For context, I have been doing contract work for a large organisation for the past 3 years. This started well as it was my first professional project in a business area as before I had only had experience in hotel and kitchens, but after two years that contract came to a close and all hell broke loose.
After the initial contract, my boss went above and beyond to find us new roles within the business – literally the nicest and most genuine boss I have ever had. However, the new area we were assigned to was not really letting us decide on what we wanted they just renewed our contracts and told us we were needed to help out for a couple months because of backlog.
Sure, why not.
This contract was no longer back office and was very much revolving around customer service for clients (before I was sitting at desk working on data, no desire for customer service having experienced it) but I pushed on for the money. It was anxiety ridden but I eventually got the hang of doing the minimum and doing what I could.
This was only the first red flag for how the company would treat their contractors. After 5-6 months I was randomly selected to move to a new role apparently it was a lot better but by this point I was learning and aware just how micromanaged every aspect of my day had become.
Often we were pressured to update 3 different daily trackers and fill in the hours we had spent on certain tasks to meet quotas each day. This new role felt like it was going to be the same model and well I technically wasn’t wrong.
This new area on the commercial side was way worse, on-top of the current micromanaging systems we now had to deal with incoming emails constantly from clients and phone calls, all while trying to rationalise and type up our work and findings multiple times a day to a drastically high quota. Luckily as a contractor I didn’t give a shit, I was terrible at it due to my lack of desire and experience of being involved with client facing roles but again I got by and actually was only in that area a couple months before they moved me around amongst 3 separate teams and managers as they were “trying to balance”.
Still showing literally no regards or desires to listen to me or my requests that I had constantly brought up to my ever changing management. At this point I still only had the vaguest idea of what I was doing and in 6 months in that role I never fully completed a single item I was meant to but no one listened or set up any sort of help which I explicitly asked for as did others too.
By this point I was sure I’d quit as soon as I could find a job, literally nothing was being heard and their was a severe lack of fucks on my end. Low and behold, two weeks later I was moved again without any consultation with myself and into an area working with high risk clients. Now as much as some people may enjoy the variety of roles and experiences, I never felt like I was being treated fairly as all these areas didn’t even attempt to train me and left me to drown in micromanagement and high workload.
I was so frustrated I went above my bosses head and said how I was feeling. To which they at least made sure I remained in the same team despite still being so undertrained it felt like I was hurting myself mentally.
Since the start of this year although despising the type of work I have got by and actually had the opportunity to make friends. They listened to my needs and created a buddy system where I could learn from experienced colleagues. Overall, this is the only time I felt even remotely acknowledged in the entire year. Although the micromanaging side had definitely not changed.
Recently, I have finally managed to escape that absolute dribble stain of a job into a permanent role in the original sector of the business I had started in.
I put in my one week notice just as the workloads got higher and more demanding and I have never felt better. My boss is really nice in this team and congratulated me as he knew how much job security means to me especially with me currently trying to set up a mortgage for my first home. He did try to pull the whole it’ll take like 4 weeks to transition to.. blah blah blah, I stopped him abruptly to say I had spoken to my agency and they advised my notice period was a week. Which stopped him in his tracks.
I did initially try for holiday pay during the transition period but he said they couldn’t allow anyone holidays as a certain percentage of people were off. Whatever.
Doing more research and found that my agency paid my accrued holidays as I was technically their employee and said they will provide all excess holiday pay accrued throughout the year alongside my last paycheck. Which equates to a full months wage.
Immediately handed in my end date notice and will be taking 2 weeks off before my proposed start date.
Better yet, I found out this permanent job is a pay grade higher than all my old managers and I will be given a 5% raise on top of it. A pension scheme where I pay 8% and my employer will pay 16% and year round bonuses and benefits (As a contractor you get none of that). I actually feel like I can breathe for once!
However, I really feel for all my other colleagues who are still stuck in micropenis land.
Peace and love to all you who are struggling out there, I believe in you!