Manager abandons factory floor workers to fend for themselves when 90 degree heatwave sweeps the plant, says overworked and overtired employee, they resign giving their 2 weeks' notice: 'After getting a promotion, I got a 1 dollar raise'

When things heated up, quite literally, in this manufacturing plant this worker was faced with the reality that they needed to leave their job, and fast… Wouldn't you have done the same under this manager?

Sprawled on the couch, one arm dangling off the side and the other holding your phone as close to your face as your eyes can still focus, the white light of the screen illuminating an otherwise rapidly darkening room as the last light of the sunset trickles through the open blinds. It's the weekend, or the end of whatever's left of it, the almost 48 hours since you left work have hardly been enough time to even fully decompress so that you can begin to relax and turn your mind to other things. You're still exhausted, and you bury your face and directing mind into doomscrolling, increasingly disinteresting, and equally depleted social media feeds, trying to keep those cortisol-spiking thoughts of the coming week from creeping in.

You can already feel the unbearable conditions of both the heat of the factory where you work and the pressure of a tyrannical manager who rules over the factory work floor with impunity, like some sort of distantly reverberated version of Nurse Ratched presiding over her ward in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

While this might all sound overly dramatic, for those of us who have been on that borderline of sanity, it's an all-too-real feeling that you don't soon forget. Every week, you start off barely recovered and riding burnout like a surfer trying to get up a wave that has long since broken, and is already rolling up into the swash and back out to sea.

And when it comes to that manager, comparing her to such an authoritarian manager might be a bit far. But, then and again, the archetype of her character exists for a reason; she, and other characters and individuals in our own lives, represent a type of tyrannical over-application of formalism. Resonant with many of the structures of society and the world around us that confine us inside the four walls of our own lives.

The almost comforting familiarity of those same structures is embracive, almost nurturing and mothering, until we seek our own individuality and stray too far from that strict expectation of structural conformity. From that point, we either return to compliance or we find ourselves faced with battling an authority.

"But," you say, dear reader. "I'm confronted by all of this waxing philosophical discussion about how trapped I am in my life. I just wanted to read a fun, editorialized workplace story that was shared online." If that's you, then by all means, don't let me keep you. Give the story below a read and see if you think they went too far or made the right call for their health and their career.

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  • "The work is grueling."

    A frustrated manufacturing factory worker retains his focus and composure amidst rising tensions
    via Getty Images

    A frustrated manufacturing factory worker retains his focus and composure amidst rising tensions.

    Image is representative, not actual subjects.

  • "I worked in a factory for over 2 years. The work is grueling. I go to work and come home too tired to do anything. Even on weekends, I still feel exhausted and sore from the week. The pay is barely enough to survive on. After getting a promotion that was a lot more work and responsibility, I got a 1-dollar raise.

    The main reason I left is because of my direct supervisor. She seems like the kind of manager you would want to have, until things aren't exactly how she wants them to be. She gets in moods where she will just snap at everyone and talk down to people like they're stupid, or go out of her way to get them in trouble. She has a spreadsheet of all of the mistakes employees have made."

    The worker detailed how after two years of exhausting work, long hours over a vindictive and authoritarian manager, they decided to leave their current role and look for other work. Her dark and unpredictable moods adding to the difficulty and stress of shifts.

  • "A few weeks ago, I got written up because she started going off on me, I asked her to stop talking to me like that..."

    Industrial workers work together on shift.
    via Getty Images

    Industrial workers work together on shift. 

     

    Image is representative, not actual subjects.

  • "A few weeks ago, I got written up because she started going off on me. I asked her to stop talking to me like that, she said no, and I said "Are you f--g kidding me?" Which was apparently uncalled for.

    I got a better job and put in my 2 weeks, and I was told I could either work 3 more weeks or 1. I wasn't allowed to work [for] 2 more weeks. I almost walked out then, but I tried to just grin and bear it for the sake of the people I do really like. Yesterday it got up to 90 degrees in our area. We were all sweating and suffering, and she announced that she's leaving because it's too hot for her. She left her employees suffering in the heat and went home. If I did that, I would've gotten written up, I guarantee it."

    They stood their ground during a recent incident where their boss had been berating them, leading their boss to fly even further off the handle. The exchange made them start looking for other work as soon as they were home, submitting their notice as soon as they had found the first possible job.

  • An overhead view of a metal works plant.
    via Getty Images

    An overhead view of a metal works plant.

    Image is representative, not actual subjects.

     

  • "That leads to today. She is immediately in a mood and keeps getting snippy with me, so I write an email to the owner of the company (it's a small family-owned business) and HR telling them everything I've witnessed this manager do, including loudly saying how she wants to fire certain employees, and then I walked out. I'm not sure if it will have any [effect] at all, but that's no longer my problem. My hands are still shaking a little bit, but I feel so relieved."

     

  • Workers walk the floor of a clean metalworks plant.
    via Getty Images

    Workers walk the floor of a tidy metalworks plant. 

    Image is representative, not actual subjects.

  • dabig49

    People leave bad managers over bad jobs. Glad you found something else

    No-Fix-614

    Profile Badge for the Achievement Top 1% Commenter Top 1% Commenter
    Nothing hits like the peace of realizing you never have to see that manager again.

    ComputerDecent463

    Do you need a reference from her or HR?

    If not I would have just agreed to three weeks and left after two. They can’t not pay for you the two weeks you did work.

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employment worker antiwork jobs employee manager factory employees workplace Horrible Bosses workplace story
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