Good Morning Everyone,
I've been following antiwork for the last year and I swear my job on the daily belongs here. After some things today I really needed a place to vent about this place and I <3 hearing everyone's stories of triumph and standing up to nonsense at work too, so maybe this will help me. Sorry because it's probably going to be long :D.
A little over a year ago I started working for a LARGE school district in my state. I have worked in IT for over 10 years. Much of that time was in educational institutions, Private and public schools, boarding, etc. I also have some great experience working in some major corporations doing work that one would deem a lot more intense from both a technical standpoint and just regularly in the responsibilities and tasks day to day, travel, etc.
I'm going to try to quickly list some red flags about this job before my story, while also attempting to remain anonymous because my Boss is a pretty cool guy who is probably aware of Antiwork too.
As I said I've been in the field for over 10 years. I do not currently hold any certifications and this job almost denied hiring me because I do not have an A+. While I understand job requirements, for anyone who knows what an A+ cert is and what it entails..me saying I've worked in IT for over 10 years, and with my job experience…the fact this was concerning to them was laughable. At one point in my career I was traveling all over the country with ESPN setting up on the go mobile offices for Sports coverage from wires to walls up, and they're worried if I can identify the parts of a computer. But ok fair enough lets excuse that one.
They are a School district, and have offered no compensation or assistance with taking the exams should I decide to do so. They also claim this is the only way they offer pay raises, there is no annual COL wage increase or anything. I went to my boss after the first year with a well written raise proposal comparing how similar jobs in our area pay 10-15k more (some times double that) for the position, how much work I had taken on additional since starting, etc. His response was basically “yeah man, unfortunately they wont do anything about this, I've been trying to get a raise for over 4 years and its hung up in the union”
We were told all travel throughout the month from school to school would be compensated for. In my role, its not uncommon for me to drive to 3-4 schools in a single day within the city. I submitted 3 months of travel mileage sheets to my boss, per how it was designed on the works intranet. My boss told me it was submitted and all set, HR told me they never got it, then HR said they did but it was filled out incorrectly, said my boss didn't sign it (i physically witnessed him do it) and then they finally told me all mileage had to be calculated via their sheet (mileage was correct already). Basically just gave me a huge run around. When I went to my boss about it, his statement was “yea man that's why I don't even bother I just do it on my taxes, they make it to complicated”… uhhh ok… to this day I've never received a dime for travel and just stopped submitting it all together.
The biggest one is a few weeks ago my boss calls me and the other 2 guys into the office. He tells us he's going to be out for a while on medical leave, and then leaves pretty promptly like an hour or two later. Hands out all these tasks and projects he had due coming up to me and one other guy, and he's out. One of the projects involved what was explained to me as “attending a meeting regarding some new tech the schools are getting”. This was supposed to be 3 meetings with another person whom my boss was supposed to attend with, and I was just going to go in his place. That afternoon I emailed the person to let them know, and was basically told “oh good, well I only have about 5 mins of talking points and you will be handling the rest of the hour, does that sound good?” Obviously I had no idea what she was talking about, and as it turns out the district was expecting me the following week to Educate staff on a Product that I had literally never touched myself before. They told me they would send me some documentation on the product that following night…they never did. I asked if I could atleast get a rubric or some outline as to what they were expecting and maybe I can figure something out…I never got it. Monday morning comes, she calls me out of the blue telling me “hey we're here are you ready?” When I told them I was uncomfortable doing this, and it was essentially the blind leading the blind, the other woman involved and her co worker got pretty irate, demeaning and rude, and ended up “doing it themselves ughhh”. I never mentioned to them in all my years I've never seen a company not offer their own demonstrations for new tech when a district drops tons of $ on them, or at least offer materials and video to accompany it..which also made no sense. Why were they even going to be comfortable with me “training” a whole staff if I'm openly saying hey I don't know anything about this?
Now ever since my boss has been out his boss has been changing everything we do at work. Making us re-do a years worth of spreadsheet work because she wants us to “start fresh” Micromanaging the absolute HELL out of us, which is obviously annoying in itself…but more so because she has no concept of what we're doing, what we HAVE to do, or how it works. It seems our job description changes on the fly to match whatever needs they have. One major issue is the GOV'T is coming down on the district for deploying a TON of devices at the beginning of the year with no inventory or knowledge on where they went. So now she is scrambling like a crazy person and trying to have us go school to school to put a band-aid over a gushing wound.
I've been really sick for over a week, and spent most of last week on the clock. I think I took 2 days off, and then was basically pressured into coming back to complete some tasks. Last Thursday we were supposed to meet at her office at 930 to do something, and when myself and the other members of the team arrived she was visibly in disarray and disorganized. She tells us “guys, I'm not going to waste your time today..I'm no where near ready for us to start this, so I'll get back to you at some point and you can come pick this up”…. Ok, moderately annoying you scheduled the meeting, called us immediately after scheduling it to see if we saw it..and then texted us off the clock to see if we did, (not to mention I had already accepted it before any of this, if she paid attention). So, we all go back to work, just for her to call us an hour later to come back and pick them up. She then still isn't fully prepared, ends up talking to us for another hour + in the office, and then with 3 hours left in our day expects us to deliver something specific to each of our schools in the district (each one of us has roughly 10-12 we are responsible for). I got it done, went home, immediately put in for a sick day friday and rested up, super annoyed that it couldn't have been done on Friday which would of allowed me to finish the work I had JUST started after she dismissed us.
Now today.. I'm still sick, and more important over the weekend I had to rush my dog to the vet for some emergency Tests. I am awaiting a call back from him this morning. I have several devices here at home and was awake early nervous about the call, so I began working. She emails me at about 9am asking me to go to a school to assist them with a task she set up for them. I told her I was unable to do so because I was at home working on a task that was meant to be done for a school last week and had to be sidelined for her request. On top of that, I was sick and awaiting a important call from the doctor. This is our convo via slack;
Them: Good Morning Juice. Hope you are feeling better. If you could support XYZ today, that would be great.
Me: Good Morning. I'm actually awaiting a phone call from the doctor this morning and working on devices for Milner from home. I will not be available. These devices from Milner needed to be done last week and the tagging ended up taking precedent over them so I'm hoping to wrap them up today.
Them: Thanks for the update. Staff are unable to work from home so you will have to take a sick day.
Me: I've worked from home several times in the past. we do not have accomodations at several schools, especially during the active school year, so its either we drive to the barn to sit there and work on them or work from our offices.
Them: I was unaware. The district does not have a work from home policy. Supporting schools with the *Job I just mentioned* is the priority at this time. Feel better.
Me: No worries. I'd love to discuss this a little further with you at another time. Right now as I said I'm awaiting a very important call from the doctor and working on another task for work. I do understand the priority of the job you just mentioned* and I believe we have all been very understanding and accommodating to that. I do have other responsibilities to these schools as well and as I'm sure you know very well, no school seems to fully understand exactly how thinly spread we are. If you'd like once I hear from them I can give you a call. I just cannot miss this call this morning.*
This ended up with me taking a sick day today, and her having to over ride it because it was past the time table to enter it. I just don't understand this mentality and it drives me fucking nuts. “Hey I know you're so busy that you're even working when you're sick and off the clock but if you can't do exactly what I need you to do I need you to not work and set yourself further behind”..
It's like I'm being penalized for trying to get any work I can done while being sick and at home. Is this not ridiculous? I'm sure I'm going to have a meeting with her about it tomorrow, and she already makes me so nervous and uncomfortable. Last week during a team zoom meeting I was working at my desk and she asked me if I could “sit still” because it was distracting her. ( I was leaning over to type on another keyboard at my desk for a device I was working on) I wanted to be like WELL THEN DONT FUCKIN LOOK AT ME WEVE BEEN IN THIS CALL FOR 2 HOURS AND WE HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO MY GOD.
Anyways to anyone who actually reads this and responds, or even if you don't, I appreciate it. I'm sitting here at home sick, waiting to hopefully not hear awful news about my bubs, and stressing over this dumb shit. Enjoy your day everyone and hold your pets close <3