Was my boss being unreasonable?

So I'm at work a few days ago, and I saw a couple of snakes on the property. So I grabbed an empty box, put the snakes in it, and taped up the box. I then stuck the box out behind the building (I knew better than to bring snakes inside) behind some bushes where I figured no one would see it.

Anyway, my boss did happen to see the box while walking by, and opened it up. And when he saw the snakes, he got upset. After asking around, he found out that I was the one responsible, and he chewed me out over it.

My job is still safe, all he did was yell at me and tell me that I can't be having any more boxes of snakes around. But am I the only one who thinks that he was kind of overreacting?

1) The snakes were already on the property to begin with. At least now they're in a box.

2) I did clearly write on the box, "BOX OF SNAKES! DO NOT OPEN!!" So I don't really know what he was expecting when he decided to open up a box that's labelled as a box of snakes. Kind of his fault if you ask me. Sort of like when you tell someone "don't touch that, it's hot" and the first thing they do is touch it.

3) And there's precedent for this kind of thing. A few years ago I boxed up a turtle that I found on the property, and the guy was fine with that. Asked me to see the turtle and he was all like, "aw, isn't that so cute!" And another person who works there did the same thing by rescuing an injured bird from the parking lot and my boss was fine with that too. My logic is that he sort of set the precedent there. Kind of hard to be okay with employees boxing up animals on company property and then getting upset when the animal happens to be a snake. He should have anticipated that happening when employees started boxing up birds and turtles.

Anyway, I'm not going to be boxing up any animals at work any more, since my boss told me not to and I do what I'm told. But does anyone else sort of think he kind of overreacted? I mean, he's been fine with this kind of thing before, and the box WAS clearly marked as a box of snakes.

What kind of work is this?

Despite you labeling the box of its contents, I think your boss was within his rights to tell you not to. I don't think he was right to yell at you, though.

Oh, I agree that he was within his rights. I'm just asking if he's being a stupid little punk-ass *****. I mean, what the hell did he think was going to happen once he set the precedent of letting people keep boxes of animals behind the building?

And again, the box was labelled as A BOX OF SNAKES. I can understand that he is afraid of snakes, that's why I made sure to write that the box is full of snakes. You know, to keep people who are afraid of snakes from opening the box and getting a nasty surprise. I can understand him not wanting boxes of snakes on the property, but he's going on about how upset he was. And I'm thinking, "dude, the box clearly said that it was FULL OF SNAKES." He runs the business, his rules, I get that. But I don't want to hear him whine about how upset he was when I clearly labelled the contents of the box. If snakes upset him that much, then why the f*** did he open the damn box? I kind of feel like his emotional distress is on him. He knew damn well what was in there before he ever opened the box.

Over here in the UK we have the RSPCA. If there is an animal injured or something wrong or nasty etc If you have something like that in the US phone them up next time and put the bill to boss.

You are wrong, Your Boss is right.If i was your boss i wouldnt want any employee dealing with any kind of snakes in my company lol.

I don't get it, what are you supposed to do with the snakes?

Hmm, why did you box the snakes up in the first place? planning to eat them or keep them as pets?

Also why didn't you tell your boss and co-workers about it and kinda hid them away ?

From you description of the event, your boss is 100% in the clear here, you made a mistake.

@MrGeezer:

That's not how you kill a snake.

If you had boxed them up you could of took them off the property and set them free.

Questions:

1. Do you work at an airport?

2. Did the box have appropriate sized holes for air for the snakes?

3. What was the intention of putting the snakes in the box?

@MrGeezer: A few questions:

1) Is "snake collection" anywhere even remotely within your job responsibilities or is this something you randomly just decided to do for some reason and if so, why?

2) What kind of "job" or "business" is this? Was the idea that customers could have encountered a box of snakes part of the problem? Where the snakes likely to be an issue for the business had you left them alone and if so did you talk to anyone about that?

3) What was your plan, overall? Obviously "put all snakes in a box" was a stop-gap measure at best, so did you have a plan for what should be done with the snakes or was "put them in a box near the building" as far as you had gotten with the idea?

4) Did you ask permission to make a box of snakes and put it by your work or did you just decide that this is something that needed to be done for some reason?

5) Did you -tell- anyone that you made a box of snakes or did you just do it and leave it for someone to find for some reason?

Picking up a turtle or rescuing an injured bird from a parking lot isn't necessarily the same as "I'm going to collect a box of snakes". Turtle and birds are not potentially venomous, whereas snakes obviously are. I have no idea if these snakes were venomous but most species of snakes when left to their own devices will leave people alone, so it sounds like you chased them down to put them in a box by your work for some reason. Again, why?

-Byshop

Agree...except for the latter part. Many times employees think being reprimanded is "yelling" and it's not. Some people can't take criticism.

That was the plan, but I kind of had to wait until my shift was over.

As to why I wanted to remove them in the first place, it's because people have found snakes on the property before and stomped the shit out of them. So I wanted to relocate them off of the property before someone just went and killed them.

EDIT: And also, they obviously weren't venomous or else I wouldn't have been picking them up and putting them in a box. And I did mention it to other employees, which was how the boss knew that I did it once he started asking around. If I was trying to be sneaky, I wouldn't have mentioned it to ANYONE. I just figured there was no need to track down the boss and ask him directly since he'd clearly been fine with this kind of thing before.

He sounds like a moron

is your boss mike pence?

Your boss needs to decide whether or not he thinks it is ok. Gonna be difficult if it allowed to do what you did with some animals, but not with others.

We take for granted how great our country deals with animals.

Is it reasonable for him to yell at you? Not really, no. Insulting, swearing, yelling, etc to reprimand employees is never acceptable, so if he was actually yelling or being otherwise shitty then he was out of line.

However, if he was reprimanding you he probably was not out of line. I don't know what you do or what kind of workplace it is, but I'm guessing that it's not a place where the employees are supposed to be making boxes of snakes for people to find. Unless snake wrangling is listed among your job responsibilities, this is something you took it upon yourself to do without approval or permission when you were supposed to be working. I get that your intentions were good in wanting to protect the snakes (and not, say, trolling your boss or fellow employees by doing odd things that might freak them out) but there are other things to take into considerations before acting.

First, I get that it's not really fair to favor one animal over another provided those animals aren't really dangerous, so saving a cute turtle or wounded bird shouldn't really be regarded any differently than a non-venomous snake but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people really don't like snakes or are afraid of them. If you want to make and argument that it's a weird double standard to say "this animal is okay to save" while "this animal isn't okay to save" then yeah, you are totally justified but that still doesn't mean you are allowed to do this at work. Especially when you know full well that while nobody is probably afraid of a small bird or turtle they might be legitimately freaked out by finding a box of snakes that for all they know -could- be venomous. Your manager's job isn't likely to enforce fair perception of different animal species, but to manage the people in his employ to keep the business running smoothly and fair or not, if an employee decides to leave a surprise snake box around (even though you so graciously labelled it) that is probably not something in line with that goal.

-Byshop

@Byshop: "Reasonable" was probably the wrong word to use. Like I said before, he runs the place and it's his rules. So if he's got a problem with me taking snakes OFF of the premises, I'm perfectly happy opening up the box and dumping snakes onto the premises where I found them.

My issue isn't with him saying that I can't do it, it just annoyed the living shit out of me having to sit there listening to him complain about how upset he was when he opened the box, as if I'm supposed to have any sympathy for his dumb ass. It's like, I do what my bosses tell me to do, but sitting there trying to make himself out as some kind of victim is wasting BOTH of our time. just f***ing say "don't do that any more" and let me get back to work, then I won't do it any more. No questions asked. But my problem is that he's sitting there wasting my time complaining about his feelings and how upset he was and I'm thinking, "Man, f*** you and your feelings." What the hell did he think was going to be in a box that's clearly labelled as a box of snakes? Cookies? A big bag of money? And even if he had a problem with me leaving a box of snakes behind the building, he easily could have found out that I was the culprit without opening the box. Opening that box literally did NOTHING other than make him upset and as far as I'm concerned THAT is entirely on his dumb ass. I mean, seriously...if seeing snakes makes you that f***ing upset then don't open boxes that clearly say that they're full of snakes. If he says don't do it any more then I won't do it any more, but I don't want to hear a damn thing about his damn emotional distress. Stop wasting my time with that crap, he knew what he was doing when he opened the box and that's on his dumb ass.

Of course, I didn't tell him any of this, I was just thinking it. But yeah, the question isn't so much as if his RULES are "unreasonable", I'm more asking about if he's being "unreasonable" by being a whiny little ***** about it. It's possible to set rules and issue orders without being a freaking crybaby drama queen.

Again, I don't know where you work but in the vast majority of workplaces it's not reasonable to expect to find that one of your employees has created a box of snakes to find. I suspect for all your complaining that you are fully aware (as I already explained) that while most people are fine with a bird or a turtle there are a lot of people who would be freaked out by a box of snakes (even if they aren't venomous). Most people don't know snakes well enough to know which ones are and aren't venomous, so his reaction probably wasn't "AAAAAH!!! A BOX OF NON-VENOMOUS SNAKES!" so much as "AAAAAH!!! A BOX OF SNAKES (that may or may not be actually life threatening)!!!!"

If you were concerned about the snakes' well being, a more appropriate reaction would have been to raise this with your manager as a concern rather than taking it upon yourself to play Pied Piper. If I were your manager, I wouldn't be concerned about my own feelings (I don't mind snakes at all) but I would be asking you "WTF were you thinking in making a box of snakes for someone to find behind our building instead of doing the thing you are being paid to do?"

-Byshop

I think he should have known better, but I can't blame him for being curious.

He probably should have known it was you, seen the box, then asked you about it if he wanted to see the snakes.

But whatever, snakes are cool, why did he get bent out of shape.

Are the snakes OK? He didn't hurt them did he?

@Byshop: I'm pretty sure that if he thought the snakes were venomous, that he wouldn't have opened the box. That is, unless he's just that much more stupid than I think he is. Which is pretty bad, since I already think he's pretty stupid.

turtles and snakes are different, id probably freak out over it also. How do you know they are non venemous?? Its easy to confuse the banding patterns

@comp_atkins said:

is your boss mike pence?

Hahahahahahaah nice one

"I'm not going to be boxing up any animals at work any more"

If you're not in the boxing up animal business, that seems like the sane solution.

When you say stuff like this, you make it really hard for us to think that -he's- the problem.

-Byshop

That's like saying that it's easy to confuse a pit bull with a poodle because they're both dogs. At least in the USA it's VERY easy to distinguish venomous snakes from nonvenomous ones.

And to Byshop, if you saw a box labelled "warning, bomb inside" would you open up the box to see if there's a bomb inside? Would that be an intelligent thing to do, or a stupid thing to do? The point remains that if he figured that there were venomous snakes in the box, that it was pretty stupid of him to open the box. And we can't even use the excuse that he wanted to determine whether or not the snakes were venomous, since they CLEARLY weren't venomous and he still flipped out. Which means that he had no idea how to tell venomous snakes from nonvenomous ones. Which still goes back to, why the hell would he open the box?

I think handling the snakes the way you did was fine, but maybe there should have been more than leaving the box. Your boss should have been notified (but I'm assuming he saw the box before you had a chance to let him know), otherwise, animal control should have been called to handle removing the snakes from the property. Him chewing you out seems a bit excessive, the whole situation could have probably been dealt with better on both ends.

You keep acting like your boss is the problem because he opened a box of snakes that you left at work because you labelled said box, while simultaneously not acknowledging the sheer ridiculousness of the act of leaving a box of snakes lying around at work for someone to find.

While I suspect you and I work in pretty different environments (you still haven't told us what you do), here's how this would go down where I work (and probably how it would go down in most workplaces):

I find an employee has created a box of snakes and left it around work for someone to find. I open the box labelled snakes (honestly expecting it to be a joke, because who would leave a box of snakes lying around at work? Crazy, right?) and I'm surprised to find that someone who works for me -actually- thought it was a good idea to make a box of snakes and leave it for someone to find at work.

I contact HR and the employee likely gets shitcanned that day.

For many years to come, when sharing war stories with other managers about most bizarre/problem employees we've ever had working for us, I trot out the story about the "snake guy" and explain how he thought that it was everyone else's problem because he clearly labelled the box of snakes he left at work. We all have a good laugh about it.

-Byshop

In reading everything over, your boss was being unreasonable.

His opportunity to address the "problem" was in the beginning when you presented the turtle to him and he was more than accepting of the turtle. If there was truly a problem then he would have addressed it at that point and he did not.

The second instance is actually the most telling. Another co-worker brought in a baby bird and, AGAIN, he had the opportunity...dare I say responsibility... to put an end to everything right then and there. Yet, he did not address the issue. Accepting both the turtle and the bird essentially makes your office an animal sanctuary at that point and is now the status quo.

Deciding on a whim or perhaps based on "cuteness" when it is okay to bring in an animal is irresponsible, shows a lacking of leadership skills and destroys confidence in employees. Inevitably, employees will feel that they can no longer trust in standard practices and that management will fault them whenever they please.

The appropriate course of action was to pull you over to the side and in a professional and calm manner express that it is no longer acceptable to bring in stray animals or distribute a company wide memo/e-mail detailing what animals are acceptable to bring into the office and what animals are not acceptable.

His latest action was just unreasonable and unprofessional. Perhaps he has more growing to do as a leader.

While I agree that the boss invited this -somewhat- by allowing this to happen before on a smaller scale and with different animals, I would also say that this same boss probably expected some degree of common sense and an expectation of reasonable limits. There's always that one guy who takes it too far and ruins it for everyone.

If the op had brought a single snake to the boss, much like he had done with the turtle, that would have been one thing. But he didn't do that. He didn't seek the boss's approval. He put the box somewhere where he thought nobody would find it. He didn't tell his boss that he did that. He -did- tell -some- of his other employees about the box. Where's the logic here? He hid the box, told a few people about it, but specifically didn't tell the one person he really needed to tell. The whole thing is just bizarre. It's not like the only difference here is "snake versus turtle".

This is like the guy who saw someone take their shirt off at the company party last year, so this year they figured it's okay to strip naked and streak the office party because it's the same thing, right?

-Byshop

I didn't seek the boss's approval with the turtle either. I asked a lower-level manager if it was okay, lower level manager said it was fine, boss then heard about it and asked to see the turtle.

Same thing with the snakes. I told you that I told people about it (which was again a lower-level manager) who was fine with it. That's how the boss knew it was me when he went looking for who left the box. Not sure what the bird guy did, but in my previous case with the turtle he already found out about it after I'd gotten approval from one of the lower-level managers. And after finding out about it, he said NOTHING to the extent of, "hey, next time ask me directly instead of asking guys lower on the pole."

Again, he runs the place and it's his rules, but "snake vs turtle" is literally the ONLY difference here. Procedure was EXACTLY the same as with the turtle, and at that time the boss had every opportunity to say THEN to come to him for approval on that kind of stuff.

I'd also like to add that at no point did I ever actually bring animals into the building. The bird guy actually brought his bird into the building (albeit after operating hours, but still). The boss was fine with that. "Common sense" rules would dictate that the line is drawn at DANGEROUS animals, but turtles spread salmonella and sick birds can potentially spread god-knows-what. A NON-VENOMOUS snake is no more dangerous than the precedent which has already been set.

@MrGeezer: @Byshop: I can't quote on mobile.

It is reasonable to expect a degree of common sense. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in anymore. A manager/HR division has the responsibility to lay out a clear and direct policy for the employees. This did not happen.

Your comparison with the company party is also fair but it's missing conditions. We don't know how the superior reacted in that situation or if there was any recourse.

It's my interpretation that this reprimand was based on emotion and not policy. The superior was startled, embarrassed and felt he had to act in a manner which he thought showed strength and hierarchy. If the box contained baby rabbits or puppies would we be having this conversation? No. MrGeezer wouldn't have been reprimanded in the same way. His superior would have more than likely pulled him aside and said "hey, we can't bring animals around here anymore" which would have been more acceptable.

So first you say you hid the box where people wouldn't stumble across even, then you said you told co-workers about the box (so people wouldn't accidentally find it) but not your boss. Now you're saying you told a lower level manager about it, which you're now saying is what you did last time. Which is it?

No, common sense would dictate that understanding how people might react to a box of snakes is a factor. You seem to be taking the position of "well, it doesn't matter how people might feel about this because I know I'm technically right" and sure, you are in that sense. But a manager has to take into account all factors to keep the business running smoothly and if one employee does something that might freak the hell out of the rest of the team, then that employee has created a problem in the work environment. This illustrates the difference in mentality between a worker and a lead.

-Byshop

That's not right. Showing a turtle or bird is not the same thing as leaving a box of snakes on the property. He should have went inside and reported what he had done rather than leave it there. Some people are deathly afraid of snakes. The problem was not the animals themselves as you want to assume but not telling him. Apparently he knew about the turtle and the bird. He was not apprised of the box of snakes.

Also as I explained above because an employee says a boss yelled at him does not in fact make it so. Being reprimanded tends to be explained in that way so I wouldn't necessarily believe in the hyperbole.

Therefore, all we can see here is that leaving the box of snakes was unreasonable and unprofessional and cannot comment on more that that. One story...two sides. We have just the one here and most employees don't like to be found to be at fault.

Also pics or it didn't happen. I want to see the box of snakes so I can understand how clearly labelled it was. Also I would like to see the snakes themselves. :)

-Byshop

Working at a library. I've learned that people can't read. Maybe he just wasn't paying attention, wasn't expecting snakes, afraid that he was going to be bitten and then overreacted. I put that blame on him for not reading the box, but I think you could have handled it a bit better, maybe an email or text to give him a heads up that there's a box outside with snakes in them.

The fact is that the turtle was boxed as well and only shown to the supervisor after he was notified by another employee. There was the same opportunity for him to happen upon the boxed turtle by surprise. Aside from that, he was notified. The notification came in the form of a box that was clearly labeled "Snakes." What is the difference between that and another employee standing by the box saying "snakes in the box" ?

The same thing then happened again with the bird. In both instances the supervisor DID NOT issue a warning of any sort or notification to employees on how to handle animals moving forward thereby setting a precedent.

Again, Do you honestly think that we would be having this conversation if it was a stray kitten? Based on the previous two occurances with the turtle and the bird I feel safe in saying no.

Difference being he was notified. Which you've admitted yourself. Also snakes can be poisonous and not everyone is familiar with which are and which aren't. Turtles, birds, kittens not so much.

The notification was not the issue. He never found out about the previous two animals from the source. The box being labeled WAS his notification. Snakes being poisonous is also not the issue. Turtles can have salmonella, birds can carry air-borne viruses (see: brid flu), raccoons can have rabies, etc.

It was the responsibility of management to ensure that this was addressed the first time and that a rule-set was implemented. That was never implemented and in fact it was accepted when it happened a second time. That is the failure of management.

No a box being labelled is not notification. Do you work?

How is a box being labeled not notifying an individual of the contents inside?

Edit: You're also ignoring the precedent that was set. Wild animals were brought onto the premises with no reprecussions or penalties on more than one occasion.

You're ignoring that of the animals found only one was potentially dangerous. Also it was brought to the bosses attention. Not in this case. A box being labelled is NOT notifying anyone in authority. He shouldn't have just left it. There was the potential for someone to get bit by a snake that an employee had gathered in the box. That is a liability.

That's untrue. Any of those animals could have been potential health hazards. They were also all brought to his attention by a separate party. The employee followed the same protocol in notifying middle tier employees. If they failed to report to the supervisor at that point it becomes their issue. Accepting one without setting a standard moving forward was a failure on managements part.

All 3 were wild animals and posed potential liability issues. The opportunity for management to act was with the turtle and not acting was their failure.

Here's how this works in a professional environment:

-Employee finds a wild animal and decides to box it.

-Employee notifies other personnel.

-Upper management is then made aware.

-Upper management then has a choice to make: 1. Denounce the act and notify personnel explicitly that they can not bring in wild animals. 2. Not denounce the act, accept it, and never address it.

Unfortunately they chose the 2nd option. They then made it worse when a second instance of a wild animal occured and they again chose not to address it.

Upper Management was not made aware so you've defeated your entire premise.

Correct upper management was not directly made aware through middle management as per the previous two instances. But, again, as there was no established protocol the employee followed suit as the previous instances where he notifed other employees.

The other employees had the responsibility to report it to upper management - the same way that they did in the previous 2 instances and they failed to do so on the third.

Your argument was that he was not made aware at all but in fact he was through the OBVIOUS label.

My argument is that there was no established protocol so the employee followed the SAME course of action that was done in the previous 2 instances and should therefore not have been reprimanded in the way he was. Management failing to address the issue head on created the atmosphere that they are condeming.

A non-venomous snake isn't any more "potentially dangerous" than a turtle. If the argument is that it's "potentially dangerous" because someone might not know what a venomous snake looks like, then ANY turtle is "potentially dangerous" because it might carry salmonella. Or ANY bird is "potentially dangerous" because it might be carrying avian flu. Or ANY kitten is potentially dangerous because it might be carrying rabies. At least it's possible to visually determine that an animal isn't packing a load of venom, whereas you can't exactly look at an animal and determine that it's free of potentially deadly bacteria or viruses.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that I didn't bring the turtle to the boss's attention either. I just mentioned it to lower-level management, who then brought it to the boss's atention. I followed the exact same protocol here. I told the lower level management about it, only in this case, the lower level management didn't bother telling the boss. So it seems in this case, the only one who broke standard procedure was the lower-level manager. With regards to notification, I followed the same procedure BOTH TIMES. The lower level manager was the one who broke procedure by not telling the boss. So even if we accept that the boss had legitimate grounds to be upset, isn't it more appropriate that the boss complain to the lower level manager instead of ME, since it was the lower level manager who actually failed at notification?

To repeat: last time I notified someone higher up on the ladder, that person notified the boss, the boss was cool. This time, I also notified someone higher up, that person DIDN'T notify the boss, the boss was upset. I would've happily gone directly to the boss if he ever made it clear that that's what needed to be done, but there's kind of a precedent here wherein he was totally cool with ME just getting approval from lower level management. If management broke precedent by failing to notify him this time, then I feel like he really ought to be bringing it up with management instead of me.

@MrGeezer: I say your boss is a toss.

Either no-one touches any animals, no matter how cute, cuddly whatever else

OR

Every animal is kept in a box and handed over to animal rescue or equivalent

Pick 1.