Open Door Policy

My daily conflicts with Potatohead have gone on for months. Recently I began writing everything down in a log book detailing the nature of our arguments and what the outcome of them has been. I thought at some point it might be a good thing to have documented for a few reasons. To have verifyable evidence that Potatohead is totally incompetent as a supervisor. To show he has been going out of his way to make my life here at work unpleasant as he possibly can. And to have either myself or him removed from the area. What I'm thinking is to try and make a lateral move out of here to another department. I'll leave Potatohead behind to rot and hopefully derail his career in the process.

In my current position it's only a matter of time before Potatohead sabotages my employee reviews which will result in my ranking being dropped. Then I won't be able to receive a merit wage increase. It's also very likely he will fabricate some excuse to fire me. It's close, I can feel it. Because I don't have a technical degree in electronics I can't get promoted off of our line into a higher paying job. No one in management can stop an employee from taking a promotion in another part of the company if and when a promotion is offered. That's the route a bunch of people here have taken to escape Potatohead. Promotions. He couldn't stop them from leaving and I know it infuriated him. I don't have that option, the only way out is a lateral move, which management generally doesn't allow unless there is a serious need. Lateral moves are like when a person in an assembly job leaves the line to go to some other department as an assembler in a similar capacity. If an assembler got a job as a technician, that would be a huge step up so no one in management would be able to obstruct it.

We've lost good people thanks to Potatohead. It's seriously crippled our ability to get boxes shipped out of here on schedule.

I need a lateral move out of here as soon as possible. After careful thought, I think I can force a lateral move. But it's going to be very risky and that's where my little Potatohead journal is going to come in handy. If I can present my problems with Potatohead to upper management in a professional way, I might be able to convince them to move me into another department.

Bill and Dave came up with a number of company policies that were pure genius. One of those corporate ideas they invented is simply called "The Open Door Policy". The Open Door Policy works on a variety of levels, no managers here regardless of how high up they are in the food chain get to have an office with a door they can shut. Bill and Dave did have real offices, but they made a point to always leave their office doors wide open. This was supposed to create an atmosphere and a culture that felt like managers in the company are approachable and open to discourse with any employee. On another level The Open Door Policy allows employees to approach managers at any time to bring up personal job-related greivances or concerns without fear of adverse consequences or reprisals from management.

That's the theory of Open Door Policy. In reality just about every case I can think of where one of my coworkers has invoked the Open Door, they've been blackballed or marked by elements of their management chain as troublemakers. Some supervisors who have been involved with those incidents have been quite vindictive. I don't think I've ever seen Open Door Policy work the way it's supposed to around here. But, those employees generally didn't use The Open Door appropriately. They went into conference room meetings with mid-level managers making half crazed complaints against so-and-so or such-and-such while yelling like lunatics. No wonder things backfired so badly.

Before I do anything I'm going to talk with someone in management off the record and get their advice on how to handle this.