Some time ago I posted this thread about how my job sucks. It still sucks – in fact, it sucks quite a bit more. I’m tired of it and I’m quitting, finally. I put in my notice last week. It would have been sooner but I dreaded giving notice because I don’t want to call attention to how miserable I am.
I had hoped to make it through most of the time without anyone finding out that I was leaving. I don’t want to discuss it, and it’s not up for negotiation. Frankly, it’s sort of embarassing for me. I’ve never just quit a job before (when I left, it would be after a seasonal job when I told them how long I could work when I started). It’s embarassing that I don’t have any other prospects but that I am tired of being exhausted and miserable.
Of course, though, someone asks me to work a shift for them after I’m leaving. I was vague but declined saying I was leaving and wouldn’t be available. Person in question doesn’t bring it up, but rather someone else (and on another shift, so they must have been talking about it in a group) – and of course, it’s in front of both my shift and the next shift, and the supervisor as well.
Is there any polite way to say “I hate this job” in front of these people? Not really. A lot of them do this as a a career. I can’t stand it. I hate this job and I hate spending time away from work hating it. If I explain to these people why I hate it, they’re most likely going to be angry about what I have to say.
Frankly, I have just never been in so fucked up of a job situation as this one. Being nasty and antisocial seems to be the norm rather than the exception; hating your co-workers seems to be standard operating procedure. While there are a handful of really nice people, most of them just seem plain mean. Maybe it’s the kind of work, but I hate it when I see how jaded they are and how nasty they are to the public. There are so many problems within this department that boil down to personality issues and the fact that there is very little mutual support or teamwork. Again, there are exceptions. There are a few people who have been nothing but nice to me and have tried to help me out because I have been struggling so hard. It’s just very difficult to learn a job where they tell you “if you don’t know, ask for help” but yet asking for help earns you eye-rolls and drawn out sighs. When you thank someone for helping you, they’re just as likely to ignore you or say “uh huh” huffily as to even try to feign interest. Hell, my sister went into the hospital this weekend for emergency surgery, and though several people knew, nobody asked me how she was or offered the slightest amount of sympathy (“I hope she’s ok”). This apathy or even antipathy extends to the public, too. I can’t even count the number of times when someone called with an emergency and were upset but when the dispatcher couldn’t even be bothered to sound slightly empathetic or even interested. It seems that these people missed the days in kindergarten when you learned “please”, “thank you”, “you’re welcome”, and how to be nice and work together. It’s not that I expect perfect harmony; it’s just that I expect a little bit of common courtesy. If you honestly don’t care, you can at least try to not sound bored and mildly frustrated that someone is bothering you.
The supervisor is, frankly, a lot of the reason I left, for a lot of the reasons I put in that post. She really excels at making people feel stupid and unappreciated. I don’t think she’s ever given me praise, except for one time when she was trying to tell me how to do something and I said “Oh, thanks but I already know how to do that part, and I already did it”, and she went “Oh, uhh, well, good then.” I hate feeling stupid. I’m not stupid and I know that, but she makes me feel that way because everything I do is wrong. Sometimes she tries to make it constructive criticism, and that at least is OK. Sometimes she is very nasty and patronizing. For example, one time we had a visitor and she was explaining some of our systems. She pointed out that she didn’t like something I was doing, and explained how it was basically dumb and inefficient, and how I shouldn’t do it. I was incredibly embarassed and upset – and what’s more, the person who trained me told me to do it this way! I just didn’t say anything. If she has a problem with it, she can talk to me herself instead of embarassing me in front of a guest.
On various occasions I have been chewed out for not doing things I was never told to do, or for handling situations badly on which I was trained little or not at all. When I try to say that I violated some policy because I didn’t know it existed and nobody told me, I was told that they “always train” people to do that and that she “knew” that I was told. Well, what do I say to that? All I can say in my defense then is “Well, you may always train people to do that, but I wasn’t trained, so I did the best I could based on what I knew.” Of course, I am still wrong and I still get in trouble. My trainer, on various occasions, denied not training me something to get herself out of trouble.
On still other occasions I was berated for asking for help, even after being repeatedly told that I was not asking for help when I should and that I should always ask if in doubt (or even when I was not in doubt, because apparently I should know when I’ve made a mistake even if I didn’t know the policy existed that I was apparently violating). This was done by the same individual (among others) who told me to ask. One day it would be “You messed this up. Why didn’t you ask for help?” (Because I didn’t know I was wrong until too late.) The next day it would be “Why don’t you know this? I thought you were DONE with training!” (Because you never trained me how to do this, and because a lot of my training was self-taught from a book that doesn’t have updated policies or policy from our particular institution.) In one case, I asked about a policy on how to prioritize calls – I didn’t do anything, I only asked. I was berated on several occasions not to hold calls for service (I never did), and was later blamed for several incidences where other people had done this but I hadn’t (because I had some imaginary history of doing it based on me asking about it). I was even once chewed out for someone else doing it that was working at the same time I was – for not knowing about it, I guess?
Finally, I decided to leave. I was put on a 15 day stretch with no days off (I had a training during my “weekend” (middle of the week, really) on days, I work nights). On the last day of training, I was there 8-5 and worked 11-7am as well. I live an hour away from where I work, so I got about a 3 hour nap. I got to work and made a stupid mistake (I mixed up two businesses with the same name on the same road), and of course got chewed out (this time by the officer, and on the radio. Thanks). I knew I would probably be in for another one of the nice chats with the supervisor that starts with her coming in at the end of my shift, poking me really hard (what is WITH that?) and saying “I need to talk to you” angrily. I just couldn’t put up with any more. I had already worked 9 days in a row, and had to switch back and forth between schedules with no time off. I had enough problems driving to work without crashing, let alone navigating all of the different calls and radio traffic. That was it. I had enough.
Basically I said it was an anxiety issue. It is, but I didn’t, of course, drag out why. I am nervous and shaky all the time, and I have so much dread about going to work and, late in my shift, seeing my supervisor that I get nausea. The work is hard to do, but constantly being the department pariah because of training issues and personality conflicts is just unbearable. I work nights, weekends, holidays. I haven’t gotten a good night sleep since I started on nights – the worst time I’ve gotten chewed out was after a mistake on my first night, and ever since then I’ve been too anxious and upset to sleep well. I’ve even had nightmares. Sleeping during the day is hard enough without all the stress.
Unfortunately I still am working until my notice is over. I hate being there. It’s sad because I really am interested in law enforcement and I think that I could have been very good at this job in a more constructive, mutually helpful department. I’ve met a lot of people outside our department through training and I don’t think we’re typical. We have a lot of problems keeping people on staff. The brass is really mystified as to why we have so many problems. I’m not mystified at all. It took only about two months to transform an interested, motivated, reasonably intelligent trainee into a poorly trained, anxious, constantly exhausted dispatcher who quits out of sheer frustration with the problems of the department.
Anyway, I hope I can get through the rest of my time (8 shifts and counting) without any more “issues”.
Sorry that this rant sucks.
I read & posted to your original thread. No job is worth feeling that badly. Good Luck on your new path.