Office Crap

I worked at a German faucet compnay for 8 yrs. until just a couple of monts ago when I decided to stay home with my new baby. For 4 1/2 yrs. I did Cust Svc/Inside Sales. After that I was promoted to a Supervisor of my dept. by my new Manager & acted in that role for the remaining 3 1/2 yrs. When the position became open, I applied for it along with a few other people in my dept. I won out because I was able to convince my new boss that I had the most knowledge and could help him manage the team the best (which really was true). I did, however tell him that I really did not think of myself as the "supervisor type" that I really just wanted to help my team gain the tools that they needed to do their jobs successfully. He choose me anyway. My team mates accepted my new role pretty well, even a couple of people that I thought would not.

My manager (Roy) ended up heaping a lot responsibility on me -some good, some bad. I was responsible for keeping up with everyone's time punches, vacation, tardiness, training, monitoring phone calls, conducting team meetings & a whole slew of other things. It became so overwhelming that I wanted to ask Roy so many times "And what exactly do you do?" It seemed like all he did was sit in his office & try to sound like he knew what he was talking about. He decided that instead of learning anything about the product or our customers, he would just ask me. Then, he would take the info that I gave him & use it to make his dumbass look good. Do I sound a tiny bit resentful?

Eventually, he even had me going through the applications & resumes for potential new hires & picking out which ones "we" should interview. At first he was conducting the interviews & then later he decided we should do them together. The fun thing was discussing the candidates after they left. Sometimes Roy & I were on the same page and we were like "what the heck was that? Who would say that? or who would come to a job interview looking like that?" Other times it was like my boss was completely oblivious that a person had been through 6 jobs in 2 yrs. and had a criminal record, missing teeth, had never used a computer & didn't have a car. Somehow this person seemed "trainable and worthy of giving them a shot" -Roys words. Of course whenever he hired someone against my wishes, inevitably the shit would hit the fan. They wouldn't show up for work or they were totally incapable of doing the work or they just plain didn't work while they were there. Meanwhile, there I was having to deal with it because my boss was too nice & didn't want to fire anyone and he was too afraid to come out & actually manage the dept. It was like a big friendly Gorilla had taken over the department & locked himself in an office leaving me to clean up the mess.
It's not like I really like the idea of firing people, it's just that I wouldn't have hired those imbeciles in the first place. And what's the point of me having to supervise them if I don't have the right to hire or fire them? I swear, I get frustrated just thinking back on it. I decided I didn't like being in that position in the long run. Roy was eventually shifted to another position in the company & was let go shortly after that. Hmh, go figure.