It's Crazy To Leave A Job In This Economy...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

… so I guess I must be crazy.

I started my current job about six weeks ago after being unemployed for six months. My previous job of four years went bankrupt and shut it’s doors. My savings were dwindling and I was desperate for something. A ray of hope came in a second job interview in which I got hired. I was saved, or so I thought.

The office manager is a completely moron. She has no trust in any of her employees, openly calling them morons to the other employees behind their backs. Because of this she does not delegate anything. Everything must be funneled through her. No one can make a decision without running it through her first but Og forbid if someone is waiting for more than five minutes for an answer or decision because then you are accused of not doing your job in a timely manner.

This person also does not know how to use email. What she does is sits down and writes out the email by hand and then hands it to me to type it up and send it out. Same thing with any word or electronic documents she needs created. She writes, outlines or sketches out what she needs on paper and tells you to create it. The ironic part is that she is always on us about unnecessary duplication of effort.

There is also no division of labor in the office what-so-ever. Everyone does everything. I was hired on as the Buying Agent but I haven’t been able to concentrate on that since I started because I am too busy being a salesperson, marketing person, estimator, scheduler, etc. and then I catch snide remarks from her about how she has to call for prices because I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

She also treats everyone there like her personal assistant. In the time I’ve been there I have had to call her pool guy because the water was still green, call her lawn guy to complain to him about how sections of her lawn were dying and she blames him, argue with her insurance company about an emergency room bill for her son and prepare her paperwork for a loan she was trying to take out to buy a house. That’s not the whole list, just what I can think of. And again, if my other job responsibilities were not completed in a timely manner all I would get were snide remarks about why she even hired me.

The kicker though was this past week. During the salary negotiation we agreed on X. She said it was company policy that employees start off at X-10% for the first thirty days and then get bumped up to full pay. I did not have a problem with this so I agreed to it. This past week I received my paycheck for the fifth week of work and it was still at X-10%. When I spoke to her about it she told me I was not performing up to the standards she needed and felt it was appropriate to keep me at my current pay rate. We went back and forth with each other for a bit and I was able to counter everything she threw at me with concrete reasons of why I was not performing my job as efficiently as possible. At that point she back pedaled and told me the reason she did not bump me up was because it was hectic and she forgot. I left there feeling good about the conversation we had. The next morning, as soon as I came into the office, she started laying into me about how she went through my desk and found work that was not completed, things were not properly labeled so she did not know what was going on with it, paperwork that was sitting my desk for weeks, etc. She then told me that she did not have time to babysit me and do her job as she did ten times the work I did. I knew that confrontation was a direct result of the conversation from the previous day about my pay. I don’t hold out much hope for my pay getting raised.

There is so much more I can keep ranting about but to keep it short I’ll end it here. I know I am going to regret quitting this job three months from now if I haven’t found another job and my savings run out but I seriously can not manage working for such an incompetent and a demeaning person for another day. I know people will tell me to tough it out and look for another job but the problem with that is we can’t answer our cell phones while in the office and I can not surf the web to look because I am busy every minute with my work responsibilities and her personal BS she makes me do for her. I currently have a memo from her on my desk to schedule maintenance for her BMW on my desk that I need to do first thing Monday morning. I’m just going to write out my letter of resignation and drop it off in the office mailbox later on tonight and start my job search again on Monday. I just hope it doesn’t take six months again because I don’t have the savings to tide me over this time.

2

You could always kneecap the bitch.

3

Assuming that she’s not the owner, I’d write my letter of resignation on the back of the memo to schedule the maintenance on her BMW, outline in a somewhat more professional manner the complaints you’ve laid out here, then send it to someone higher up in the food chain.

4

Quit. Now. There are levels of financial survival you can stoop too that would still be preferable to working for a bitch like that.

5

I will wholeheartedly support your decision to quit.

I have not yet had a professional job, and I can guarantee you that I could get a job tomorrow being some sales person, something I HATE. I haven’t done it because your story would then become my own. I know that I would hate it and quit way too soon (or get fired) so your story rings true.

You are a smart person for recognizing your situation and acting correctly!

6

Don’t quit until you find a new job. It is easier to find a job while you are employed.

7

I suppose I should have put the fact that she is the co-owner, along with her husband, of the place in the OP. So no, there is no one’s head to go over and no HR as it is a small business office with only four other employees. And from talking to the other employees going to her husband would do no good.

When I first started there I was told by the other employees that they had been trying to fill this position for awhile. They had already had three people in as many months. The longest lasting one was there for four weeks so I guess I beat the record by two. That should have been my first warning.

I have only quit one other job, and that was after working there for three years and I wasn’t quiting because I was unhappy with the job but because I found another position that was an upgrade in pay and responsibilities. I’m just really dissapointed with myself that I can’t just tough it out. Hell, I spent three years in the Army and while I consider that time in my life the most stressful period of employment I would gladly do three more years of that instead of three years in this position.

8

Hell, Amp, I didn’t know you were in Scotland, and bilingual English/Spanish!

You took the job (or at least the Sheboss) I dumped in March.

9

Not in Scotland but am fluent in both English and Spanish, Boricua baby!

And it’s good to know that I am just not being a cry baby and that others have been through the same thing.

10

I once quit a job by phone from home on a Friday of the week I started. By Tuesday one of my office mates told me they had a bet on how long I would last. There were many reasons and it too was a small company with no HR and no one to go to. I was fortunate enough that my next unemployment check came without missing a beat…

Sometimes you can hang on and sometimes you just can’t. You just have to do what’s best for you. Good luck.

Oh yeah, FYI–the place I recently worked went out of business and closed in April. So I’m out there too.

11

Amp, I understand, and don’t blame you one bit. I, too, once quit a job that I thought was my saving grace but turned out to be unbearable. I made myself stay one month. Well, I quit at noon of the 30th day. (I did offer to finish the day while in my head I was saying “send me home, send me home.” Which, thank Og, they did. :D)

I can’t say I got a better job within a week or anything like that, but I did survive, and things ended up just as they should. I don’t regret leaving that job; it was the right thing for me and I knew that in my gut.

12

Well, if you can’t look for a job while there, then I would quit and deliver pizzas or something. That should help stretch your income and still leave you time during the day to find a real job.

Look at it this way…you can have a very satisfying final confrontation with the woman and tell her to schedule her own damn BMW maintenance.

13

Look, I hate my job probably more than anyone. However, I have to question the wisdom of quitting without having another job lined up. Especially if you don’t think you have the savings to tide you over for another six months.

What you need to do is straighten out your pay situation first. Then after than, just do whatever is asked of you. What do you care if it’s scheduling personal appointments or whatever? You’re getting paid for it.

And if you are at a point where you plan on quitting anyway, why not just have it out with your boss? Take her down a peg in front of the whole office. I mean her only power is that she can fire you and you don’t care about that.

14

You don’t have to LIKE your job. When I find myself in a situation like this I ask myself, “Can I live with this?” If I can I stay. If not I leave.

But for it to work you must be honest with yourself. Can you live, without insurance, without getting your teeth fixed, without all the extras in life.

I would make an appointment with a temp agency. See what they have to offer, if insurance and such isn’t an issue, you’d probably be better if the temp agency can find you jobs.

I’ve been out of work for awhile and while my temp agencies used to get me enough to get by, now most of the time, I only get one or two DAYS a month (since January) of work from each of them.

15

I have been in charge of hiring people. If they were not working ,I wondered what was wrong with them. I knew better but the thought still occurred. There are personality clashes and working conditions that result in separations. I know that. But I still wondered why they were not working. I wondered why they did not last longer where they were in the past. If they applied and were still working ,I listened to them better. If they left ,I had to wonder why they left so soon. It is human nature and the people in charge of hiring are humans. Get a new job before you quit.

16

What sort of business is it? Because it sounds like one where there is a hell of a lot of margin that tolerates idiots and inefficiencies, and maybe you should learn the ropes, then open up some competition.

17

If it’s making you depressed, resign. Like **ivylass ** suggested, you can probably find something informal to tide you over.

If you can motivate yourself to jobsearch outside of work hours, try to stick it out since you say you already used your savings during your last bout of unemployment. The thing is you probably couldn’t claim benefits if you voluntarily leave.

18

Never mind about the benefits thing. I don’t know how that works in Florida.

19

Yep.

20

Sorry to hear this, OP. I agree that you should live with it as long as possible, not having another job lined up. I often wonder how many ppl in this economy end up being treated like shit and taking it b/c the owners and mgrs know it’s so hard to find a job.

A friend of mine told me the other night that she quit her job w/o anything else lined up. Reason: the company is on the brink of bankruptcy or something like it. E.g. the employees discovered they don’t have health benefits because the premiums weren’t paid (I gather they would find this out at the Walgreens prescription counter or doctor’s office). E.g. the lights would go off during work once a month because the company hadn’t paid the bill. The employees had to hightail it to the bank each week with the paycheck because if might bounce. She kept hoping they’d fire her b/c then she’d get unemployment. No such luck.

So what choice did she have? Wait for the bottom to fall out completely or grab the bull by the balls? I don’t know what I would have done.

Tough it out as long as you can, OP…good luck!