My new manager is horrible. He is a total suck up and wants us to spend half our day supporting new activities that will make him look good. He has been accusing me of weird things that aren't tru, in fact kind of bizarre and I'm debating going to HR. Should I bother or not? I had a manager before that was horrible and that took an emotional toll and he just kept getting promoted. I am looking for a new job but given it may take a little while, I just want them to back off.
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Wouldn't HR step on you, while tossing others out the door. And then come back and toss you out too? 🤠
Hahahaha!
Don't do that. Find another company.
After years at Cisco I got a manager who didn't like people telling him the sky wasn't pink as he wanted it to be, so he decided to pressure me to quit. When he changed my job in a vicious way to force me out, my HR partner called me to tell me he couldn't do that. I thought I had their support since they reached out to me and I decided formalize a complain.
Suddenly HR guidance changed. I believe the HR partner wanted to do the right thing, but her HR boss didn't. My manager couldn't do things the way he wanted, but yada yada yada, I was in the next LR list. Which was great because there was no way I was leaving without my package.
My career took off after that so no complaints. However, for those here thinking that bad things only happen if you are a white man over 50, some reality check: I belong to 3 different protected categories and still I was badly treated by my boss and in the end, I was let go. Cisco will get rid of you no matter who you are as long as the leader in your team thinks you are not sucking it up to them enough. They make sure to cross their T's and C's in the layoffs so it doesn't look like they are persecuting any specific group.
For Cisco we are just a number, but there is life out there. And it's good.
SFDH
S&#t Flows Down Hill
Now returning you to your regular pre-COVID scheduled program
This has been a test of the Emergency LR Program
This in only a test
As others have said...HR is only there to protect the company, not you.
I was part of an acquired company, and the ONLY time I saw a real HR person was when our company was onboarded to Cisco. After that, I never saw another HR person "in person"......and that was for 15 years.
Manage up, pi-s down culture
Sorry to break it to you, but only behind the scenes kss aszrs and know-it-alls make it to management. Don't believe me? Analyze your management and it will all make sense. Time for you to visit a job board.
Once upon a time, HR might have existed to protect the company. However, HR is now an huge empire that exists only to protect itself. If it means throwing you under the bus or tapping budget from key projects to expand its own feifdom, so be it.
The company is bigger than you. Nobody is going to promote you if you complain usually. Move on. There is plenty of work out there. You go past 1000 companies on your way to work
The system is intended to protect Cisco from lawsuits or bad PR. HR doesn't care if you are being abused in a hostile environment. Switch companies.
I've had a few incidents that were similar. Reported them and nothing happened after a few weeks even though I was assured that things were being taken seriously. People that perpetrated the abuse still at the company, still promoted. That's how the system works even for serious offences.
As you can see, the general theme here is HR is NOT your friend. If anything, HR is the center of hypocrisy and will do everything in their power to protect the aggressor and punish the victim. Depending on your how severe your situation is, the best recourse is to get out ASAP.
I was in the same situation a few years back. My manager decided to take on a new role and I was assigned a new manager. My new manager was a complete racist and never hid that fact. I thought that if I continued to work hard and deliver results, she would not be able to come after me. Boy, was I stupid.
After a few weeks reporting to her, she would use terms like "chnky chnk" and "rice niger". She was even bold enough to put it in chat and emails. In meetings, she would refer to me as the "useless chnk". I thought I had a slam dunk case and reported her to HR. I showed HR all the chat messages and emails. I was shocked at the reaction from the HR representative. They would make every possible excuse to defend my manager. They would say, "she is just saying those as tokens of respect and affection!" or "I am too sensitive and she has the right to express herself." I learned back then that the concepts such as WOKE, diversity, and inclusion was nothing more than a sick joke to HR.
In the meantime, I was taking my work frustration home with me. Both my work and personal life was falling apart. I went from a top 5% contributor to a bottom 15%. My fiancee at the time was sick of all the stress and worries and left me high and dry. Among my biggest mistakes were to let my work drag my family life down.
That year, Cisco announced a major WFR and at the bottom 15%, my fate was pretty much sealed. I remember my old manager telling everyone to always wait for the package. Given the bad situation, I was aggressively look for a new job. As a result, I had a job offer already but my new company was kind enough to wait a month or two for me to get my severance first.
The next few weeks were the worst experience in my career. HR and management began to aggressively "manage me out". I had weekly meetings with HR and my manager. During those meetings, all they did was aggressively stomp on me. My old manager was aware of the situation and finally pulled me aside one afternoon. He told me that it was time for me to leave. I had no allies in HR or at the management level. He said that this will be the only time he advise someone to leave the severance behind. At the rate I was going, they will grind me to the ground long before I get my package. After a few days, I put in my notice.
During my final meeting with HR before my exit, the HR rep basically asked me if it was worth it now that I ruined my career. She also said that skills like Cloud Computing and Containers were worthless. She said I should have focused on getting my CCIE in Routing and Switching instead of focusing on my meteorology hobby (she thought that Cloud Computing had something to do with weather studies - not kidding!). Another funny fact is that she is still with Cisco and was promoted to manager. Like I said earlier, a sick joke.
After I left, I took one month off. During this time, I consulted with a therapist and a lawyer. When the lawyer saw the emails, he was salivating with delight. He basically filled up my calendar with depositions and told me to prepare to take extensive time off for arbitration.
My therapists on the other hand asked, "How do you think your new employer will react when you ask them you want to take extensive time off to sue your previous employer?" He understood that I was angry and wanted to get even. He asked to to think it through and said that in the end, this whole incident will be nothing more than a speed bump in my career, nothing more. In the end, I decided to just move on with my life.
Now, several years later, my career is in high gear. I guess skills like cloud computing and Kubernetes paid off after all. Cisco even calls me and asks me to come back. At first, I was a "no hire back" in HRMS. However, they told me that they can do contract-to-hire and can get a VP to override it later on. After they moved their HR system to Workday, the "no hire back" was gone and they called me even more often. I said no to them every time. In the end, it was just a speed bump in my career, nothing more.
I had that issue. My manager went from good guy to jerk due to pressure he was feeling. In any event, I almost quit but instead opened an HR case. The result is that IR also gets involved (something like Internal Review) just to make sure there are no harassment issues that would cost them money. The team told me that they would work with the manager to make sure his attitude changed...and it did...but I also wanted to move to a different group and was never able to. Ever since them working there was not the same....I took the package in Fall 2020 after 20 years. I DO NOT miss it..Cisco is not the same company under Chuckie.....life is too short to be miserable..hope you can resolve your issues.
Going to HR to report a manager or executive never works out. Several years ago, during the transition of engineering to a “Friends and Family” based executive organization, it became clear that the SVP of my engineering organization was operating in a very shady manner to enrich himself and his family. A well-respected colleague, long tenured Cisco employee, with an exceptionally low tolerance for bu-----t called the SVP on it.
First, he publicly confronted him in a large department meeting. He was immediately chastised, told to shut up, reprimanded privately, and threatened. He then gathered incredibly detailed evidence of the misdeeds from multiple organizations within Cisco using existing relationships from his long time at the company. He met with HR presented his data. HR told him they would schedule further discussions with him on this topic.
A few days later, HR scheduled a meeting for him in another building in a conference room he had not heard of before. When he entered the room, John Chambers was waiting for him. Chambers spoke with him for 90 minutes asked detailed questions then assured him a investigation would follow.
The SVP was on track to become an EVP, but soon left the company for “personal” reasons. On the surface, it appeared everything worked as it should, but it turned out poorly for my colleague. The “Friends and Family” organization that the SVP created remained in place after his departure. Everyone of the “Friends and Family” now targeted the initiator of this departure. In his next review, he was rated extremely low, threatened with a PIP, and denied a bonus.
He complained to Chambers who initiated an extensive HR investigation. (I was interviewed as part of the investigation.) It was determined that his review was inaccurate. He received his bonus several months later. Nothing happened to the “Friends and Family” who had attacked him. After this, he was basically untouchable. He always received his bonus in the subsequent years, but he was treated poorly in terms of work assignments, and opportunities during the rest of his time at Cisco. A short time after Chambers left, he was terminated. The “Friends and Family” got him in the end.
Do not fight it. Just get out!
milk the company, use their system against them.. here is what I know a person did, instead of file a HR thing, he/she filed se-ual harrasement deal or workplace bully, yes, men can do that also.. then it is different eyes at HR. you can request every single email need to be copied to HR and HR has to be copied on all meetings and all the face to face gigs and group calls. The company will immediately put you on next watch list and within a year, you will be gone either way. However, the good thing is that beside manager and director, no one is able to touch you and even give you trouble, you can easily spend the 40 hours find another gig, and move on.. the word also will get out that you are one of these people to avoid and untouchable, and hence until the next HR meeting, you can delay everything and do nothing in your work. with next LR, within 6 months, you can rest and find another gig full time instead of being forced to work. Your manager and director, however, will have a hard time from this moment on..
The only thing you should go to HR for is if there is documented, verifiable proof of something happening. This assumes you are not of a particular race or other acronym protected class. If you can't prove it with HR, you are better off not going to them. You would be better off discussing with private legal counsel on what to do. They will tell you what you need to document, what they believe is verifiable proof, and help craft what to take to HR that could hold up in a lawsuit.
If you are not prepared for that, you need to look in a mirror, take an honest assessment of yourself, and re-evaluate yourself.
Honestly if it gets to this point it is best for you to find another gig outside the company. There is no winning this battle...
Maybe a company has a problem if employees need to enroll in Basic Military Training?
The answer is develop stoic coping skills.
Have you though of really challenging yourself?
Basic Military Training is, no joke, really beneficial in helping one develop coping strategies for dealing with difficult management. Seriously. Join the military reserve and just try it. Basic training will teach you how to both tune out people upset with you and also teach you how to focus when tired and irritated. Mostly it will teach you that it takes more energy to react to someone and let them bother you, rather than developing good disciplined stoic coping skills.
Try OTS military basic reserve training, if you have a degree. It will help you long term in your civilian career.
Switch companies. HR is there to protect the manager... not you
Sounds like you have issues with managers and want to do what you want to do. If you change jobs the new manager has all of your old reviews so if you have a pattern of non performance it's all on you to show improvement, not on the manager to ram improvement down your throat. I would think someone making into 6 figures would be a professional, not an expensive kid that has to be watched. There are those that do what it takes and those that are arrogant and entitled. It works both ways with the arrogance. On the way out of the door in your grand standing with HR you can bet that you will be marked ineligible for rehire.
Why not just go email CEO directly
If not other option left go ethics at cisco and make sure you have every single thing well documented.
Never go to HR. Document everything. Keep all the emails to/from your manager to keep track of what's said. Don't have hallway conversations with him or her. Do it all via email. It may save your a-s.
Here's my story.
Joined a great team that had been created as part of a new BU. 50% of the people I worked with had been on the teams under our director since the BU was created. 35% had joined as the teams grew. The remaining 15% were people who transferred in and were likely to transfer out.
I'd been on the team for over 2 yrs as a contractor and then converted to a blue badge. Within 6 months, the manager who brought me in and then converted me quit. All his direct reports suddenly rolled up to the director. Because he had too many reports now, he cancelled the monthly 1-on-1's and said "If you have an issue, schedule a meeting with me. I don't have time for you otherwise."
Since I was ex-military, I assumed that if he had an issue w/ me, he'd schedule a meeting w/ me. The rest of the FY continued with no feedback and suddenly my end-of-year performance review was in the bottom 5% and his feedback was that "I failed to managed projects to his expectations." I'm NOT a Project Manager, and he had a group of PMs, so why would I be "managing projects"?
Because the performance review had a section for comments to the review, I put the following:
You were too busy to have 1-on-1's. Project Management is not within my job description. You provided no feedback prior to this review and my mid-year review by my previous manager indicated that I was well into the satisfactory or above average rating. If you don't provide feedback, I don't know how to satisfy you." I had my mid-year PR in writing, so I was covered. I had the email from the director saying he was not going to have regular 1-on-1's.
The next thing I know, the director had taken my PR comments to HR and we had a jo--t meeting to document how he and I should communicate via email, i.e. certain keywords in the subject so he'd know he needed to read it, in the hopes that we could communicate effectively.
Notice how it was about me informing him? HR wanted to protect the director, not me. Especially given the emails I brought to the meeting.
Three months later, a replacement manager was found, and the new manager figured out that I was on the director's sh-t-list, so his first impression of me was not good. When the next mid-year review came along in a couple of months, I was again in the bottom 5% and was put on a Performance Improvement Plan, or PIP. His weekly goals for me were all outside of my area of expertise and outside of my job description, but due to my pay grade, I was expected to be able to "problem solve" and "network" to "get it done". Then at the end of Q3, Cisco announced that huge workforce reduction (WFR) that would happen in Q1FY12 (Aug 2011). Suddenly, I no longer had new goals and my weekly 1-on-1's became pro-forma, so I knew my name was on a list. I started job searching and found a new job that was willing to let me start after Cisco's termination date, so I basically sat around and twiddled my thumbs for the remainder of the quarter, took my severance and called that "package" my bonus that the director and new manager screwed me out of for two years.
I even mailed that new manager a Christmas card thanking him for the bonus pay. :-)
The only thing to deal with HR for are payroll issue, benefit's questions, updating address/emergency contact info, etc.
I'll share my experience reporting a former manager to the Ethics office. They responded, they listened and I felt they agreed that under the Code of Business Conduct, I shouldn't be treated the way I complained about and that it wouldn't be tolerated at Cisco. They said they'd talk to the manager's manager and that it would be incumbent on him to raise and correct the issue w/ his subordinate. Whether that happened or not I couldn't say as the manager I complained about took an extended leave shortly after. If you feel your manager is breaking any aspect of the company's Code of Business Conduct, you have employee rights and a right to complain without fear of repercussion. Any employee can contact the Ethics office anonymously if they wish (I did not).
Never ever go to hr. Everrrrr. Saying from past experience
You must be millennial. Hey cupcake HR is not your friend. You never want to have anything to do with HR. And going to them to whine about your "horrible" manager isn't going to endear you to them. You'll come off as a weak, whiney, troublemaker or in other words a millennial.
HR is there to protect the company from people like you.
By all means, go for it - good luck.
HR is not your friend. Complaining to them will be futile and risky. If your looking to leave, keep your head down, suck up to your manager (hold your nose), quietly look for another opportunity, and nail your manager in the exit interview.
Trying to improve the environment, with a bad manager, in a dysfunctional organization, is just jousting at windmills. Don't suffer. Transfer to a better manager or exit entirely.