Imagine working for a supervisor who every single one of your coworkers agrees is downright awful. Would you quit, try to get the supervisor fired, or keep working there and deal with it?

The employee in this story is in that exact situation, and he’s really fed up with his awful supervisor. He had been putting up with his annoying ways for quite some time, and it doesn’t sound like he has any thoughts of looking for another job.

However, when he heard the supervisor talking to a coworker, he finally couldn’t take it anymore and spontaneously decided to report the supervisor to a manager. Now, he’s wondering if that was the wrong thing to do. He’s pretty concerned about the fallout for his decision and what’s going to happen the next time he sees this supervisor.

Keep reading to find out why this supervisor is hated so much by all of the employees, and whether you think reporting him was the right thing to do or not.

AITAH for reporting my supervisor?

So for context, I (20-something M) work at a large-chain grocery store. The jobs part-time, minimum wage, and rather mundane, but also pretty simple and generally not too bad.

The issue to this job is my supervisor, let’s call them, Pat.

Now, the department I work in has 20+ people staffed, ranging across the spectrum of age, religion, race, identity, etc. I only say this to be clear that ALL walks of life agree that, Pat, is incompetent, disrespectful, and for lack of a better term, a bully.

Here are some examples of Pat’s bullying ways.

Pat will yell at you for not being able to stay late or come in a day you weren’t scheduled, Cut your hours if you argue or add to them if you listen, Constantly schedule you on days you took off or always had unavailable, Disappear for 30 minutes multiple times a shift, Blames workers for their own mishaps, Every stereotype you could imagine for the lazy, unproductive, and vindictive middle manager.

All of these things are obnoxious on their own and make the workplace SEVERELY unpleasant.

When they yell, they never JUST yell. It’s is in front of the customers, waving their hand in your face, roping others in, comments about YOU as a person, and most vital to this story, physical contact.

Now to be clear, this physical contact is not threatening or “creepy” but it is unwanted.

Here are some examples of physical contact.

Grabbing your shoulder, tapping their pointer on your chest, shooing you away with a light “push,” or placing their hand on their back as they speak to you.

They’re simple, but again they’re unwanted.

I cannot speak for all of my coworkers, but I personally HAVE expressed on multiple occasions that I do not like to be touched and while playful or not, I don’t believe it is uncalled for to ask my boss to refrain from breaking a physical barrier.

It’s one thing if it was like a tap on the shoulder as they leave, but these are repeated instances throughout the work day that combine with their aforementioned peachy demeanor.

But it got even worse.

Finally, we get to the last 24 hours. I’ve been in a back and forth argument with Pat on two fronts. The first was that I couldn’t

1. stay late as I had plans

but also my

2. hours were cut in half for the third week in a row

OP finally had enough.

This resulted in the classic yell, tap my chest while grabbing my shoulder, and cut me off each time I try to get a word out.

When Pat finally stopped, all I did was I roll my eyes and clock out for the day- at least at first.

It wasn’t until I returned to the store and overheard a story of Pat cupping another one of my coworkers faces while saying “I can fire you” (Pat can’t fire ppl) in regards to being a literal 2 minutes late from break.

At that point, something snapped in me and I went to the managers office (let’s call them Jamie).

Here’s how the conversation went.

I sat down and explained I was upset and would like to talk to someone in charge and proceed to explain I am coming to Jamie with two issues

1. Pats physical barrier with ME

2. The uneven spreading of hours

I made it clear that I can only speak for me and my comfortability, so I did not mention the story I overheard.

He brought up an issue Jamie couldn’t ignore.

What I did say was that you can look at the schedule itself and see the hours are NOT even amongst workers (some averaging 30+, others averaging less than 16) and that even if this physical touch is not inherently harmful, I have actively told Pat I am not comfortable with it and at a certain point I am tired of reminding my boss to please not touch me in situations that do not require physical touch.

While it may seem like a silly reason to complain, multiple workers have already complained about Pats behavior with nothing being done about it.

But to put it bluntly- An unwanted physical barrier being broken especially in a work place environment ESPECIALLY between a superior and subordinate causes immediate intervention.

And Jamie let me know that loud and clear.

Here’s what’s going to happen.

They told me they have to immediately contact their HR rep and to be aware that HR may contact me.

We are in a union, so If I wanted to contact them, I would have to do that on my own (which I did say I may think about when explaining the issue with Pat and that might have been my mistake for escalating).

Now I’m here, concerned for tomorrow because I work the same shift as Pat and unsure if I let a moment of anger take hold and cause a big problem at my job.

I think it’s a good thing that he spoke up.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s a vote for Pat getting fired.

A manager says to go to the Union.

This is a good point.

Everyone thinks he was right to report Pat.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a job-hunter who was shocked when the recruiting company told them too turn down a job because the salary was too low.

It’s too bad that the employee in this story had to deal with such an awful supervisor. It’s too bad employees put up with supervisors who really need to be reported. There needs to be a workplace culture where employees feel welcome to talk to the boss’s boss instead of worrying about what might happen if they do so.

I agree with the comment that Pat is the one who needs to be worried about working with OP again, and not the other way around. Hopefully, he is on his best behavior from now on.

I also hope that OP reports the issue to his Union, and I hope that he talks to his coworkers. There’s power in numbers, and if more of his coworkers report Pat and say they’re uncomfortable with his behavior, Pat will be more likely to get fired or at least reprimanded.

He should’ve reported his supervisor a long time ago.