Monday, December 23, 2019
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
wish me luck.
Hey, it's only been a year and a month!
Let's chat about my day job. Each year, on my resume, I try to convey a sense of myself: shy, creative, sarcastic, hard-working, a coffee and cat lover.
Apparently I failed catastrophically because I landed a job at a label-making business (50+ employees) as a secretary/csr-in-training. Sales and being the first line of defense for customers? SIGN ME UP.
The work was actually pretty fun: file and rearrange hard-copy retainer envelopes, scan and fax, and the less-pleasant-but-still-manageable answering of phones and doorbells. I didn't have to clock out for lunch, and I was only scolded for being late once. Nobody questioned me if I wanted to stay a bit after to finish what I was doing, and nobody micromanaged breaks or lunches. I was alone in a file room for at least 7 hours a day on a regular basis. Hell yes.
... Well, I started to notice the file drawers getting cramped, and when I started getting ideas of how to better organize things (oh, I dunno, maybe alphabetically?!), I was shot down. It seemed like everyone who touched those files wanted them organized in a completely different way, and each employee treated the client files as their personal files that no one else handled. (At a production center, where the ink needs to match the client's needs and a digital file needs to be set up to translate that to a language that printers understand, where brands are exceedingly particular with color, size, finish, and durability-- even the way the roll is wound and spacing between labels.)
It seemed that being a team player came second to the needs of each individual, so, naturally, being a people-pleaser could only reduce me to a madwoman ready to burn the place down. Let's toss in an average employee-fired-without-warning rate of once every other month, and a healthy dollop of passive aggressive messages, shall we? Coworkers would express frustrations with exaggerated sighs, head-burried-in-hands, slamming of drawers and piles of files, murmured obscenities, and generally undoing my handy organization work. (I came in one day to find my post-it labels ripped off the file drawers and neatly-labeled dividers whipped out carelessly as if they were viciously smashed spiders.)
Perhaps there was an HR department or a higher-up I could talk to? With no HR department, I had a chat with my supervisor about a particularly hostile employee; my supervisor listened carefully, then responded with, "What do you want me to do? FIRE her?!"
Backed into a corner, I tried to keep my nose to the grindstone and be as quietly helpful as possible. Finally, yesterday, it became too much- one too many slammed drawers followed by a classic storming-out-of-the-room-with-a-frustrated-sigh-and-eyeroll- and I took a long, solemn moment to wonder how anyone could possibly act like they hate me so much over freaking filing. The moment quickly turned into a short written 2-week-notice handed to my supervisor, who only said, "Yep. I totally get it."
... With 13 days left (which I fully intend to complete with ethics and hopefully sanity in tact), I'm still quietly doing what's needed while getting ghosted and ignored by everyone who passes by. It would have been easy enough to just focus on work and ignore others, except that today was a (mandatory) holiday party... in the middle of the work day. (You've....GOT....to be kidding me.) For the past couple of weeks, I gained little glimpses of holiday games, decor, and ridiculously-awesome prizes. An hour before the party started, I overheard holiday music starting down the hall. I knew it was going to be quite the shindig.
Being the secretary meant answering the phone within the first ring every single time it rang. (Yes, I even carried that cordless brick to the bathroom with me.) Today, it was actually a welcomed distraction, as the pizza delivery guy had to call four times to figure out how to locate our business. (Friendliest conversations I'd had all day.) When he (and the two giant stacks of pizzas) arrived, the party commenced, and my supervisor gathered her group of CSRs, buzzing past my desk twice without pause.
I was going to sit it out and work in my little corner but the ONE PERSON who actually liked my personality in the entire company decided to insist I attended the party, swearing he'd save me a seat. I sucked it up, composed myself, walked into the party room, grabbed food, and looked around at the tables.
IT WAS MIDDLE SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN.
The table with happy cliquey foul-mouthed production people? The classy boasty one-upping salesmen? The gaggle of CSRs (with an empty seat next to Ms. Hostile herself)? I chose the quiet primarily-Spanish-speaking family-focused group who allowed me to occupy a chair for a little while while they spoke amongst themselves.
I ate my pizza, played Solitaire on my phone (mentally sang "ALL BY MYSEEEEEELF"), glanced back at the laughing overly-packed production table that included the one person who insisted I attend (chyuh, thanks, bruh.), and I cleaned up my area and returned to my corner nook.
I may have started crying, but in my head, I knew how hilariously sad this experience was. I tapped out a quick e-mail to my coworkers communicating my intent to take my lunch elsewhere before returning to work, hit "send", and quickly exited the premises to indulge in a short ugly-cry in the comfort of my own humble (and horribly cluttered) abode.
I'm back to breathing (wine-stained breath) and I think my "social anxiety panic attack" or whatever this was has passed, but I dread going back to work. I know Ms. Hostile leaves at 3pm, and I know that most people will still be in party-mode or at least chatty-mode, so hopefully I can sneak back in and just put in my hours without making a ripple in the pond.
Let's chat about my day job. Each year, on my resume, I try to convey a sense of myself: shy, creative, sarcastic, hard-working, a coffee and cat lover.
Apparently I failed catastrophically because I landed a job at a label-making business (50+ employees) as a secretary/csr-in-training. Sales and being the first line of defense for customers? SIGN ME UP.
The work was actually pretty fun: file and rearrange hard-copy retainer envelopes, scan and fax, and the less-pleasant-but-still-manageable answering of phones and doorbells. I didn't have to clock out for lunch, and I was only scolded for being late once. Nobody questioned me if I wanted to stay a bit after to finish what I was doing, and nobody micromanaged breaks or lunches. I was alone in a file room for at least 7 hours a day on a regular basis. Hell yes.
... Well, I started to notice the file drawers getting cramped, and when I started getting ideas of how to better organize things (oh, I dunno, maybe alphabetically?!), I was shot down. It seemed like everyone who touched those files wanted them organized in a completely different way, and each employee treated the client files as their personal files that no one else handled. (At a production center, where the ink needs to match the client's needs and a digital file needs to be set up to translate that to a language that printers understand, where brands are exceedingly particular with color, size, finish, and durability-- even the way the roll is wound and spacing between labels.)
It seemed that being a team player came second to the needs of each individual, so, naturally, being a people-pleaser could only reduce me to a madwoman ready to burn the place down. Let's toss in an average employee-fired-without-warning rate of once every other month, and a healthy dollop of passive aggressive messages, shall we? Coworkers would express frustrations with exaggerated sighs, head-burried-in-hands, slamming of drawers and piles of files, murmured obscenities, and generally undoing my handy organization work. (I came in one day to find my post-it labels ripped off the file drawers and neatly-labeled dividers whipped out carelessly as if they were viciously smashed spiders.)
Perhaps there was an HR department or a higher-up I could talk to? With no HR department, I had a chat with my supervisor about a particularly hostile employee; my supervisor listened carefully, then responded with, "What do you want me to do? FIRE her?!"
Backed into a corner, I tried to keep my nose to the grindstone and be as quietly helpful as possible. Finally, yesterday, it became too much- one too many slammed drawers followed by a classic storming-out-of-the-room-with-a-frustrated-sigh-and-eyeroll- and I took a long, solemn moment to wonder how anyone could possibly act like they hate me so much over freaking filing. The moment quickly turned into a short written 2-week-notice handed to my supervisor, who only said, "Yep. I totally get it."
... With 13 days left (which I fully intend to complete with ethics and hopefully sanity in tact), I'm still quietly doing what's needed while getting ghosted and ignored by everyone who passes by. It would have been easy enough to just focus on work and ignore others, except that today was a (mandatory) holiday party... in the middle of the work day. (You've....GOT....to be kidding me.) For the past couple of weeks, I gained little glimpses of holiday games, decor, and ridiculously-awesome prizes. An hour before the party started, I overheard holiday music starting down the hall. I knew it was going to be quite the shindig.
Being the secretary meant answering the phone within the first ring every single time it rang. (Yes, I even carried that cordless brick to the bathroom with me.) Today, it was actually a welcomed distraction, as the pizza delivery guy had to call four times to figure out how to locate our business. (Friendliest conversations I'd had all day.) When he (and the two giant stacks of pizzas) arrived, the party commenced, and my supervisor gathered her group of CSRs, buzzing past my desk twice without pause.
I was going to sit it out and work in my little corner but the ONE PERSON who actually liked my personality in the entire company decided to insist I attended the party, swearing he'd save me a seat. I sucked it up, composed myself, walked into the party room, grabbed food, and looked around at the tables.
IT WAS MIDDLE SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN.
The table with happy cliquey foul-mouthed production people? The classy boasty one-upping salesmen? The gaggle of CSRs (with an empty seat next to Ms. Hostile herself)? I chose the quiet primarily-Spanish-speaking family-focused group who allowed me to occupy a chair for a little while while they spoke amongst themselves.
I ate my pizza, played Solitaire on my phone (mentally sang "ALL BY MYSEEEEEELF"), glanced back at the laughing overly-packed production table that included the one person who insisted I attend (chyuh, thanks, bruh.), and I cleaned up my area and returned to my corner nook.
I may have started crying, but in my head, I knew how hilariously sad this experience was. I tapped out a quick e-mail to my coworkers communicating my intent to take my lunch elsewhere before returning to work, hit "send", and quickly exited the premises to indulge in a short ugly-cry in the comfort of my own humble (and horribly cluttered) abode.
I'm back to breathing (wine-stained breath) and I think my "social anxiety panic attack" or whatever this was has passed, but I dread going back to work. I know Ms. Hostile leaves at 3pm, and I know that most people will still be in party-mode or at least chatty-mode, so hopefully I can sneak back in and just put in my hours without making a ripple in the pond.
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