I know I shouldn’t complain, as I HAVE a job, but you know what? I’m going to bitch anyway.
I moved to Ohio eight months ago to be with my husband - that’s been great, we were married two weeks ago, we’re deliriously happy as a married couple. I started my job in March - I got the job through a temp agency as a proposed temp-to-hire. I loved it from the start - instead of my usual administrative assistant work, I’m doing reports with SQL and Access, and my skill with Microsoft programs has gone through the roof. I’m in a small, three-person department and we all get along brilliantly. My manager is great - I’ve never gotten along with a boss quite this well. My officemate and co-worker and I hit it off, and get along fabulously - she even cared for my cats while my husband and I were on our honeymoon.
At the end of June, on my way to my cousin’s wedding, my temp agency called my cell phone. “Congrats!” They said. “You’re hired!” They said. I was thrilled - aside from fantastic benefits, my company also does profit-sharing. Since my co-worker had told me I’d have made $1000 extra in June if I worked there the whole month, I was very much looking forward to that part of my employment.
I returned to work, and went to thank my manager. “Small snag.” He said. Apparently, due to the new software we’re implementing, they aren’t sure if there’s going to be a job for me when it’s totally implemented. So, our CEO and VP want to hold off on my hiring. Okay, fine. The pay is extremely low for the level of difficulty in my work, but I can be patient. Maybe they’ll hire me in a few weeks.
It’s been three months. Today, we had a state of the company meaning, and I sat there the whole time through new info about pay and profit-sharing thinking “This has nothing to do with me.” And I’m at the point where it almost breaks my heart to do this, but unless they hire me within the next week, I’ll be sending out resumes. We’re looking to buy a house, which we could certainly do on both of our salaries, but we absolutely can not start a family on our salaries. We don’t even plan on doing that for at least a year, but I want to pay off the rest of my debt, and we want to have a nest egg stashed away, too. That’s not going to happen on what I’m making now.
Here’s the kicker - they say they don’t know if there will be a place for me, but three weeks later, the new software is nowhere near ready to go out to the whole company, and my workload has INCREASED since three months ago. My co-worker has been off for the past week, and I’ve been doing her work in addition to mine - one of the upper managers even stopped by on Friday to tell me what a good job I’d done. The VP and CEO ask me for things, and I do them immediately, if not sooner. I have also been TRAINED for another department, and worked at least 10 hours of overtime each week for two weeks to help them out in addition to my regular work. I am a DAMN good employee, I’m intelligent, and I like my job. What else do these people want from me??
I’m going to discuss it with my co-worker when she returns tomorrow - she knows that I’m unhappy about the situation, and she’ll give me some good advice. She also has an ‘in’ with the CEO, and I’m hoping she’ll mention it to him in the hopes that he’ll decide to hire me.
I’m not counting on it. And although the thought of leaving is a terrible one, I’m going to get my resume together and start applying elsewhere - with the state of the economy, finding a new job may take awhile, but I’ll at least have my name out there. While I like the company and the job and the people - my family has got to come first. I need benefits. I need vacation time, and I need maternity leave. While the benefits may not be as good at another company, at least I’ll have them instead of waiting for someone to make up their mind about me.
Ugh. Being a grown-up sucks ass.
Ava