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Comment by LoganDark | Hacker News Reader

Definitely not in this case.

No follow up?

"I was constantly stressed out, felt like the worst employee in the world". Doesn't sound like a good education. I've been told what not to do before in a way that doesn't make me feel worthless - something was clearly wrong with that "alpha jackass", as they so succinctly put it.

Never claimed it was 'good'

> Many years later I am a well respected manager who never treats employees like this.

Sounds like it was effective to me.

Sorry, no, it wasn't effective at anything except making me miserable. I didn't become a good manager because of that experience. I became despite it. I have had great mentors along the way and I've learned the right way to treat people even when they aren't at their best. I've never reflected on that experience in any kind of positive light. I appreciate what you're trying to say, but you are wrong.

Fair, we disagree then. The way it looks from the story and the way it feels from your experience can certainly be different and without control talking about "sorry you're wrong" is more ego than reason.

No ego, friend. Just being straightforward about it.

You’re saying that you didn’t understand that place was badly managed until you experienced good management elsewhere? I can see that as a young employee. I have trouble believing you had no motivation to be a kind coworker after being mistreated, though, since their behavior repulsed you. Thanks for sharing in any case. 90s computer repair shops were a bit Wild West!

I knew it was badly managed, but I didn't realize how badly I was being treated until it was over. The experience didn't have any immediate effect. Rather, it took me years to unravel the damage that was done in that short time. Time to understand what the people around me were going through (such as drug addiction coupled with severe ignorance) and to understand why I let myself be treated like that in the first place.

I came to realize after it was all over that the shop had been selling used parts as new, overcharging customers for billable time, and who knows what else that I've forgotten by now.

The point of me sharing my experience was to corroborate the article. A bad environment can turn a good employee bad by eroding their self confidence and making them feel small. I experienced that to an extreme degree. I survived it, not unscathed. And I'm proud to have not propagated the atrocious way I was treated.

Indeed to be well respected by the incredible team of people that I work with means the world to me. But, my desire to help others has always extended to my coworkers, and then the people I managed either as a supervisor or a manager. Customer service is priority one, and my first customers are the people I work with. If I'm not giving them the best customer service possible, how can I expect them to reciprocate that to others, nevermind our paying customers.

Good education, no. Important education, yes.

School, and often our parents do not teach us that there are plenty of narcissistic greedy assholes that will eat you alive. Instead too often we find that the leaders of the organizations that should be teaching us what to look out for, ARE what to look out for.

This person learned that lesson and got out rather than many people I see trapped in situations like that.

Then I would not call it an education, because that gives more credit to the asshole. Maybe at most it would be a learning experience for the victim.

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