I've been working as a consultant at an agency for a year now. The office was understaffed beyond belief and the manager showed up twice a week at the most. Anyway, while there I made friends with some pretty decent people including the guy in the accounting department (well technically it was just him so he WAS the department).
Now here's the thing, the manager refused to hire a secretary, a P.R person (despite the fact that this agency handles promotion), an assistant of any kind or even someone to handle logistics (despite the fact that a large part of the agency's job is to organize conferences and fly people in).
Now all those jobs I mentioned above, the reason she didn't hire anyone is because she just threw them all on the accounting guy. The guy had a wife and two kids and could not afford to quit, for a while, under any circumstances. The dude stayed past 5, late till 10 or 11 pm, some times over nighting. He was never compensated with overtime.
Most days she'd drag him to come back to the office on weekends, then every morning she'd scold him in front of us and scream at him for the smallest things. I had never seen abuse of power that bad. There was a time when she screamed at him and called him a "liar" over and over. Eventually he snapped and yelled back "I'm not a liar". She went back into her room and started calling corporate to get his next contract terminated (he was between contracts), till we calmed her down.
Eventually, over time he had to start seeing a psychiatrist to handle the whole situation. It got to a point where I couldn't mention her name in front of him or he'd start to feel upset. He started looking for serious alternatives for the job, so he could quit.
Before that happened though, he developed blood pressure problems and issues with the arteries around his heart. His doctors warned him he had to stop being stressed.
Last Christmas, the manager decided not to give us our Christmas holiday because "we hadn't tidied up the office or filed the folders in the cabinets", however, she took her husband and her kids and went on vacation, while we stayed and worked. Shed conference with the office via email a lot of the times keeping the accountant guy late for no reason at all.
Eventually around New years eve, the accountant left a little early, and took a sick day off. He saw a doctor and the doctor just told him he was stressed but there was nothing physically wrong with him.
His wife called us the next morning and told us that he'd died in his sleep.
He was only 33.
When the manager came back she started talking about how the accountant was the closest guy in the office to her, that she couldn't bare seeing his empty desk. She refused to accept any accusations from his widow that she had anything to do with it. I kept hearing rumblings of legal action taking place but till now it seems to have died down (I believe due to the fact that it may affect the compensation his young daughters are getting from corporate).
It has to be the single most haunting experience of my life.
Now here's the thing, the manager refused to hire a secretary, a P.R person (despite the fact that this agency handles promotion), an assistant of any kind or even someone to handle logistics (despite the fact that a large part of the agency's job is to organize conferences and fly people in).
Now all those jobs I mentioned above, the reason she didn't hire anyone is because she just threw them all on the accounting guy. The guy had a wife and two kids and could not afford to quit, for a while, under any circumstances. The dude stayed past 5, late till 10 or 11 pm, some times over nighting. He was never compensated with overtime.
Most days she'd drag him to come back to the office on weekends, then every morning she'd scold him in front of us and scream at him for the smallest things. I had never seen abuse of power that bad. There was a time when she screamed at him and called him a "liar" over and over. Eventually he snapped and yelled back "I'm not a liar". She went back into her room and started calling corporate to get his next contract terminated (he was between contracts), till we calmed her down.
Eventually, over time he had to start seeing a psychiatrist to handle the whole situation. It got to a point where I couldn't mention her name in front of him or he'd start to feel upset. He started looking for serious alternatives for the job, so he could quit.
Before that happened though, he developed blood pressure problems and issues with the arteries around his heart. His doctors warned him he had to stop being stressed.
Last Christmas, the manager decided not to give us our Christmas holiday because "we hadn't tidied up the office or filed the folders in the cabinets", however, she took her husband and her kids and went on vacation, while we stayed and worked. Shed conference with the office via email a lot of the times keeping the accountant guy late for no reason at all.
Eventually around New years eve, the accountant left a little early, and took a sick day off. He saw a doctor and the doctor just told him he was stressed but there was nothing physically wrong with him.
His wife called us the next morning and told us that he'd died in his sleep.
He was only 33.
When the manager came back she started talking about how the accountant was the closest guy in the office to her, that she couldn't bare seeing his empty desk. She refused to accept any accusations from his widow that she had anything to do with it. I kept hearing rumblings of legal action taking place but till now it seems to have died down (I believe due to the fact that it may affect the compensation his young daughters are getting from corporate).
It has to be the single most haunting experience of my life.
