Categories
Antiwork

Need help deciding whether to quit or hunker down in toxic workplace!

TL;DR: Got a job in a toxic environment for double my old salary, but I've been having problems with my payments and don't feel like getting up in the morning, as I feel everything but happy. ​ So, a bit of background is in order, I'm from Brazil and I landed what was supposed to be a great job in IT, for my level anyways. I went from making $360/month working as an entry-level support analyst to $730/month being a fully fledged desk side support for a multinational company (Outsourced, but still a great position). It was all great till work actually started. I had a 1-day period of Knowledge Transfer with the previous DSS (which was unaware I was his replacement). He tried his best to show me everything, even compiled a little .txt document with important links and procedures, but eventually, I showed up for what was supposed…


TL;DR: Got a job in a toxic environment for double my old salary, but I've been having problems with my payments and don't feel like getting up in the morning, as I feel everything but happy.

So, a bit of background is in order, I'm from Brazil and I landed what was supposed to be a great job in IT, for my level anyways. I went from making $360/month working as an entry-level support analyst to $730/month being a fully fledged desk side support for a multinational company (Outsourced, but still a great position). It was all great till work actually started.

I had a 1-day period of Knowledge Transfer with the previous DSS (which was unaware I was his replacement). He tried his best to show me everything, even compiled a little .txt document with important links and procedures, but eventually, I showed up for what was supposed to be my second day of KT off of a 2 week period, only to know that he was fired. Immediately after that, all his responsibilities fell in my lap as I sat there, contemplating if I made the right choice to quit my previous job and accept this one.

After the first week, all of the problems were starting to show. Since I'm outsourced (The actual company outsourced the IT to a second company, who then outsourced the South American IT to the company that I'm working for), there's a LOT of red tape involved in any procedure. Add that to the fact that just one person, me, is taking care of 3 plants in 3 different states in Brazil, I've had more anxiety attacks in three weeks than the other 5 years I've been working. I had to lock myself in the bathroom 4 times in a period of two months, because I alone have to deal with the backlog of tickets from the previous DSS, and the demand from the people that run the first outsourced company is HUGE. They send daily e-mails and schedule calls everyday, asking why is X ticket not closed, or why I didn't take any actions on it. I try to calmly explain that, apart from the tickets, we're also going through a refresh (All laptops are being replaced, all of them are prepared by me. It takes a long time to prepare a single machine, they want at least 4 done each week) and I don't have time to focus on closing tickets.

Then there's the issues with the transportation payments. I go to the company Monday to Friday (No remote for me), and I take a chartered bus (that's honestly the best part of my day, since I get to read a book or sleep). That alone costs R$750,00, which equates to $150/month. I've been going for 2 months now, and they haven't reimbursed me as promised. Every time I call the Project Manager from my company, he says he's still talking and trying to fix it, but in the end, he never does.

My question is, my trial period is coming to an end on the 20th of October (Also, my birthday), and I wanted to see your guy's opinions, being that I'm unsure whether I should be unemployed for some time and try to find a new, possibly remote, job that I'd be able to be healthier mentally or if I should just go head first and try to save as much money as possible (I have a friend in the US that asked me if I wanted to go and work IT in a company he's currently a manager, so I had plans to leave by next February. Since salaries here are nothing compared to the US, I'd need to save a lot of money to be able to live in the first few months. I'd also live in his house for the time being.)

If you read this so far, thanks for the attention!

Here's some quick figures, if anyone is interested:
1 US Dollar = 5.5 Brazilian Real
Minimum wage is R$1212,00/month, which in turn is equal to 221 dollars per month.
Average rent prices here in São Paulo are close to $500/month, but realistically you'd pay closer to $360.
Yes, I was paid close to R$11 ($2.5) an hour in my old job, working in IT as an entry-level.

Also, as per policy, sorry for any grammar mistakes! It's been a long time since I've last taught English that I may have made some mistakes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *