My Manager attended off site management training classes when we got our new CEO. When he came back, he had a new "style" of how he went about things.
I found in my last couple of years at Honeywell, no matter how much I learned and improved in my assignments, feedback from my manager was always negative. Bear in mind that I spent 34 years with the company. Over the years I worked in three unique technical fields (two of which I had no previous schooling in). I never brown-nosed, yet stayed employed as a non-union technical non-exempt salaried employee in Minneapolis.
I had great attendance. I did my job. I made some minor mistakes. I always bought great food to the annual holiday pot-luck. I truly enjoyed my coworkers, and got the sense they liked me too (except one....more on that in a moment).
I was never a superstar at any of the positions I held over my 34 years. But through being a "jack of all trades", and always eager to learn something new, I carved out a career path that worked. I thank Honeywell for the opportunities I was given to learn, grow...and stay employed.
Back to my manager. He was a good guy at one point, but like some people that get promoted, he changed....a lot.
When Covid-19 hit in early 2020 I was 61 and planning to retire in December of that year at age 62. Perhaps it was a mistake telling my manager, a year before that, I was going to retire December 2020.
In my last year I was summoned to the corner office frequently. Confronted by a visibly angry boss who threw at me anything and everything he heard or could think of. Accusations of me talking about him negatively behind his back (never happened). Accusations of me saying negative things about the company on the production floor (never happened). I asked what he had heard, but he would not say. I asked who said it, and demanded to face my accuser, but he denied my request. When he would ask who trained me when a task went awry, I sometimes had to tell him he did as a staff engineer, he lied and said he didn't. I made infrequent, minor mistakes in my work, but the issues were greatly exaggerated by my manager. Funny thing is I noticed his body language when I rejected his wild accusations. Little by little he wheeled his chair away from me until he was backed up into the corner of his office.
I think what I saw was him just doing what he was told to do, as part the "new management style" mandated by corporate...and he did it with gusto. My former manager has a great future with the corporation.
This is a guy who, one morning, was telling a group of us that he was really mad about the previous night. The previous evening he was coaching 7 year old girls on the neighborhood soccer team. As he told it, he yelled at one of the girls, and she burst into tears. He was angry that the young girl started crying when he yelled at her. I thing that speaks for itself.
And now, the coworker who didn't like me....or anyone for that matter. A twice (3 times?) divorced older single woman. Someone who was classic passive-aggressive. Someone who had quite a reputation for running to the boss with anything and everything she could find (or make up) to put down her coworkers (and make herself look good?). Why do I even bring her up? Well, it seems that her input to management was welcome and encouraged. That is something an autocratic boss might do....and my guy was autocratic as hell.
In conclusion, I hope that my experience with my manager was unique. However, based on the posting at this website, and what my friends still there tell me, my experience was a snapshot of today's Honeywell culture.
I am glad to be a former Honeywell employee. As for my former manager, he is a hollowed out man.