Hey everybody!
First time poster, but I think I may have a story you’ll like 🙂 for context, I work as a civil servant at my local court house. It’s that classic “the job sucks, but the people are great” type of scenario. Stressful, demanding work with insane deadlines, backlog work you can never get on top of, phone ringing off the hook, and upper management is more like a mythical creature than actual people… I had told my girlfriend it would make a great setting for a sitcom type show like The Office. The office is relatively small, I think at its peak there were 18 of us, so even though I hadn’t been working there long I got to know everyone pretty well. And yeah, they were nice people…
A court house never runs out of work, and in particular our courts were so heavily overbooked no one could keep up with the demand. I knew this, I was essentially in charge of document controlling each and every file before giving it to the judges. I once had 102 files to do in just one day, when typically you’re supposed to have maybe 40 on a work heavy day? So mythical upper management decides we’re gonna clear out the courts en masse. Suddenly we have up to 100 a week that we had to find new courts and dates for. This is a long and arduous process, it takes at least 2 people to do (and preferably with a manager involved) if you want it done on time, let alone without making fatal mistakes or losing a good chunk of sanity.
I didn’t know I was being put on this two-team show. I had been talking to a colleague about wanting some different work for variety, my task was monotonous and I was struggling to deal with it. I had kind of made a name for myself at the office by that point. I was reliable, efficient, and most of all, the “speedy one”. Let alone that I picked up a lot of the work/systems very quickly, so I was also “the smart one”. Oh by the way, all of this has been done with basically no training, because there are neither resources nor time.
The first couple of weeks of this surprise project were rough. Communication, as you might have noticed, is lacking and there are a lot of things to manage at one time with this project. I slowly realize just how difficult and demanding this is. Anna (let’s call her) is getting progressively more stressed, she’s relying on me quite a lot to keep it together both in terms of the project and mentally/emotionally. We even had a conversation in which she said she was seriously considering quitting because of this. The office where I work I would call a boiling kettle. There regularly are these waves when everyone gets very stressed, it escalates to a point of near breaking, and then it calms down again. Up and down, up and down through the weeks, but just like in sitcoms things go back to normal.
Then two things happened, one after the other.
We hold these daily meetings mostly as an excuse to stretch our legs and be away from phones and screens. I don’t remember what brought it on, but there was an office-wide chat about how people are liking their conditions, and are you happy and the like. Basically everyone said it sucks here and I would leave if I could. “George” (a nice older guy I sat next to) says quite openly that things are so bad he’s afraid that “one of our young capable workers are going to leave”. It was…freeing hearing this. I had already been thinking about it for a little while. The stress was memorable, I was bringing it home with me basically everyday and regardless, it really isn’t an easy environment.
The other thing that happened is that my teammate bailed. One day to the next. She seemed totally fine on Friday, she calls in sick on Monday, and then she doesn’t show up for the next 6 weeks. One of my managers decided to step in, but thing is that she has her own duties, so I was basically handling it all completely on my own. It was fine for a little while, until mistakes started to happen, and started to pile up. I think my manager was calling me to her desk 5-6 times a day for something else that had gone wrong. This is on top of all the lawyers, judges, ushers, probation, police, witness protection, and media (I told them of restricted cases) who had questions and/or complaints on a daily basis.
But I had made friends in the meantime. A girl and person, to whom I gifted a post-it of charmander and a post-it of psyduck that I drew for them (on orange and yellow post-its and with stupid inspirational messages, ofc), I made myself a wobbaffet post-it in blue and thus we were the pokemon squad. We hung out after work, came to bug each other on tough days, or just for the hell of it. We had each other’s backs! “Charmander” I became very close, we had lunch together everyday and would vent about work and home stuff to each other. I had been telling her that I was really stressed out and thinking of quitting, so she suggested that I train her on the rebooking and we could work on it together. Managers give us the a-ok and, cherry on top of the cake, we get to sit next to each other now. I even deposed Anna, as I had to take over her desk! Anna had been saying how if she did quit, the office would fall apart; fire and flames and screaming children. Remember this.
Charmander is helping tremendously, but regardless the place we work is rough and the cracks are starting to show. People get snippy, they seem to go through phases where you’re the worst enemy and then you’re the greatest person, insensitive comments, inappropriate reactions…a woman I’ll call heh Karen immediately gave me and Charmander a lot of grief over answering the phone; passive aggressive, making digs at us, and all but singling us both out during our meetings over phone-answering etiquette. It immediately sent Charmander over the edge, talk of quitting was near immediate and the anger was concerning. Karen thankfully changes tables, but not attitude. She would stare at us while very loudly answering the phone from across the room, she only ever stared daggers and continuously brought up phone-answering in meetings and conversation. This story here VERY nearly became a r/maliciouscompliance, by the by. But like all things in the office, this too blows over and things go back to normal.
And then vape-gate happened.
As you can tell, mental health is really put to test here. I was struggling quite a bit with it one day, and I kinda must have looked a mess because a colleague asked me if everything was ok. She proposed we step outside to the smoking area to let me talk; George was nearby, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. This woman and I were gone a little while, but believe me when I say that the way she had phrased “let’s step outside” had completely sounded like we were just going out to smoke, I nearly grabbed my vape out of instinct! I’m also 100% sure George overheard.
Our managers aren’t here this week, it’s not the first time it happens and typically George takes over as pseudo manager and calls a daily meeting. It’s pretty informal and I don’t think anything very serious has ever been discussed during these meetings with him. You learn to read the office over time, it’s not unusual to hear someone say “there’s so much tension” or “everyone is so stressed”. George goes over a couple of things that are already on the touchy side at this point (phone use and staying late at the office), and then he brings it up. He says vapers shouldn’t take too long breaks, that it’s unfair to the others who are in the office who have to pick up YOUR slack, and that by company policy if we take a smoke break that time get cut from our lunch break. Yup, either I choose to have a smoke break or I choose to eat. Did I also mention we get only one casual friday a month and we have to pay for it (for charity)?
George is staring at me the entire time he’s saying this. He knows who else smokes in the office, or he could have just looked around the room or something. He’s staring straight at me, barely blinking, and saying essentially “you damn smokers are taking advantage of the rest of us hard workers”. It’s not the first time I heard this song, so I rebutted that EVERYONE gets a break by law, whether they smoke or not, and if the problem is taking breaks then it should be fair for EVERYONE and EVERYONE should take a break when they feel the need. He reiterated that if I take a smoke break it gets taken off my lunch break and that’s it. I rebutted again that our manager said to just make up for lost time at the end of the day, and we seemed to leave it at that. Remember psyduck? They were FURIOUS. I’ve never known psyduck to get mad about ANYTHING, and believe me they had plenty reasons to, but this crossed the line ever for them.
I got to work today and unfortunately I’m rebooking on my own, because Charmander is sick 🙁 I take care of the last few bits to do for the previous week, double check that my document control is up to par, and get to writing. My new novel is called “guide to rebooking trials”. I spend a couple of hours on it, print it off, leave it in plain view on my desk, and walk out. One coworker knew of this, she was always nice to me and very supportive so she’d answered a few questions about resignation notice and stuff like that.
So Anna had predicted the apocalypse if she left. When she did, things really weren’t that bad. I had the worst of projects under control, I had help, and things were getting taken care of even if Anna wasn’t there. When people realized I left, mayhem broke out. It started with psyduck texting me simply “you good? X” I told them I quit, and then my phone blew up. People were getting my number off the chat to ask me what was wrong, a third manager got involved and called me to ask what she could do to get me back, saying this was coming from two managers above me. She said George was completely out of line and she’ll bring it up with my two actual managers, that he never should have done this and was very supportive and understanding. We had a chat where I said that if working conditions could be improved, such as me having a permanent position and all the perks that come with it, I will think about rejoining. My girlfriend doesn’t think I should go back, or accept to go back there either way. I’m more meh about it. Anna apparently came back today and she’ll be sitting in front of me, with Charmander next to me and the helpful coworker is behind me, so it wouldn’t be too bad I think.
TL;DR: walked out on my job without telling anyone, with only a guide to my tasks behind me. Entire office flipped out and upper management even got involved to persuade me to go back.