February 1st, 2010
Expedience
I know I said I wouldn’t write about it prematurely, but I can’t help it! I’m getting more and more nervous about my interview tomorrow, and this anxiety escalates in direct proportion with my mounting unhappiness at my new/old (it is kind of a hybrid) job. The more loathsome this job becomes, the more my happiness becomes absolutely contingent on the successful outcome of this impending interview… and the more my self-deprecation becomes good sense. Really, I’m an idiot. What was I thinking? Why did I come back to this awful place? I’m dying to get the job I’m being interviewed for tomorrow (it’s a copy editor position with a financial services company, so the pay is quite respectable… and the fact that my interaction with the written word will involve actual editing rather than just copy and pasting is an added bonus). The thing is, if I’m fortunate enough to secure the position (there are about 7 other people being considered, which is insane), I’ll have the annoying task of figuring out how to escape my current gig without looking like a complete a$$hole. Yes, I care… even though I shouldn’t. I mean, after all, this company doesn’t care about me, which is clearly reflected in how grossly underpaid I am and the fact that they don’t deem me worthy of a simple investment like my own personal cubicle. I share one with a co-worker and am forced to be productive with just 1 square foot of my own working space (okay, so I exaggerate, but not that much). I also share a name plate, if you would believe it! That’s right – apparently my name is unworthy of populating its own 2″ x 6″ piece of plastic.
Anyway, my current position opened up due to a transition that the company is undergoing (one that required laying off, quite heartlessly, 40 employees in one of our offices, some of whom had been loyal employees for over 30 years), and this transition must be completed by a certain deadline. So, now that I’m almost completely trained, I’m sure they’ll be livid if I’m lucky enough to be in a position to tender my resignation. And I care. I feel bad about it. I do. But this company doesn’t reciprocate my remorse. It is unapologetically unfeeling. Did the company feel bad about laying off those 40 employees? Of course not. Because expedience is at the heart of good business, regardless of how many corporate mission statements tout the disingenuous “importance of our employees” mumbo-jumbo.
Expedience should be at the heart of our mission statements, too, fellow job-hunters/job-haters. The company I work for would’ve risked a substantial profit, I’m sure, had the lay-offs not occurred. In my case, I have my self-respect to lose, which has suffered severe blows in the past year-and-a-half or so… and no amount of remorse can justify my ever-intensifying inability to look at myself in the mirror with a sense of pride.
