Is completely justified…
I always thought that employers generally had your best interests at heart and would always be loyal to you if you showed loyalty back. I genuinely believed this and I discounted many of the comments online as too cynical or paranoid. Now I realise the truth: that I was naive to believe this, just like the time when I got lured into the wilderness in RuneScape when I was 14 (I am 27 now).
I currently work in another full-time job, but a few months ago I worked for a charity. A fairly big name, a normal organisation. To cut a long story short, we worked in fundraising. Our team had about 6 people. I probably accounted for about 35% – 45% of their regular donation sign ups. Was basically treated like God until manager started demanding more from me and turned a blind eye to clock abuse and poor performance from the others.
Manager just did not like me personally and instead hired a team coach (despite promising me the role months before).
The coach resigned in a week after realising how bad he was. Without writing an essay, months and years go by with the same toxic bs: nepotism, turning a blind eye on poor performance and time abuse, petty dramas, inconsistent communication, etc.
Oh, did I mention I basically had to train the newcomers? Yeah. Team leader virtually did nothing apart from compiling our results, sending it off to her manager and doing administrative work on the back end to sort out donor details.
One day I send an email outlining that this was beyond my role description and that the team was basically dysfunctional.
Senior leadership wants to meet with me and say they are restructuring the team. So a few months go by without issues. All of a sudden we are all called in.
Our team leader is now moving to a new role.
All of the fundraising positions are made redundant. Everyone encouraged to apply for three positions that are opening up (out of 6). I applied, was successful.
As part of the restructure, we also have a new team leader who takes instructions and receives a handover from you know who. Of course, because she knows nothing and her only source of information is our team leader (who is loved, but is known to be incompetent), the environment quickly turns toxic again.
Got fed up with the BS and decided to quit..
They try to hire one of the unsuccessful applicants who resigned a few weeks in. Now they are outsourcing the work, paying $1000+ a day to an outside company to do the fundraising, when it would have cost them $270 a day to hire someone FT permanent. Nice one. doesn't really matter though, right? I mean, for the general manager, this extra cost is at the charity's expense, not his.
What did I learn from this?
- Previously, I thought that many of the nasty anti-employer comments on reddit were quite cynical and came from disgruntled or entitled employees. My position has changed.
- Whether you are working for a charity or a private business, you are still working with humans and humans are flawed, subjective and biased.
- Your job satisfaction derives from a number of significant factors including competence at your job but also your relationship with your direct manager
- Good performance is rewarded with more work. Good relationships together with satisfactory performance is rewarded with promotion.
- I would have literally been better off if I started looking for other jobs the moment my relationship with my direct manager turned south. Was promised a lot and was strung on like a dog on a leash.