Work Drama: A Continuing Saga

Does everyone fundamentally hate their job, or is it just me?

Last season’s recap: CB disliked his job at company “M”, and after tolerating the racist, bigoted, Tump worshiping environment as king as he could, he finally found a new job and jumped at the chance for something different. Even though there were a couple red flags involving benefits and expectations- he didn’t care. He left and started his new journey.

This season recap: the new job at company “N” also sucks. But for different reasons. It’s a different type of toxic environment- one of solitude, passive aggressive bosses, poor resource management and zero support. He feels like the company misled him when he hired on, and he’s a bit raw about it.

Yeah- so my new job is not great.

I’m not dealing with racist assholes anymore, but there are different challenges in this work environment. Primarily they said the quality system would be supported by management and I just don’t really feel that. Their idea of “supporting” appears to be “ignoring me and quality management”. Basically I work in a vacuum.

Also? This company is a mess. I think we’re currently at about a 40% turnover rate. we can’t keep operators. We can’t hire second shift operators. Engineering and accounting vacancies have gone infilled because benefits are too shitty. It work us about 6 months to fill a maintenance tech position. He lasted 3 weeks before he quit.

And the CFO position? Well, it took months to find a person. And they lasted about a month and a half before quitting. His replacement made it a whole 5 hours before leaving.

We have people taking FMLa or just not showing up. There are engineers that pseudo “work from home” and I have no idea what they do. Hell- there are people here every day that I’ve never even spoken to because they hide in an office all day. And this is in a company of 44 people.

Yeah, it’s a mess. And so is the company’s documentation and so is the complaint system and training. And don’t get me started on HR— which doesn’t exist kind you. Yup. No HR department.

But it’s the behavior as of late that’s really chapping my ass.

So, I got back from Palm Springs and was in the office bright and early on Monday. I saw my boss and said hello— and he basically ignored me. Meh, maybe his mind was in other shit. I mean, the company is in a bit of crisis. Anyway.

He walked by my office many times that day. Never popped in. Never said hello. Not a “glad you made it back from vacation”… nada. Not even a passive aggressive “hope you’re ready to get to work” comment. Odd.

Same went for Tuesday. Ignored me. He said hi to people around me, but not to me. Same on Wednesday. And Thursday. Incommunicado. Finally on Friday he deigned to speak to me, but only because he needed an update for the company newsletter. It was brief and that was it.

Then yesterday we had a staff meeting. My outlook reminder pop up was behind my spreadsheets, so I didn’t see it. At about 9:06 I looked up and realized I was late. So I dashed to the conference room- where they were blithely going on with the meeting.

No call to my desk. No casual reminder as people walked to the conference room. Nobody even could walk the 20 steps to my office to come get me. And it’s not like there are 30 people in this meeting and one missing isn’t noticeable. There were 5 of us total- including my boss.

What the fuck, man?

So yeah. I think my time here is just about done. But I feel guilty- like I haven’t given this place the old college try. That I’m giving up on the marriage too soon. I’m also questioning everything about my chosen career path and my life in manufacturing. I feel like I need a wholesale change- but what that is I have no idea.

I’ve hitched my wagon to “manufacturing” and it feels like I’m too far down the “career path” at this point to detour.

What a mess.