Useless whiny long job rant - VALIDATE ME PLZ

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, so I started this new job on the 16th. Lots of phone and e-mail work, dealing with different clients. Not a call center job, more like a processing job. It’s in a decent sized office that is part of a larger corporate structure. Okay pay, good benefits, nice environment. Yippee.

Now, the fucked up training schedule is as follows - job shadow for two weeks, with multiple people, for two or three hours at a time. I’m really only sitting with 4 or 5 girls, so I’m not sure what the purpose of this musical chairs routine is. I join one person in the middle of an assignment, have a short time with them and then move on to someone else who is in another part of a different assignment. This ensures that I never see our job from start to finish (in fact, no one ever told me what the process was - I had to piece it together myself). This also results in a bit of unevenness in my education - I’m shown how to make a Fed Ex label 4 different times but there are other, more important things that I’m not shown at all. Still, I approach things with a good attitude. Throughout the first week, I’m approached by my boss, my boss’s boss, and the HR lady who all say, “We’ve been hearing great things about you! You’re picking it up so fast! Good job!”, blah blah etc. blah.

Now, on the first day, I was supposed to be with Girl A from 8:00 to 10:00, then Girl B from 10:00 to 1:00. Girl A gaves me something to do that will take longer than 2 hours. I IM’ed Girl B to let her know what’s up and that I will be with her as soon as I can. I wrapped it up, went over to Girl B at 11:00 and everything seemed fine. I did not know it, but apparently Girl B had gone to our boss and complained, and soon an email is sent that says, “HEY DEPARTMENT - PLEASE BE SURE TO FOLLOW MYRNALENE’S TRAINING SCHEDULE EXACTLY.” Okay, I understand that people are arranging their workload according to my schedule. I apologized to Girl B and said I would be more aware of everyone’s time from then on.

Okay, so today, on the 14th day of my employment, I’m called into the conference room by my boss’s boss (hereafter Big Boss). She asks me how everything is going, I say fine. She asks me how I’m getting along with everyone, and a little nervous now, I say fine. She says, “Well, I have heard one criticism of you. It seems you’re not meshing well with the other girls in the department. It’s very important to be a team player here. Do you think you can do that?”
I kind of stutter and say I thought I * was * being a team player. She says, “Well, it’s just little things I’ve heard.” I’m flabbergasted, and taken by surprise, and because I have shit control of my emotions I start to cry. She says, “I’m sorry you’re upset. Take as much time as you need before you go back to your desk” and * leaves.* I’m like, what in the blazing blue fuck was that? It’s not like anyone’s asked me to be their best friend, or even to go to lunch (although I would say yes if invited). I smile in the halls, I say good morning, what the fuck do you people want from me?

I sit there for awhile, getting more upset and pissed off, and ruining my make-up. Then I decide to talk to my boss, to see if she can tell me what the problem is, but also as a test. If she doesn’t make me feel a lot better than I’m fucking out of here, and I’m causing as much pain as I can before I go. (The whole time I was sitting there crying I was thinking about how horrified the nice HR lady would probably be by this). I go ask my boss, if she has a minute, she looks at my teary face aghast. I ask her to come in the conference room because I know I’m going to start crying again and my voice will get all high and shaky and ugh, I don’t need an audience.

So we go in there and I tell her what big boss said. She kind of looks at me blankly and says, “Well, I don’t really know what to tell you. I don’t know what Big Boss meant by that.” I said, LOOK. I just received a criticism of my job performance with no explanation given as to what I’m doing wrong or how to fix it. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. She asks if she can go get Big Boss and maybe she can explain better. I’m like, fine. She goes and comes back. Big Boss is too busy to join us but has given my boss “specifics”. This is feedback from the people I’ve been training with, paraphrased as closely as I can:

  1. People are put off because it feels like you already know everything. When you say you understand something so quickly, it’s irritating.
    (I treated these bitches like they were Socrates. I hung on their every word and was extremely respectful and attentive. I NEVER said, “Oh, I already know this”, even if I did. Now, it’s true that I R SMRT and pick things up at a very fast pace. I’M SORRY THAT YOU ARE SO IMTIMIDATED BY MY AWESOME BRAIN POWER THAT YOU HAVE TO COMPLAIN TO MANAGEMENT ABOUT IT. FUCK YOU IN THE ASS.)

  2. When you were sitting with people, they wouldn’t have time to finish what they showing you before you rushed off to someone else. It’s disrespectful.
    (WHAT THE COCK? This was because of the shitty ass schedule that * you devised. * I did try to take my time with the first girl and got my hand slapped for it.)

  3. Sometimes when you were supposed to be with people, you were sitting at your desk. (LIES. I did IM people before I went over to them to make sure they were ready for me. Sorry, I’ll try to never be polite again).

So she told me these things and I responded as I have here, only with less “bitch, please”. She said she understands everything that I’m saying (but didn’t tell me whether she thinks I’m full of shit or not, which is what I wanted). She said there really isn’t anything she can do. She did ask if I will feel comfortable working in the department now. I say I will be in on Monday, because I can’t afford not to be. We kind if leave it at that.

I’m so dissatisfied. I was really excited about working at this company and I’m not now. I almost wish it had been some kind of official written warning, because I feel like I could fight that. I mean, what was the point of pulling me off the floor just to tell me this crap? It only made me cry and feel upset and paranoid about everyone I work with.

BLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

2

Well, at least your resume is polished up, right? If I were you I’d be putting it back into circulation . . . this situation doesn’t look to get any better. They do like their petty mind games.

3

Myrnalene! Good to see you back on the boards.

And sorry you’re in this situation.

That does sound like one royally fucked up corporate/departmental culture. “Weird petty mind games” is right. And I can’t believe that nobody’s asked you to lunch yet!

The specific problem seems to be that you are doing what you’re told, and then criticized for doing what you’re told.

I don’t know what you should do, aside from starting to look for a new job. Maybe make a (polite) list of specific instances where you are told to do something and then criticized for doing it. Were you hired through an agency? Is there anyone you could talk to there? Maybe HR? This particular department sounds like a nest of vipers, and grossly mismanaged to boot, but there might be a position elsewhere in the company that you’d be interested in.

4

While I agree that the complaints levied against you were bullshit, I think it would be in your best interested to develop thicker skin. I’m not saying that to be mean.

5

I think Autolycus is right, and in addition that you’re right to be upset about the things that are going on. It sounds like it’s just a bad fit for you, to be honest. Believe me, I know how it feels to be in a job where you’re unappreciated and you feel trapped… if you get out now, you won’t end up stuck there when you feel like you’re too invested in your job to walk out the door.

6

I understand. Thing is, if I was given specific criticism up front, I would have been able to process it. I could have agreed or not but would probably have been calmer. I usually take criticism really well.
Basically, I have been trying very hard for three weeks. I have heard only good things about my performance. Now, middle management, pulls me aside and says, “Hmmm. You kind of suck. Other people don’t like you.” and wanders away without any kind of explanation. She called me in at 2:00, I don’t know how long our little meeting lasted but I sat there trying to pull myself together until at least 2:30. (I didn’t want to walk out onto the floor noticeably upset). Then my boss had someone sitting with her so I couldn’t approach her, then she was too busy to talk to me until at least 3:15. The whole time I am getting more and more pissed off at when I’m that pissed off, I cry. It’s a physiological response and I hate it, but there it is.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Like, I said, I’m sure HR would be horrified if they knew how this was handled. I hate hate hate the idea of going to them, though, mostly because I don’t want it getting back to the girls in the department. Some of them are obviously pissed at me already, I don’t want it to get worse. It’s not like I really give a shit if they like me (I couldn’t care less), I just know how wretched life can be when you’re the odd man out at work. People are less likely to help you so your job gets harder, etc.

Like you said, this could just be isolated to poor management in one department. I will think about moving somewhere else in the company. Unfortunately, most of the other jobs are sales and I don’t want to do that.

7

I have four days left to work at a job that sounds a lot like yours, Myrnalene. It was a damned if I do, damned if I don’t situation, with one bossy bitch telling me to do something, then getting all excited and asking me why I was doing what she had told me to do two weeks ago. Not to sound too paranoid, but I’m pretty sure she’s been complaining about me to other staff as well (I do my job very well, I get along great with everyone but her, and our supervisor loves me - I have a feeling she hates all of that).

I put up with it for almost nine months, but it doesn’t get any better when you start off as you have. You are a bad fit for this company, and you will eventually quit or be fired. I’m truly sorry - it sucks ass to think you have a good job, and the personalities involved make it a bad one.

8

Back, blood, dagger.

[anecdote]
It really, really sucks. I was extremely fortunate with my first proper job. It was really high-stress, particularly since I was so young, but my fortunes were such that I worked with really gracious and laid back people. However, six months or so after I’d gotten into it, the company was scraping nearly everyone there into overtime because of the high turn-over rate and was hiring motivated by desperation. The term scraping the bottom of the barrel comes to mind. So one night, I was working a very hard shift - nearly five hundred arrivals and we hardly had two hundred hundred rooms - with two fresh recruits. There was a big internal fuckup with routines when the shift was coming to a close. I’m talking painfully big. After the work had slowed down to a trickle - at nearly two in the night, three hours after our shift had officially ended - we had time to debrief. I told them I was aware of the fuckup and had taken steps to mend it, but it could still turn out a mess. I also explained that I didn’t hold them accountable for it, since it’d happened under my supervision and that I was really well pleased with the way that they had handled it with regard to our customers. I also let them know that I had handled it with our boss and that they should think no more of it.

So I’m sitting with one of them, talking, ten minutes later when the other one comes back -the one that had been there for only seven days, in a workplace with a three-month training period - and she says. “I’ve searched my conscience in this and I’ve found it clean. I’m sorry to say, but it was her as fucked up.”

. . . It took me a minute, but I contorted my face into a smile and wished her the best of the night and thanks for staying for the overtime. She even had the gall to smile back at me, before swishing out the door, confident as you please. The moment the door closed, I asked the other to stand up and turn around. She did and I glanced her back up and down. “Well, there’s no blood, but that dagger looks like a nasty piece of work.” I said.

Let’s just say that I let my superior know exactly how the night went down. And, I dare say, a certain someone drew a lot of very comfortable, relaxed shifts for the next three weeks.
[/anecdote]

As I said, it really, really sucks to be stabbed in the back like that. It’s good that you’re already to inclined to care fuck-all of their opinion of you. I don’t know if I could’ve done that, myself.

9

I understand the crying when you are mad. I am the exact same way and it sucks eggs. It gives people the wrong impression of your feelings at the moment but I, like you, can not help it. And man when the crying is over I sure can give people a piece of my mind but more often than not it is to late.

I would not be so quick to assume HR would be horrified. I have worked at the same job for a long time and we have had many HR people come and go and I have come to the conclusion that HR mirrors management about 99% of the time. After all they are the ones that hire them. If management is hard and snub nosed then so is the HR person. If management is relaxed and understanding than so is the HR person. I am sure that is not always the case and we did have one HR person years ago that would fight tooth and nail against wrong decisions in management but those people unfortunately do not seem to last long.

I am not sure you are a bad fit as you may have landed smack dab into the middle of a tight cliche. We have them at our company and I avoid those people like the plague. I smile and I am nice but I do not get into any personal conversations nor do I speak to them about other employees as I would be just setting myself up to be a topic on their chopping block.

The only advice I can give is to ignore them and do your job which I know is hard since you have to deal with them all during training. I don’t want to tell you to suck up to them by bringing in homemade cookies or box of donuts or even asking the one you get along best with to lunch to feel out what the problem is but those are options.

The job market is tough right now but then again dealing with a job were you feel you are unwanted and unappreciated can be even tougher. I would wait until the training is over and then continue for a couple more weeks. Sometimes it takes people longer to warm up to a n00b especially if they a have all been working together for a long time. I am not saying that is fair but hey life is not fair and it can suck sometimes. Buckle down, do your job and keep trucking. If weeks go by and something else is said or you still have bad vibes then get the resume back out and start over.

I wish you luck!

10

If you break into tears whenever someone levels a minor complaint against you, you will not survive long in the corporate world.

IMO you dug yourself into a bigger hole by crying than by any behavior related to the complaints. That is probably why the big boss left. What is she supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you to compose yourself? That’s what I would have done – told you to take as much time as you needed to compose yourself and left. My guess is that she looked at you and decided it was not appropriate to continue the discussion while you were in tears.

11

That situation does appear to suck.

On the topic of how HR would feel, I think they would be unhappy but perhaps not for the reasons you think. HR’s job is to advise management and get the best results for the company, not to make sure people are nice to employees. In this case, HR would probably be ticked because when you leave that job they will be back to square one and having to go through the hiring process again for petty, catty BS is not good for the company. Especially when they already went to trouble of finding someone (you) willing and able to do the job.

I think there’s an issue with Big Boss going directly to you rather than working through your direct manager, and particularly not even giving her a heads up about the issue. This might be a sign that Big Boss lacks confidence in your direct manager. Especially since it implies your coworkers were taking issues to Big Boss and also not relying on your direct manager to solve fairly trivial issues. And perhaps with good reason, since the training schedule doesn’t seem to be working very well. Probably not something you want to be in the middle of, for sure. Keep in mind that Big Boss is likely to win if they are in conflict.

I can understand deciding to look for another job, because this one seems like no prize, but remember that by quitting, as opposed to being let go, you lose out on unemployment benefits, if it comes to that.

On the issue of how the Big Boss handled you crying, I’m of mixed mind. If you were an experienced employee, I’d understand why she handled it the way she did and expect no more from her. But a really good manager would realize that a second line calling in a trainee on something chock full of internal politics is a questionable move.

Practical advice for dealing with the specific concerns: Ask your manager to what extent you should follow the times on the schedule and to what extent you should focus on staying with someone through a complete topic/task? What do they want you to do if a topic finishes early? If your timing is not what your coworkers expected, mention that “Manager asked me to stay with Susie until we finished …”

With regard to learning something quickly, I do have one comment. I’ve done this type of work before and I also learn quickly. However, it’s bitten me in the butt a few times when people mention stuff that seems like a trivial detail at the time, but turns out to be important to avoid major screw ups while actually doing the job. Even if you’re easily grasping the major concepts, sometimes there are important details in there. Just something to keep in mind.

Best of luck, whether you stay or go.

12

I think you’re probably right - my problems stem from a very aggressive co-worker who isn’t being controlled in the slightest by our nice but lazy supervisor. I didn’t threaten him that I would leave if she didn’t quit criticizing my work and micro-managing me, but I did give him a heads up that she would cost him staff, and she has. I also suspect I’m not the first to quit over her, but that’s not my problem.

13

Once you are through with the training period, how independent will you get to be on the job? What I mean is, do you think you’ll be able to do the job and not have to deal with these people as closely? Knowing that would help me stick it out.

It does suck and I sympathize with the crying. Just know that you have worked as hard as you can and have done the best you can. If it doesn’t get better when you no longer have to train all the time, re-evaluate.

14

It really is a physiological reaction that’s nearly unavoidable for certain people. I’m another person who cries when they get really, really mad. I don’t like people to see they got to me, so trust me when I say if it were truly unavoidable, it wouldn’t happen to me.

As for the OP, you might as well jump ship now. Seriously. When they start twisting your actions around and going behind your back, it’s never going to get better. For whatever reason, they decided they don’t like you. It may or may not have been anything you did. Doesn’t matter; these people will make your life a living hell if you stay there.

15

As I read the OP, she got mad because of the reaction to her crying, not that she got mad and then cried in anger.

Also, I wouldn’t suggest “jumping ship now” – unless you don’t need a paycheck. I suggest you stick around for a while and see how things work. Maybe there’ve been some misunderstandings or miscommunications.

Seriously, if you quit over some minor criticism – well, that’s just bad form. You are investing far too much concern over a very minor thing. One of the the things you need to do in the real world is called “growing a thicker skin”.

I’m not suggest you sit around and take abuse – that’s a whole different thing. But I haven’t seen anything in this thread that rises to the level of abuse.

16

I think this thread would fit better in MPSIMS. I’ll move it for you.

On a personal note - these are warning signs. Companies know you’re most likely to quit right away. They are not going to get any nicer or respectful than they are right now. It’s really, really not worth it to stay in a work environment like this if you’re like me (and you sound like you are) – you pride yourself on your performance and ability, and they’re showing no regard for you. Hell, giving people vague negative feedback with nothing to improve is pretty much against the first rule in the manager guidebook. Do you really want to depend on these people when you make your first big mistake, or your outside life throws you a curveball?

Don’t quit, but, start looking. I had a job like this and by the 3 month marker I was seriously contemplating hurting myself to avoid work before I quit (with no other job). I should have gotten out earlier.

17

If your local HR allows it, give pre-liminary warning. It’s basically telling your boss that you’re looking for other work and will take it if you can find it, but if not you’re staying. I did it with one of my first jobs - not because I hated it, but because downsizing looked inevitable - and he was kind enough to let me keep working indefinitely but to work down my resignation time from two months to two weeks, in the instance that I decided to quit. I quit and worked a week and a half and could start on the day my new boss had wanted me to. It really helped smooth out the kinks in my new job, since I had an extra two weeks of acclimatizing and training before being thrown into single shifts.

I haven’t heard of a lot of companies interested in it; mostly companies with high turnover rates and low pay. But there’a always a chance.

18

This advice is really not suited to the US employment context. Two weeks notice is the most that would be expected of almost all workers. Saying that you are looking for other work can be grounds for termination with no severance if that’s how the employer chooses to handle it.

On the bright side, if the OP does find a new job there’s no way in heck she’d be expected to give these people 2 months’ notice.

That said, it’s interesting to hear how stuff is done differently in other parts of the world.

19

“What the cock”?
Hm, I may have to incorporate that into my lexicon.

As far as the job thing goes, make sure your resume is all polished up. This is them on their best behavior.