I stayed at my job for eight weeks. It only took me about three days to realize what a mess I had gotten myself into. I guess it took that much longer for my patience to finally wear thin. It paid my rent for two months, so it was not an entire waste of my time. And of course, being the comprehensive learner, evolution-of-character believer that I am, I know that no time is wasted if it taught you a lesson. And boy, did it.
First of all, you should know, that my intent in writing this piece is not to bash or demean anyone in any way, especially because a large part of why I finally quit was because I was demeaned and berated myself, so I know how it feels. My objective is never to hate. It is simply therapeutic for me to cut the jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings loose from my mind and my heart, so that's what I'm doing. And of course, to paraphrase my homegirl T-Swift, "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."
So. I've had a rough time of it since graduation (see previous blog post). I have landed and consequently quit three jobs. Three is the number of people required for a person to murder before they are technically classified as a serial killer. I guess it follows that I would be a serial employee, in that case. It isn't like me. The last job I consider to be a "real job" (and a much more worthwhile investment of my time and energy) lasted me three years in college. Now I've gone through three in six months. It's depressing. But it's also been necessary. Because as we all know very well by now, I refuse to settle for mediocre. I won't do it. Even if that means making things extremely difficult for myself in the process. I know. Sometimes I am even too stubborn for myself. But you know what? I always thank myself in the end for standing up for what I deserve and loving and respecting myself enough to do what needs to be done. And I have absolutely no trouble sleeping at night. (Mostly because I'm exhausted.) So I guess it's not all that bad.
I can tolerate a lot of crap. I grew up learning how to keep my mouth closed and my thoughts to myself, as a survival mechanism when necessary. I am a lover and a giver, not a fighter nor a taker. I naturally try to keep the peace. Whether to blame my aversion to drama or my hippie mother, I don't know. The point is I prefer not to fight. However, I equally refuse to be used or abused. For that, we can blame my Irish heritage or my older sister's bullying, either one. Point being: I can take a lot. But when I've had enough, I've had enough. I reached "enough" this week.
Throughout the course of my two-month employment, I witnessed and experienced many things which, at the very least annoyed me, and at most, simply felt wrong in the pit of my stomach. Either way, I don't like to be annoyed, nor do I like my conscience bothering me. So my attitude, my demeanor, my entire personality began to change. It didn't take long for me to notice it, and it took even shorter for me to want to change the situation I found myself in. But I had bills to pay. So I waited. As a human being, my tendency to gravitate toward becoming complacent was growing. But as someone who respects herself and expects respect from others in return, I was growing ever more restless against the metaphorical chains I found myself writhing against. It was all becoming too much for me to handle. Something had to change.
At this job, I was mistreated. But not just me. Every single employee in the office was subject to abuse in the form of verbal assaults, sudden mood swings, subtle misogyny and elitism, denied bonus checks for our hard work, and just about any other shady way that a sleazeball on a power trip could think of to manipulate or control his employees to remind them of their place under his greasy thumb. Now, I can tell you, I don't know which parent I inherited this trait from, maybe 50% from both, but I do not like to be controlled. (Just ask Mom or Dad, and they'll tell you.) I need freedom, I need trust, I need to be allowed to be human and have space to make mistakes and forgiveness for when I inevitably do. I need for my employer to recognize our common humanity and, at the very least, to respect it. The most fundamental misunderstanding between my former employer and myself was that I mistakenly assumed that all people regarded such things like respect as a given. I should've known better than to assume.
To add insult to injury, over the course of the 39 days that I dragged myself out of bed in the morning to suffer through yet another shift, I was paid minimum wage. It's one thing to be treated like dirt and at least make good money tolerating it. People do that all the time. (Not that I recommend it either, but that's beside the point.) But not me, oh no. When I do things, I like to do them big. So when I make a misstep in my career path, I like to get a two-fer and make sure I'm spat on everyday and paid the lowest amount of money that I am legally entitled to earn. Good grief, Alyssa.
So, for the folks keeping score at home: I was verbally abused on a daily basis, when co-workers who were long since desensitized to such flagrant language dismissed it as simply "his personality," I feared the man because of his well-practiced intimidating physical stance, I was the only person in the place besides this woman-hating narcissist who held a college degree, I was also one of only three employees who has never seen the inside of a penitentiary, and I was being paid $7.25 per hour! Glad we're all caught up.
Due to the fact that I was earning incredibly less than I had any business earning, it was necessary for me to start looking elsewhere for other various forms of employment. Because regardless of income, monthly bills do not change. I started Uber driving for a few weeks. A friend of a friend hired me to help out on her food truck a few days a week. I sold some things I had sitting in my closet. And I was completely demoralized because of my work environment. I could feel myself changing, and not in a good way. It was a rough time to be Alyssa.
Oh, and about picking up shifts on the food truck: most of those shifts were during lunch, which required me to ask my boss for extended lunch breaks a total of FOUR times. Jesus Christ, you'd think I was asking him if I could borrow his Ferrari. Anyway, asking for time off that equaled a grand total of five hours over two pay periods is what resulted in me leaving his office crying the first time. That really should have been the moment I quit. But as one of my former co-workers at this establishment said numerous times after she left the job and returned twice, "I'm a glutton for punishment." I guess.
Then I told him that I would be going to France for about two and a half weeks over Christmas. Now, granted, that is not something that any employer wants to hear. No duh. But it is still something that happens in life occasionally, and it's not exactly like at $7.25 an hour where I am talked down to every single day, I'm risking losing a high-paying corporate job with benefits and paid holiday. Not exactly a hard decision to make. When I left his office crying that time, it was pretty much the moment I had decided my fate and my "goals with the company," as I was later interrogated about and expected to valiantly defend. (To which I replied that I would love to keep the job if I know I'm not going to be verbally abused, by the way.)
Then there was yesterday. I finally did it. I'd had enough, well before he told me that I had "an attitude" yesterday morning, so I decided to quit. Because nobody gets to talk to me like that and think it's okay. Because what we allow to happen in our interpersonal relationships is what will continue. Because what we accept is what we are conveying to others we are comfortable being treated like. And because if nothing else, I should not leave my employer's office in tears three times in the span of two months of employment.
After being told three days previously that if I am going to expect to be able to be gone for three weeks in December, that I "might as well pack up and go home," I was met with a much different tune when I actually said the words,"I quit." This time I was told that he wished I would "reconsider" because he had "such high hopes for me". Yeah, right. When I am consistently treated like crap for eight weeks straight, that pretty much tells me where I lie in your priorities and what my value is to you. And when I am continually pushed away, and I finally decide to accept this fact and turn my back to walk away, don't ask me back. Once I have decided it's time for me to leave, I'm not coming back. I've been witness to far too many abusive relationships to fall for that lame power move from an insecure old man. I sound like I think I'm better than him, and that's because I do.
Immediately following his plea for reconsideration came his guilt tripping and reassuring me that it "will be interesting" if I think I have any chance of finding another employer who will treat me better than him and this company. The he lectured me that "in the business world" I need to work a full 40 hours a week, as if I am some kind of newbie teenager quitting her first job, or if I were someone who has been handed a single thing in her life. And let's not forget his repeatedly demanding to know exactly why I am quitting, and if he is solely responsible for it; as if his little power trips and temper of a two-year-old being the straw that broke my back was somehow going to satisfy his sick craving to feel accomplished in his 70+ years of life, verbally abusing a 22-year-old girl. What a man.
So I did it. I quit. I left. I spent the day cleaning up my drawers and my computer, I clocked out, and I never looked back. I flipped the place off later that night when I drove by on my way to work the food truck, because we're all a little petty at times and the emotions were still fresh in my mind. But you get the idea. Adios. Sayonara. Adieu.
The title of this post is "What I Learned From Working in a Toxic Work Environment (And Quitting)," so I guess I had better tell you what exactly that is, instead of just using it as a metaphorical punching bag for my emotions and a word vomit receptacle. What I learned is this: never again. Never, ever again, will I settle for less than I deserve. Never, ever again, will I allow myself to be treated like dog poop scraped off the bottom of some rich man's knockoff Italian leather shoe. Never, ever again, will I accept working for a wage so low that I have to seek supplemental work elsewhere, then get reprimanded for my attempt to survive because it cuts into the hours someone else thinks they own in full, for a measly $7.25 apiece. Never, ever again, will I be so utterly and preposterously disrespected and spat upon when I know damn good and well that I am capable of doing better and that I deserve more. Never again.I did not pour hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of hours of my life into college courses; I did not graduate with thousands of dollars' worth of student loan debt tied to my social security number; I did not prop my eyeballs open through boring three-hour long night classes about macroeconomics and supply chain management, in order to be treated in such a way as I have been since the beginning of October. I would rather be one of the many (although hopefully temporarily) unemployed recent college graduates, than to allow myself to be subjected to such abuse and mistreatment ever again. I sound proud. I am. I know what I deserve. And what I learned from this experience was that I sure as hell deserve a lot better than that. Never again.
I've got to do what makes me happy, and part of that means also not doing the things that don't make me happy. So no. Never, ever again.
http://previews.123rf.com/images/victorass88/victorass881404/victorass88140400154/27780633-Young-blonde-woman-walking-away-showing-her-middle-finger-In-black-and-white-Stock-Photo.jpg
