Wednesday, August 29, 2007

i fucking quit

yes, that's right- i quit my job today. i left an answering machine message. it wasn't rude, but it wasn't really nice either. within two hours i also got an interview set up for a seasonal data entry job. it will probably be a 3rd shift job. the interview is with someone from a staffing firm, so i'm guessing that it'll be a bit of a formality. i applied for what i would describe as my ideal job the other night- a full-time data entry job that pays $12.75 an hour to start. holy shit! i also applied at whole foods.
i should be more freaked out i guess, but having an interview set up already for a job where they just need warm bodies i feel like things will be fine. i'm not real worried at all. it actually feels incredibly good to have just up and quit and decided not to take any more shit.
what facilitated this? well, my review was yesterday and it was basically the owner asking me questions that i would describe as traps- a question where any answer you give is going to reflect poorly on you. it got off to a really bad start because it was facilitated by a small mistake i made on an order i'd taken which was one of about 4 times that i've answered the phone in three or so weeks. basically it was all very nitpicky crap that any other boss probably wouldn't be that concerned about and would probably say 'this is a simple mistake. try to keep these to a minimum.' instead i got told about how my owner didn't feel comfortable with the idea of me answering the phone. she asked me why i was still answering it after the lovely meeting mentioned in the entry below and i wanted to say 'because how is that fair to my co-workers?' because it isn't, but that's not really something you want to say to your boss who has you under a microscope at all times. at one point i was scolded for not knowing the address (which i actually do, zipcode and all), phone number and email address (which i also know) by heart. all of that information is written at the top of every order form anyway. then there was another dreaded phone call where someone called asking if there was an alternate email address because the one that they sent was returned to them. i asked the manager (most immature unprofessional full-of-crap-know-it-all i've ever met in my life) if there was one besides the obvious one and she told me no, so i got back on the phone and told the woman who had called to just try it again and make sure to get the spelling right and to remember that it's a .net address instead of a .com one. i got in trouble in my review for this as well and was scolded about it at great length basically because i didn't talk to this woman like she was a fucking dunce. once again when asked to respond i couldn't really think of a good answer since the real answer was 'well, i don't make it a practice to talk to people i don't know like they're stupid.' people make spelling errors and get confused. it happens. just try again. the owner spent a good five minutes chewing me out about this and all of the stuff that i didn't say which was all relayed to her by the manager. the manager also took it upon herself to fill in the gaps with her own interpretations just to make me look extra stupid. that's another thing about them- if you don't agree with their point of view you're stupid and i'm quite positive that they always thought i was stupid. how are you supposed to broach this with the person who signs your paychecks? it's just not appropriate and if it were it would kind of undermine the whole system of authority anyway. and yet the owner, a very type-a person who expects everything down to the teeniest tiniest detail- expects people to perform every task exactly as she wants it done without telling us anything and she expects us in our reviews to be upfront and honest with her about any of our problems that we have with her. what do you say to a person like that? 'you should consider therapy and psychotropic drugs because you have problems'? try doing that when you're already in hot water. i ended up just deflecting all of her other questions because i just didn't want to say anything to screw myself any further.
so then on the walk home i ranted and raved and bitched and informed stefanie that i'm flipping a coin to determine if i should go in the next day or not. this is something i always do with difficult decisions that either option is equally daunting. example- when i went to see the pixies i flipped a coin to see if i should go because i didn't have a ticket and was worried about my car making it down to eugene. it told me to go. i got in and am really glad that i went. i flipped a coin to see if i should go ahead and buy a fender jaguar with a new paypal credit card. it told me to buy it. i bought it and paid it off in full without much interest and now it is an indispensible addition to my pile of equipment. i flipped a coin to see if i should have stefanie sing on a song i wasn't sure if she should sing on. it told me not to have her sing on it. i ignored it and had her sing anyway and we ended up getting into a two-day-long fight about the lyrics. i flipped a coin to see if i should quit or not. it told me to quit. i'd be damned if i was going to go against it after the last time i ignored the coin toss. so i didn't go in and now i feel fantastic.
brothers and sisters this has been the first boon to my confidence level and self-worth that i've had in over six or seven months. i have realised that i have the power to improve my own situation and that if i feel like i need to get out of a negative situation i will know when it is beyond my obligations to stay and leave so as not to incur further self-worth damage. working with two such unstable, unpredictable type-a personalities was doing a number on my self-worth. i've contemplated suicide more times that i care to delve into here over the last two weeks than is healthy. the nicest thing is that i have that interview and very real job possibility looming over me so a great deal of the pressure has been removed from the situation. i can still apply for other jobs and any other interviews i score will just give me more options.
here's the capper- stefanie came home regaling me with some hilarious tidbits. the owner was completely shocked at this turn of events- she said that she has no idea what happened. no. idea. stefanie told her that i've never walked out of a job this way in my entire life. i should probably shed a light on the phone message i left- it basically was like 'hello, this is tyler. i'm calling to let you know that i'm not coming in today because i went home last night and spent most of the night thinking about everything that's gone down so far and the way that i've been treated and i decided that i've had enough. i would've come in to tell you this face to face but it's not something i really care to discuss any further than this. so, i quit.' so two roastings in the owner still doesn't know what the problem was. after dissecting literally every tiny mistake i've ever made working there (trust me i've never gotten away with a single one without a decent ribbing) she didn't understand why someone would take offense to any of it or not want to subject themselves to such an environment. the irony is that she was always expecting us to fill in the blanks that she left when she'd talk to us, but she doesn't seem to be capable of doing so herself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wow. good to know the troo story about ll's. how completely insane.