'Either you're with me, or against me': Micromanager gets fired after she refuses to let staff workers hire temps

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 2, 2023 3:00 PM EDT

As a new boss, this person assumed she already knew everything there was to know about her new role. Unfortunately for her, the employees at this place knew exactly what would happen if she didn't do her job correctly. 

This OP shared their story of the time they worked in an elder care facility. They write that when they first began the job, they had a great boss who seemed to really care about the patients, ensuring that they were well cared for and had plenty of activities to fill their days. But then that boss quit, leaving a new person to step into her shoes. 

As this story highlights, your work experience is very much dictated by your day-to-day interactions with your direct boss. It's a strange experience when there's turnover, and suddenly your job goes from an enjoyable experience to a miserable one in a matter of a few days. It certainly helps when you have amazing coworkers, but in the end, a micromanaging boss can introduce toxicity that is inescapable. 

Up next, this employee was trying their best to work for a nonprofit, but when the org treated them poorly, they had a two part plan to sink the company. 

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  • 01
    Sky - 'I input the temp request and then I walked to boss' office and informed her. She loses it.'
    via Matt Bennett on Unsplash
  • 02
    Font - Crapy boss will forever regret trying to bring the thunder. LOC *Backstory* I started working in care of the elderly before I graduated school, at age 17, as a temp worker, and after I graduated I basically worked full time for several years, finally got a steady employment at age 23. I take pride in my job, and even though I didn't study medical stuff I've always made sure I know everything I need to know to do a good job, with online classes, certificates, reading up on medications, tre
    via u/deleted
  • 03
    Font - Everything was going well, despite me having 4 different bosses in the first 5 years of work (no one wants to be the boss here, economically speaking it's a sinking ship, since it's government run and dependant on tax money). Then Friendly Boss (Lena) joins the story. She asked me to move over to a new department the state was now - by law - obligated to provide; short term care.
    via u/deleted
  • 04
    Font - She had previously run the emergency care unit at the local hospital, and she didn't take crap from anyone. She let us workers build up and run the department because (as any good boss should) she realised that we knew better what we were doing (because we were doing it day-to-day), and what worked best for us, as long as we stuck within the laws, regulations, staff requirements and budget, of course.
    via u/deleted
  • 05
    Font - Everything was amazing for almost 2 years, every month I did the schedules for all 15 of the workers, I did daily planning for all patients. I was in charge of all documentation, and all new guidelines and protocols being implemented, since the care provided was brand new in our area. Then the day of The Great Sadness came, when Lena declared that she was leaving, since she'd been offered a job as the head chief of the local hospital. All of us were devastated to see her go, but, I mean,
    via u/deleted
  • 06
    Font - That's when Super B (Kajsa) enters our story. She was already the boss of all the normal elderly care units, where's I'd worked before (I'd already moved on to short term care before she was hired as boss), and we had heard exclusively bad things about her. We heard she would always do what SHE thought was the right thing to do, which was almost exclusively wrong, because she was under-qualified, had no experience from the actual work, and was just a b in general.
    via u/deleted
  • 07
    Font - Our first staff meeting she told us "either you're with me, or against me, and the people who are against me I dr vn in *local lake*". Ok. Great start. I then tried to explain to her that with our previous boss we'd worked with trust, since Lena had an understanding that us workers actually know what works best in our own department, and Kajsa instantly shut it down.
    via u/deleted
  • 08
    Font - Kajsa: "No, I'm the boss, I set the protocols, I decide how my department's run." Me: "Yeah of course, but I'm just saying we've been working like..." Kajsa: "NO!!!! I'M THE BOSS!!! I'M IN CHARGE!!" And so it began. Kajsa started changing the schedules, the protocols, the staff requirements, the daily rehab schedule, the FOOD SCHEDULE (not joking btw), and she lowered the required medical competence to work at our unit. This means there were people working with us who; had no prior experi
    via u/deleted
  • 09
    Font - Malicious Compliance: Kajsa started to try to micromanage everything we did. Literally everything. She cancelled all the activities we did for the whole business, like pub nights for the elderly, movie nights, summer café outdoors, walks, store visits, everything. (All without cost to the business.) She stated that we're no longer allowed to finish the schedules on our own, and gave us 2 weeks less to finish them, which means we now have 1 week to input the schedule, try to settle it betw
    via u/deleted
  • 10
    Font - So I told Kajsa that I've been managing the schedule for years and was happy to keep doing it, and that she'd still have it two weeks early. No. I told her that our activities were 100% within paid hours and no strain on the day-to-day normal business and we want to keep doing them. No. I told her that we'd prefer to keep doing things as we'd been doing them for years, because it worked very well. No.
    via u/deleted
  • 11
    Font - Obviously I was ped. So were my coworkers, but they never spoke up, that was my job I guess. There were A LOT of incidents that I'm not gonna bother bringing up, but just imagine that anything we ever wanted to do for our patients or the people in the dementia units, or for the well-being of the staff was just.. No.
    via u/deleted
  • 12
    Font - One thing that had been consistent since I started working there when I was 17 (27 at this point in the story), is that when you apply for vacation, or any kind of leave, you input the leave request, and then you request a temp to cover your shift, and then you inform your boss that you done both those things. Always been like that. Always. So I did, I requested a days leave (my mum had a doctor's thing in a town a few hours from here), I input the temp request and then I walked to boss'
    via u/deleted
  • 13
    Font - Big surprise for her when the next staff meeting comes around, there suddenly weren't any staff on the actual ward, and a local politician was sat waiting with her mother (who was being committed to my ward that day) for OVER TWO HOURS. I wonder who made sure they were arriving at that time on that day :) I told my boss' boss exactly why there weren't any temps scheduled for the meeting. Kajsa got fired. Will make me smile for the rest of my life. Edit 1: Acronyms, and some spelling I hop
    via u/deleted
  • 14
    Font - nomodramaplz Ugh, SB deserved it. I also worked in a long- term care facility for almost a decade as my first job and this makes me so angry, especially about not having qualified staff (like, wtf?!) AND canceling activities (seriously?! For some residents, that's the only opportunity they have to get out of their rooms and socialize...).
    via u/nomodramaplz
  • 15
    Font - [deleted] I know... SB's incompetence actually led to the death of a resident, just before her termination period ended. Because of under qualified staff, and having a new person on each shift for a whole weekend, no one realised the resident was getting worse, becsuse they all met her for the first time on their shifts. F king scary.
    via u/deleted
  • 16
    Font - yParticle Never understood the corporate mentality to move middle managers around between departments rather than promote the actual stars of the department to assume leadership. Talk about adding negative value!
    via u/yParticle
  • 17
    Font - jacle2210 hate to say this, but maybe when 'Kajsa' is older, maybe she will get to spend some quality time in a facility being run the way she want to run OP's. Though that wouldn't be fair to other people, so... Hopefully she gets lots of good karma payback regardless.
    via u/jacle2210
  • 18
    Smile - one2tinker Wow, excellent. I don't know why people can't just be reasonable.
    via u/one2tinker
  • 19
    Font - ZumboPrime Amazing. That bi had to feed her ego so much she shut down everything your residents got to do for entertainment off-site. She took a good place to stay and literally turned it into rooms for people to sit and de and nothing else.
    via u/ZumboPrime
  • 20
    Font - morgan423 Rational person who takes over management of a well-oiled machine: Hmm, I'll look for opportunities here or there for even more efficiency, but it's pretty much going to run 98% the way it was before. This person: REEEEEEEEEEEEE! CHANGE IT ALL! MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!
    via u/morgan423
  • 21
    Font - [deleted] It's not as serious as it was not in the medical field...I worked at a pizza place and the much loved boss got a new store and we got psycho b Carol. She changed literally everything from toppings, bake times, even the way we cut the pies and once a location with 4 employees (not a big shop) had none...we all got together and decided to go in and quit...have fun running the shop with no staff Carol.
    via u/deleted

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coworkers boss bossy elderly rules Horrible Bosses old people staff work workplace temp toxic-workplace workplace-stories micromanager
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