As obligated, I have to apologize for my insanely long post.
In September, I completed my graduate degree in Europe and had been searching for a job there but my visa ran out and I had to come back to my hometown in the US. While awaiting news from a project manager role in Germany, I went to a hiring fair for my town's tourism board (what I had studied) and interviewed on the spot.
After 6 interviews and a special assignment from the German company, I was not selected to move on , but the job I had interviewed for in my hometown said they wanted to hire me. No second interview was needed, the catch was that they only wanted to bring me on part-time. I decided that since I had no alternative, there are no other tourism-related jobs in town, and I felt confident I would prove myself to be valuable and that I could be brought on full-time quickly, I accepted the position.
What I did not know was that the full-time position was being reserved for my boss's friend that had been working there for a few months already.
One month in, I made a presentation to pitch an idea to my boss to help market the city as a sustainable destination for conventions and tourists. She said that she actually hired me to help with a different program that the department needed to restart after covid which excited me because I would finally have a responsibility. I asked if I would get a desk and she said “no”. Up to that point, I had to float around and use people's desks when they were out.
I started working on the program right away despite not having everything I needed. I set up meetings with my boss and tried to set up a digital whiteboard to keep track of tasks that needed to be done and it seemed like my boss could not have cared less. Then all of a sudden, she went on vacation unexpectedly which was so upsetting for me. I had nothing. No direction, no resources, no desired outcome. There was a rumor she quit, and her office had been cleared out.
By the time the new year started, she came back but her friend had still not been promoted to that open full-time position. At that point it had been 3-4 months. I guess after she was convinced to come back, she took my program more seriously. I got a desk/office and started actually working on it albeit EXCRUCIATINGLY slow. She preferred to take one problem or question at a time and often times they had to be escalated to other departments.
I started feeling like a warm body. I was only needed to fill in for other people or to staff a visitor center that no one actually visited. I added no value to the organization and was only asked to do menial tasks or tasks that no one would ever look at. I felt like I wasn't learning anything but at least I had a desk and no one was bothering me. I would beg other departments for something to do.
One thing we really needed was people to staff events. My boss was urged by her boss to hire someone new after he (the new hire) had gotten fired from his previous job at a hotel. He was outgoing and knew a lot of the history of the city. I was a bit threatened by him but after training him and getting to know him, I understood why they wanted him. Two weeks into training him, the sales department poached him from us and offered him a full-time position. After speaking to him about it and having worked with him, I knew that he did not have the needed skills for the job (no sales background, education, or computer skills) but he did have the right personality (outgoing, gossipy). He and I shared an office and he struggled with some of the most basic terminology.
This made me feel disheartened because a) our department got shafted, and my boss was not allowed to replace him, b) I felt my potential was being overlooked, c) he was getting credit for the help I was giving him, and d) I didn't think he was qualified for the position. I have to admit though that my feelings stem from a lot of envy.
Now things start to get gritty. The sales department hired someone else new and as a full-time person, they needed a laptop to be able to work in or out of the office. I had a laptop even though part-time people are not supposed to have one. However, that is what the IT manager figured out for me. I came into work one day and one of the receptionists was surprised to see me. She was in the process of taking away my laptop to give to the other person. I wasn't shocked, I knew it was always a possibility so I wasn't too worried until it was taking a long time (days) to give me a proper setup. I was floating around again and I overheard the GM gossiping about me because I was all over the office. Then my boss asked that I not come in so she doesn't get in trouble for not having anything for me to work on.
Now I was upset. Why was I being financially punished by lack of planning by the GM and the sales manager? Worst of all, my laptop was not compatible with her set up so it was just laying there while I had no access to it and while being shit-talked by the General Manager?
Something that would happen often is I would be asked to cover reception when the regular cover is out of the office. I generally did not a have problem with this except that the person I was covering would message me 10-15 minutes into her break asking me if I knew I was covering for her. No one would ever notify me so I could plan my day accordingly and I looked bad to the receptionist. One day someone who doesn't even work in that particular building asked me if I was covering reception the next day (Friday) since the receptionist was out. I said “no” because I had an assignment to complete and no one told me I was. I talked to my boss and it turns out that I was and since no one told me, I wasn't able to complete one of the very few responsibilities that I had. I had had enough of being surprised by covering reception. I understand needing to be flexible but when the circumstances are in total control of management, I should not have to wonder if I will have time to do my job every day.
Not only that, the marketing department hired a new person which kicked out one of our department members from his desk. My boss had me and my colleague who had YET to be promoted come into her office and tell us that we were switching desks so he could have the office space I was in, and I would be in the “communal desk”. She said that that was the plan all along and that the kicked out member would work there in the mornings and I in the afternoons.
I was DONE. This fantasy I had that if I worked hard enough, was a team player, and proved to be valuable would get me promoted was dead. My boss was scared of her boss and I knew she would never advocate for me, especially if she won't even advocate for her own friend that has gone without that promised promotion for the past 6 months. I was fuming and as I was switching desks, I put my personal belongings in my bag and took them home with me.
I decided to sleep on it. I never wanted to go back there again but I thought that I should have some written notice and I don't want to have to come back and turn in my items. I came in the next morning to cover reception with my uniform and keys in a bag that I was going to wait till my boss went home so I could leave it in her office.
At the end of the day, I scheduled a resignation email to be sent the next day on Saturday, made an out-of-office email, and left my things on her desk.
What I did not know was happening was that my other coworkers were also very unhappy with the changes and by the end of the day, both their schedules reflected 40 hours. They worked out some deal with my boss and her boss to be full-time I think one of them threatened to quit.
I was glad my coworker was finally full-time after hearing my boss say he would never get promoted due to his medical condition (seizures) and my other coworker who had been kicked out of his desk. But where would that have left me? No one communicated ANYTHING to me and what was supposed to happen when I would have come into work the next week with no open desk? Why wait and deal with me day of? It solidified my decision to get out of there. I had no future there.
Here is why I am worried I am acting entitled. When I applied for the job, the only education requirement was a high school diploma. I thought I would be able to use my degree or at least enhance it with work experience if I took the job, but after all of this, I did not sacrifice my savings and two years of my life to move to another country to be treated like a bench warmer for $11/hr.
It has been almost two months of job searching since it and it is so demoralizing. I feel like a failure for getting rejected from that job in Germany, quitting this job, and getting countless rejections from other jobs. If you got this far, thank you so much. I think I just had to vent it all out, and I appreciate if you looked over my story ️
Side information no relevant to the story but exemplifies the crappiness of that office:
- A lot of people despite being 40+ had a high school mentality (gossip, mean girling, complaining abt work but never actually working, hooking up) and would hire their friends. Some of them knew each other from high school.
- The IT manager left after working there for 20 years and there was no goodbye for him.
- I overheard my boss say to a security guard that my colleague would never get promoted because he was too much of a liability after having a seizure in the office. This was not the first time and I had heard the same thing but of a different instance from someone else in the office. When I left I wrote him an email explaining to him what I heard (before I knew he was finally full time).
- My boss would forget to tell me about meetings so it made me look disorganized and like I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
- I had made suggestions about the program I was supposed to help which she rejected until weeks later the director of marketing would independently suggest the same thing. Then it was a great idea
Lastly, I consider my boss and coworkers victims more than perpetrators. I think my coworkers deserve to be full time for the jobs that they are doing. Our department was treated like a joke or extra labor all the time so I can't put all the blame on them for my feelings of betrayal.