To whom it concerns:
Those of you that know me know that I am the type of person that throws myself completely into everything that I do. I jump feet first with little reservation and great determination when I see something that I want. It is with this mindset that I started my career with ****. I have single mindedly pursued moving up within this company and furthering my career consequences be damned. It is for this and a variety of other reasons that I have decided to turn in my resignation.
I have loved and enjoyed as well as hated my job here. It has been fun, a great learning experience, stressful, frustrating and amazing these last five years and up until recently I always saw myself staying here forever. I never wanted to do anything else, and to be honest…. I still don't. But recent events make me feel as if this is no longer a company that I can or should work for. I am sorry but it has to be about more than the dollar and I strongly feel that it no longer is. Obviously, a business is in business to make money, but can you think of what you may be costing yourselves by heading solely in that direction.
I have been through Christmases and Easters and watched so many people get fired over sales average and I have told myself “well, they just couldn't do the job” I myself have had to fire good, hardworking employees who have come to work practically on their death beds to help out, because the crappy employee who called in sick, gave me a hard time, came to work with pink hair, etc. has a higher sales average. We bring people in October, work them to death over Christmas and then throw them away in January. Time and time again…. And everyone is ok with this? Everyone just turns a blind eye? The last group of people that got away with treating people like that wore swasticas on there arms, should we all start putting cameras on our arms and shout “heil Johnny”! People are not disposable, people are people damn it!! And yet you fire a regional for “being too nice and caring too much about their employees” Shouldn't we as a family oriented company care more about the families that work for our company?
I wrote an email a few weeks ago standing up for a studio that was upset about the way they were being spoken to by our new regional manager, mind you.. This is after at least five other managers had come to me and said that they didn't like the way that we were being treated. Rather than it being taken for what it was, which was me following our open door policy and letting my regional know what people were taking issue with. I received a screaming phone call from a pissed off drama queen threatening my job, telling me that our previous regional didn't know how to do his job, patting herself on the back about how awesome she was when she has brought nothing new to the table, that our region is completely broken, and she will replace everyone of that's what she wants to do. Never in my five years with this company has anyone behaved so childish and unprofessional towards me… And then you forward the email on to “daddy” so he can yell at me to. ( I do want to say, James, that I do honestly appreciate how respectful and understanding you were in that phone call. I know that you took it weird at first as well, and that it irritated you. I do understand your feelings on what I had to say.). However, when I apologized and said that maybe I went about the email the wrong way instead of receiving even a fake apology I received the answer that “I didn't deserve an apology because I stand about what I said”. Well thanks, Sami, because I stand by what I said too…
Just keep in mind that Region 9 wasn't broken, while we do have some minor repairs and cracks to fill, there is a lot of strength in this region. We have good people, we have motivated people, we have tenured people…. if you invest in your people, the way he did, and can see the strengths in addition to the “fixer uppers” I'm sure you will very successful. If not… then I guess I will have a lot of training to do, and we might be digging this region out of a huge whole.
The problem is, the glue that was holding the region together got fired over time sheet adjustments and lack of oversight. Not to mention you rubbing salt in the wound, after screaming at me about the email you're all over the conference call talking crap about, and you can bat your eyelashes and giggle like an insane anime character in a Japanese cartoon and say that that was not about me however, I went to high school too and used to be a fourteen year old girl. The difference is that I am woman enough to say how I feel to you in a professional manner.
Your answer to all of this is to put your traveling manager on a JIJ for sales average on 7 appointments in 30 days when her studio is running in the $120s every week. Your answer is to make it impossible for me to move up and to make me look incompetent any way that you can… Yet, YOU had to call ME and ask how to order Fuji parts and test a battery backup. Are you serious!?
You all hold this possibility of moving up and becoming a regional over my head so much so that I am afraid to do or say the wrong things. I am walking on egg shells around someone who is in way over her head that has never flipped a studio, let alone a million dollar studio and you expect her to flip this region?? Good luck filling all of the gaping holes that she is going to leave.
You ask me to move and move again. Give up every birthday, every holiday with my husband and children. Stay at work when my daughter is in the hospital, my grandmother is in the hospital. When I have a miscarriage, when my cat died, when friend died, miss a wedding, miss a funeral- when my step father was pulled off of life support “hey are you gonna be in today? I mean… This is your job.”. Exactly, it is my JOB. It should not be my sole focus in life. So much so that I begin to lose my family over it and am so focused on **** that I don't even notice!! When my husband tells me he can't do it anymore, he is leaving and taking the kids with him and my first thought is “maybe I could talk to James about moving me to a store closer to them” there is something wrong with that.
If I thought that this company would allow me to demote myself, move to a slower studio or hell, even just stop traveling then maybe I would have made that decision instead, but having just seen a tenured manager lose their job for choosing family over career I figure it is only a matter of time until a reason would be found to get rid of me too. Because I am disposable, because I am a number. I have witnessed one of my best friends dealing with a broken engagement because of this job, had another friend who waited to take their diabetic son to the hospital because her opener was late and she had to be there, have another friend whose job was threatened because his car broke down, witnessed two different people who were not allowed to come back from maternity leave because the mgr didn’t like them. Another friend who had to miss her best friend's wedding because she had to wait at home for a phone call incase her Fuji printer broke down… And here I am… Almost losing everything I love over a job. A job where nothing ever feels good enough and promises are made with no follow through.
You tell me “the next regional is gonna come from XXXX”. Tell another mgr “the next regional is coming from XXXX”. Tell another manager “move to XXXX and we will promote you” …. Empty promises as far as I am concerned. What happened to people being able to prove themselves by working hard and doing a good job, and get rewarded for your efforts? I feel like we used to have all of this opportunity to grow and move up and now it is all about being “in the club”… If you don't suck up to the right people you have no future with ****. If you don't go to the right bar or let the right person take a belly shot off of you, then you can't join the club.
This job makes it impossible to have a life, a family, friends. It is set up in a way that the job has to be number one, it is all consuming. And it is pretty sad when a person can't go to the bathroom at 3 am in their own home without having a panic attack because they left their phone in the other room and someone might call. We as managers do not have a day off, we have to be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week just incase our regional has to call with some arbitrary comment or question which she should know the answer to. This makes it impossible to spend time uninterrupted, quality time with my children…I come home from four or five days of traveling too tired to want to do anything and end up neglecting my family because I don't want to deal with anything. I have been having anxiety issues recently because I am so stressed out from everything going on in my region and let me tell you… It wasn't like this eight weeks ago.
We are making changes, as a region as a company, as people and I feel as if it is time for me to make a change too… I can't do this anymore. It is about time I started to focus on what is really important in life and it is not whether the advertised collection is 14.95 or 14.99. Who knows, maybe I will regret my decision and wonder where this ride could have taken me, I will never know. But I do know that I will regret quitting my family and need to try to repair the damage that I have done by not being there for my kids when they needed it. I would much rather miss out on the chance to be a regional manager than miss out on being a mother.
There are some fantastic people that I have met over the years and greatly admire and respect. I will treasure the time we have spent together and I appreciate the belief that many of you have in me. John, you are a very sweet man and I honestly feel like you have the best of intentions. I just don't agree with the execution….
Sincerely,
Traveling Manager