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It's Sunday night and I just had a friend stand up to leave the restaurant where we were enjoying a great meal and watching the Cubs play the Red Sox. If you don't know who those teams are then you are not a baseball fan, but it was a good game! She was so upset that she literally shot up out of her chair and stood to leave because she was pissed off by an email she received from her boss at 6:30 pm. My wife stood up too.
"Where are you going? The game is only in the 4th inning?"
"I just got an email from my boss I need to respond to."
"Why the hell are you checking your emails on a Sunday night?"
Our friend responded, "Because my phone was vibrating so I saw the email and clicked on it."
My wife was upset because our friend was upset but she put the onus on her, "Why did you read it?"
I thought the opposite, "Why the hell did he send it on a Sunday night?"
"Right?!" was our friends respond and she added, "It's the weekend. Why would you email a field ride review on a Sunday night? Especially one that has negative comments. That son of a bitch!"
I had to agree. Apparently this manager sent her a field ride evaluation and he couldn't help but send it on a Sunday night. Why? To ruin the employee's weekend? To be a jerk? To show the employee that she needed improvement in areas and put her in a situation where she could do nothing to improve the situation except get upset?
I have to agree, her boss is a jerk. Maybe not intentionally, but sending a negative email to someone on a weekend, when neither one of you SHOULD be working, is a bad move. First of all, it's the weekend! Secondly, we are all synced to our email and phones, and invariably we check emails all the time. He had to know she would check her email that night and he sent the evaluation anyway. WTF?!
I have devoted my career to teaching managers how to not be complete dickheads and get the most out of their people. However, there is that one person in every class who doesn't listen but rather REFUSES to listen. That one person who gets pissed off and fights against being somewhat nice to employees, because they think that there is an intrinsic reason they are now the boss. That one person who sends twitter posts that read "only the strong survive", or "the best...lead the rest".
That person is an idiot. And if you send an email to your employees on a Sunday and the email doesn't have a positive message... you're an idiot.
SFTD
