Have you ever had a heated/passive aggressive interaction with a manager?

LISTEN - WE TALKED ABOUT THIS AND I TOLD YOU WHAT TO DO. NOW YOU’RE OUT HERE AIRING OUR ISSUE WITH A BUNCH OF STRANGERS

GET BACK TO WORK

Yes. But any senior leader who gets heated with a junior isn’t fit to lead.

Sure. I’ve had a yelling match with a partner at 3am. It happens. That partner is now one of my biggest champions in the firm. If it was a truly toxic interaction, talk to a PPMD about it. If you were the problem, maybe learn to grow a thicker skin.

I’ve had my senior tell me that he’s sick of seeing our director talk down to me (manager). Idk how to deal with that lol.

I’ve also had a director tell me I should know how to audit when I was like 2 weeks into my first internship.

PA has some jaded people every now and then. I try to think they’re just unhappy and run out of ways to cope.

When I was a senior, the manager said something so stupid that I thought they were kidding so I laughed and that they would join in. First they were mad, then they were embarrassed. I got bumped off their engagements. Ended up recovering, but they ended up leaving PA eventually.

Sure

A few times. I usually end up leaving the company. I'm in a situation now where they are "telling" me to do something that is not up to standard, but all they care about is my "insubordination".

everyday

All the time at Crowe. Manager is a delusional “I’m all that” and can do no wrong. I’m leaving here at the first chance I get.

Yes. and honestly you shouldn’t be a leader if that’s your approach to associate interactions or problem solving, I never wanted to fight someone so bad in the workplace before or even ever tbh, 😂

I assist internal EY tax teams with specialty calcs. I once had an SM on another team indirectly say they were going to get the global partners involved because we were going to slow. This after they dragged their feet for weeks and didn't respect our timelines. I just said yea let's do it. I'm happy to talk to the partner.

A financial controller once expressed the point of view that they believed I preferred coming to work, to spending time with my family. Seven months earlier I had to help bury my father, who took his own life after a short struggle with depression. Four years previously my wife needed treatment for breast cancer, which took her strength and energy plus every hair on her head. I no longer work with such a rude, cowardly, unprofessional bully.

Yes, I was hired to transform an accounting department that was comprised of people who did not know how to use excel and accountants/clerks who had no accounting degrees, only small company QB experience, and didn't understand how to do a reconciliation. All the processes were very manual.

I was hired because I have a background in technical accounting, system implementation, and scalable processes for high volume transaction environments. At first everyone loved me, but then they all collectively decided they wanted to revert back to manual processes for things I had automated and I kept on finding numerous errors because I understand the concept of review.

There was a clerk (no college education) who kept on making coding errors (even though our AP processes were automated, she would change the coding for arbritrary reasons) and was either not applying cash or applying it incorrectly and also paying vendors twice, etc. I had spent a year trying to improve her performance and it was getting worse. I told the person I reported to that it was her or me and that I would resign if she stayed on.

He told me he would make sure I had no more say in anything to do with our department going forward (my mom was also dying during this time and he knew about that). There was no way I could work for him after that, especially since my mom was dying and the thought of not being there for her in that environment was too much to bear so I quit on the spot.

The CFO called me the next day asking me to come back and said he would make some changes, but my manager talked him out of that.

What I've learned is that working hard and getting certifications such as CPA and keeping your skill set up to stay current and follow best practices do not matter. All that matters is that you are a good "culture fit" in lesser performing environments and people like me will always be outnumbered and are unemployable in the accounting field.

yup. also at CLA, funny coincidence. I left for another firm and realized only after I left how toxic the environment had been working for that guy. I could never work enough and when I went to him for help one night he went off on me. Beginning of the end. Glad I left. It was a very unprofessional environment and the HR people were bffs with the partners, you didn't feel like you could complain to them. I don't think all offices there are like that but mine was.

Yes. Manager was new. We had an extremely difficult client and the manager expected me to do EVERYTHING, things well above my pay grade. This was even reiterated to me when I discussed with the manager who had been previously handling the engagement. It was obvious that the manager didn't want to do any of the work. I had absolutely no respect for that manager. We had many passive aggressive email exchanges. I'm the type that always wanted to push the issue to the surface because I believe that sometimes things have to blow up so they can be put back together. Manager finally started doing their job. I know there were others that also complained about their work performance so I don't know if other things were happening in the background as well. Eventually, they earned my respect back and we worked well together.

Run!!