Of Ice Cubes and Toxic Work Environments

One time when I was the store manager for a McDonald's, the owner of the franchise came in, tearing up a storm, ripping into one of my employees for some perceived infraction of the "rules," after first reaching into the ice bin with his dirty fingernails and digging out a few ice cubes to chew.

He didn't take her to the office and talk to her calmly; he didn't speak to me about speaking to her; he just stood there in front of the ice bin and berated her like she was a child, right in front of all the other employees, right in front of all the customers. It was his modus operandi -- way of keeping everyone off balance, trembling in fear, so we would all walk on eggshells and toe his line.

I had taken to making a beeline for the office to hit the valium when I saw his car drive in the lot. My assistant manager would head for the restroom for a snort of coke. And another long-time employee also used some form of narcotic -- I don't remember which -- to control the constant anxiety of working in such a toxic environment.

I'd had enough. I stood between him and her and shouted back at him. "DO NOT YELL AT MY EMPLOYEES! I'm in charge of this shift and if you think there's a problem with her performance, you talk to ME."

He took two steps back, complete shock showing on his face, blinked a couple of times, and said, "Don't yell at your employees? Don't yell at your employees?" Then he threw another piece of ice in his mouth and chomped on it, ice shards spraying out.

"YES!" I said. I'm her supervisor and she's done nothing wrong."

He blinked a few more times, chomped on some more ice, and then walked away.

He never came in the door screaming on my shift again. But a few weeks later, he did it to my assistant manager and she quit on the spot. That was it. I could tolerate no more. I was gone within four months.

No one needs or deserves that kind of toxic environment. No one deserves to be verbally taken out to the woodshed in front of all their colleagues. No colleague or supervisor should ever talk down to an employee as if they were a child. It's unprofessional, it's demeaning, and anyone who forgets that they are talking to their co-workers and not their children needs to go work at a daycare. Except yelling at kids that way would get them fired there.