Need repairing my friendship with my boss.

[Raven_Guard]

Hi, first time doing this, so please, let me know if I screw up somewhere.

 

Well, I am employed at a grocery store. At the moment, I am just a lower hourly employee ($7/hr ). At my position, I am *supposed* (Key word right there) to work on the Front End (essentially the registers for those who are unfamiliar with the term). The entire store has two types of of managers: Hourly management (theyre union, usually get paid about $15/hr. Theyre the lower rung of management, and theyre usually in charge of directly overseeing the specific departments of the store), and salaried management (theyre non unionized. They make up upper management and make anywhere from $40,000 to $120,000 a year depending on their rank, and they are in charge of making sure ALL departments are up to par and making sure that the nuts and bolts of the store are in place).

 

Enter my manager. In the interest of anonymity, I shall call her "Sheila". She is a salaried manager (AKA upper management). Shes 26, and theres two people in the store who are higher ranking than her. Well, as I mentioned earlier, at my position, I am *supposed* to stay on the front end, and thats about it. Essentially, I should not have any more than the most formal contact with any of the salaried managers. However, I was able to work my way into almost constant contact with my managers.

 

To make a long story short, between approximately September and the end of December, I started to interact almost constantly with upper management. During this time, "Sheila" became one of my best friends. (Back story on me: I am a 17 year old male in high school.) I am being completely serious when I say that She means more to me than my family (I'm sure that was a huge stop sign to some of you, but let me explain). Essentially, in the amount of time I have truely known "Sheila", I have learned more about her than any other single person on earth. That is why she means so much to me. Just as an example, half of the store employees dont know what she drives. I know where she lives, as well as many other things.

 

Well, now is where the problem is introduced. We've been close friends (before you ask, I feel no sexual attraction towards her. Despite the fact that shes 9 years older than me, I do my best to... dissuade... other colleages at my job who are much shallower than myself and seem to not think with their head all the time.) and I have worked closely with her and other managers in the store over the past 4 months to keep the store running. Well, my first screwup was this: I asked for a hug from her on christmas. Now, I should probably provide a bit of backstory to that. I have given her gifts before (for birthdays, christmas, etc.) and she has appreciated them (which is saying something, because she has some really wierd people in her life, and shes always really leery of gifts). Well, we were both working that day, and I was rather irritated with third employee who was there. That, coupled with the fact that christmases have always been ather stressful for me, essentially led to me.... not thinking things all the way through. Well, she refused my request (which I took with good grace), but once I got clear of the building and had some fresh air and time, I realized that I had REALLY fuxed up.

 

So, I had taken three days off after the Christmas incident, and on my first day back, about an hour and a half into my shift, "Sheila" and the store manager pull me into an office and talk to me. The short of it is that they decided that I should be moved back to my actual job, AKA I was no longer to help the managers anymore. I was able to mantain my facade well enough for the rest of my shift, but needless to say, I was actually pretty shellshocked.

 

So my question to all of you is this: How the hell do I fix this? I mean, I know that a LOT of other employees were grinding an axe for me (their main complaint was "why is he helping the managers when he is scheduled to do job X?"), and at this point in time, I believe that the mass of axe-grinding employees, along with pressure from her two bosses, brought this upon me. I mean, I do realize that I fuxed up big time on christmas, but I know her well enough to know that the single instance couldnt have been the sole cause of all this. So, does anyone have any experience with being good friends with your supervisor, and if you do, how would you repair a fracture in this situation?

 

I thank you all for your help, and I apologize for it being so long winded.

-Raven_Guard

[quankanne]

be honest with her, and let her know that the hug request wasn't meant to be pushy or awkward or even icky, and that you apologize for not realizing that it made for an uncomfortable. Then ask her forgiveness; then move on.

 

if you're sincere, and she realizes this, she'll understand that you didn't intend to get into her personal space the way it appeared.

 

meanwhile, be courteous, but not overly friendly ... I imagine things will clear up in time.

[D-Lish]

"Sheila" became one of my best friends. (Back story on me: I am a 17 year old male in high school.) I am being completely serious when I say that She means more to me than my family (I'm sure that was a huge stop sign to some of you, but let me explain). Essentially, in the amount of time I have truely known "Sheila", I have learned more about her than any other single person on earth. That is why she means so much to me. Just as an example, half of the store employees dont know what she drives. I know where she lives, as well as many other things.

 

 

I am just wondering if perhaps you have misread the friendship?

I think it takes more to "truly know someone" than spending a few months at work chatting.

 

Have you been to her house? Hung out with her outside the workplace?

If you and her are as close as you are saying- it doesn't seem logical she would

 

a) refuse you a hug

b) demote you because of it.

 

It seems more rational that if you guys had such a great friendship, she would have just told you it wouldn't be appropriate to do at work and then talked to you PERSONALLY about boundaries the two of you should observe at work.

 

The fact that she involved upper management to haul you in the office tells me something more (or less, depending on how you look at it) is going on here.

 

If she's your best friend and a woman you view as family... this shouldn't have been resolved in the workplace. Why would she participate in demoting you? That's what I don't get.

 

I am assuming, given your friendship you chat outside the workplace.

Is she now ignoring you? Is this something you could talk to her about?

 

The only thing I can think of is that other employees are noticing and have made complaints. If that is the case... wouldn't she at the very least have a personal talk with you?

[Raven_Guard]

I am just wondering if perhaps you have misread the friendship?

I think it takes more to "truly know someone" than spending a few months at work chatting.

 

Have you been to her house? Hung out with her outside the workplace?

If you and her are as close as you are saying- it doesn't seem logical she would

 

a) refuse you a hug

b) demote you because of it.

 

It seems more rational that if you guys had such a great friendship, she would have just told you it wouldn't be appropriate to do at work and then talked to you PERSONALLY about boundaries the two of you should observe at work.

 

The fact that she involved upper management to haul you in the office tells me something more (or less, depending on how you look at it) is going on here.

 

If she's your best friend and a woman you view as family... this shouldn't have been resolved in the workplace. Why would she participate in demoting you? That's what I don't get.

 

I am assuming, given your friendship you chat outside the workplace.

Is she now ignoring you? Is this something you could talk to her about?

 

The only thing I can think of is that other employees are noticing and have made complaints. If that is the case... wouldn't she at the very least have a personal talk with you?

 

Yes, I have both been to her house (several times) and hung ut with her. Essentially, it would seem (from what I learned today) that someone (as in, a higher manager) was threatening her job... I should mention that while I do get to hang out ver at her house from time to time, its... limited. She has a boyfriend she lives with, who I do not think would take kindly to my presence (despite both her and myself knowing that I am not trying to push this relationship any farther than a friendship, somehow I do not think he would take it that way. I think he would feel... threatened.) Due to that, I usually have to work my visits around his (rather, during) own job.

 

Regardless, thats off the subject. I would say that she may have actually moved on herself (regarding christmas). While I would not expect her to put me over her career, it really sucks that she was forced to choose between myself and her job .

[Angel1111]

As far as I can tell, and speaking as a manager, it seems to me that she was more out of line than you were. Developing a friendship with subordinates is a tricky thing to do for a manager - and it's not the smartest move. It may not be that she's thinking you screwed up, so much as she's probably realizing that she did.

 

I agree with quankanne that you should just be upfront with her. I'm a close friend of someone high up in my company and this friendship breeds a LOT of jealously. That's just the nature of such relationships. But this seems to have backfired on you in some way and I think that, since she befriended you, you have a right to know what happened. There's no need for you to be demanding about it but if I were you, I would ask her why the sudden change in your position. She should give you an honest answer. If you did something wrong, then apologize and move on. The less you make of it, the more mature you'll come across to management.

[imani]

As far as I can tell, and speaking as a manager, it seems to me that she was more out of line than you were. Developing a friendship with subordinates is a tricky thing to do for a manager - and it's not the smartest move. It may not be that she's thinking you screwed up, so much as she's probably realizing that she did.

 

I agree with quankanne that you should just be upfront with her. I'm a close friend of someone high up in my company and this friendship breeds a LOT of jealously. That's just the nature of such relationships. But this seems to have backfired on you in some way and I think that, since she befriended you, you have a right to know what happened. There's no need for you to be demanding about it but if I were you, I would ask her why the sudden change in your position. She should give you an honest answer. If you did something wrong, then apologize and move on. The less you make of it, the more mature you'll come across to management.

 

Have to agree with Angel. I'll add that office "friendships", especially when they involve someone in authority or higher up than your position, can be very tricky waters to navigate. Hopefully you and your boss are mature enough that you two have talked this one out by now, Raven_ Guard. Any updates?