I walked off the job today! I can only take so much bullshit, and I had my limit around noon. And surprisingly it wasn’t Demanding Partner who ticked me off - he doesn’t even get in the office until 2:00 and I was gone by then.
Last year sometime I had mentioned to HR and the managing partner that I don’t, financially speaking, actually have to work…apparently that little tidbit has been forgotten. When I tried to complain about something that was driving me nuts, it was turned back around on me - at which point I remember that Useless HR lady protects her friends, and I am not one of them. Then she started saying that Demanding Partner hadn’t actually asked for me, and didn’t actually dislike his previous secretary (bullshit - he won’t shut up about it and he’s not that good a liar). She started a sentence with “you’re making incorrect assumptions…” to which I replied “The incorrect assumption I’m making is that I should still be working here. Well, I’m done.”
I grabbed as much of my personal stuff as I could (I have to go back for some of it on Monday) and I turned in my office keys and parking pass. I feel sorry for some of my co-workers - the good ones - but the rest of them, not so much.
I’m going to take some time off and maybe look for something part time - or maybe not. Before he died, my father in law said “Paula when I am gone you won’t have to work!” Maybe it’s time to take him up on that - he died in 2013.
Congratulations? Good you’re out of a bad situations, but you come across as a person who likes to works.
So, are you going to send Demanding Partner a resignation letter, saying that while s/he was a delight to work for, you could no longer tolerate the firm’s unreasonable employment practices? That could get a few sets of knickers in a twist.
After reading the other thread, I have to say how sorry I am that you are going through that crap. A boss so bad that half the department leaves just on hearing of the appointment? Yeah, my advice is to update your resume and Get The Bleep Out Of There!
My contribution: the tsunami of overwork begins! Much anticipated, but unaddressed. We have people to do 6-9 thingies next month. We’re scheduled for 20 thingies. Or maybe more, because we’re a “dynamic” environment. :rolleyes:
The stupid part about this sort of thing, and I’ve seen it before, is that at no point does the person who hired the disaster ever reconsider it. I mean, if I gave someone a promotion and half their team quit, I’d step back and talk to everyone, those who quit and those who stayed - to find out the issue. And probably back off the promotion if it’s going to drive people away.
Nope, that never happens. People just willingly destroy entire departments and drive people away to get their favorite into a spot they should never occupy.
So, I’ve been job hunting for a little while. Took a couple months, but not a big deal. I have an oral agreement with the boss for one position that I’m really excited about and I’m 97% sure I’ll be taking, but he’s in up to his earlobes and hasn’t gotten me a written offer yet. Until I have signed on the dotted line, I’m continuing to apply and interview for other positions. Plus, I’m on unemployment so I’m required to continue to apply for jobs to qualify. Plus, I’m volunteering on a mostly full-time basis. So, I’m kind of busy.
So yesterday (Monday) afternoon, I was invited to an interview for a place I’d actually kind of like to work. Interview is Wednesday morning, giving me one day to prepare talking points and check everyone’s background and suchlike. Except that they also ask for a writing sample on a topic they’ve set, in a format that you have to intuit from the examples they give, with a suggested “it would take one of our people no more than 5 hours”. Which means that it will take me several hours to work out their format and then ~7 hours to write about something I’m unfamiliar with. So, they’ve assigned me ~10 hours of work that has to be done in one day. Good thing I’m otherwise unemployed (except for my busy volunteer schedule and a part-time thing that has also picked this moment to heat up).
I don’t object to the writing sample - it’s a well designed exercise to look at your writing style and see if you’re capable of figuring things out without handholding (i.e. can you deduce our format from these examples, can you find relevant sources of information without us pointing them out to you?). I’m kind of impressed by it as an interview tool. But the timeline is totally unreasonable for an employed person and still pretty damn tight for me.
Oh, and they also want me to “familiarize myself” with a software suite that I’ve never used. They don’t expect me to have used it before, but they want me to know enough about it that I can sort it out during the interview.
On the one hand, I have this other position in the offing so I’m tempted to tell them to go to hell. On the other hand, I am intrigued by this position and they might tempt me away. And the other position could still fall though. And dammit, I want to do things well!
I know you’re two levels up from me, but: You’re not my boss.
I know that my position reports to yours on the client-facing “official” org chart, but still: You’re not my boss.
I actually report to the same guy that you do, because it works well that well that way, which means: You’re not my boss.
I have 1:1’s with our boss every week. I’m not going to have them with you, because: You’re not my boss.
Quit showing up on my standups and asking my staff for detailed updates. It’s not appropriate, because: You’re not my boss.
Quit assigning tasks to my team without going through me first. Even if you were my boss, it wouldn’t be cool, because it would undermine my authority. What makes it worse, is: You’re not my boss.
By the way, at those weekly meetings with our boss, our boss has repeatedly confirmed: You’re not my boss.
You have damn near 25 people reporting to you. They are coming to me in increasing numbers, asking if I’ve heard anything about their performance reviews, or if I know where you’re at, and all the other shit that one would normally discuss with one’s staff in a 1-on-1. Tell you what, why don’t you busy yourself managing them, and staying the fuck off my patch. You’re their boss. Not mine.
As soon as you say, “Do you know who I am?”, the only accurate answer is, “A total ass”.
If you cannot persuade someone with facts, do not be trying to intimidate them with amorphous threats about your power and influence, because, oh, damn, I cannot tell you how stupid you look. Please, stop, it’s embarrassing.
That would mean they might have made a mistake. That is unacceptable. They would get canned for re-evaluating a decision.
Holy fucking shit…I just had a guy come in here and tell me how hard it was to be a male at beauty school, and how hard it has been for his brother-in-law to be a male in nursing school, because both are “girl jobs.”
Yeah…that’s cute. I’m the only female engineer at this company. I’ve had people go to my supervisor or manager so often to make sure something I’ve said is correct that it barely phases me anymore. I’ve even had people ask me to prepare a document and get my (male) manager to sign it as though he had prepared it.
But please, do go on about how hard things were for you in school. >.<
It isn’t always true, but I have found it extremely common that micromanagers do their bullshit micromanagement so they can say they’re too busy to do the parts of their jobs they don’t actually want to do.
I am in a similar world. I work in EE. I’ve said things in meetings that were completely ignored, only to be the greatest of ideas when the same thoughts were supplied by my male coworkers. Often a few minutes after I said them in the same meeting.
One man refused to talk to me. It was both infuriating and amusing at the same time.
I can’t believe there are still people out there who think simply having a winkie makes you somehow more intelligent/capable.
Hell, there’s whole theories and systems of management or economics which carry all kinds of TLAs and courses and certifications and audits and whatnot…
and which boil down to “homemaker’s basics”. But hey, if a professor at Chicago Business School says it, it’s helluva cool! That your grandma did it, and her grandma did it, and her grandma did it, not so much.
The sad bit is how many times I’ve been in a meeting in which one of them was explained and one or more people actually and sincerely found them the cat’s meow. The division between “people to whom it would never have occurred” and “people who find it amazing anybody sees it as new” is “who can cook?”
I work for Very Large Company. It seems that it’s basically impossible to get a promotion here except by applying for and accepting a completely different job.
Area near mine, guy doing ‘Lead’ work at a mid-level position. They won’t actually give him the promotion, so he moves on to another team, taking a higher pay grade in the process.
Then his team hires an existing Lead from another team.
Gotta be great for everyone involved to know that you’ll never actually get a promotion to Lead by being assigned and doing a good job at the tasks, but after refusing to give you that raise, they’ll be happy to hire someone 5 salary levels above you for the position you were in.
I am getting a promotion, which is great. But there had been a shakeup in management, And my new immediate boss has not even officially started but has already decided the way we do things is all totally and completely wrong. There’s back biting and bullshit already starting and i just don’t know if i have the energy to handle it.
