Was there a last straw or just a terminal grinding down that made you jump? Good luck on your job search.
Oh, there was a last straw. T.P. is notorious for not working. This is how it is- we are each assigned to a doctor and then there are floats who help as needed. I am (was) almost always on calls, as I am the most communicative of the bunch. But I used to be with doctors, too. As a rule, if your doctor is not actively needing you and you’re at the nurses station waiting for him to need you, you are doing something in the meanwhile. You’re cutting paper drapes, filling syringes, stocking, purging, whatever you can find to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, right? But not The Princess. She just stands there. Literally. Stands there in one spot, usually in the way, of course, waiting for the help light to come on or a room to open up. Just stands there. And talks. And talks and talks and talks. About herself. She is one of those horrible generation me kids or whatever you hear about- she’s 30 and incredibly narcissistic. She believes the world revolves around her and that we are all entitled to her opinion and her updates about her life, while she STANDS THERE. This is probably a good 50% of her work day. It chaps my ass that she probably gets paid more than me (seniority) but does much, MUCH less than I do. It always has.
But the last straw was that for the approximately 73rd time, she has felt the need to come to me as the supervisor (main supervisor and 2nd supervisor gone, she’s in charge, which always goes to her stupid head) to tell me that I’m not working and I better start. After a 10-second break to discuss something with someone at the front desk.
HER?? SHE? She is going to tell me that I need to get back to work? The sheer hypocrisy of it just kills me.
So, while there are a whole lot of separate, seemingly small issues between her and I (she is also the anti-me, as in we are complete opposites), it’s really just that all of them just came to a head today. I just couldn’t take her for one more second, and the company’s ridiculous support of her just because she’s been there for 10 years and is semi-smart. I’m smarter than her (not bragging, just a fact) but have only been there 5 years. But it’s not just with me that she’s had problems. She left the annex office bag with patient charts, cash, checks, SSN numbers, etc in her car in town while she went home with her boyfriend. The bag was of course, stolen. She’s been accused of having an affair with one of the doctors, which was never proven, but after having been told she’d be fired if she discussed it with anybody, proceeded to discuss it with someone who then discussed it with me. She once, at a drug rep dinner for our office MAs and our competitors’ MAs, thoroughly disparaged and ran into the dirt the good name and reputation of one of our doctors, just because she doesn’t get along with him. Nobody knows about that, though, except the MAs that were there. (Yet.) I just have grown to intensely dislike her. And I could no longer condone the management’s condoning her behavior, day after day after day. I was once told by management, “That’s just how she is.” Fuck that.
Except for the seniority and probable affair with one of the doctors, she sounds very much like a ‘colleague’ of mine.
I won’t bore you with the details, having just got rid of your own albatross but it never fails to amaze me how those with the power to do something - even if it’s just to pull the individual into line, not necessarily sack her, just say “well, that’s just the way she is”. Fortunately me for, I work on a ward with 64 other nurses (not all on at the same time, of course) so I can manage to avoid her most of the time.
She’s in school to become an RN. If she ends up with you, please spit in her soda for me. I’d like to be a fly on the wall the first place she works- I’ve heard nurses eat their young anyways, and I expect they’ll tear that lazy little theworstwordinAmerica apart.
Plus it wasn’t just her. The front office had had a big turnover and had hired more than the average number of people I don’t get along with. I wasn’t getting my raise this year when the time came, I’d had my hours cut (we all did) so they didn’t have to pay our Medical Reimbursement Plans, and one of the doctors was recently sued and has been a stone cold bitch ever since. I had started to think about calling in every day, had fantasized about walking out, and did not look forward to going in. It never used to be like that. I was relatively ecstatic there for a long time, so I’m very sad that that changed.
It’s good to talk about this and know that a few people are out there listening, as it were. It helps so much. I can’t even call my friends yet because I’ll start crying if I start talking. Thanks.
Did ya do it with Style? (knocked over the water-cooler, shreaded some forms) Or with Grace? (put on your coat, picked up your purse and started walkin’, never to look back)
I’ve done both, except it was a jacket and motorcycle helmet. I don’t carry a purse. Both have rewarding qualities.
What happened was, after she said get back to work, I said, “And you are…?”, then she went to the secretary, who, although she is functionally retarded, has somehow been corkscrewed into a management position, which is, to me, WTF, but whatever. The secretary comes to me with her face and hands all screwed up and says, “I am so sick of you!” I calmly advised her that her demeanor and her words were not appropriate for her professional position, and that she needed to address me in a respectful manner, as this was a work environment. Then one of the doctors came over and started to say, “Why don’t you all write down your version blah blah blah” and I said, “How about we not? Bye!” and I got my purse and left. I’m not going through all that with her again- the complaints, the meetings, the nonchalance of the management but the need to paint me as the bad guy… it’s never solved anything, and it never will. We’ve been through all this before, and it’s well documented.
Fuck it, is what I thought. And no, I did not look back.
Good on you, Alice!
I do wish you the best of luck in finding a new job. However, I wouldn’t get my hopes up about “hostile work environment” having anything to do with how your unemployment claim is handled. Hostile work environment, in an employment sense, means discrimination based on your membership in a protected class. It does not refer to a general environment of hostility in the workplace or favoritism that isn’t based on race, sex, etc. Hostile work environment is about those types of discrimination that take the form of making someone’s life miserable by pervasively making sexual or racist comments, displaying images, etc. This is an extremely common thing to be confused about, but you’ll come across more professional at unemployment if you don’t make this common mistake they probably hear quite a bit.
You might want to look into the term “constructive dismissal,” if you think that they created a situation where essentially you had no choice but to quit. This would typically be something like a unsafe work environment or drastic change in compensation, working conditions, or job duties. In some cases, constructive dismissal means your resignation is treated as if you were laid off for unemployment purposes.
Ah, yes, constructive dismissal was the concept I was thinking of, actually. Thank you. I believe that I have to write up a document to my employer stating what the problem was and why I felt that I had no choice but to leave. I will need to verify that and start the process tomorrow.
Sometimes saving your sanity is more important than the money.
What really sucks is that for a long, long time, I was very happy there. The Princess always bothered me, but the benefits of the job outweighed the problems, by far. It was a great job, and I liked almost everyone there and I loved it. But the last few months, things really changed. The whole feel of the place became stingy, hateful, and weird. I guess when people are losing money and getting their hours cut and getting sued it has an effect. I just wasn’t happy there anymore, and was well on my way to becoming very unhappy. That was a loss for me.
Plus I’m very emotionally attached to all of the doctors (the recently pissy one a bit less so now, but still) and it’s very, VERY difficult for me to leave them. One day I will learn not to emotionally bond with older, brilliant, funny, supportive, caring doctors that I work for that appreciate me and show it. (Management does not equal the doctors.) I will learn that. Yeah, right. 
This part is confusing. If you get a job next week as you seem confident to do, UI won’t have kicked in, and you don’t get UI if you have a job. So why is it necessary for UI to see your point?
Just in case. I’m pretty confident I’ll find a job quick, but you never know. What if I have bad breath and don’t know it? What if my car breaks down next week and I have to take the bus to interviews and so I get there all hot and sweaty and make a bad impression? What if I take a nasty fall down the stairs tomorrow and am unable to job search for a month? You never know- it’s good to have something on the back burner anyway, right?
Have a nice iced-tea (or a shot of JW) put your feet up and enjoy the time off. You did the right thing, and are a source of inspiration to others in the same position. Just up and walking out of your job takes some stones, and you have them. Congratulations! and have fun on your brief hiatus - take in a show or visit a museum - the world is yours! (for a few days).
Best Wishes Alice. I walked into a job after a 2 week vacation and quit on the spot. It sucked, I cried, my stomach was in knots and I was unemployed for 3 months. Bottom line, it was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. Keep the faith and know you did the right thing for you.
I don’t know what State you live in, but in most of them, a voluntary resignation means no unemployment comp. Sorry.
I can tell others than when a job starts getting bad as the OP’s clearly was, then it’s time to send off the resume and then go to a new job, not walk off.
Not that the OP wasn’t justified in leaving mind you, it’s just that this sort of thing is usually obvious in coming, so when you see the “writing on the wall” then post that resume.
sometimes an alice has got to do what an alice has got to do.
i do hope you find a new job that you like and that they like you.
it is very sad to see an office that worked well, has good people, turn bad. an office i worked in went from that family-we are all working for the same thing feeling, to confrontation, aggressive, and abrasive.
all it took was 2 new partners and the other 6 just went along. then the 2 hired 2 people of like minds into office operations. there went the office! it was amazing that 4 people could wreck it.
Well done getting the hell out of there. My last job was incredibly hellish, too, and getting fired from there was the best thing that ever happened to me. Best of luck with the job hunt, and any time you start freaking out, just remind yourself: you never have to see those fucking people again.
True, except that they typically make accommodations for certain types of quitting - for instance, that the job was harmful and the company made no attempt to either fix that or offer you another position you’re qualified for. A friend of mine got it when they switched her sales area to a much less desirable and profitable one, in order to give her original area to one of their children. Things like that.
Wait…this kind of unprofessional environment was being conducted in a cancer treatment center?
Yikes.