Frank’s Story – Broken Promises

Frank was hired into a software company because of his exceptional customer service skills. Throughout the interview process he was wary of the fact that he didn’t know the technicalities around the products he would be supporting. Frank’s hiring manager assured him that detailed training would be fully provided, and that they needed a great customer service professional.

With his concerns addressed Frank accepted the job. He expected either some form of training or at the very least – as an interim measure – to be able to sit with an experienced member of the team for some knowledge transfer.

His first few days at the job saw nothing, no training, no peer support. It was incredibly stressful. Of course Frank wanted to make a good impression, he struggled on and despite asking about the training , it didn’t materialize. He was left alone to deal with angry customers who he didn’t know how to help, it felt as though he had been thrown to the wolves. This seemed to be the norm at this company and he wasn’t the only one.

Frank persevered but became apprehensive about going to work. It was seriously negatively impacting him. In particular his Sunday nights evolved into a nightmare. He would dread Monday morning so much it started to make him physically sick. He decided that he would have to raise the issue, if he was given the training he was promised there would be no problem.

Frank built up an enormous amount of courage in order to raise the issue. His negative work environment had eroded his self-confidence. The result of Frank’s escalation: he was given a few textbooks and told to read them. He fell even more out of favour at this point – doing this actually made the situation worse.

Frank didn’t have time to read these books at work due to his heavy workload, so he took them home. He spent hours reading them but they didn’t help him at all. He blamed himself for not being able to figure this all out.

Frank considered resignation but his home life prevented him from taking the risk of just leaving a job without having something else to go to. By this time he was being regularly berated at work for ‘poor performance’ because he wasn’t able to answer customer questions or resolve their issues properly. He couldn’t see any way out. The treatment he was receiving had undermined his confidence so much that he felt like he wouldn’t even be able to get a job elsewhere and his desperation was so obvious it was hindering him even further.

Needless to say this was permeating every aspect of Frank’s life. He couldn’t sleep, his eating schedule was up the wall. The toxic culture of broken promises and blame was destroying him. Frank felt absolutely useless and like he was being forced out. He told me that while driving home from work one day he wondered whether it would be easier to ‘wrap his car around a tree’ so that he wouldn’t have to go to work the next day.

What Happened?

Luckily Frank did not choose this course of action. He called his doctor and sought help. Ultimately he left the toxic business and has now landed in a workplace with a warm and supportive culture. However, this work environment damaged Frank’s health and he had to go to CBT sessions in order to recover. It has left a lasting negative impact on Frank and his family to this day.