Unfair Treatment at work? Need Help

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45gopro

Guest
Jurisdiction
Pennsylvania
Hi all,

This may be a long one, but I need some advice on what route of action to take here.

I have been employed by the same employer for 4 years now. They were my first employer out of high school. I moved through the ranks of being a clerk to a manager and now a department manager in training. This is a small private corporation with under 50 stores. It was family owned up until last year when the family transferred ownership to corporate itself (some of the family is also corporate, some of corporate is not the family). The business itself tends to act think and speak as if they are much bigger than other stores (Walmart for example) when it's 50 stores says otherwise. They also speak down to managers which results in those managers following through and speaking down to their employees. It's an overall mess of bigotry in my opinion. No sense of care or urgency for the employee.

Here is where the problems ensue: Every so often corporate keeps tacking items on our "daily task sheet" without allowing any overtime (and I mean more than 5 minutes and you get suspended-even if it's necessary to keep the department running efficiently it gets declined) or scheduling more help. Right now the department I'm in has two members. (myself, and the dept manager) It seems the more work I put it, the less work they put in, which results in tasks getting backed up and piling more onto my task sheet (which is obviously ignored because the dept manager claims it's untrue).

I put in my 110% every day, but the constant negative reinforcement (such as 9 things were done right and perfect, but one half of one half of one thing was done sort of wrong, and it's like I just punched a customer in the head) demotivates me. It makes me not want to do a good job for my manager anymore since no matter what I do and how hard I work it's never enough. I sometimes wake up to text messages on my days off etc telling me everything I'm doing wrong, walk in to a disgruntled manager who proceeds to yell and tell me in a very unprofessional condescending tone that I'm doing a bad job when in reality the department looks no different than when the actual department manager is on. Also, my boss is 'best friends' with the store manager, as well as the department's head manager in corporate. It's to the point where I could say favoritism takes place. I feel trapped, like I can't talk to anyone about it because it will circle around the loop and make everything worse for me.

Every day it seems the work environment gets even more hostile. People constantly watching over you, never giving any form of positive recognition for anything done correctly or well, just waiting for you to make a simple mistake, and then they attack. It's literally enough to make me sick.

Is there anything I can do about this legally? Does anything stand out as being unethical? My job is starting to feel more like a prison every day. I'm always afraid I did something wrong, or that I'm going to get yelled at for things the manager does as well but he's obviously not going to yell at himself or recognize that he's even guilty of it. I was told I was going to be promoted to manager by x date, by x month, etc by corporate only to be let down that it's not happening for whatever reason. (I don't believe it has to do with my performance since my manager yells at me in private and doesn't ever escalate it to store management or corporate level. I admit I'm not perfect, I do things wrong, but given the environment and circumstances, they want perfection in an 8 hour shift when there's probably about 16 hours of work to be done, how am I able to be legally disciplined for such a thing?
 
Is there anything I can do about this legally? Does anything stand out as being unethical? My job is starting to feel more like a prison every day. I'm always afraid I did something wrong, or that I'm going to get yelled at for things the manager does as well but he's obviously not going to yell at himself or recognize that he's even guilty of it. I was told I was going to be promoted to manager by x date, by x month, etc by corporate only to be let down that it's not happening for whatever reason. (I don't believe it has to do with my performance since my manager yells at me in private and doesn't ever escalate it to store management or corporate level. I admit I'm not perfect, I do things wrong, but given the environment and circumstances, they want perfection in an 8 hour shift when there's probably about 16 hours of work to be done, how am I able to be legally disciplined for such a thing?


Nothing you've described meets the classical definition of hostile work environment.

What you've described is what some used to call the "mother hen" approach to management, or "hawkeyeing".

A hostile work environment is a form of harassment. It is demonstrated by such severe and pervasive conduct that permeates the work environment and interferes with an employee's ability to perform his or her job.

This article explains "hostile work environment" well:
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When Does a Workplace Qualify as Being Hostile? | Seattle Business Magazine
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I suspect you are experiencing the subtle, at first, changes an organization experiences when it goes from small, family owned, to larger corporate owned structure.
 
Nothing you've described meets the classical definition of hostile work environment.

What you've described is what some used to call the "mother hen" approach to management, or "hawkeyeing".

A hostile work environment is a form of harassment. It is demonstrated by such severe and pervasive conduct that permeates the work environment and interferes with an employee's ability to perform his or her job.

This article explains "hostile work environment" well:
.
.
.
When Does a Workplace Qualify as Being Hostile? | Seattle Business Magazine
/
/
/
I suspect you are experiencing the subtle, at first, changes an organization experiences when it goes from small, family owned, to larger corporate owned structure.

I understand it's not really a 'hostile' environment, but I feel like more pressure is being put on me than 90% of the other employees. I'm not the only person in the company who is unhappy with how we're treated. What can I do to combat this as a person? I live in constant fear of being jumped on and losing my job over 1% of my job not being perfect. Recurring text messages (which our handbook classifies as inappropriate methods of contact) which berate me on petty things I did wrong while I'm off time seems like harassment to me. I like my job, in fact love it. I just can't figure out how to deal with the stress of working with this horrible manager and the stress of not being able to get everything done and getting yelled at about it
 
I don't see anything illegal being done by your employer. Unfair does not always equal illegal. You might consider looking for other employment. Good luck to you.
 
There is no legal recourse against somebody being a "bad" boss with unrealistic expectations.
You can try to sit down with this person in a calm way and try to work things out. You can try to go over their head( probably wouldn't work out well for you). You can try to transfer to a different store or different department. Or lastly you can look for employment elsewhere.
 
If it is that miserable there, why are you still there? You can't legally force them to be nice to you. Sounds like this is just a bad fit.
 
Some great marriages go on the rocks, and divorce is the cure.
Many times a great job becomes a good job, eventually becoming a bad job.
Yes, its all about relationships.
You get along with your boss, Molly.
Molly gets promoted, in comes Sally.
Sally and you never click, oil and water, fire and ice.
Relationships are like sour milk.
When milk gets sour, you can make biscuits.
When a relationship sours, its time to get to getting.
 
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