NEW BOSS

Characters: Eric Johnson, an accounting supervisor

Kim Rose, his boss

Eric Johnson is an accounting supervisor with a medium sized service based organization. During his first two years with the organization things proceeded quite well. He had 15 years of accounting experience and was able to meet his responsibilities quite successfully. He received good performance evaluations and enjoyed his job. Six months ago Eric began to report to a new manager, Kim, at which point everything changed for the worse. Kim was very controlling and seemed to believe that management by intimidation was the best way to motivate employees.

Kim was critical with all of her staff but paid particular attention to Eric. She was constantly finding fault with Eric’s work and no matter how hard he tried, she was never satisfied with his work. After a couple of months Kim became more aggressive with Eric. She started yelling at him several times a day for seemingly trivial issues. She called him stupid and incompetent and made these statements in front of Eric’s co-workers and his subordinates. Sometimes she got so angry that she banged her fists on her desk and would spit on Eric while she spoke.

Eric overheard Kim telling two members of his staff that she thought he was stupid and incompetent and that she planned to fire him. He felt humiliated and diminished in the eyes of his staff. During staff meetings, Kim encouraged input from other employees but whenever Eric made a suggestion she ignored him, rolled her eyes or dismissed his suggestion in a patronizing and sarcastic manner.

Eric was frustrated by this behaviour, which seemed to go unnoticed by senior management. Kim was quite charming and personable when dealing with her superiors who viewed her as an effective, assertive manager.

The stress of working for Kim took its toll on Eric. He began experiencing headaches and back pain. He couldn’t concentrate, his self-esteem fell down and he became clinically depressed. His doctor prescribed medication and recommended that Eric quit his job.

Eric requested that his hours be reduced and that his workload be modified to help him cope with the effects of his depression. For the first three days Kim complied with this request but then became impatient and said she would not give out “special favours to an incompetent employee”.

Eric applied for a transfer within the company but was told that his performance had to improve before he could be transferred. Eric believed that as long as Kim was his manager, she would never consider his work satisfactory.

Author: Lauren M. Bernardi

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