Posting here to rant about a previous job I left about 2 years ago. Looking back, I’m flabbergasted by my old supervisor’s behavior and the complete lack of organization on the team I was on. I was on the team for 6 months before quitting.
I worked for a small finance company and accepted the position because I was told work/life balance was big for them and everything else checked out. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t know this meant the exact opposite, because they lied about almost everything.
I was “trained” for about a day before my supervisor left for work travel and I was left to fend for myself and was only person on my team in the office, only a day into the job. I was messaging everyone on my team who were located in other states for work to do over the course of the next few months, and was constantly asking for more work when my supervisor was in the office, which was most of the time. It was a constant battle to find work that would keep me busy for more than an hour.
I left every day at 5 pm, because why wouldn’t I? I needed more work to fill up my day, but was almost always bored. It was a job located downtown in my city and took me an hour to drive home (5 miles away). So I left promptly to try to beat traffic. The rest of the team lived downtown and walked to work, which is an incredible privilege that they never acknowledged.
They always went to happy hour/stayed late almost every day of the week. I joined on occasion, but I’ve never had the “become best friends with coworkers” mindset. I have my friends, family and hobbies outside of the office to keep me busy, and I like it that way. I was always incredibly kind to everyone when I was in the office and did my best to build relationships.
For some reason, however, I was outcasted because I didn’t join them for happy hours as much as they wanted me to. I never felt bad for this, but I did feel like they talked shit about me behind my back. It was very cliquey and hostile by month 2. One of the women actually passively aggressively bullied me, but that’s for another post.
The cherry on top was about 5 months in, my supervisor pulled me into a room to express to me how she’s disappointed that I never stay late and that she needs me to sometimes. I can’t remember exactly how I replied, but I said something along the lines of “but I ask for work all day, why would I stay late if I have nothing to do for hours at a time in the middle of the day”. This convo is blurry now, but I think she had a rebuttal and said something along the lines of “well, sometimes I have things you need to do after 5 pm”. I remember going to the bathroom to cry. Nothing I did felt like it was enough for them and I felt like a total failure.
Looking back now, I wish my 24 year old self would have said “your lack of planning and delegating isn’t my problem. I have a life outside of work and plan on maintaining it”. Instead, I got on LinkedIn, looked through the number of messages from recruiters I had about job opportunities, replied to them and 3 weeks later was starting a new job at a large tech company. It was a pay cut, but well worth it for my mental health.
When I put in my two weeks, my supervisor literally cried to me in a conference room trying to get me to tell her that she’s a bad boss. I didn’t give in, and just told her my mental health had taken a toll since I started and I chose a job more my speed. She continue to guilt me. Turns out a month before I joined, another woman had quit for all the same reasons as me.
I know this because the week that I put in my 2 weeks, this previous woman messaged me on LinkedIn asking if I worked there, we began to chat and met up for coffee. Turns out her experience was just as terrible as mine, and she promptly left like I did. I kept up with a few other old coworkers who were all gone within a year of me quitting.
Lots of lessons learned from that experience. At the time I felt like a failure for quitting a job so soon, but now I know I did the best thing for myself. Was one of the darkest periods of my life. Will never let an employer treat me like shit like that again. And never again will I work in finance in a big city where it’s all about the “work hard play hard” mentality. Fuck. That. Shit. Life is too damn short. I work to live, not live to work.