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Oh ... him.
Oct. 4th, 2020 12:23 amWhen I retired from the railroad, I signed up for a mailing list that sends out notifications on retirements, deaths, and the like from our regional offices.
This evening I got an obituary notice for somebody I used to work with. The name was really familiar, but I couldn't put a face to it. I had a vague memory of him retiring some time back in the late 90s, so that would have put in in the time period when I was still working in the union.
The email had a link to the longer obituary for him in the local news paper, so I clicked through to that looking for a picture that might jog my memory.
As soon as I saw the photograph, my first reaction was, "Oh ... him."
As soon as I saw his face, I immediately remembered who he was. He'd been one of the managers in the new office we were putting together in Winnipeg. I'd heard bad things about him before I met him in person, but I finally learned why he'd gained such a bad reputation the first time I crossed paths with him. A pleasant description of him would be rude, abrasive, demeaning and insulting. I was struggling to work an unfamiliar job on one of my first night-shifts in the new office and he wandered by to let me know how incompetent he thought I was.
He's not the worst manager I ever had to deal with over the years, but by golly he was the one who came the closest to meeting one of my fists with his face. I was livid.
I held my tongue at the time, but as soon as the assistant director arrived in the morning, I marched into his office and let him know in a voice that I would not entirely call ... calm that if he did not do something about this manager, then the next time he crossed my path during my shift, my next conversation would be with HR where I would be levelling charges of bullying and harassment.
The assistant director's response was surprisingly meek. "We are aware that he has some ... issues dealing with people."
On the other hand, that ended up being my last and only time ever dealing with that manager, so I think they might have let him know which of us they valued more, and he left me alone until he retired a couple of years later.
Other than mentioning him in in passing with friends/co-workers about one of the most miserable managers I'd ever had the displeasure of working with, I never really gave him another thought until I saw his obituary.
Based on some of the vague and politic writing in his obituary, I find myself wondering if his family didn't like him either.
This evening I got an obituary notice for somebody I used to work with. The name was really familiar, but I couldn't put a face to it. I had a vague memory of him retiring some time back in the late 90s, so that would have put in in the time period when I was still working in the union.
The email had a link to the longer obituary for him in the local news paper, so I clicked through to that looking for a picture that might jog my memory.
As soon as I saw the photograph, my first reaction was, "Oh ... him."
As soon as I saw his face, I immediately remembered who he was. He'd been one of the managers in the new office we were putting together in Winnipeg. I'd heard bad things about him before I met him in person, but I finally learned why he'd gained such a bad reputation the first time I crossed paths with him. A pleasant description of him would be rude, abrasive, demeaning and insulting. I was struggling to work an unfamiliar job on one of my first night-shifts in the new office and he wandered by to let me know how incompetent he thought I was.
He's not the worst manager I ever had to deal with over the years, but by golly he was the one who came the closest to meeting one of my fists with his face. I was livid.
I held my tongue at the time, but as soon as the assistant director arrived in the morning, I marched into his office and let him know in a voice that I would not entirely call ... calm that if he did not do something about this manager, then the next time he crossed my path during my shift, my next conversation would be with HR where I would be levelling charges of bullying and harassment.
The assistant director's response was surprisingly meek. "We are aware that he has some ... issues dealing with people."
On the other hand, that ended up being my last and only time ever dealing with that manager, so I think they might have let him know which of us they valued more, and he left me alone until he retired a couple of years later.
Other than mentioning him in in passing with friends/co-workers about one of the most miserable managers I'd ever had the displeasure of working with, I never really gave him another thought until I saw his obituary.
Based on some of the vague and politic writing in his obituary, I find myself wondering if his family didn't like him either.
