Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Enough!!!

I love the sense of freedom you get when you're working in an abusive job environment & you say "Enough! This is going too far & I'm out the door."

The only difference between me & many other people is that I actually have walked out of jobs where the work place environment was abusive or protocol wasn't respected. I've only done it twice but I did give one Regional Manager an earful in college when I was treated unfairly.

First time I walked away: a document review assignment in New Jersey. I was there about 10 days. The first sign of trouble was being moved from a room in a separate area to this law library.

The second problem was when the supervisors took a vote about whether to open window blinds, everyone voted "yes" & one of the supervisors who should have been working as a high school Vice Principal decides to close them.

The third was when I was told we could not speak to our co-workers yet some man a few rows away was chatting so loudly on a cell phone, I could hear him clear as a bell. NOT ONE supervisor OR librarian tells this man to lower his voice.

The fourth was when the supervisors set up an "Internet cafe" in the workspace so people can check their personal things with supervisors watching them; that's a no-no w/my business e-mail.

The fifth was when we had nothing to do & supervisors were trying to give people busy work despite the common rule/custom that when there was nothing to do, your time was yours as long as you stayed in the building. I went down to the break room a few floors down to chat w/people to avoid this nonsense.

The straw that broke the cammel's back was when I returned to the break room & supervisors claimed that someone's food had been taken from their sitting place. These people had the gall to threaten to ban our access to the break room.

I decided then & there it was time to hit the road. I made up something about having a film company emergency, signed out, gathered my things, left the building, called the temp agency & called the CEO of the film company. He sided w/me on leaving & we're a functional family at the film company so no worries about him trying to make me do something I didn't want to do. Even my own husband, who was concerned about our finances sided with me on walking out of this micromanaging, Wal-Mart pit.

I'd hoped others would gain courage from me walking out the door but they stayed like drones & I never heard from them again.

I remember that when I got back into NYC, I decided to walk around for a while. Take it easy since I had all this free time. I felt like Peter Gibbons in "Office Space" after he sees the hypnotist & no longer gives a crap about if he's going to get fired. I LOVE that feeling; it's informed much of what I do & how I function in life.

So today, I did my second walk off from a job. Only this time it may not be a permanent walk off but more like working in a location where I'm more comfortable.

To make a long story short, if you hire a lawyer to work in an entertainment company & write contracts/perform services that lawyers tend to handle then do not think for one minute that lawyer's going to listen to some "Office Manager." Especially if that lawyer has her own company & was placed in charge of her own office building akin to the position of the CEO. Don't let this Office Manager think she can treat her like an underling & expect that lawyer to return. That lawyer will tell you just where to go. This lawyer especially.

If I wanted to put up with abuse or nonsense, I can just go be a hooker or stripper. I'd make a HELL of a lot more money & put up with plenty of abuse, hassle, nonsense, etc.

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