boss. Target was hiring another boss for his department.
A new boss? What could go wrong with that? Right?
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My Way Or No Way
The new boss came in hot. No people, not in that way. “Rick” came in strong with an “it’s my way or no way” type of mentality. And with these types of people in charge, it never ends well (Spoiler alert?). Rather than ask Eugene how he ran things, he made assumptions about Eugene’s work ethic. He noticed how certain things were being left undone overnight while he noticed Eugene not being as busy earlier in the day. But what he failed to notice was that Eugene’s whole job consisted of deliveries (hence working in the receiving department) and waiting for the UPS truck. How was he supposed to complete some of these tasks, if UPS didn’t come until later in the day? It wasn’t like Eugene had UPS on speed dial and could command them to come sooner. What Rick nagged about was always something ridiculous. Instead of asking why the department did certain things a certain way, he would prematurely judge Eugene for not doing his job right. But in reality, he was.
What really broke the camel’s back for Eugene was when “PFresh” came into the picture. For all of those youngsters out there, Target didn’t always have fresh groceries in their stores. In the early 2000s, the company came up with the initiative to get that started and they called it PFresh. It was a huge game-changer for Target, and for Eugene’s store. They were picked to be one of the pilot stores in the area to test out the fresh groceries initiative. With corporate now having a close eye on them, this caused some pressure on Eugene. Since he was the specialist in the receiving department, he would be the first person at his store who would be in charge of the new PFresh process. Once he gained enough exposure, he would then train other receivers in other stores in the area on how it all worked. They had a whole training schedule for Eugene, once he trained other stores then he would shadow them to make they were doing everything correctly. The major takeaway for this whole new process was that the fresh groceries came in a separate truck and at a different time than the other merchandise truck. At a much different time, it arrived at four in the morning.
Since Rick didn’t mention any other changes, Eugene had it in his head that he would handle the load as soon as he arrived to work at six in the morning. But in reality, Rick had made an adjustment to Eugene’s schedule, he just failed to share it with him until now.
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Change Of Plans
Without any prior discussions, Rick decided to change Eugene’s schedule to 4 am-12:30 pm. Eugene thought about it. If he had to work at four in the morning then that meant he would have to get up as early as three to get ready. Does that sound enticing? It didn’t either for Eugene. But again, Eugene was no quitter so he rolled with the punches and agreed to come in at four. But that wasn’t all. Rick came up with another change for him. This change meant things HAD to be done by the time he clocked off. Nothing could wait the next morning, it didn’t matter if Eugene considered it urgent or not. This was when things started to get a little sticker. With his new schedule change, Rick wanted him to get everything done by 12:30 pm. That almost impossible since the store’s delivery cut-off was at noon. What was Rick thinking?
Eugene had to think realistically, so he started to prioritize as much as he could at work. Nothing was left undone… for more than 24 hours. So he bent the rules a little bit, who hasn’t? But this caused no complications with deadlines or game plans, so everything was working out. Until there was yet another change.
Target was getting rid of his specialist position and adding it to the normal chain of command. At first, Eugene didn’t mind until he realized it gave Rick more power over him. He was already making things more complicated with all these changes, so he could only imagine what the future held. This had him think about how much this would affect his current responsibilities. Since there weren’t any deliveries on weekends/ holidays, Eugene never had to work those days. So was that going to change too?
Human Resources reached out to him about his concerns. Their response was there wouldn’t be any changes between his current position and the new position. He would be doing the same thing because they know how important his job was compared to a position in the jewelry department. Sorry, jewelry department. With that being said, they also informed him that they were giving all the associates that held the specialist position a week to decide whether they wanted this “changed” position, find another position within Target, or get severance. Decisions, Decisions.
Eugene decided he wanted to stay in his position (of course it was now a part of the normal chain of command.) It was perfect timing too because Rick wanted to see him in his office. He thought he would tell him then about his stay, but that didn’t go as planned.
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Happy Ending For Him But Not For All
Eugene went into Rick’s office with the extent of staying at his position. He had come so far already, so there was no reason to bail out now. Or so he thought. He thought this “talk” would be more of a two-way conversation but in reality, it was more like a performance review. Rick was not impressed by all the hard work Eugene had done. He told Eugene how an awful employee he was. He wasn’t getting things done on time, so he decided to change his schedule again. So this time, it should be better than the 4 am-12:30 pm, right? Wrong. Rick came up with the brilliant idea of a split work schedule for Eugene. This meant he still had to come in at four, but only work for an hour. Then come back at six to finish up at one-thirty. What was the goal in this? Because this doesn’t seem like ideal work hours for Eugene, but rather for Rick to make sure everything got done. Maybe he should hire another person to help Eugene because that work schedule was crazy.
And to add to that marvelous plan, he told Eugene there would be no more overtime AND he would be working one weekend out of the month and all holidays. This was not what was told to him by Human Resources. This power was getting to Rick’s head. He then wrote Eugene up because the person who was covering his lunch did something wrong so it was his fault. How was it his fault? Because he didn’t train him properly. Then what he said next to Eugene was the last straw.
Rick said, “You need to think long and hard about how you are working, and think about if you want to be employed here in a month.”
Indeed did Eugene think. Before he said anything, he excused himself to the restroom. As he was heading to the “restroom,” he made a small detour to the Human Resources department. He was fed up with Rick so he changed his mind and was talking that severance. Woo hoo! Since it was 12:25 pm, that day would be his last day. With the remaining five minutes of his shift, he went to share the good news with Rick.
Rick was not having it. He claimed he had to come back next week to train his replacement. Nope, because it was now 12:30 pm and he technically didn’t work there anymore. He walked out of the job he had for three years and he couldn’t have been happier. This meant no more chaos or a toxic boss.
After the word got out that he left, Eugene would get texts from his former work buddies about how the receiving department had been a nightmare since his departure. No one knew how to handle the refrigerated trucks so their store lost an entire truck worth of fresh groceries for a whole week. When corporate heard about it, they were not happy with Rick. In hopes to recover before the deadline, they sent other people to the store to cover all the training that Eugene was supposed to do that week. Overall, his departure cost the store big bucks and a good reputation.
The last Eugene heard about Rick was that he got fired. How the story would’ve been different if Rick was a better boss to Eugene.
~
Thoughts From Author
After reading the story, I couldn’t have been happier for Eugene. He deserved a happy ending after putting up with Rick and his demands. He stayed devoted to his job, rolling with all the punches that came his way. I mean I would have quit as soon as my schedule changed to four in the morning. But Eugene wasn’t a quitter (he technically took severance). Not only did the store lose money and their reputation from his departure, but also a persevering employee that they can never gain back.
The ending brought an even bigger smile when Rick was let go from Target. Hopefully, it had to deal with this incident but if not then still knowing he got fired is still a win in my eyes. But I am curious if the changes he was making were really his changes or corporate? I understand that some changes were out of his control, let’s say the fresh groceries delivery at four in the morning, but I think he could have been more accommodating to Eugene. Since technically he was the only one that knew anything about that job. There should have been a conversation between the two so Eugene could share his input and adjust better to all these changes. A person can only handle so much and then get told that they were doing a bad job. The only person I saw who did a bad job was Rick. He had no reason to treat Eugene the way he did.
But I guess it needed to happen. If it didn’t, then Eugene might’ve still been in that toxic work environment with Rick. That would be another story to tell.
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