Well, after four year of downward spiraling hell, today is my last day with my current employer. Since the first of the year (when the President committed a boo-boo and I sqealed to HR and the board), my job responsiblities have slowly been taken away from me. Not that it meant that the President stopped bitching to my supervisor that I wasn’t doing anything–I somehow found things to do and documented every single thing, but still the complaints kept coming. “What is phall0106 doing all day?” she would frequently ask my supervisor, even after recieving detailed weekly reports.
Now, it’s finished. I’ve found another position–better pay, kick ass benefits and doing what I’d like very much to do–and start tomorrow. (Start on the first of the month, then benefits kick in immediately. Start on the 3rd and benefits kick in the first of the following month. I’m not risking a month of forgoing insurance with a 14 year old boy in the house.)
Old Job
Nothing new, same old crap
Crappy 3% raise
Paycheck sucking benefits
No professional development support
Good co-workers
Close to home
Large, empty office
Overbearing, insecure President
New Job
Exciting work within my interests
Starting salary higher than current
Great benefits at less cost to me
Reimbursed tuition, effective immed.
Uncertain co-workers
Close to home
Nice office in good location
No overbearding, insecure President
Mundane and pointless? Not to me. To me, it’s the next step in my life!!!
She has a history of poking her nose into the personal lives of her staff. A deep poke. For example, one of my co-workers was involved in a long term health issue. The President SHOWED UP AT THE DOCTORS OFFICE (uninvited) when the co-worker had a doctors appointment under the guise of offering support. (Co-worker happened to have been sent to another office for testing and wasn’t there at the time.) That’s just one example.
For me, out of the blue, she pulled me into the her office, shut her door and told me that I “need to go to counseling”. WTF? I make it a point never to bring personal stuff to the office (and not to take office stuff home), and although she admitted there was absolutely nothing I had done (or not done) while at work (or in public, or anything at home that I’d boasted about at work) to provoke her comment, she went on to say that sometimes traumatic things happen in people’s lives that counseling can assist them with, then related her own experience with her abusive father. I was sitting there dumbfounded, wondering what the hell she was talking about, but knowing I’d had enough of her personal interferrance in not only my life, but that of my co-workers that she’s seriously overstepped professional boundaries.
She wants to play mother to everyone instead of leading the company. But, in an effort to keep this out of the Pit, I’ll say that I followed protocol and filed a formal complaint with HR, then reported it to the Board (as it’s directed in our employees handbook). Since then, my position has been on the edge. Technically, it would be an unwise move to fire me (although PA is a Hire At Will state, so she could fire me without any reason), so she just kicked up her tactics to suck all the enjoyment out of working here.
And, yes, she still has her job, although for the life of my co-workers and I, we cannot figure out why.
First day was cool. I’m mentally exhausted, but it was good. Of course, my office furniture hasn’t arrived, so my computer is sitting on a table in my empty office, and for some reason, I couldn’t log on (even after IT working remotely on it for most of the afternoon–they’re coming in Monday morning to fix it), but the day was good. The new co-workers seem nice and helpful, with good senses of humor and I got to eat ice-cream. Plus, I met Harriet Dicter, who was much smaller than I could ever imagine. Nice, but absolutely tiny.
