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9-11GaveMe5G t1_j67ehsn wrote

Every manager I've ever had told me they cared about me as a person. They would never!

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figmaxwell t1_j68g7ma wrote

I’m a union laborer and I got into it with my boss over how much he and my employer* “care about me.” I was reeling from long Covid and he kept forcing 12 hour days on me despite my complaints, so I eventually got a doctors note saying I needed to work less. He didn’t like that so he told me I either had to get a new note saying I was 100% or go out on disability. Gave me some BS about how “the company needs to make sure you’re safe.” No, the company needs to make sure that if something happens to me, they can’t be blamed for it. He called me stupid for saying that, right in front of my union steward, so I filed a harassment grievance haha.

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surnik22 t1_j693dzw wrote

I’ll never understand why middle managers care so much.

Trying their hardest to help the companies bottom line which doesn’t even help them

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figmaxwell t1_j693lzt wrote

Our sups definitely get paid more the more they cut out of the budget, and I’m pretty sure they’re incentivized the more they discipline us too. Also the less they help the company’s bottom line, the more likely they are to get canned.

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The_Original_Gronkie t1_j69ljmd wrote

The hardest move is jump from worker to manager, and there is usually a big difference in income and benefits. So once they are there, they want to move up and make even more money, and get even more perks, like company cars and going to conferences and conventions. Their Allegiance switches from the workers to the management, and they need to prove that loyalty. The competition gets fiercer and fiercer the farther up the ladder they go, because there are fewer and fewer spots, so they have to prove the ability to get results, even if they have to force those results. Eventually they start to see the workers as just getting in the way of a better way of life for him and his family.

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holydragonnall t1_j69xwz5 wrote

To be blunt, it’s managers all the way to the top. Every dumb thing a middle manager has ever said to you was caused by a dumb thing their manager told them needed to happen. My previous job was a middle management position where I was finally making decent money, but the amount of bullshit I had to shield my guys from was just too much for me, and at the end of the day I’d still have to require them to do some dumb shit that they hated because it was mandated by my OWN bosses. I quit that job because everyone above my level was a completely inhuman piece of shit and I couldn’t morally justify working for them, and also I didn’t want to be the bad guy.

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SFWxMadHatter t1_j6b2i8i wrote

This is one of the best things about my supervisor at work. She's kind of flaky but a good person and just does not give a shit about corporate politics. Several people should be fired just by attendance if they had their way but it's all various family issues so as long as production stays on target she keeps them off our back.

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lookmeat t1_j6bkdn0 wrote

You're looking at this backwards.

The only employees who make it to middle management are employees who authentically already care...

...about the company's bottom line. It doesn't matter that 90% of people realize it is a bad idea and wouldn't do it, only that 10% gets to go beyond team manager. And when you look at the distribution of employees this makes sense. As to why? Well that's an individual thing. Maybe naivety and really believing trickle down and they'll be protected for helping the company. Maybe greed and ambition and they realize this is what they have to do to move upward. Maybe some level of sociopathy or narcissism where the desire for power alone is enough to get them going.

And they really get nothing. During layoffs most people don't realize, but middle managers are on the chopping block by default. Less slaves means you need less whip masters. There's no loyalty, benefit or protection as a middle management, all their job is to be disposable villains who take them blame so execs can keep collecting their bonuses with employee moral untouched.

So yeah, makes perfect sense. If there's enough evidence that employees could sue the company, all they have to do is act "appalled" at the actions of "a rogue manager" and then "promptly discipline" them by firing them. While they get other mid-mgmt to keep trying to bust the union through other methods until something sticks.

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Much_Writing_7575 t1_j6bluqc wrote

I had a temp job at eBay's headquarters for a couple of weeks and it was a fucking shit show.

My manager was an alcoholic and forced all his employees to drink with him after work.

The IT office had stacks and stacks of hardware and shit just all over the place, filling up cubicles, all over the floor and they had an entire room full of laptop assets that they had no idea who they belonged to or where they came from.

Employees would come in and drop off their computers for break fix and someone would take their computer and just throw it in a corner.

We were expected to handle a minimum of 50 tickets per day, with each ticket requiring between 20 minutes and a couple of hours. How the fuck they expected that to happen I have no clue.

The actual employees would literally run from one user to the next trying to meet their ticket quota and they would often work hours after their shift, even into the night.

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abtei t1_j68pn9a wrote

if unions do nothing, why is upper management sooo scared of them....

i wonder :)

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drawkbox t1_j67vdfs wrote

eBay has some sketchy leadership last while...

Anyone remember when eBay, from the top, harassed an old couple like they were some organized crime operation? Maybe there is something to that eBay/PayPal mafia name. Feels like half of it is money laundering.

It is way worse than you think. Almost like a mafia extortion / threat / fixer style team with threat after threat and following them around, sending them shit and all extremely fucked up. This is stuff the mafia does to people that are leveraged and they are forcing some "offer you can't refuse" shit.

> that Sunday, Steiner was simply surprised and dismayed to see the word “Fidomaster” spray-painted across his fence. He tried to clean up the mess before Ina, who was out paddle boarding, returned home but he failed. Ina recognized that the name matched an anonymous commenter on their newsletter, one who was particularly critical of eBay.

> “This was very unnerving,” Ina recalled in an interview with the Globe this week. “It didn’t make any sense.”

> Two days later, the phone rang. It was a taxidermy and animal parts shop in Arizona calling to ask about a purported order for the Steiners of a fetal pig. The Steiners’ delivery address didn’t match the billing address on the credit card used on the order, so the shop called to double check the order. Shaken, the Steiners canceled the order.

> “I thought, here we go, from online to the real world,” Ina said. “It was really scary.”

> The couple decided to call the Natick police, and an officer arrived at their house to take a report, they said. As the officer was leaving the house, he noticed a package by the front door. While David and the officer continued talking, Ina opened the package in the kitchen. Seeing bits of hair and skin, she screamed. Inside was a mask of a bloody pig face, like the one worn by a crazed killer in the “Saw” horror movie series. The officer added the details to his report.

> The Twitter abuse continued to escalate and even more bizarre deliveries arrived, the couple said. One day it was a book for David called “Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss of a Spouse.” Ina said she Googled the return address of another package, and when she discovered the sender was called Carolina Biological Supply Co., she feared they might need to call a hazmat team. A call to the company revealed the package was filled with live spiders and fly larvae; they turned it over to the police.

> A few days later, a florist arrived with a sympathy wreath for David. The driver told the Steiners he had come from Central Square in Cambridge and was instructed to leave the $255 wreath by their back door without ringing the bell. Ina snapped a picture, more evidence for the police, and debriefed the delivery man.

> “All of these small retailers, they were being weaponized to be used against us,” David said.

> On Aug. 15, the campaign took a darker turn. Unbeknownst to the Steiners, a group of Baugh’s employees had flown to Boston, rented two vehicles, and checked into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, according to federal documents. They initially planned to plant a tracking device on the Steiners’ car. Luckily, the Toyota Rav4 was locked in the garage and the eBay team retreated to the hotel, the documents allege.

> But the next day the team returned. David Steiner was up on a ladder installing one of several new security cameras he’d purchased, while Ina handed him tools out of a second-floor window. Suddenly, Ina saw a dark-colored Dodge Caravan driving up their street. “Black van, New York plates,” she told David as the vehicle drove past.

>“We felt in danger, we felt like targets,” Ina said.

> The van took another pass by the house, as captured by one of the couple’s security cameras. Then, later in the day, David noticed the same van pull out to follow him while he was in his car with a friend.

> “I can still feel how every hair on the back of my neck stood up,” David said, as the van followed him for several blocks.

...

> On Aug. 18, David became determined to break out and go to the grocery store. Again, a vehicle, a silver SUV, started following him. He called Ina. “I’m going to take them downtown,” he told her, planning to drive to the Natick Police Department.

> The SUV followed at a distance. He pulled over and parked across the street from the police station. As the SUV slowly drove past, he propped Ina’s iPhone up on the steering wheel and photographed the stalkers. “I’m determined to take a picture this time, I just kept hitting the button,” he said.

> With a full license plate number in hand from David’s pictures, the Natick police quickly started to unravel the conspiracy. The vehicle tracked back to an eBay contractor who was staying at the Ritz.

That is just part of it...

Who the hell works somewhere and even cares enough about the company to protect it with literal stalking and threats? I mean is some criminal shit going on at eBay? Doesn't even make sense how it would get to that level.

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brodie7838 t1_j68i6t4 wrote

The worst part is how the CEO walked scott free + a fat AF severance package. This article says he had no direct knowledge of the situation, but he literally kicked the whole thing off with this message to another exec who sent it to the security guy who got jailtime:

"If you are ever going to take her down … now is the time,”

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drawkbox t1_j68jlgw wrote

Yeah the CEO and seven members of the global security team for eBay were involved. It was run out of the company which is even more insane. The CEO was "not charged" but definitely was the driver or let it happen and approved.

> A cyberstalking and harassment campaign conducted in 2019 against an online newsletter led to charges made public in 2020 against seven members of eBay's global security team, as well as arrests of two of those charged. Wenig, the company's CEO at the time of the harassment campaign, has not been charged.

EBay stalking scandal

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BrainJar t1_j69c63d wrote

I don't disagree with how heinous this was, but this was two CEO's ago...nearly every VP and C-Suite leader has been replaced since then. Anyone below that level, besides the dipshits that were directly involved didn't have any idea how stupid the CEO and Physical Security team were being. There are very few leaders that remain from this time too, and none of them were in the direct leadership chain of that CEO. What you're trying to tie together at the end misses the mark of the current state of affairs at the company. This was just one isolated and very stupid thing.

In addition, TCGPlayer is an affiliate of eBay and only recently purchased by eBay. Saying that their batshit crazy stuff with the Union (and I agree that anything that they're doing to try to keep that office from unionizing is just plain stupid, in addition to being illegal) is associated with eBay is a misnomer. Sure, they're a part of eBay, but they have kept their entire leadership and operations separate from eBay operations.

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drawkbox t1_j69foob wrote

True, though culturally maybe some of that still lingers. This wasn't that long ago, January 2019.

Would TCGPlayer have done the same actions on Unions if they weren't part of eBay, I don't know.

I just think this is such a wild story that any mention of eBay makes me thing how messed up it was that a company at the top did this to a freaking newsletter.

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BrainJar t1_j69kb0a wrote

Thanks to Devin’s actions, the entire company has a new set of annual training that they have to go through, specific to this corrupt asshole. On top of that, they have quarterly acknowledgement of ethics training that they have conduct with their teams. And no, there’s no “culture” lingering related to Devin. Four years is a long time in company timeframes.

I worked there for ten years and I don’t think some affiliate that is only loosely connected with eBay takes its lead from eBay on unions. Prior to eBay, I was a shop steward in our Union, and I’m always looking out for that bias. I didn’t hear anything like that at eBay. So, no, it’s conjecture and contrived to sensationalize their name recognition in the story.

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drawkbox t1_j69l2rk wrote

Well if it is better now that is good. eBay always has a little bit of sketch going on, not necessarily the company but some of the market but that is the nature of things, that is why newsletters and ratings and external curation is good where needed. However, companies even ones with ethics training will still have pockets of bad people, just like here. It is usually never the whole thing or most people, always a cabal.

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The_Original_Gronkie t1_j69mwkr wrote

>Who the hell works somewhere and even cares enough about the company to protect it with literal stalking and threats? I

Some people would gladly do that for fun. There are lots of sick people who are looking for any justification to bully people. "Protecting" your employer would be good enough for them, especially if it comes with a bit of a cash bonus. It also gives them a bit of job security because the company will keep them around to do dirty work whenever it's needed.

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ThehungryBulldozer t1_j67qwy5 wrote

What do Pokémon cards have to do with this??

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nermalenthusiast t1_j684bna wrote

Read the article, TCGplayer is a TC(G) (Trading card game) seller owned by eBay. eBay is in the title because more recognizable name than their child company & still obviously relevant. I do wish they put TCGplayer in the title along with eBay but the article clears it up

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MoreGaghPlease t1_j68jlnf wrote

TCGplayer is a company that sells secondary market trading cards (eg Pokemon, Magic)

eBay acquired TCGplayer in October of last year for $295 million (mixed stock / cash)

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GhostofDownvotes t1_j6c5jnv wrote

What does r/technology have to do with this? Because eBay is a website?

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Toad32 t1_j68k0mp wrote

Ebay is falling in popularity currently.

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AustinJG t1_j68og43 wrote

Well that's what happens when you constantly up your fees into the stratosphere rather than offering new goods/services for growth. Also their customer service can be awful if you're a seller.

I still sell with them, but I sell things that are less volatile and attractive to scammers.

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luke_smash t1_j68y813 wrote

I used to work in the same building as TCGPlayer. People have sent me job postings they have. I have heard good and bad things but what sticks out in my head the most is their hundreds of layoffs just a couple of years ago. Not a stable employer at all.

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workplacethrowawayut t1_j69t4yp wrote

Worked for eBay for a year. The interviewers opened up the interview with "Oh! Were Mormon too!" after seeing I briefly attended a Mormon university (that I had been kicked out of for being gay). Non-stop homophobia and racism for a year on that job, before they realized I wasn't Mormon, and was gay. About a week later "layoffs" hit and weirdly every Mormon on the team was retained. (This took place in salt lake)

Loved working at eBay, but the lower and middle levels of that company are so infested with the worst of humanity, its hard to think good of my time there.

Unionize that shit.

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DrB00 t1_j69qb2v wrote

All managers care about you... putting in work to make them look good.

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NeoHolyRomanEmpire t1_j6alsyp wrote

Managers can care about their employees and still have to pay people off because if they don’t, everyone will lose their jobs. I have been a supervisor who made less per hour than the people I was supervising, and my guys taught me a lot. I genuinely still care about them, even though I’m elsewhere now, but when I had to discipline people or we had to let people go, it’s because they deserved it. Not everyone is out to get you.

Also there are definitely jerks out there who only care about themselves. I just hate these stereotypes.

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johnclarkbadass t1_j68tuxr wrote

Is there a way I can support this new union?

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sellby t1_j68xn6n wrote

Same, I've been using them over Amazon for online shopping a lot.

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Cheeselikeproduct t1_j6ekwom wrote

If you’re a TCG customer perhaps you could share your support with them directly, and with eBay too.

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InGordWeTrust t1_j68suv0 wrote

Weird, I heard that people only used eBay for selling video games and sex toys.

I guess eBay wants to play games, and instead should go get fucked.

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