A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
Badgering Supervisor - Jeannie
Posted: Jul 26, 2011
Does anyone have any ideas of what to do about a supervisor who always says, "It is a privilege to work at home". She threatened me that I might have to come in-house to work because I complained about my keyboard no longer being compatible with the new computers. I have to work weekends in-house on a rotating schedule. I also said it is difficult to get readjusted when you go in house because the work station is different. I should have never complained because now she said that it would be better to have me work in-house so I am always at the same computer. I told her that if I am told I have to come in she would have to fire me. I also told her that I am not going to complain anymore because it seems it opened a can of worms for me. She knows I enjoy working at home. There are many more examples of stories similar to this, not only with me but with other co-workers. We have had 6 people quit since this new supervisor. Human Resources and her supervisor do not want to deal with this. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Thanks.
Supervisor - anon
[ In Reply To ..]I worked at an in house hospital for a while. We went to a meeting with the HR big wig for the whole hospital talking about what a loving wonderful place it was to work at. (Catholic hospital). I don't know if they had no idea what the transcription management was like or just didn't care. The head manager was one of the nastiest people I have met. None of us were allowed to talk to each other, even for help with a word, etc. The two gals underneath her were nuts. They would actually clock our bathroom breaks. They actually wanted us to clock out for that. Everything was about constant production - talk about slave labor. If you got to work at home, she would threaten to bring you back in if you didn't make line count even during the slow season. No one was allowed to eat lunch together, except her and her two "QA" people. It was the most awful place I have ever worked at. Thought about writing HR when I left, but what's the use. Really all they care about is how much work is produced under this supervisor's management. They really don't care how she treats her people - only that production is reached. Left quite a bad taste in my mouth and I have gone back to being at home because I am concerned how another in-house position somewhere else would turn out to be like. Wish you luck - but remember if she is making the company money and keeping production up, they would rather hire another MT than let her go. You may just be stuck with her and have to avoid her as much as possible.
Right - Privilege
[ In Reply To ..]
I'm assuming you work where only employees who are able to commute to the office are hired. To my knowledge, in that situation an employee does not have a right to work at home; at-home employment is a privilege granted by the employer, at the employer's discretion. Peruse the employment manual for the company's in-site/off-site employment policies to ensure that the supervisor and you are in compliance.
If I work for a nationwide MTSO that has an office with an in-house MT department in my locale, the employer could offer me off-site employment or on-site employment depending on workstation availability; the choice is mine. Whether or not the the supervisor could mandate that I work in the office depends on company policies and stipulations.
If you want the "right" to work at home without "badgering," consider independent contracting (self-employment).
I'm assuming you work where only employees who are able to commute to the office are hired. To my knowledge, in that situation an employee does not have a right to work at home; at-home employment is a privilege granted by the employer, at the employer's discretion. Peruse the employment manual for the company's on-site/off-site employment policies to ensure that the supervisor and you are in compliance.
If I work for a nationwide MTSO that has an office with an in-house MT department in my locale, the employer might offer me off-site employment or on-site employment depending on workstation availability; the choice is mine. Whether or not that employer could mandate that I work in the office or return to the office might depend on company, or account, policies and stipulations.
If you want the "right" to work at home and minus the "badgering," consider independent contracting (self-employment).
I have to print these notes about supervisors. It sounds just like my daughter's sm - anon
[ In Reply To ..]supervisor and she is not an MT and she works in the office. She has been told she can't talk to her co-worker and had to sign a paper if she was 1 minute late that they would fire her or dock her pay. Well gues what? She was late again (has to deal with traffic) but did they dock her pay or fire her? No. These people in these positions only want the power and think they are the most important person in the world.
I told my daughter to put the ball back in her court and challenge these things (by the way she was threatened again if she was late with being fired and now has to come in 1/2 hour ealier than before. Her boss says if "I have to be here, you have to be here."
Just a note, her boss lives across the street from the office. Also of note, my daughter is not late all the time but her coworker is and she gets included in the nastiness.
Anyway I say put the ball back in her court and challenge her. As the other writer says it would be the employer's policy not the supervisor's policy to bring people in. I suppose if she gets results, they might not do anything but there are ways of getting around her. Just be creative.
I worked for an owner once who expected the worst - from everyone and felt she had to maintain
[ In Reply To ..]extremely tight control to keep us from cheating, etc. Our department wrote insurance investigation reports for the field investigators, most of them ex-cops lacking in writing abilities. We weren't supposed to ask them any questions directly, though, snagging them as they walked by being a big no-no--nor they us, rather routing all communication through one manager chosen by her (that, among other things, supposedly kept these guys making around $70K/yr at that time from putting work on the current time sheet instead of next week's)! The only saving grace in all this silliness was the very high standard for quality set by this company. It brought in and kept high-quality people in spite of all this.
It was so extremely inefficient and offensive to everyone, though, that I actually went and read up on this sort of manager. To my surprise, people who expect shabby, dishonest behavior from everyone often actually like them anyway. High tolerance for all these rotten people surrounding them, apparently.
In any case, if yours is anything like mine, she needs to be reassured underlings will, of course, do everything the way she wants and be very grateful that it suits her to allow working at home. You don't have to actually BE the humble person she expects you to be, you know, just courteously responsive to her requirements. Also, simply accepting that mine was just plain a terrible manager whose interference was a great detriment to the company, shrugging at her deficiencies, greatly defused her power to ruin what was otherwise a pretty good job.
I think all businesses, our government, etc. would - (sm) - Major Burnout
[ In Reply To ..]all run much more efficiently if they would just do away with about 50-80% of their management! There are just too many of them, all getting in each others' way, and getting in OUR way. They gum up the works with all their little micro-managing shenanigans. The ill will and toxic office atmospheres they seem to enjoy creating cost the companies money due to lost production, constant turnover, sick days, and in some cases, intentional sabotage by thoroughly fed-up and disgruntled workers. To make matters worse, no one at the top wants someone smarter than they are working under them - it's too threatening to them. So that's where all of these intellectually challenged middle mangers are coming from.
They certainly don't seem to be too picky about who they'll hire, either. I've had several that were certifiably NUTS. We had one supervisor once that couldn't conceive of anything - procedure, concept, idea, etc., that wasn't actually written down in her supervisor's employee manual. If she couldn't read it there in black & white, she just couldn't grasp the concept. Trying to explain anything to her was like talking to a tree stump.
Another used to sneak up behind people in their cubicles to see if she could catch us doing our personal email or surfing the web. Used to scare the daylights out of us to be startled like that. Lots of people resorted to installing rear-view mirrors on their PCs. Insane.
We had another who, if she didn't like you and wanted to get rid of you, would assign you work that was already out of TAT, and then write you up for your work being out of TAT. It was a lose-lose situation.
All of these so-called "leaders" abused their privileges, too. They would lock their office doors, pull the blinds, and say they were "in a meeting", when in actuality, they were catching a few ZZ's. The one who used to come down on us if she thought we were web-surfing spent about 80% of her time in the office doing just that - web-surfing. Still another brought her pre-school-age child to work and let it rampage throughout the office all day, disturbing everyone who was trying to work.
The MTs spent about 99% of their time in the office working, other than scheduled breaks. Management, however, spent most of their time doing anything BUT working. The one that freaked out if we came in 2 minutes late, was frequently late, herself. ALL of them left early almost every day.
I once had a supervisor in a very small MT office at a hospital try to tell me who I could and could not talk to. (She was having a personal feud with most of the entire Medical Records department). I just told her sorry, but I have friends in Med. Records, and who I talk to on my own time, and on my breaks, is MY business, not hers. She actually used to "leave" work for the day, and then come back later and peer in the windows to see if I was talking to any of her list of "forbidden people". It was absolutely ridiculous.
She was one of the rare supervisors that also transcribed full time. When I started there, a co-worker took me aside and warned me never to do more work in a day than the supervisor did, or else she would be really upset. Well, of course that gave me the incentive to work hard, because it was so much fun watching the smoke come out of that woman's ears every time my production was higher than hers! I don't know why she even cared, we were paid hourly.
The real winner was one who was abusing drugs. We could always tell whether she was on her uppers or her downers: If she came blasting into the office screaming "Production! We have to ramp up our production!" she was on her uppers. All of us dreaded those upper-days! She was a lot easier to deal with when she was on her downers. She would, while slurring her words as she said it, ask us to "Slow down and be more careful! We can't have mistakes going out to our customers!" Then she would usually go into her office and sleep most of the day. Those were the good days.
How many of us have been in offices that ran far more smoothly, efficiently, and harmoniously when the boss was gone for the day, or better, for week? All of us perhaps? That's why I think about 80% of the management in corporate America should be booted out the door.
Don't know about middle and upper management, but supervisory - positions tend to collect too many
[ In Reply To ..]who want to be in a controlling position and definitely a fair number of not overly intelligent people who rise right on beyond their level of competence because they love rules even if, or perhaps because, they don't understand why they exist or when they should be ignored. Management tends to keep them because they can be depended on to do as they're told, except when they start that passive aggressive payback both up and down so common in that group.
Sorry, good supervisors. I know you're out there too and learned long ago to appreciate you tremendously. :)
I worked for a smallish MTSO where the owner had basically - SM
[ In Reply To ..]one QA person who also acted as the supervisor. She was obviously in love with her position and she drove me nuts. She's one of the reasons I quit. She kept new MTs on 100% QA for months, yes MONTHS! The accounts were clinic accounts, mostly letters to referring physicians, etc. One account was a matter of copying and pasting the previous letter and making the changes the dictator told you about. The MT doing the copying and pasting was held accountable for the previous letter's mistake, a letter typed by a completely different MT. One comma out of place, you got pinged. I swear if you hiccuped when you typed the report, she knew and pinged you! Then she would sent out long emails telling us how they were wasting money covering QA costs and we had better shape. And yet she kept MTs on QA for way longer than she should have and I think, she was just padding her paycheck.
And there were the constant emails, at least 10 a day, harrassing you about production. If you didn't respond to her IM or email within five minutes, she demanded to know why your weren't at your desk and sent you a two page email telling belittling the MTs, telling them she wasn't a babysitter. Excuse me, I got up to go pee and didn't answer right away!
When I quit, I sent the owner an email basically telling her that if her company was losing money, she should look at her right hand girl who was slowing up the work flow considerably!
WOW - what an insightful assessment. SM
[ In Reply To ..]You pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding those who "rise" to middle-management. Yes, there are some very good people in that management tier and I would be remiss if I did not point that out from the outset. If you have a competent supervisor, you are lucky and you should treat them like gold.
Yet, having said that, most are exactly how you described. Most have limited intelligence and are hired because they tend to be loyal as well as unthinking. It seems the whole country is run by people of that ilk. Is it any wonder we are in the shape we are in?
A prominent businessman wrote a book on management 3 or 4 years ago and there was an entire chapter about this subject. He lamented how the least qualified are most likely to be promoted because they tend to follow blindly and ingratiate themselves to upper management. He went on to say that this trend has stifled innovation and has kept many companies from keeping up international competitors. Of course, it is also the fault of upper management because they continue to hire this type of person.
So, if you ever got that feeling that you were smarter than your boss, you were probably right.
when they are like the above mentioned posts - I blow them off as - mtme
[ In Reply To ..]mental with baggage and don't waste my time. They'll N-E-V-E-R get to me and make me someone I am not, i.e., as miserable as they are.
I love transcription - can't take that away.
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