I quit! *NWR semi-vent*

KytchynWitche

So I've been bitching about my job for a while now. All the usual crap: lack of communication, ridiculous workload, insane clients and partners, blah blah blah.

Yesterday it all came to a head. My internet went down. FI checked our usage and we were still well under cap. I restarted the modem 3 times, no luck. I restarted the computer 3 times, no luck. FI called the ISP, no faults their side. So we honestly have no idea what happened but I lost the internet yesterday just before 11am. It was down completely for about an hour, and then it started flickering on for about a minute and off for ten. I couldn't get emails or Skype or anything. I tried my 3G stick, that couldn't find a network. Basically I had tried everything I could and nothing was working. It was still not working when I went to bed last night.

So I messaged my boss and told her what was going on and she said that I needed to go to a coffee shop and work there. When I told her that I couldn't yesterday because the FILs are out of town, I'm animal-sitting, and the garden service is due some time this week but they never come on the same day and they never call first, she freaked out completely and basically threatened to fire me and hire someone else who was "more reliable".

Now I understand completely from the company's POV that it sucks to have their one and only SMM out of action for a whole day, BUT I do not control the networks. If I did, I would be the most powerful woman in the world, and I would not have to work at a job where people make ridiculous demands of me all day, every day. I do not have the knowledge or the influence to make the networks work, nor is it my fault that they didn't yesterday. I also can't help the fact that it happened the one time that I'm here alone and can't leave.

I had a mini breakdown. I called FI and told him how I was feeling and he said "Your well-being is more important than your salary, we'll make it work." I called my mom and told her, and she said the same thing. So I typed up my resignation letter and emailed it, knowing it would just stay in my outbox until it picked up a network. It went through not long after, but that was the last email that I got in or out all day. I get my emails on my phone as well, so I know that there was other traffic, but if I can't access it on the computer, I can't open attachments, or reply to clients because the boss freaks out about that kinda thing too.

Anyway, I got an email from the big boss on my phone a little after that. She accepted my resignation, and is going to pay me out for the full month, even though my notice period ends short of the month. She's good people, the whole company is good people, I just can't handle the stress of this job anymore.

So I'll be free by the end of the month, which is nice-ish.

I don't have another job yet, but one of the guys FI went to school with says he and his wife are looking for an admin person with good customer service skills for the wife's mom's company which is right here in town - close enough that I can walk. FI's going to take my CV in to work with him this morning to scan and send through. I'm not particularly fond of customer service, but I'm good at it, and I'm excellent at admin.

While I was on the phone to my mom, she got a call on her office phone and had to go, so she said she'd call me back in a bit, which she did. She asked if I wanted her to come down and I just burst into tears and couldn't talk. So she's coming down today. It'll be the first time she's come to visit since I moved here last May.

I'm just hoping that I can get this admin/CS job nailed down before the FILs get home on Sunday. I don't want to even think about what FMIL's going to say. She already thinks I'm flighty and irresponsible, because FI let it slip before FMIL had even met me, that I had been diagnosed bi-polar - a diagnosis which was later rescinded, just btw, and I'm talking about when I was a teen, a decade ago, 8 years before I even met FI.

Blah.

Thanks for letting me vent to you ladies. I wish my posts were more entertaining, but there's not much other than stress and BSC family in my life at the moment.

Edited for clarification.

MaryGraceRich

I hope it all works out for the best for you!!
I wish I had your courage. My boss made me so miserable today that I cried my entire way home.

natswild

I'm happy for you that you're out of the stressful job, and wishing you luck that you get the new job. Hugs to you!

KytchynWitche

MaryGraceRich said:

I hope it all works out for the best for you!! I wish I had your courage. My boss made me so miserable today that I cried my entire way home.

I am so sorry. That's awful. You have all my sympathy.
I'm not all that courageous - I would never have quit if FI hadn't told me it was okay to.

@natswild - Thanks! I'll keep you updated!

WinstonsGirl

Good for you for putting yourself first.  I know it's tough to do, but I firmly believe everything happens for a reason, and this is giving you the chance to do something different.  It all works out in the end

HisGirlFriday13

Best of luck to you! I'm so happy you're taking this step for your mental health and well-being.

KytchynWitche

Thanks ladies!

I am a little nervous about what I'll do if I don't get this new job, but FI and I will find a way to make things work. I'm sure of it.

Really, I don't think I'm being unreasonable in what I want out of a job. I don't have unrealistic expectations for job satisfaction or salary. I know that I'm not going to find a job where I can write all the time, not be bothered by other people, and not have stupid clients who change their minds every three second - I'm not living in Magical Pixie Land. And I know that with my qualifications and experience, admin/CS is more-or-less the best offer I'm going to get.

I'm not asking for something that makes me want to shit rainbows, I just want something that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out on an hourly basis...

hikebikebemerry

This past year, I quit 2 extremely unhealthy jobs. But now, I love my job and it is perfect for me while I am getting ready to go back to school.

I will keep my fingers crossed for you about the admin job, but I'm glad that you are out of a toxic work situation!

firebabe6519

Good for you for finally leaving! Hopefully things work out with the cs / admin job. I left a very unhealthy job late last year, and finally got a new job three months later. I start next week.

lyndausvi

Good for you.  Good luck

MyNameIsNot

scribe95 said:

I might get beaned for this but I really don't think it's unrealistic for your employer to want you to do your job. If you didn't have Internet you could have gone to a library etc. The excuses you gave were all PERSONAL and my boss wouldn't have accepted them either.

I hope you find a job that makes you happy but I just had to point out that I don't think your boss did a thing wrong in that situation.

Thank you!  Having to pet sit/wait for the gardener is not an acceptable reason to call out.  

lyndausvi

scribe95 said:

I might get beaned for this but I really don't think it's unrealistic for your employer to want you to do your job. If you didn't have Internet you could have gone to a library etc. The excuses you gave were all PERSONAL and my boss wouldn't have accepted them either.

I hope you find a job that makes you happy but I just had to point out that I don't think your boss did a thing wrong in that situation.

I was actually thinking the same thing.   I need internet to work and I'm desperately looking for my options while in temp housing staring next week.  I don't even drink coffee but it looks like it will be my only option for a week or so.

That said, it's clear she hates her job. When you hate your job you start nic-picking everything.  It's human nature.  This is her way of saying enough is enough even though in this particular case I side with the boss.

I'm lucky my boss is super flexible with my schedule.  I had internet problems a few months ago and they were fine I couldn't work.  They are fine with me telling them last week I will be out of the office for the move.  They just go with the flow.   They also know that when I do travel I put data on my ipad so I can check in, although I don't put in a full day.

FutureMrsN3312

I know what it's like to hate your job or jobs.  I left my PT job in the summer when the owner (my boss) gave me shit about taking "excessive time off".  This time off was because I had my gallbladder out.  Not like I was sitting on the beach.  I had a legit excuse and a Dr's note but he still busted my balls.  For me it was the last straw.  I hated the job and it was becoming too stressful for the little bit of money I was making.

I agree with the other ladies that your reasons were personal.  If those things HAD to be done and you couldn't work you should have used a PTO day.  During Sandy I showed up to my office with out power to receive UPS packages we needed.  I then stopped by the local Dunkin so that I could use their wifi and send out my emails for what I received and make arrangements for people to come and get their stuff.  You do what you have to do.  I couldn't afford to take all those days unpaid or use all my PTO days.  You make due.

APDSS22

I don't have PTO.  If I couldn't get into work for one reason or another, I wouldn't get paid.  Last week I had to leave work early because I was sick.  I came home and spent the time that I would've gotten paid for, had I been able to work, on the bed or running to the bathroom so I wasn't exactly having a picnic on the beach.  I'm currently working on looking for other work so I sympathize deeply with not wanting to leave something secure in the paycheck, even if it's not very healthy, stress wise.  It does take an amount of courage OP and I hope you do get the other job.

Emmy1493

Fingers crossed for the new job! Glad that you are able to work it out with FI too and hopefully will be a huge weight off your shoulders. 

I am sort of in the same boat so I can relate a bit. Again, GL with potential job!!

KytchynWitche

scribe95 said:

I might get beaned for this but I really don't think it's unrealistic for your employer to want you to do your job. If you didn't have Internet you could have gone to a library etc. The excuses you gave were all PERSONAL and my boss wouldn't have accepted them either.

I hope you find a job that makes you happy but I just had to point out that I don't think your boss did a thing wrong in that situation.

Yes, in this case. I do agree. However, they have let other employees off for the same or similar reasons and don't berate them the way I was berated.

I have posted in the past about things where I was not in the wrong, this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It was not WHAT was said but the WAY in which it was said - there is such a thing as a professional tone. It IS possible to let an employee know that they have made a mistake or are doing/have done something that is unacceptable, without it feeling like an episode of Jerry Springer. I've endured months of verbal and emotional abuse from my boss, and this was just the cherry on the top.

I didn't quit JUST because they were upset that I couldn't work, I quit because their expectations of me in terms of workload have become unrealistic, because the boss screws up, not often but often enough, and then lays the blame on me, and because I have to have everyone else's back at the company, but no one's got mine. I've been actively looking for another job for a while now, because of all the other crap that's been going on in the company for the last few months. It wasn't a spur of the moment, "oh, I don't like that you want me to do my job" resignation. It was a carefully considered, all things weighed in the balance, "enough is finally enough" resignation.

I also have inside information that says that my boss feels threatened by me and has been trying to work me out of the company for months, which makes sense to me because that's right when all the crap started.

The fact of the matter is that they hired me to do one thing, then asked me to do something else which I agreed to and had written into my contract, and then they just started dumping more and more work not in my job description on my lap. While I COULD take them to the CCMA over it, I don't have the energy to do it and it would cost me more money than I would get. My work environment is no longer healthy, and I'm not the only employee who's seeing it - I'm just the first to jump ship.

A few weeks ago, I took an hour off one morning to take my cat to the vet - which I had arranged with the bosses beforehand. I worked through lunch every day for the rest of the week, which makes up more than twice as much time as I took off. At the end of the week I was told that my having to go to the vet during work hours was unacceptable, despite the fact that I had cleared it with both of the bosses beforehand. The next week, another co-worker took a whole afternoon off to go shopping (as in retail therapy shopping, not as in "we need shit so I'm gonna get it" shopping) on the spur of the moment, and not a word was said about it.

I have, in the past, worked through raging fevers and stomach viruses for this company because there was no one available to cover if I took sick leave, and I have covered for co-workers whose work my job description does not cover so that they could take leave - I do sorta feel that someone else could have stepped in and covered me for this one day. My not-working day will be marked as unpaid leave - I don't have to "take PTO", we don't get those here.

So yes, I agree with you that in this particular instance the boss was right, but overall I still think I made the right decision.

KytchynWitche

Oh, and I just found out that the whole town's internet was out - going to a coffee shop or a library wouldn't have helped because no one here had internet on Wednesday.

natswild

I'm sure they'd still find a way to blame that on you...yup, they are douchecanoes in my opinion, and well away from there! Good luck, I'll be thinking of you!