The (Mis?)Adventures of a Perpetual Job-Hunter/Job-Hater

A gem of advice: DO NOT accept a job at a company that lacks a legitimate HR department! Not only will you witness HR violations occur left, right, and center (and all known to the phony HR department they’ve set up) during your miserable tenure at the company, but you will more than likely be f*cked with when it comes to your final pay.

So, learn from my situation, dear friends. Here are a few tips to bear in mind if you have the misfortune of being f*cked with by a former, legitimate-HR-department-less employer, thereby prolonging your ties (against your will) with a company you despise:

#1: Incessant emailing lets them know you mean business. Harass, harass, and harass them again for what you’re entitled to.

#2: Point out the stupidity in the lame justification they will try to sell you in their attempt to f*ck up your final pay. Do this in conjunction with tip #1.

#3: Be extremely thorough in your explanation of why they are wrong. Do this in conjunction with tips #1 and #2.

#4: Be ready to bust out the big guns: tell them you are not afraid to take the issue up with the labour board, and if they don’t get the hint after you tell them that, go one step further by declaring you are well-connected with employment lawyers. I’m almost at this point! Also, I do know employment lawyers and would be more than happy to send along contact info if you need it!

#5: Do not just “let it go”, people – yes, you may just want to throw in the towel and wash your hands of it all so that you can finally begin the process of erasing your experience with the company from your memory forever, but don’t let them get away with this bull$h!t. Just think of all the days you spent languishing at your desk, utterly bored and unfulfilled… so first they want your soul, and now they want a portion of your earnings, too??? NOoooooOOoo, I don’t think so!

I wish I could explicitly name my former employer to give you all a proper warning! The ad for my former job is on Workopolis right now and is extremely deceptive… how I wish I could expose the dishonest company behind the pretty ad. Sigh.

It’s been some time since my last post, and I’m sure my handful of readers have been wondering (well, at least I hope they’ve been wondering – and I hope there are still a handful of you out there!) how I’ve been doing since that fateful day…

I don’t regret quitting at all. I have been coping with the fear that stems from, as my good friend articulated, leaving something safe for the unknown… but I haven’t experienced even the slightest regret since emancipating myself from Awkward Boss’ evil clutches and the drudgery of a soul-killing job.

I’m sure some people think that my decision was rash, but I have faith that this will all work out. The truth is that I’m young, I’m smart, I’ve got a good education, and I know how to sell my qualifications and skills  pretty well to potential employers – I’m not at all worried that I’ll be forever unemployed from this point on… even in this terrible job market, I’m confident that I can secure a respectable position soon. But I so desperately want to find an opportunity that will make me truly content – and that is a much more difficult task.

So I’ve been keeping myself quite busy since making the choice to be unemployed. The day after quitting, I completed the editorial tests for the other potential employer. I’ve applied for several jobs that I think I’d enjoy, making a conscious effort to be more selective in my job hunt. But I’ve been most focused on submitting my cover letter (now very carefully written!) and resume to several magazines in hopes of securing an internship. And, to my great surprise, I actually received a response just a couple of hours ago from an Editor who might be interested in taking me on. I’m almost giddy at the thought of gaining experience working at an actual magazine. And as mind-blowing as it sounds, the unpaid aspect of it is pretty insignificant to me, even with gas to buy, four dogs to feed, and bills to pay.

Is it absolutely crazy that I’m most excited about the prospect of securing an unpaid internship? To some of you it might be, but to the others who share my sentiments about vocation, I’m sure you understand my giddiness.

 Despite the fact that I laughed at myself for wanting to schedule fake hourly bathroom breaks this afternoon, I ended up retreating to the bathroom yet again just shortly after that post , desperately wishing that I could flush myself down the toilet and swim to freedom. Thank you, Awkward Boss – or A$$hole Boss, which is the charming moniker that his charming personality has won him, fair and square – for making me wish such ridiculous things.

Today was the worst work day EVER. Hands down. THE WORST, and I can thank my douchebag, turd bucket of a boss for that. He was hell-bent on making it one problematic afternoon for a co-worker of mine. Now, to perfectly sane human beings (I’m still not 100% certain that A$$hole Boss is indeed human since the troubling combination of awkward and a$$hole that comprises his very essence has made him an almost unfathomable creature on human terms), this co-worker of mine would be considered one of the most good-natured individuals one could ever encounter. He’s a soft-spoken, funny, well-mannered, hard-working guy – the type of guy you want to befriend immediately because shucks, he just seems so darn affable. Unfortunately for him, A$$hole Boss preys on the particularly affable… and eats them for dinner, I’m almost certain. (He claims he’s strictly against consuming any living creature, but I call bull$h!t on that one… he makes the exception for nice people, without a doubt. Today he farted audibly – I should probably inform him that if he eliminated nice people from his diet, he wouldn’t be so damn gassy.)

I couldn’t stomach bearing witness to the public shaming of my co-worker yet again (oh yes, this happens quite regularly), so I left to take refuge in the bathroom a couple of minutes into his badgering. Apparently, while I was in there envisioning my cyclonic, toilet-sponsored freedom, A$$hole Boss kicked his brand of a$$hole up a notch and yelled maniacally at the top of his lungs at my affable co-worker. Classy. I should probably highlight the fact that we don’t have cubicles. And he doesn’t have an office in which to deride people discreetly. Yup. When I said “public shaming”, I meant it. The entire floor witnessed his outburst (one that my super nice co-worker didn’t even counter with an outburst of his own). Disgusting? Yup. Very. Someone please get A$$hole Boss his own cage office. Wait, but maybe a cage would be more suitable for him, now that I think about it.

What makes him think that the workplace is some alternate universe in which common human decency is completely thrown out the window and then trampled on once it hits the ground? And what makes him think that the hierarchy of supervisors and employees dictates a disgusting master/subordinate dynamic that privileges his role and entitles him to attacking someone in such an unprofessional manner? A supervisor is responsible for monitoring your work, ensuring you understand everything that is expected of you and providing clarification if you don’t, and is thus in a position of authority, yes, because of these duties – but this position of professional authority does not give you, A$$hole Boss, license to demean and berate. Some of you may be thinking, these are the politics of the workplace, Naïve One. I’ve heard that many times. But I call bull$h!t on that one as well. This kind of behavior is deemed unprofessional for a reason – there’s no place for that idiocy in a professional environment. Employees make mistakes, but supervisors can address them constructively and civilly – I’ve seen it first-hand.

The most shocking thing about the whole episode: A$$hole Boss spoke to my publicly scorned co-worker in a pleasant, friendly manner like absolutely nothing happened just 6 minutes after his blow-up and 4 minutes after he disparaged my co-worker to his tool of a Pet/Next In Command (who not only participates in bad-mouthing everyone he bad-mouths, even when unwarranted, but takes the most abuse from him and yet practically salivates at every opportunity to be his living doormat… yes, I told you, she’s a tool).

This was so incomprehensible to me, and since I’m not so good at being subtle, I threw my hands up, shook my head, turned to my co-workers sitting next to me, and blurted out “bi-polar”. Not to offend any of you who have the disorder or know someone who does, but I couldn’t help it. Because what else could be the explanation? I was genuinely perplexed.

He must’ve heard me – I have the great misfortune of sitting right in front of him. But I’m truly beyond caring at this point. After all, he eats nice people for dinner… being bi-polar is the least of his problems.

Hokay, my sincerest apologies for last night’s utterly depressing post! I hope I didn’t lose my small handful of readers (are there any more of you out there???) because of my wallowing. I’m a little more chipper today, I promise!

So my rant last night was a little heavy, but for more humourous work rants check out www.workrant.com. A ton of the rants posted there are comedy gold – all of you fellow job-hunters/job-haters will appreciate the humour, the unabashed, expletive-rich declarations of boss-hating, and knowing that you are not alone. So read a few and post a few of your own… you might find it therapeutic – empowering, even – to send your thoughts out into cyberspace since you’re forced to muffle them in the office.

During the last 26 minutes or so of my lunch break this afternoon, I sat in my car and almost convinced myself to give in to the overwhelming urge not to return to the office after my glorious one-hour respite was over. I wanted so very badly to be fearless, to let my thirst for sanity dictate my course of action for once, to drive out of the gloomy parking lot and cross the threshold into happy, sunny freedom. But at 1:54pm, I knew I couldn’t retreat. I have bills to pay, I thought… four dogs to feed… gas to buy… a husband to consult before making significant, perhaps ludicrous decisions of the sort and to whom, along with the rest of my family, I’d have to justify the spur-of-the-moment action that would have such final, irrevocable consequences. So better judgment took a hold of me despite the fact that my insides were practically screaming for me to get the hell out of there. And by 1:56pm, the gut-wrenching longing to leave my God-awful job was quieted by overriding Reason – in an eerily robotic (and highly disappointing) manner, I was already walking back into the building that houses so much of my misery.

It’s absolutely terrifying, this Reason, isn’t it? Because oftentimes what Reason can force us to do isn’t truly reasonable. Is it reasonable to stay in an environment that actually makes me hate myself more and more with each passing day because it nurtures my habitual participation in the murder of my own brain? Is it reasonable to feign politeness (however obviously forced it is) toward my belittling, control-obsessed boss? Is it reasonable to continue doing a job that I didn’t even sign up for upon my initial hiring, and one that I still haven’t been properly trained to do, four freakin’ months later? Is it reasonable for me to accept being severely underpaid in proportion to my education, capabilities, and job experience? Of course, not, no… and yet the ritualizing of all these somehow “reasonable” things tricks me into thinking otherwise.

This, though, is the most terrifying thing about the trickster, Reason…

My brother-in-law’s father passed away just a couple of weeks ago both unexpectedly and before his time… life is fleeting. We’re all on this earth on finite terms, which should galvanize our thirst for relishing each day fully so that not a single day is wasted if it is the last… this job, though, essentially makes me scoff at that important (perhaps even most important) realization – it makes me wish each day would end sooner. Would Time just hurry up so that I can get out of here, I say to myself constantly while staring vacantly at my computer screen. And if something is so unbearable that it makes us want each blessing of a day to expire faster, causes us to try and make ourselves numb during work hours just so that we can sit still, and teaches us to ultimately appreciate life less… then we have to let it go.

But many of us don’t. I’m one of the many. So why in the world do we do this to ourselves? Because we have to, is the resounding answer, I’m sure. But there it is again, what we believe to be Reason telling us to accept something wholly unreasonable. We don’t have to… we don’t have to do anything. And yet even as I write those words, I still don’t believe them 100%. You know how I know that? Because I know that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and get ready for work, hop in my car and drive (all the while dreading the start of my work day), and carry out the same ol’ foolish ritual all over again.