Categories
Antiwork

My work story: leave you un-educated scum

So, this is from over 30 years ago. I'd left college, with IT qualifications and had a place at a local university. But I was keeping my options open and, after being offered various crappy, data-entry types jobs, I was finally offered a really good, IT developer job at a large company. I took that, in preference to going to University but, with hindsight, is now something I very much regret. The company had an IT dept. entirely staffed by degree-level graduates. Few people were coming out (this is the late 1980s) with IT degrees, so they were taking on people with, say, a degree in Zoology and then training them up. Their training was so good it won awards (and also caused issues – other companies would wait until people were training by this company and then poach them, rather than try and have training as good). But they…


So, this is from over 30 years ago. I'd left college, with IT qualifications and had a place at a local university. But I was keeping my options open and, after being offered various crappy, data-entry types jobs, I was finally offered a really good, IT developer job at a large company. I took that, in preference to going to University but, with hindsight, is now something I very much regret.

The company had an IT dept. entirely staffed by degree-level graduates. Few people were coming out (this is the late 1980s) with IT degrees, so they were taking on people with, say, a degree in Zoology and then training them up. Their training was so good it won awards (and also caused issues – other companies would wait until people were training by this company and then poach them, rather than try and have training as good).

But they realised the world was changing and people were now coming out of lower level education with programming abilities, so I was one of just 3 people that year that were non-graduates.

Still, we went through the same training, despite the fact that we knew most of it already (bear in mind that literally some of the graduates had never even touched a computer keyboard before this point) and then were allocated to teams. Oh, and we were also paid a lot, lot less.

My boss – my first manager (I was 18 at this point) – was an ass-hole, as it turned out. He made it very clear that he thought I shouldn't be there because I didn't have a degree. When the team went to a pub he always moved the conversation to talking about what it was like at University, which automatically excluded me.

Even though our training was finished there were various other things that new recruits got to attend, including an end celebration. I was the only person not allowed to go to any of these, as my manager believed it “wasn't right” to be included with them. I was allowed to go a year later – and only when HR insisted to my manager – with a group of people who joined after me and I didn't know.

Also, once training was finished our “trainee” job title was supposed to change and we'd be given a pay rise. Again, my manager didn't believe I deserved it and held back – I remained a trainee for a lot longer. All of this he felt was justified based on my work – he set my targets that I couldn't achieve.

Now, for context, I took these targets to the person in the department who was considered one of the best developers and they said they couldn't achieve them. It might involve writing code for months and, once fully tested, not a single bug being found.

Things got worse when his own manager changed and she was of the same mind-set as him, so they both did what they could do to make my life miserable. At this point, I had various written and verbal warnings and was not far off being sacked (all for missing those impossible targets). When I needed some time off they refused, citing reasons that simply didn't exist – I took a complaint further up the management chain and won, but even then they wouldn't let me have the time I wanted).

In the end, working with HR, I moved out of that department to somewhere else. I kept my salary but moved into a much more minor role – as a result my salary didn't increase for years, until it was more equal with those I was working with. It's had an impact on my career ever since.

This was my first job as an adult, and involved moving away from home. I was in a 1 room shared house, so miserable, and affected my mental health ever since.

That manager of mine never did get very much further up the company and is today, I believe, still there.

People talk about how they can “forgive but I can't forget”. I'm sorry, but I can do neither. Unless the day comes where he approaches me and is genuinely sorry for what happened (which I don't think will ever happen) then that's never going to change.

I remained at that company for nearly 30 years, moving from one terrible manager to another (thankfully none as bad as that first one, though). The company doesn't provide any training to be a leader – it just promotes people as a reward or, sometimes, just because they've been there for a while. But it taught me, when it was my time to become a manager, just what not to do. We can learn from anything, as it doesn't have to be positive, which is probably the only good thing I can say about what happened.

This is the first time I've told this story – thank you for listening.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.