Last Friday, I assumed I was going to be fired. I was fine with that, I hate the job anyway and had a solid unemployment case. I made this assumption because after my bosses had been traveling one of them came down with a mystery illness and I asked to go work from home. Reason being, I live with my 80 year old grandma and don’t need to spread any mystery travel illnesses to her. After some badgering that request was granted. As I was leaving that day I got a spiel about how I seem unhappy at work and not “with them” anymore. Truth of the matter is I have depression and am really struggling, but since that’s none of their business and I know they won’t be helpful (I know this because when I took days off while I had the flu their sick day policy suddenly changed and 4 sick days went to 1 that I had somehow used) I stayed quiet, took his rudeness, packed my things and left.
A couple of recent policy changes occurred over the past month or two that bring my bosses tirade today into context:
1. I am the sole employee required to log in to my office computer at my desk to work (I do this through an app downloaded on a personal device). At first this was supposedly only to complete a particular project that was only licensed on my work computer. But when I stopped using the app (splashtop), mainly because the way it translates the screens is so tiny and clunky it’s frustrating to use, my boss told me I needed to continue using it because phishing emails were coming through our work inbox and solely using my personal computer was the cause. It smelt like bullshit. So, I started blanking the screen on my office computer because I know you’re just looking to spy and if you don’t trust me then I don’t need to be employed. My work output has not changed.
2. We were required to download an app on our personal cellphones in order to clock in and out. This app is called connect team. The app tracks your location during work hours and you can only clock in and out at preset locations (my house, partners house and the office). Meaning despite being fully remote 3/5 days a week I HAVE to be at my home or my partners home. No working at the coffee shop or anywhere else because the app creates a map. Now I got a location spoofer to get around this, because while you’re welcome to dictate what state I work in for tax purposes telling a REMOTE employee they can ONLY work at their house is, in my opinion, egregious.
So fast forward to today. We’re in the office and I’m packing up to go home. Before I can hit the door my boss stops me and says he has a couple of questions. Cool. I say what’s up. He starts talking about payroll, and I say yeah I sent you a text about a change that needs to be made. That was NOT what he wanted to talk about. One day (that I had completely forgotten about as it hadn’t come up) my location spoofer stopped working. On this day, I was working while my partner drove around to get some errands done. When we realized it wasn’t working we immediately drove back to his place I wrapped up my day and that was that. I WAS working and this is easily verifiable by taking a look at the TIME STAMPED messages I sent during that time period. And now that my boss is doing payroll he noticed and was extremely upset. I told him the god honest truth (minus the spoofer) “yeah my bf popped out to run errands I went with him but you can check xyz and see that I was working.”
He told me that even if I was sending work messages if I’m in the car that’s my time. When I reminded him that he could easily check the time stamps if he wanted to verify my story, he kept repeating “Yeah but you know how this looks.” Sure, but again it’s EASILY VERIFIABLE. He asked “you expect me to believe that your boyfriend didn’t talk to you or otherwise distract you in any way?” According to that logic, when my coworker and I were silently working and he said “you guys sure are quiet today” and proceeded to initiate a conversation about the Chinese spy balloon, we should’ve clocked off since talking is now our personal time.
Now mind you his issue wasn’t that work WAS NOT getting done, because even Stevie Wonder could see that work is and has been getting done. There’s no disputing that. He’s NEVER had an issue with the work just things like my attitude, the venue and the fact that I refuse to allow him to WATCH ME work over my virtual shoulder. If he had EVER raised one SINGLE issue about the work, I wouldn’t be posting. Instead he’s upset I refuse to allow him to play out his own personal version of 1984.