Bosses who are threatened by their subordinates aren’t leaders. They’re problems—for the employees, the company, and even themselves.
In a small startup, one worker reported directly to the CEO, whose frequent use of their meticulously crafted slides and other materials helped the entire business.
But then a new manager arrived. They were supposed to be the middle link between the two and instantly became uncomfortable with the direct access the employee had to the top of the organization.
The worker, Reddit user Ongogavlogian, soon found themselves under constant scrutiny as the manager started criticizing their every move.
When you go the extra mile for your bosses, you expect to receive some dividends in the future
Image credits: Mikael Blomkvist (not the actual photo)
But this person was laid off instead
Image credits: Mizuno K (not the actual photo)
Image source: ongogavlogian
Boomeranging to your old employer can be a good idea, but not always
We got in touch with the author of the post, and they told Bored Panda that, in general, “Work was great, there were ups and downs, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted through communication and teamwork. I was one of the earliest employees at the startup, hence I had direct access to the CEO for project approvals. Things moved along quickly.”
At first, the manager seemed nice and was a sweet person to talk to, but professionally, she turned out to be a controlling perfectionist. “She would focus on things that were irrelevant to the project or nitpick things to make you feel that you forgot this tiny detail. Her main issue was the trust that the CEO had in me, and over six months, she succeeded in reducing that by becoming the middleman for all submissions, keeping me out of meetings.”
In some cases, returning to a former employer can be a good thing, says Abbie Shipp, a management professor at Texas Christian University who specializes in employee engagement over time.
As long as your resume doesn’t show a pattern of leaving and rejoining a company over and over again, “being a boomerang employee doesn’t carry a negative stigma that it once did,” Shipp explained to CNBC Make It.
Rehires tend to be high performers and they’re such valuable members of the team that the company wants them back instead of finding someone new.
Rehires also tend to be paid more than their colleagues because they often leave for a better offer, and then they’re brought back with an even better one. A job change gives you another chance to (re)negotiate your pay and benefits, especially when employers, as was the case in the Reddit post, want to fill vacancies or catch up quickly.
Image credits: YuriArcursPeopleimages / envato (not the actual photo)
However, deciding to rejoin an old company is a very different experience from deciding to join a new one, and it requires a few extra considerations. After all, you have a history with the organization.
“It’s incredibly important to take in all the information of your prior experience with the firm,” Shipp says, noting that you should be extra aware of what made you leave in the first place.
You have to ask yourself—are those problems still there?
If you left because of your boss’s management style but that person is no longer with the company, you might find the work experience more enjoyable. But if they’re still there and the company hasn’t done anything to address the issues that bothered you, the situation likely hasn’t improved. So, would the new deal be enough to offset it?
Ultimately, Shipp says, “Try not to do what most people do: selectively craft information that leads them to the decision they want to make.”
The Redditor told us they wouldn’t be going back there ever again. “By the time I left, the culture of the company had fundamentally changed [for the worse],” they explained.
People had some questions for the person behind the story
And a lot of reactions to what happened
Some also shared their own similar struggles
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