Posted on 03/05/2009 5:19:28 PM PST by flowerplough
I had to smile at your heart attack in the parking lot story! I currently work for two very mean women (I can’t think of a woman I’ve worked for who wasn’t) and one very nice man. The women make my days hell (and it doesn’t help that my female supervisor thinks their behavior is perfectly acceptable, while my complaints about their truly evil treatment of me and others is almost grounds for my dismissal). I dread waking up in the morning. I go to work with a rock in my stomach and my nerves already taut before I walk in the door. I’m looking for another job, but there isn’t much out there. I am also a personal fitness trainer and I may just have to throw all caution to the wind and begin to train full time for a living. In this economy, that is truly scary.
Working for women is the worst possible scenario.
I feel for you. I believe life is too short to be miserable every day. I know that’s much easier said than done. I too was miserable in my cubicle job with the crazy woman boss that I wrote about earlier. I dreaded the drive to work, I had to MAKE myself go back to the office after lunch. The tipping point came when this female boss denied my 2-day Christmas vacation request — in September. I lived in a different city than my and my husband’s family. She was basically telling me to spend Christmas alone, and never could give me a reason for denying the request.
My husband was a government contractor and got tired of the CRAZY office politics, getting picked up and dropped within months, having to move with no guarantee of staying for long. Two years ago, we decided to move back to his hometown so that he could follow his dream of art/design. I’m not going to lie, it has not always been easy. But the relief we both feel is immeasurable. He is slowly getting clients (just got his first large contract) and getting his name out there. We both work from home right now and love it.
If you have a passion and talent that you can make money at (personal training), I say go for it! It may not be simple at first, but the freedom you will feel is amazing. Good luck!
I feel for you. I believe life is too short to be miserable every day. I know that’s much easier said than done. I too was miserable in my cubicle job with the crazy woman boss that I wrote about earlier. I dreaded the drive to work, I had to MAKE myself go back to the office after lunch. The tipping point came when this female boss denied my 2-day Christmas vacation request — in September. I lived in a different city than my and my husband’s family. She was basically telling me to spend Christmas alone, and never could give me a reason for denying the request.
My husband was a government contractor and got tired of the CRAZY office politics, getting picked up and dropped within months, having to move with no guarantee of staying for long. Two years ago, we decided to move back to his hometown so that he could follow his dream of art/design. I’m not going to lie, it has not always been easy. But the relief we both feel is immeasurable. He is slowly getting clients (just got his first large contract) and getting his name out there. We both work from home right now and love it.
If you have a passion and talent that you can make money at (personal training), I say go for it! It may not be simple at first, but the freedom you will feel is amazing. Good luck!
"Good Morning" to other female and to me, first thing "We have a problem!" or variations of that idea. Usually said problem didn't exist or was tempest in a teacup.
Staying behind after hours to help night shift people after pulling a normal day and asking for any kind of comp. time or even an acknowledgement that I did, usually a blank stare. There would be a followup remark to the effect (no matter what) that I took too long to do whatever.
Work out a minor problem for the head AutoCad guy who was very appreciative and even told evil incarnate so - get chewed out for it because she wasn't consulted but never bothered to take an interest in anything outside her little cube.
Telling me that whole departments did not want me around at all. My last day though with a few expected exceptions, got me lots of appreciation, handshakes, hugs (from some of the supposed offended), and a lot of sorry to see me go type statments.
"You will be trained to do all of these great advanced things". Never happened. Rules and policies changing on sometimes daily basis. Try to ask, learn, or anything - get brushed off. Later chewed out for not knowing about whatever the cause of the moment.
Know more about photography/photoshop than whole department put together but was not allowed to have Photoshop installed even though there were licenses. Never mind most people brought their digital camera photos for me to process and most of them could barely turn a camera on.
I actually had two women. The main one was the problem. The junior super was OK, she was stable and not a wacko.
If any more cuts happen there, I guarantee the nice one will be axed in a New York minute by the evil incarnate to protect herself. She will not lift a finger to help.
I worked in an office that had warring factions (all females) and the manager was a man. He was completely ineffective, let the war escalate to near nuclear levels, and pretty much ruined all productive activities.
He then resigned and 2 women were hired. They put all on notice that no bs would be tolerated. No one was beyond examination, all were under scrutiny, and you had better account for your actions. Heads rolled. It didn't completely end all of the warring, but most of the guilty parties left.
Jekyll and Hyde = Passive Agressive.
In my last month of work (before I had my interview with other companies), I had an issue with a missing file and the “harpie from hell” snapped at me (out of the blue with a nasty verbal tiff). At that point, all thoughts of staying went out the window.
To top it off, she gives me task that I knew was a lose-lose scenario. It was essentially balancing various electornic payments (payments she had to balance in the past). If my supervisor, an accountant who worked with this item for years, couldn’t balance it out, how was a $11.00 per hour clerk (with no bookkeeping/accounting traning) going to do it? Ain’t gonna happen boyos.
When I gave her my two-weeks notice, she gave a “stunned penguin” expression at first, then acted coy and innocent. I pretty much spelled it out to her why I was leaving and I that I had contacted HR for an exit interview. I was let go that same day but not before giving HR my exit interview (had it written the night before). Needless to say, I had a lot to say about her.
An exit interview is a nice way of payback. If well written, diplomatic and truthful you wouldn’t believe the satisfaction it can produce. I knew I wasn’t going to get a reference from the lady so I had nothing to lose.
I did the same thing at my exit interview. The HR lady was brand-new and wasn’t involved in all goings-on in the office. I told her plainly that my supervisor was discriminatory and blatantly rude. I had never seen an example of “reverse racism” (and thought it sounded silly) but this supervisor was a textbook example. I also knew that I would never ask any of these people for recs, so I had nothing to lose. It did feel great to finally be able to say what should have been said a long time before.
I’ve found out that in a lot of companies, they won’t give references....only dates and times of employment. The main reason: fear of lawsuits.
I’m using a trusted co-worker and two personal references (from my sports club which I’ve served for the past 15 years).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.