To say to my boss during a team meeting that his speech was unprofessional

[MeghannCleary]

Without being too outing I am in a support function similar to Compliance in a financial services company and my Boss is not British so I don't know if the culture difference plays a role but he often talks flippantly of people being 'fired' in this or that department when I know at least a few of them left to join elsewhere for a better pay and better work culture

Anyway, at a team meeting today, he spent TWO HOURS (ran over into lunch time and beyond and my blood sugar had plummeted) telling us how easily we could be fired (about ten people in the team/meeting) for the 'low quality reports' we produced and how he was sick of it.

The only concrete e.g. he could give re the reports was a name or two wrong in the 'to send to' list - that still didn't make it clear to us why he takes weeks sometimes months to review and finalize these reports.

I was biting my cheek to stay wordless and calm - the others on the team mostly men were so calm I wondered if they were watching anime on another screen or just asleep with eyes open. Wish I could have done the same

Had some sort of meltdown where I went into a fugue state I reckon and saying it was really stressful to all of us when he bantered casually about us being fired or threw the word around flippantly for TWO HOURS. Surely a person who is being 'fired' in Corporate Britain at least from what I have seen, is dismissed in private and with dignity ? We are educated professionals not schoolkids.... I think I said as much and more

Waiting in state of high anxiety now for some sort of axe to fall. WWYD? start looking for another Job? Damn me and my big mouth

no comments so far ....but all votes say I wasnt aibu....thx.....

You would not be unreasonable to speak up in a calm and professional manner. It doesn't sound like that's what happened though 😳 do you think it's worth contacting HR and pre-empting any action by him? A well thought out email to the right person, setting out what happened in the meeting and your concerns that it will be used against you, might be worth doing?

Was the meeting recorded? If so can you can access the recording so you can see whether you sounded coherent. Your boss sounds like a twat. I don't blame you!

I love the word fugue. So underused.

I am not sure "having a meltdown" because you disagree is a sign of being a professional

I've never seen it in that context before. I shall try and use it in a sentence forthwith.

Second the pp on contacting HR.

I work in Denmark. We get fired too - no being made redundant. We even have firing rounds. If it's really bad then you might be bortvist which I suppose means expelled?

Personally, I would have raised it with him afterwards, particularly if I was slipping into a fugue state where I am not going to be in charge of my faculties sufficiently. If I confront someone in front of others I need to be really coherent and clear on what I am saying and why I am saying it. That doesn't happen with fugue. If you challenge you need to be clear and unequivocal, but also polite and professional. I'm not saying you weren't those things but it doesn't go along with 'fugue'.

In the UK Employment Law is that except in the case of gross misconduct, no-one who has 2 yrs continuous employment for one employer can just be fired. There is a many stepped process to go through. I can't see that missing a name off a list could be considered gross misconduct.
I would speak to HR about this constantly threatening behaviour contributing to workplace stress. And if you are a union member, you should contact them

I just looked it up! Vaguely remembered what it meant but been years since I heard it.

OP, I voted YABU for worrying about what you said. Good for you for taking a stand, not only for you but the team, and what you said was very reasonable and I agree with every word, regardless of the law or how long you’ve been there.

If you have a recording, you should look back over it

You need to make a calm analysis to see if there's anything to worry about

However, you are right

But this is such a common thing with senior management, I suspect he was asked to do that

Is it possible that they're making redundancies, and they want to try and piss people off so that they leave and they will have fewer packages to pay?

I have been subjected to this kind of meeting that went on for about three hours and everybody was just completely knocked out afterwards

This was an in person meeting a few years ago

We never found out what the purpose of the meeting was. But it was like taking the best performing team and telling them they weren't good enough for three hours

I don't think they wanted any of us to leave because they were fine after that meeting

One reason I left the workplace so early is because I just don't want to put up with this anymore

I realise most people have a financial situation that means they do have to put up with it - but any company that behaves like this should realise some of their best staff will just go - unless it's a deliberate attempt to get rid of some of the ones who are close to retirement?

There may be some short-term crude objective that's achieved by this sort of thing but when it happened to me, I couldn't see what it was

I think it was meant to be motivating, but it had a complete opposite effect

There are ways to make the point if you think your boss is being unprofessional.

What you did is not one of the better options.

Later and privately is generally preferred.

He sounds like a massive twat. Are you in PMO, OP?

This makes so much sense, I could see him preferring to keep any redundancy pot money in the pot , and using it for bonus later ......

The Bank is Dutch and so is my boss, to the poster who was saying this is more common in the EU, that made sense too

I had whatsapps from certain members of the team who were also there, saying I was really brave and spot on / I nailed it etc

Nice to have (these words of comfort) something to keep me warm when I am 'fired' eh?

Saying to your boss they are unprofessional isn’t unreasonable, but having a meltdown about it on a teams meetings sounds pretty unreasonable. So it depends what exactly happened really

I stayed completely quiet throughout though I was getting increasingly upset

Toward what I thought was the merciful end, I grabbed a cream croissant and almost disgustingly put a huge chunk in my mouth to force myself from saying anything at all

But then he said ' Meg , what do you think , you haven't said anything'

That's when I said -

1. We need actual feedback that we can work with on why you feel any or all reports are bad quality - the people to send to list having errors does not stack up as being the reason a report takes 6 months to go out surely, that takes 5 minutes to fix? You STILL have not told me why my XX report was shelved for X months for eg.
2. Bandying the word ' you will be fired' can have an extremely stressful effect on us having to listen to it and not really understand what we can do to fix it. If it is meant to be used as a motivator using fear culture, it may actually be counterintuitive , especially if at least some of us are genuinely already trying our best. It then becomes very demoralising not motivating. I have not seen this used in the Corporate world here in this way , if a person is under performance management and is not improving they are indeed 'fired' but in a private and dignified way. Perhaps I am struggling with Dutch culture , I am not sure if that is what it is.

That was pretty much it actually, one guy started backing me up right away - the others stunned as its very much a fear culture and I had noticed that a few times in the past X years working for this person. He immediately apologised twice but all I could think was ....now I have to get another job asap with my heart sinking

I feel I should have been the 'bigger person' like the others were and just ignored his rant

Tried so hard to.....

Mortgage, bills, oh God

I am outspoken. My face is outspoken before I am. I am not at all difficult, in fact I am super helpful and productive but I am known for being straight talking. Honestly, it has only ever worked to my advantage. People take more care to not piss me off, bosses tend to put me on their team. You may yet have just made your life easier.

I think well done you! He invited your thoughts and you gave them incredibly clearly and I think factually. He then apologised twice. Let’s hope it’s a wake up call and leads to either a cascade effect with others speaking up or at least a new found respect from him. Often I find meeting strength with assertion can be a turning point in that regard.

As a Dutchie, working in a Dutch non-corporate setting but familiar with them, his behaviour is really really weird and unprofessional.
In Dutch, like in English, there's a huge difference between being made redundant/getting fired or taking redundancy, so it seems to me that he deliberately misrepresents what happened with those other colleagues, that's not a language problem/misunderstanding.
Also in Dutch law, firing people for misconduct is really difficult, so the types of issues he's mentioned would usua

Fat fingers...

Also in Dutch law, firing people for misconduct is really difficult, so the types of issues he's mentioned would usually not be serious enough. It sounds to me like he's on a very unpleasant power trip

Thanks @Palimpa and @DearMartha , your words have helped me not hit the 'resignation' button ....yet.

@dutchyoriginal , thank you that was very helpful - I changed one detail slightly to not be outing (hey ho), he is in a neighbouring country right next to NL.

But I suspect what you said still holds true, that it is just him and this is some sort of twisted power play in some sense, but I still cannot understand it really....He has power without having to play to get it IYSWIM......

I think it is great that you stood up to him. We had a similar, outrageous bullying boss, and we appreciated anyone who tried to stand up to him rather than meekly sitting there. In the end he was fired, but not before some good people had resigned because of him.
He also did a redundancy round in public, listing every staff member and saying if they'd been retained or redundant, the first time the staff being made redundant had heard about it, he was very cruel.

I think you were right to call him out. Hopefully you weren’t too OTT. No one can be fired for a bad report. The individual would have to be given an improvement plan, then a written warning, then a final written warning. So basically he was talking bollocks and there should be no way HR backs him over you.

Hope it’s going ok OP