Ask a Manager: My boss cried when I asked for a raise

[minoanmiss]

I worked at an office for seven years. A few months ago, I asked for a raise. My manager said she would get back to me and I never heard anything.

A month later, the job was growing increasingly mentally and physically demanding. I came to my manager again and asked for a Monday-Thursday schedule. Again, silence. So I started seeking other jobs. When I was up-front about this with my manager, miraculously she was able to discuss my raise/better schedule with my boss the next day.

I was told no, that I couldn’t work the four days (which is a normal schedule in my profession). I was also told I couldn’t get a raise unless I worked the exact days they wanted me to and no less. My manager said my boss was “extremely hurt” by me wanting to work a more manageable schedule with better pay. So I had a meeting with my boss and she cried. She said she felt hurt I was doing this to her and I was seeming ungrateful. There were a lot of toxic things said on top of that. The following day, when I had follow-up questions about my raise (given I agreed to the days they said were a must), I was met with silence AGAIN.

I snapped. After years of being mentally abused by my manager, I wrote an immediate resignation letter and left it on my boss’s desk at the end of the day. She won’t see it until tomorrow. It’s not the way I wanted to go out. But I have a job lined up that doesn’t need her reference.

My question now is, can I block calls and texts from the office? I know when she sees I quit without notice, she will be enraged, and will reach out to belittle me and blame me for messing up her schedule and business. Can I block it all out?

You sure can.

But first I’d ask how much you care about truly burning the bridge. I know you said you don’t need your boss’s reference for the job you just accepted — but that doesn’t mean you won’t get asked for a reference from her in future searches, especially since you worked there so long. The bridge might be burned regardless of what you do now (because of the quitting without notice and also depending on what you said in the letter), but it’s possible that being willing to take a call or two from her could make it less burned than it otherwise would be. That wouldn’t mean you need to take abuse from her, but there might be something to be gained for Future You if you don’t completely block her right off the bat.

Or maybe not. You might know the reference is already a lost cause, or you might have calculated that being able to walk out and never speak to them again is worth losing the reference. That’s your call!


In any case, you can indeed block calls and texts from your office. They mistreated you and you’re not obligated to engage with them at all if you’re willing to deal with whatever the consequences are of that. (Those consequences could range from badmouthing you to others in your field to the aforementioned bad references to nothing at all. And again, you might know that she’s already going to do the first two anyway, no matter what you do next.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

What POSSIBLE bridge is left to burn? What the everloving what? I STG, some people will respond to, "when my boss asked for a blowjob I said no. When he grabbed my arms and tried to shove me down on my knees I pulled away, picked up my purse, and walked out." with, "are you sure you want to do that? What about your reference? Maybe you should go back and talk to him."

(But then one of the reasons I'm annoyed is that I think bosses like this are so much more common and so much less societally discouraged than we give credit to. The whole idea that people should be "grateful" to be employed and all that.)

(Also I am quite sick, still working, and have to go into the office tomorrow. So there's that as well.)

[lemonsharks]

Gee I sure wonder if the commentariat is losing its shit over how inappropriate and manipulative it is for the manager to start crying at work. I sure so wonder.

(#Yes, the entire manager.)

[minoanmiss]

Oh yeah, that was truly the thing wrong with the manager in the eyes of the AAM populace, not anything else but that she cried. I was too mad at the "don't burn bridges" thing to mention that part, but you're absolutely right.

[green_grrl]

Boss is REALLY going to find out the value of workers when listing the position and trying to get applicants. Then she’ll really be crying. Good for LW!

Shitty stupidvisors are a dime a dozen

[feldman]

Here's a lesson I learned the hard way that then saved me a lot of BS going forward: don't waste your time and talents on bad faith actors. That includes giving a flying fuck about burning bridges in your wake.

The lack of raises in seven years is an effective paycut on top of the background level of abuse, and when LW pushed, the response was to be ignored, further exploited to 'justify' the raise, and emotionally manipulated. Who the fuck thinks these people are capable of giving anyone a good reference no matter how the employee leaves?

[cereta]

Every once in a while, when spouse's direct supervisor is being an unmitigated asshole, spouse will say that if they fire (unlikely) him or drive him away (slightly more likely), he will gleefully reject any and all attempts to contact him, because fuck that noise. And the truth is, no one else in that office has the slightest clue how to do major components of the job.

So, yeah, LW: fuck that noise.

[melannen]

We really need to normalize "Can you give me the contact information of any former employees I can ask for a reference?" as part of job interviews.

[raine]

I get why references matter, but if I had to job hunt now - two of my former managers are dead, one company doesn't exist anymore, and I know the other companies will only verify that I worked there, rendering them pretty much useless if someone is trying to get info on what kind of employee I am.

[melannen]

I mean, as someone who has done hiring on a very small scale: references don't matter. Nobody ever gives the info of a bad reference, so you know going in you won't learn anything useful about the candidate. Afaict, it serves two purposes: it gives abusive managers more power over their employees, and it filters out people who might have been great employees but didn't know the secret rules of the references game.

(Maybe there are some really tightly-knit industries where you would actually get useful info but in those cases you probably already know the people anyway and can just ask.)

[raine]

Yeah, if you're in a niche industry, you're going to be swimming in a small lake anyway. Found that out the hard way, much to my annoyance.

That said - yeah, references won't tell you if the person who looks perfect on paper is that kind of boundary-crossing charmer who is pretty much awesome at one thing and one thing only, and that thing isn't Professional People Skills 101, or worse. Because nobody wants to admit Mr. Charming is a lawsuit waiting for someone brave enough to happen.

Or just that Mr. Charming isn't a great fit for the job they're supposed to be doing and you can't figure out why, you don't have time to figure out why, you're just happy to pass them on to be Someone Else's Problem.

flip side

[grimmhill]

As someone who until two or three years ago did check references frequently, I would still advocate for it. Although the "we can only confirm that they worked for us and in what position" response was increasingly common, it was also frightingly common to find that these kids had been "encouraged" to list things on their resumes as the best possible interpretation- in other words, councilors and job finding trainers had literally told them to claim work experience they did not have. Finding out that the applicant who claimed "lab technician experience" had been working as an unpaid volunteer doing menial tasks was pretty important. Or that "experience with databases" meant they had been responsible for data entry of team contact information, not that they had developed the database.
I also found that in many cases, even when the company I contacted went the only confirmation route, if I flat out asked them "did you ever hire this person again/would you hire this person again" most would be honest and answer yes or no.
Not a reason to put up with crap from your current bad employer, but definitely a reason not to throw out the whole references system . It still has it's uses.

Re: flip side

[minoanmiss]

Mrmn. "Would you hire this person again", especially, is not so cut and dried as all that. My current boss will probably answer that question with a "no" because he is young and healthy and has no sympathy for my middle-aged health-related issues, even though 90% of my job can be done on a computer at home, and is indeed getting done.