Don't Read This

Seriously. Some folks jog, some chop wood, some pick fights with strangers… I blow off steam by writing.

This is not an entertaining piece. This is a self-serving bit of hatred, something I did simply to vent my spleen (now THERE'S an odd saying). It's probably the worst thing I've posted since my bit on intelligent design theory. You should just skip it and wait for my next entry about cute stuff my kids do. I’ll probably get mad at myself for posting this and yank it down soon anyway.

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With apologies to Georgina, who actually did a terrific job with a vaguely similar theme.

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Dear Ex-Employer:

I gather that since I left you’ve asked everyone you can why I left and why, subsequently, five more people left in eight weeks.

I know I left suddenly, but once you found out I had another employer you made me pack my stuff and leave immediately. You only asked me if I wanted to give an exit interview 15 minutes before my train was due to arrive. Are you surprised I declined?

You were a rebound employer, and I never should have stuck around as long as I did. I’d been without an employer for nearly six months, and by the time you came around I was desperate. I’d have mopped your floors if it meant a paycheck.

You were fresh and new, and didn’t even have a name yet. You weren’t really sure what I’d be doing, but you knew I could write, so you brought me on board to, at least, write manuals for you.

In one week’s time you proclaimed me to be an expert on your software. You told me to put on a headset and answer questions from anyone who had a software question, and my primary guidance was that I was not allowed to say “I don’t know.” Two of us shared this job, for a few days at least, until poor Charlotte proved to be less than an expert and you fired her.

Customers could sense my stress and the bullshit I had to spew to keep from saying “I don’t know,” and despite the fact that I was cursed at, called names and made the subject of ugly emails, you did not come to my aid. In fact, you suggested I “develop thicker skin.”

I ended up being fairly good at the job, despite the handcuffs. You got me some training (months after I was deemed an expert, but better late than never I suppose). Customer ratings were high, issues were being resolved. I hated what I did, but did it well. That’s its own sort of curse.

When you didn’t like the way something was handled, you emailed the entire department and did not refer to me by name, just as “the help desk.” When I replied—also to the entire department—quite angrily, you chastised me and pointed out that I was not the only person on the help desk. No, occasionally someone had to cover while I took a lunch break or went to the toilet.

Maybe that’s what really started it all. Some lowlights after that:

One of my supervisors standing at my desk, just over my right shoulder, and reading a memo she’d written to me aloud to make some point.

10 minutes’ notice for a surprise “interim review,” during which I was chastised for:

• Being disrespectful to my supe. Days later I heard her tell one of her reports to “get his ass in here,” but no one cared about that.

• Bringing in too many CDs, which was odd since I paid for streaming music and actually brought in almost none

• For leaving at 4:25 daily to catch my 4:37 train. It’s an odd trick when an employer gives you a rail pass as a perk, then makes it impossible for you to actually USE it. In fact, I’d asked for permission twice and received no reply. I’m no kid—at that point I’m pretty much just going to do whatever the hell I want.

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I walked out of that review furious and utterly bewildered. I went to HR, who shrugged and smiled sympathetically. I warned coworkers that something awful was afoot, and THAT got me another closed door meeting: “Stop spreading venom.”

Oy.

More lowlights:

Not having my back when a sales manager missed one of the oft-quoted-but-never-enforced deadlines and I locked the log without her spots. That got me yelled at by the sales manager AND my manager.

Not having my back when this same sales manager, a screamer, left this longwinded voicemail about something I’d supposedly done. In fact, neither my supe nor I understood what the hell she was talking about. After we both stared at the software and tried to see just why she had a bug up her butt, my supe decided the most prudent course of action was to go ahead and give me an open-ended dressing down.

We worked in a big room with no windows, and you actually had the gall to send an ugly email to those of us who walked down the hall and gazed at an annual Dallas snowfall for about two minutes last winter. I stayed at my desk, but I think I was probably angriest at this terribly insensitive gesture.

Writing me up for leaving early to tend to a sick child. My own supervisor was away, so I notified my station (giving them my cell number) and left. My work was done anyway. Another manager decided to rat me out. Ah, 36 years old and getting written up for that kind of garbage.

Moving me to programming for the only Fox station you own, and three weeks later giving me the Superbowl to work unassisted. The year prior an experienced programmer did it with help from several managers. Only a sales assistant stepped forward to give my work a once-over this year. It looked good to her but it was messed up anyway, and I took the fall for that.

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And I DID. I stepped forward and said that no one was accountable but me, despite it all. Because believe it or not, despite all this griping, I consider myself to be someone who does not use external influences as excuses. I’m smart, I’m capable, and I believe in doing a good job. I’m recounting the truth about an utterly despicable and hostile workplace, but despite it all I didn’t want to do work that I couldn’t be proud of.

Such an environment does affect morale, of course, so I had no “110%” ethos.

You had absolutely no idea how to make employees happy. None. Oh, we had some chuckles at potluck lunches and birthdays, playing some games and such. But you thought themed meals and free sodas and popcorn would somehow bring up morale.

I hate popcorn, and I didn’t appreciate how the machine you wheeled in made the entire floor smell like old socks all afternoon.

I rarely drink sodas, and I told you so all three times when you emailed me to ask what kind we should stock.

And you know, despite the surface themes at the potlucks, we all knew what the real theme was: Put on a happy face and the peons will be more productive.

Luckily your insurance was great, and it paid for the six months of counseling. You got to foot the bill for the therapist who advised me to leave.

So I did.

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And that, your honor, is why I was running through the Sack ‘n’ Save naked.