I inherited a long-standing toxic workplace culture which was very difficult to turn around with lack of support from long-term team members and a significant member of hospital leadership.
No action was taken on repeated reports to upper management about continuous quiet bullying, unethical behavior, and policy violations by this specific member of leadership. Staff were frequently individually targeted and reported for disciplinary action, treated as incompetent and roadblocked from getting their work done; this included myself, other leadership team members, and support staff. Gaslighting and victim blaming tactics were used with upper management; it was couched as attempts at conflict resolution.
The doctors are burned out and unsupported. I was consistently unable to hold them accountable for their actions for an overall fear of them quitting and being unable to fiscally support the staff.
The distress this staff is experiencing was terrible to watch, especially as a manager who is well-trained and focused on fostering work/life balance, resiliency, and a positive culture. I started to feel ineffective because my values could not be supported by my actions.
Ultimately, I was terminated with no severance after an abrupt suspension - steming from an unexplained "cultural assessment" of the practice by HR and an unknown 3rd party consultant. This assement occured within 2 months of being confronted by my manager for reported participation in a very brief and casual conversation about veterinary unions with some of the doctors (neither of us would be represented by a union, by the way).
I had no history of written or verbal warnings, accusations of misconduct, or history of documented job performance issues. Only my continuous complaints, that were sometimes admittedly very emotional for me, about the above challenges.
I feel like I was scapegoated for the long-term and sytemic cultural issues at this practice that have existed for many years. I feel like I was punished for expressing my opinion about veterinary unions ("If it means everyone is working together - great!"). Honestly, I gave more coaching opportuntities and professional respect to staff suspected of coming to work intoxicated than I was given.
VCA protected the high earning toxic bully in a leadership position. I feel this demonstrates that VCA cares more about high earnings and eliminating the "squeaky wheel" than mental health and wellbeing of their employees.
What I feel the most sad about is that, as a leader, I failed to protect my team from continuing to experience all of this. I'm gald I can at least continue weekly mental health services via COBRA for a relatively low cost.
TLDR: Earning individuals are more important than the mental health and wellbeing of the entire group. Everyone is disposable, even managers. PS - Don't say "union", ever.
