Shop talk: When jobs attack!
September 6, 2006
This November rounds out my second year of service here in the trenches, and I’ve been, as is usual, giving the old career much thought. While the work itself is generally interesting and even fun at times, the personnel issues that have plagued our ranks are only v-e-r-r-r-y slowly being resolved or even addressed. We’ve lost, thank mercy, one of the major underproducers who was senior to me, and only today started his replacement. The second problem chile is also on his way out, courtesy of having to be babysat every single month, every single deadline. It only took nigh on 14 months for the boss to get tired of this after I resigned my babysitting commission in order to get real work done. And the third problem chile, well, she’s still holding out because she won’t admit that her attitude and her incivility to everyone in the office is and was a problem.
I work in an extremely small office [5 full time employees. 1 part time. 4 interns.] and my two male bosses are rather different. Little boss is softspoken and mellow. Also, almost necessarily shortsighted. It’s very easy to get bogged down in the here and now and that makes using foresight to arrange matters so that the next week will be better. That’s what I’m here for, now.
Big Boss is … rather brilliant, but definitely quite a handful to work with. Likes the yes-men. Or at least, wants his peons to be the yes-men. This makes things rather interesting for me now that I’m no longer a peon and he has indicated that I will be working more and more closely with Little boss which leads me to ….
As I’ve mentioned, I’m supposedly being groomed for a leadership position, and have been told that the position of assistant little boss is on the agenda, possibly next year, for my career future.
I hate to say it, but despite knowing all the pros and all the great experiences and benefits that are available to me I just don’t know if I can stick it out.
Pros:
[The newest news is that employee homebuyers are now entitled to a 50K subsidy over a 7 year period for home-buying assistance. HOW cool is that? It does have to be near the university, though, which is p-ret-ty ghetto.]
I am considered indispensable for travel with the office. (*** See Con)
I’m on track to promote again, not too long after this pending promotion, on what looks to be a semi-regular basis. (*** see con)
The opportunities to supervise, manage and budget an office are open, as well as the opportunities to learn everything there is to learn about this and the related industry if I stay in the industry.
I can make some pretty solid connections.
Transportation is taken care of which is worth about $2k a year, plus the cost benefit of not paying for gas and not putting all that mileage on my car, and not having to buy, maintain and insure a third car for the family.
I have almost complete control over my schedule. I want to take a sick day? Vacation day? Half day? Fridays off? That’s fine. Within reason, of course, I maintain the schedule so I know if it’s a bad time or not, so I wouldn’t take advantage, but other than that, I’m told that I’m free to do as I please.
I can take professional development workshops to get training and certificates in Supervision, HR Management, Project Management and Management. Free. Yay!
Cons:
Firstly, I know this seems petty but most of the people I work with are not very workcentric at all. It doesn’t make for a pleasant work environment and my health has suffered for it in the past. Last winter I spent every week getting sick for the weekend. By the end of the year I was sick and bedridden for a full week and a half. Also, the arthritis became unbearable and I managed to pick me up summa that fibromyalgia, too.
Meanwhile, the conditions under which dysfunctional behaviors of employee and employer flourished [insubordination, lack of punishment, write-ups, and firing for being the most rude, arrogant, unproductive and unpleasant coworker] have not changed. She continues to come out in the most rude or faux-polite spots when no one’s around and he continues to make empty threats. So I know that’s not going to change. And I’ve made my peace with the fact that she may be a fixture here for a very long time because she’s been getting what she wants with very little penalty.
And this is NOT a family friendly workplace. I don’t want to be here when married and believe you me it’s NOT because of any gang o’ hotties. Quite the opposite. The Big Boss gave up his family for his career and while he may not actually say that he expects the same, he expects Leadership to keep the same hours that he does. In part, he is justified because he does work three locations almost around the clock and we have to accommodate his schedule, but while it’s ok for me to stay late all the time now because I’m single, I’m not willing to do that for the rest of my married life when and if that happens.
*** Considered indispensable for travel with the office. Yeah, hanging out with the officefolk in’t desirable in the best of situations. And I have to go places with them.
*** On track to promote: Yes, I’m finally just now seeing signs of paperwork for my promotion that was promised back in APRIL. Is this normal to promise someone a promotion and make them wait months to do anything about it? I’m really truly asking, because I was starting to feel v-e-r-y unloved, especially with all my extra work.
Ultimately: Even though I’m not really happy on a regular basis, and usually go home feeling like crap every night, my long-term analysis always seems to add up to: stay put. If I want to further a career in this business, all the persecution – I mean, all the real life experience, and opportunities here sound like I should quit my whining and milk this cow for every drop of experience I can get. It’s got to pay off, and if I continue to do yoga to destress, keep the chin up and all that jazz, I can really go places. I’ve adopted the “This too, shall pass” mentality as best I can.
I’m just afraid that the place I’m going to end up will hand out free bleached jackets with extra snaps!!
