Similarly, I’ve been recuperating from corporate and startup world scars for a little while now. One, as mentioned before, there are various versions of hell in corporate hellscapes. Two, being a woman in male-dominated fields (development) is still not always fantastic — especially in startup wannabe tech bro land, which I spent quite some years in. To be honest, other than learning to drive the car at the same time as building it, I didn’t learn much useful things in startups. Except maybe how to live with ongoing trauma. No exaggeration, no joke. I can’t change it now but I’m far wiser and far better at spotting stealth sickos than I was before.
The grind is altogether too romanticized. In some settings, it can be great. But in unsupportive, dog-eat-dog settings, it’s torture. I similarly traded less financial security for a far more mentally and emotionally secure position, but I’ve never been a lavish person so it’s ultimately suited me just fine. Having time and energy for people, hobbies, and pursuing new curiosities in life is worth more than extra numbers on a paycheck cut by horrible people who neither value you and will replace you in an instant.
She had it figured out and her wisdom continues to help even random Internet strangers like me. Here’s to wisdom of generations past reminding us that life is about living than working to live. You had an awesome grandma.
The worst part is I was open and honest from the start. “I am ignorant of everything that I am ignorant of.” And I still got torpedoed for not knowing what I was supposed to be doing.
Then getting set up as the sacrificial lamb in case the yearly inventory went bad (They had me stay on in role through Inventory despite the fact I knew I was getting cut loose over a month beforehand), surprise! Best inventory we’d had in years (Golly, it’s almost like the guy who came from an area that has to do monthly Inventories might actually be useful during an Inventory. Also guess what I’d been doing the nine months you claim I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing?!). They didn’t know what to do with me, so I got shunted into a supervisory role in an area I’d never had any interest in, given zero training (Literally my second day I was flying solo the whole shift), and then a few months later I get accused of doing something I have zero memory doing. I legit think they didn’t know what to do with me and they freaked out when I didn’t quit.
So yeah. In that environment, I’m happy to be a grunt again. Took the Red Disciplinary on the chin (Meaning one more “whoops” and I’m gone - but that store manager is now gone and I’m working second shift meaning I’ll only see my salaried market supervisor when we inventory again this year if even then. Since I’m back in my monthly inventory area, so we get ignored during store inventory). I suppose it’s a shock I’m still where I am, but after 23 years I’m generating PTO as fast as I can use it, and for all the bullcrap we’ve got a better health insurance plan than most employers…and for someone living with a permanent DOT now that’s something I have to take into consideration.
Still it’s funny. I started climbing the ladder because I felt burnt out. Never would have guessed that’s simply because after a decade as an hourly supervisor, I was tired of being a stage manager for people my age or older who insist High School just happened in their behaviors and even conversations (Seriously, had a gal my age under me who would not shut up about stuff that happened in High School and got legitimately upset when I pointed out that all was 20+ years ago).
I went up when I should have gone down a long time ago.
They had a recall on Deli meat tonight. (I used to be exclusively in charge of recalls) It felt good just to look at the manager who told me that and basically go “Damn, that sucks.” and go back to stocking apples.
No company should ever be requiring or even requesting that its employees work a 24 hour shift. And “salary” is just corporate’s scam giving people a special title and status to set them apart from the “hourly” so they can get them to work overtime for free.
It sounds like you’re in a better place now than you were in the other position. If it improves your mental health and you’re not as stressed, then it’s definitely worth it to take the step down. Let someone else worry about the circus while you enjoy your PTO.
This is it exactly! I had never been an admin asst for an academic department. I’d been a dean’s admin, I’d been an admin+ in operational departments… but this position is different. The person I am following had the position for over 35 years. (yes, in academics you can “homestead” a position for decades, even past normal retirement age). The last 10 or so years, she didn’t do anything except be rude and watch netflix on her computer. So not only was coming into this job without some technical knowledge - which I was very honest about in the interview - I was coming in a position that been functionally vacant for 10 years. There were no procedures, no notes, no files (because everything is “paperless”). My boss is a nice person, but a horrible department head. There is little to no communication, and half of what communication there is, is by text. I see him maybe 1-2 hours a day. They told me to just ask questions and they are happy to help. And they do answer questions… eventually. But how do I ask questions about what I don’t know I need to ask questions about? Half the time I’m not included in emails or meetings. So yeah. The frustration is too high.
In the company’s defense, it was my choice specifically. Though that’s more because I had to be back in at 5 am and the store manager at the time refused to release us managers until almost midnight and I have a 30 minute commute.
So I was free and clear to go home, and assuming I would be able to fall asleep instantly once getting home I could get in 4 hours of sleep, assuming I skipped grooming completely and just immediately hopped in my car to go back to work…or I could just keep working.
That day royally sucked since the next day it was close to 10 pm before I got to go home. I never understood our high turn over rate on salary in store until then. Granted, the yearly bonus I got as a result made me understand why some do it.
Eyup. Asset Protection in the store had been a joke for nigh-on three years by the time I took over. Last real AP guy we had did something incredibly idiotic to get canned but he’d been in role for a decade and the store manager at that time decided not to go with the gal who was his direct successor and the other person who had been with the store forever, so she went to greener pastures elsewhere. Same with the entire crew. So a three year span of just a revolving door of people…the policies were a joke, and what we were and weren’t responsible for was ill defined.
I asked questions. I wanted to succeed. I was building a team to help the store, and that meant going slow. I had three years of junk data to parse through…yet the market supervisor for AP (The one I told I didn’t know all the things I didn’t even know) was getting annoyed at me for asking questions and saying things I shouldn’t be saying? Never did understand that. Apparently I needed to stop talking and just “take the note”…except again, if I don’t know what I’m doing you don’t know what I’m doing wrong unless I walk you through the process…
I dunno. All I do know is within three months of me getting the boot, the entire team I’d built dissolved as the next person came in, and now that person has now left so we’re functionally without anyone AP-wise in the building. The spiteful part of me is super curious to see what our store inventory numbers will look like this year. I somehow doubt they’ll be as stellar as last.
While they didn’t specifically ask you, they did put you in the position to have to make that choice. You shouldn’t close late one night and open early the next morning. I’m almost certain that’s one of those things that can be covered in a union contract - the amount of hours in between shifts, or split shifts. It’s a safety issue if they don’t give you enough adequate time to rest.
Here are a few horror story snippets from two startups I worked at after surviving the Great Recession fresh out of college as a server/bartender.
I once was excluded from a company trip to Google HQ because I was the only woman on staff and my startup boss at that time told me he could not afford to pay for a separate hotel room for me. Instead he asked me to stay behind and continue to come into work everyday to “answer the phones.” Meanwhile, while the rest of the company (all four of them) did go to Google HQ for the seminar we all were invited to, there were also Facebook pics of them at bars and strip clubs.
This same startup boss openly cried as he laid me off when his company predictably went into debt due to financial mismanagement on his part. He told me it came down to either letting go me, his dev, or his SEO guy. He said he chose me because (and I quote) “women handle lay offs better.” It was 3 PM on a Friday. At 4:30 PM, the SEO guy who was working from home that day put in his two weeks notice unrelated to my lay off. On Monday, this particular boss called me to inform me SEO guy was leaving and offered me my job back for less money. I said no.
Years later at another company, my boss had a habit of re-writing all my scheduled marketing posts while drunk. He had a control complex and could not let go. It would have been tolerable if he was a good writer but he was flat-out not and being drunk meant his grammar and spelling were shot. Unfortunately, in addition to drastically changing my posts (which were market researched and SEO optimized), he also held me accountable for their results so he’d basically tank my analytics now and then on a paranoid drinking spree.
This same boss also unironically said — while I had his e-commerce site backend open on my laptop — that he believed (and I quote) “women are not cut out for development jobs.” I remember just sitting there stunned. He wasn’t saying it to me, he and my previous startup boss called me “one of the good ones.” No, he was lamenting his lack of ability to retain female web developers in our overseas office, as three had left in just as many months, and instead of considering a sexist common cause, the whole gender was clearly at fault. Except me of course, one of the “good ones,” because I put up with the treatment to a point because I was making up for lost time and wages from graduating in the Great Recession. Well, the breaking point was that day and he was genuinely confused and upset at me when I put in my two weeks the day after.
Those are my more SFW stories. Others aren’t as forum safe and frankly, I’m not a personal fan of revisiting them anymore. But TL;DR the things that led to the Blizzard lawsuit are more common and widespread in the tech industry than people think and we have a lot of work to do as a society to get our crap together when it comes to safe office workspaces.
lol let me finish a bit more therapy on this heaping pile of old workplace trauma first. Then I’ll be primed and ready with the deliciously sardonic humor required to author something worthy of such a masterpiece of a project.
Finally played WoW today for a few minutes since I think April and coincidentally there’s some new content happening this week which makes me happy.
As for y’all corporate woes, really sorry y’all dealt with that stuff. I’m naturally ingrained into professional work in my career and I love it but only bc I’m my own boss. I’ve always disliked being managed when I know how to do what I do. I do enjoy learning from others in my field who have more experience (especially when I first started); but nowadays I’m very blessed I can do what I do without anyone telling me what to do.
Welcome back! And also big grats on having a supportive and fulfilling workplace. They exist out there, they can just be hard to find. We’re all in search of them and here’s to each of us finding them.
This patch has been a real miss so far. Duos, Visions, Nightfall - they all feel half-assed and ill thought out. The transmog is nice, I guess, but everything else feels like they’re randomly throwing stuff at the wall.
If you can tmog it, collect it on classes you don’t really play. So next season you can convert them all for tier set appearances with no charge cost. If you want to go hard mode, collect two sets, level one you normal ilevel so you can get both LFR and Normal appearances.
No, I won’t be doing all that but might grab a few extra pieces I’m missing on some of my classes since I didn’t really play this season
For gearing alts that’s good but veteran gear is so undesirable at this point in the patch. Like why not have that launch when the tier does? Visions I can understand because there are mog grinds associated with it and are still fun even when you’re geared to the nines, but duos are weird.