Promises, Promises….
Has anyone ever been in a situation where you're expected to keep someone else's promise without any resources? What if the promise came from the CEO? I was in this situation recently. I had been in my position for about seven months and was already pretty checked out due being sidelined from office groups, getting assigned unnecessary projects, literally impossible goals, and fighting the same happening to the staff. There was a company-wide promotion going on and the promise of the stretch goal was simple. Make X profit, get a banquet! The goal was handily exceeded. The reward, not as readily given.
I was the asst manager of the company's omnichannel communication hub, and many of the people in our department did remote work. There were a few people in the office due to entrance and privacy concerns, but most people were content to stay home. After the stretch goal was firmly in the rear view, I brought the banquet up to my manager who replied that we were waiting for word to come down from corporate about planning. Months pass, he goes on leave, and no banquet. He's going to be gone for a month so I bring the banquet up to his manager and was told I should plan something. I suggested trying to make it to a nearby park performance of a metro symphony, but the idea was a no due to travel distance for some. I then brought up doing something on Indigenous People's Day since the company was closed that day. But that was apparently too far away, so I asked for some planning assistance, and the conversation ended.
I never heard back about planning or resources. There were no appropriate holidays coming and bringing everyone into the office for a celebration was a no-go due to the pandemic. This was never a department where people could stop everything and have a meal together, but before the pandemic we could have thrown a pot-luck or ordered in, and let people meander, chat, and snack through the day. I did some more research on places to go and things to do, but being unfamiliar with the city, and not having any idea about budget, reservations, payments etc. I didn't put in the effort to pull it off. Not because I didn't care about my people, but because I didn't care about the company. I didn't bother taking the issue up the line any further because that had already been discouraged in two ways.
1. The VP gets told about every conversation and will follow up if necessary.
2. Management was “too shy” to talk to me to clarify an e-mail.
Corporate already tended to ignore the contact center. During a previous awards banquet where every other department had been rewarded, the contact center wasn't mentioned. They were essential in not just the success of the business; they were very lifeblood that kept it running during the pandemic! No recognition. Close to the year mark I knew I wouldn't get the banquet planned after so many months and my manager was on leave again, so I attempted to sell back my PTO and have it added to the department’s paychecks. HR informed me there would be tax issues and the request was impossible. In the end I spent less personal money to buy everyone in my department a pizza and a beer. The team deserved more, and it was nice to get thanks from a couple of people.
When I reminded my manager about the banquet after he returned from the second leave, he said he had never heard of it. I was stunned. He was there through the promotion and made sure that people made their goals. The feeling of defeat I felt after that conversation echoed the entirety of the last year of my employment. Later, I was asked to order everyone lunch delivery on the company dime, exposing me to an option he had, but I did not, and was never offered to me by his manager. During the annual review process my manager had the opportunity to tell me he wanted to be the one making changes happen. I also never got to see the real data the team was producing, and he said it was nowhere near the high level I was giving them credit for. My head was spinning, but I wasn’t too shocked because that was how all communications were handled.
