Take This Job and Shove It...

Wanting to leave your job is tough enough. Having you job knowing that your leaving is downright stressful. As much as my company realized what an asset I was to them, they didn't try to win me over, or even ask me to stay. Still, I am very particular about job hopping as I think it says a lot about a person.

Everything was well and good until they sent me home 2 1/2 hours into my shift. There was a lot of secrecy going on, and all of a sudden my boss asked to talk to me near the retail products in front of a customer.

"We're absolutely dead," she began. She wasn't kidding either. "So I'm going to have to send you and Haley [a veterinary assistant] home. Char is going to stay until 11:30, and Jennifer is closing."

What could I say? It made me angry that I was the one being punished for something that was not my fault. Really, and probably mostly for leaving.

I quietly gathered my things as I simmered on the inside. How dare she! I determined that as soon as I arrived home I would call Bowman and see when I could start. If it was tomorrow, I was walking.

I immediately began making phone calls--to drs offices and the like while I waited for Jennah--the head tech at Bowman to give me a call back. When she did, I explained the situation to her, and she said I could start Monday.

Now, it was decision time. Do I return my scrubs today and take a worry-filled week off before starting my new job? Or do I head in tomorrow, head held high, and deliver the bad news that my last day would be the end of the week?

I decided that despite any backlash I would receive, it would fuck both them and me over to have off for the entire week so I went in with my head held high, and delivered my notice.

Change, and Chains

It hasn't even been what? a week? since my review, and already my boss is pulling me into the office to "have a talk". I wish this meeting went as smoothly as my review did, but one can never be so lucky!

It started out as a relatively normal, slow ass day. I already know that I'm looking for work elsewhere, but I don't want my job to know that. My boss strolls in at her usual 9:30ish time, and brings out "Runaway Bride" as a movie for "the clients".

Not even 10 minutes into the movie she's back out in the lobby removing the movie from the DVD player, much to my disgust.

"ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?" I wanted to yell? I instantly knew that one of the doctors had opposed that being in the DVD player, and that's why it was being removed before she even said a word.

The look of disgust on my face said it all, and I decided to put my head down and get back to work as they popped in a documentary known as "The Living Sea".

My personal feeling is that we're all adults. We know we're not supposed to be watching t.v. at work, and if work wasn't gettinf done then okay, pop it out, and reprimand us. But WE WEREN'T EVEN LOOKING AT THE TV!

It's so ridiculous to me.

Of course my boss can't leave well enough alone--she had to grate on me. "Isn't this beautiful?" she asks. I don't respond because I don't realize she's talking to me. So instead of letting it go, she purposely taps me on the back, and says, "Hey, Cheryl...don't you think this is pretty?"

"No," I say. "I don't think it's cool." Now maybe if I had thought the consequences through I could have sucked it up and just said "yeah" and continued on my merry way. But I'm not good at hiding the way I feel, and I refuse to lie. I don't like documentaries. Period.

She stormed off talking under her breath saying, "Oh well. You can't please everyone."

Of course this was the final blow, since before she had walked up in my space to see what we were working on. We were writing post cards for what is called Welcome Wagon. It's a list of people whom have bought a house in the area. The saying goes:

"Welcome to the area! We would love to meet you and your pets! Please stop by for a tour of our facilities! Hope to see you soon! Sincerely, The Dogwood Team."

We're hand writing this, and the mailing list hasn't even come in yet. I hate being bored even more than my mere dislike for documentaries. So when she comes up with her cheerleader peppiness and says, "Oh good I see you guys are working on these. Did the list come?"

"No, not yet," someone else answered.

I make the mistake of telling her that we had been reduced to doing post cards.

After she walked away again, she came out and demanded for me to stop what I was doing, and to come talk to her in the office where she laid into me.

She told me that she was at her breaking point, that she wasn't firing me but issued an ultimatum that either, "Stop looking bored during the downtime, or you need to find another job. Either you're committed to us, and willing to stick it out until we get busier, or you're not."

I asked if this was the first time she had seen it. She said no. I explained that I was in a funk, and I needed to snap out of it. She told me that, "I can't keep lifting you up all day every day."

I said I underderstood. She gave me until the end of the day to make a decision, although I already knew what my decision was.

I moved to North Carolina when I found out that I could take this job. I feel lied to and mislead. And I've said that to my boss's (not the office manager whom I was dealing with) face. I was told it was going to be a full-time position, but no one explained that FT was 35 hours, or that they only schedule for 35 hours. When I brought up my concerns with this in the beginning Lea told me that other people were always out/on vacation and I'd. "get plenty of hours." Too bad that never held true.

I also feel like Lea wanted me so bad that she made them sound busier than they are. I know that I cannot stand to be bored. So the first question out of my mouth at every single interview I do is, "How busy are you?"

The fact of the matter is that they didn't need that many people. We were falling over each other, and the only things to do were the bullshit busy work of cleaning the bathroom and windexing the doors.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when 30 minutes before the end of my shift, I walked into her office and rendered my decision to look actively for another job. She said she understood, but had to put a limit of a month/month and a half on the whole thing. I said I understood and went home to actively pursue a new position.

My First Review...

When I was a kid I always knew I was in trouble when my mother would call me on the phone and say, "WE'RE going to have a talk when you get home." It wasn't so much that I was going to get into trouble, as it was me spending my entire day upset knowing that a) I had done something wrong, but maybe could or could not place my finger on it, and b) that I had to wait until I got home, often after a grueling day at school spent worrying about what I was in trouble for.

This is what came to mind when my boss came to me, and told me that she wanted to have a meeting with me tomorrow (meaning today). Apparently a nervous looked crossed my face because she quickly reassured me that nothing was wrong, but I had been with the company for a few months, and we hadn't met yet to track progress etc. She had to further elaborate by saying that she wanted to tell me what the doctors had said etc.

Waiting for anything is tough. Waiting for potentially bad news is worse still. While I was in the "waiting period" my boss called me into the office to help her with some things--important managerial type things. And in my passings I noticed an open notebook with comments that seemed to pertain to me, as well as a small pile of post-it notes that definitely pertained to me. I think all hope of a good review left me at that moment.

As it turned out though, the review ended up going fairly well. She had a lot of positive things to say, and told me that she knew I was bored at work, but was composing a list of things for me to do.

"Is this a b.s. list?" I asked.

She asked what I meant by that.

"Well you know, a list of things that COULD be done, but aren't really necessary to the survivial/functionality of the clinic."

She went over the list of things with me, none of which were b.s. and I was appreciative of that.

All in all I left the review feeling pretty good. Maybe things wouldn't turn out so bad after all...