Fuck these assholes

I have never encountered a more poorly managed organization than my new employer. Since "Knife Crime" (see previous posts) took over my health club/spa it has been nothing but mass confusion in every department. For a while I thought it was just the spa as we've had compounded problems due to our manager "quitting" and the mass exodus of front desk staff, but as I talk to more people throughout the club I'm finding that we're all in the same sinking boat. No one, and I mean NO ONE, knows what's going on and who's in charge. The Corporate Brass are so busy traveling to newly acquired locations - literally, a new club somewhere in the country every week - they've left the people on the ground with no support. While they managed to send an HR guy to blather on for two hours about Knife Crime's mission statement, they've failed to present anyone who has concrete information on anything else like, say, how much we will be paid, when we will get new products, what the new products will be, upcoming renovations, etc.

I have, however, been able to glean some new information on the curious exit of our former manager. Knife Crime sends all of the managers in the clubs they acquire to a 2-week certification course to see if they're a good "fit" for the position and the company. They are given study materials 2 weeks before they go to certification and they take a test on that material the first day. Apparently, if they score below 90% they are asked to leave the training and are not allowed to keep or get promoted to the manager position. That's what happened to my boss. He failed the test, scored a 60% or something, and was asked to leave the training IN FRONT OF EVERYONE IN THE ROOM. People who were there said it was so painful to watch. So. That explains his leaving his position "effective immediatly" and the company's offer to help him find a "more suitable" position within the organization... meaning, he was demoted and given a severance through the end of the year and, funny, hasn't been able to find another position or had any real support from corporate in trying to do so. This is their legal way of "trimming the fat" and whether or not one agrees with the practice, I don't think it needs to be cruel and humiliating like it was for my boss.

Was he the greatest manager who ever lived? No. Did he have faults that drove everyone crazy? Yes. But don't we all? And what he did so well was engage the customers and take care of his staff, he made it a place where we all enjoyed coming. We all had a saying about him that summed up his skills in one breath: he could take a call from the angriest customer who had the worst experience and at the end of the call, he or she would be laughing and will have purchased a $500 gift certificate to the spa. No lie, I personally witnessed it several times while he was managing. Sure, we ran out of products from time to time. Yes, every now and then we would have to call him to remind him to come in to do payroll. And certain people did get away with murder under his "watch." But the rest of us worked hard for him because we knew he would go to bat for us if we ever needed it. We made him look good and he made us look good, it was a mutually beneficial relationship where the customer ended up on top every time. The ends justified the means with him as the boss and he trusted us to be professionals.

No trust now. No trust, no benefits, no freedom to be ourselves. Just the bottom line and the Knife Crime way.