* jazzyhands *

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::22.2.05:: Work

Today I walked out of my job. I walked out while some woman ranted at me about my "slyness" and "laziness". She wasn't my boss or in any position of authority. She'd just decided I spent too much time sending emails. So I picked up my handbag and walked out the door.

I was thinking of having a smoke and coffee and calming down but hey, I'd only had enough change in the morning to get a 2 hour train ticket and it was about to run out so I went home.

On the train, before we'd even left the city loop, my consultant from the temp agency called. They'd called her and told I'd had a "confrontation" with another staff member and that I spent all my time sending personal emails - a total of 48 in the month or more I'd been there. That number again - 48. Oh my lord, that's more than 1 a day.

They knew all about my personal emails because they'd printed them out and read them. They didn't want me back. Ok, I do know better than to call my place of employment a stink shithole in work emails (that should be a stinking sh1thole - had to get it past the profanity filter) but I didn't really care. They didn't want me back. Good thing really because I had no intention of going back.

I am annoyed about many things. For starters, no one has said that maybe, just maybe this woman should not go around having a go at people when it is none of her business. Apparently she has been watching me for a while - nice to know that she is so busy concentrating on her own work. Hey, it's not right to waste time sending personal emails but spending your day spying on other staff - that's a legitimate usage of work time.

Oh yeah, and every time she saw me working I was flicking between windows on my computer so therefore I must be doing something wrong. Even though the work I've been doing for the last week or so has involved the challenging and rewarding task of cutting shit out of word documents and pasting into their database. But that wouldn't require flicking between windows now, would it?

Secondly, my temp consultant was a complete cow about the whole thing. I have spoken to her twice about the work situation, asking her to find me another assignment. She was very unsympathetic. Then today she told me I should have discussed the situation with her. She also put all the blame on me and my "unprofessional" conduct. This is the second time I've had problems with her. You might recall an incident around Christmas time where I didn't get paid for weeks while they sorted shit out. At that time she tried to make me take responsiblity for a situation I'd advised her about also.

I get the feeling that she just can't be bothered acting on things I tell her, then they become issues and she tries to pass the buck.

Thirdly, they READ my personal emails. Now maybe they had a legal right to do that as I'd sent them from work but morally that is so dodgy. It makes me sick just to think about it.

Fourthly, 48 emails... how much work time would that actually waste. Even if I spent one minute on each one, it is only 48 minutes of work time. I will gladly let them dock the tuppence from the meagre amount they are paying me. And mostly it takes less than a minute to write a three word email.

Fifthly, prior to this I know people had been talking about me. Have you ever been a fourteen year old girl and had some spread rumours about you? Have you lived through that schoolgirl backstabbing stage where you know they're talking but you don't know what they're saying? Yeah, that is how this job has been for the last week or so. Not a lot of fun.

Sixthly, I almost took this site down today in case they find it through my internet history then I thought fuck them. I don't care if they read anything I have to say.

I never have to go back there ever again and even if that means living in my car off food scraps out of bins it would be better than setting foot inside that rat hole with that bunch of bitches.

So I went and had a lovely lunch with David and a relaxing day. Tomorrow I will call some new temp agencies, try to work out what to do about my time sheet from this job and mourn over the loss of my drink bottle that I left on my desk.

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Comments:

Makes me glad that I'm the IT person by default and therefore unlikely to get sprung... gotta love a small office (sometimes).
Best of luck finding new work.

# posted by kkjayne : 12:43 am

There were NO positives. I hated the place. I felt sick every day as soon as I got there. It was hell. The work was tedious and extremely menial - I accept that menial work is a part of life especially when you are doing temp work - but half the time I felt like they were giving me menial work for the sake of it, that they enjoyed having someone they could use to do the shit.

For example, spending five minutes explaining to me the one line change to a letter that I had edit and print out! (and yes, it took them that long to explain things because they assumed everyone was as dumb as they were).

I guess I could have stayed and made her life hell but at the time the only thought in my head was that I didn't have take that shit.

# posted by Kathryn : 7:33 am

Sounds like a totally crappy place to work in, and a totally crappy temp agency to be with.
You could do so much better.

# posted by Violet : 4:38 pm

oh, kathryn... i feel your pain. i used to work somewhere that sounds quite similar to the place that you walked out of. congratulate yourself though - you have removed yourself from a toxic environment. hang in there, and something better will come along soon enough... hey! we're unemployed together! yay for us :o)

# posted by shalini akhil : 7:40 pm