to be a manipulative, jerk manager

So I was at the bank this morning and it was pretty quiet. As I'm waiting for one of the people who sit at the desks to come see me (apparently my request was too complicated for the just out of high school teller)the branch manager goes over to talk to said teller. Due to my superior eavesdropping ability, or due to the fact that they were about 3 meters away from me, I learned that the teller had been working there 3 months and that it was "evaluation time". They apparently have an online evaluation form for employees every 6 months. Fascinating stuff, I know.

I'm getting to the point, I promise. So the manager explains to the new girl that since they are a small team at this particular branch, this evaluation is a direct evaluation of her (the manager). Starting to see where this is going? The manager then proceeds to tell the employee that this is not to be used to complain if there is a problem. No, this is just in general how things are. If anything is ever wrong she should come to her directly and talk to her about it. This evaluation is not for her to say negative things about the manager it's just to see how things are over all. She then repeats, if the employee isn't happy about something she should not put it in the evaluation. Uh huh.... Anyone else see an issue with this? She then proceeds to go over all the questions with her one by one telling her how to answer and saying that if she would answer negatively to any of these to remember, it's general and to go see her instead.

I was furious! What a sneaky, manipulative asshole! Here's a better idea than pressuring your new employees to give a good review, how about be a good manager? Crazy, I know, but it just might work. If you are so afraid of getting a bad review maybe you should ask yourself why??? I've worked for a number of places where the turnover was very high and the people, including myself, were miserable. Strangely enough the boss never seemed to question what role they played in that. It was always excuses like "it's just the industry we're in" or "we haven't found the right people yet" or my favorite "young people aren't willing to work hard". Ok now I will dump on young people with the best of them but that's just ridiculous. News flash manager: It's you! If they would spend more time treating the employees better and less time manipulating them to make themselves look better most work places would probably be a lot more pleasant.

Now I don't know if this bank is a good place to work or not but seeing that person trying to cover their own ass makes me want to write a strongly worded letter to their head office. The new employee looked extremely uncomfortable and did a nervous little laugh every time the manager told her not to say anything bad about her. Not cool! Not ok!