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The Curse of the Family Business, Part Two

My previous job-related post ended after I revealed that my boss wanted to “gift” me with the return of a shift she took, but not the same one I had before.  Instead, she wanted to give me the shift she dangled before me a few months earlier.  I turned her down because the entire scenario seemed sketchy to me – at best.  I wondered if there’d be any further backlash, and stepped up my efforts to find a new job.

The next few weeks were extremely tense, and not just for me.  One of my coworkers even remarked at the increased online presence of the boss and her sister, and she wondered if something was going on.  I spent every moment I could looking through job listings, filled out countless applications, and even had another interview or two.  One particular job was a front-runner, though it would mean a cut in salary.

Things came to a head for me one afternoon when my boss actually blamed me for what ended up being a glitch in the overall system.  This wasn’t the first time I had to teach her something about her own database, and I was determined that it would be the last.  She was so myopic in her quest to be accusatory that she put no thought into what she was saying before she blurted it out.

I was absolutely fed up.  This woman knew nothing at all about customer service and even less about how to talk to people.  Her knowledge of the tools we used on a daily basis was miniscule, whereas I spent days off learning the nooks of those tools so that I could create my own shortcuts and be aware of any problems before they arose.  In fact, I usually knew when the system was going down even before I.T. did.

Don’t play with me.

I decided on that day that I was going to quit.  I set a goal for myself and gave myself a certain date, and just trusted that things would fall into place in the meantime and another opportunity would present itself.  I was just DONE. After that, things got easier.  Knowing that a definite end was in sight helped me to get through every shift, sometimes even with a smile.  I was on a quest to lessen the drama in my life – particularly now that I had TWO coworkers voicing concerns about the increased online presence of “upper management.”

I’d say I was fairly close to tears when I finally received word that I’d been hired for a new job.  I still don’t know, and likely won’t ever know, what the catalyst was that caused my boss to start behaving as she did.  I do know that they were unwilling to announce my departure from the company, and that is likely because my coworkers would ask questions.

I did tell two of my coworkers of my departure on the night I gave notice, and they give me regular updates as to what’s been going on.  There was a scramble to fill my shifts, and the boss has even had to work some of them.

Unfortunately, she didn’t learn anything from this. She is of a mind that the salary she provides means that she can say or do anything, and it will be accepted.  Unfortunately, a lot of people share that mindset. They assume that you have nowhere else to go and no alternatives, so you’ll take what they decide to dish out. I’ve shown more than one person that isn’t the case – at all.

She, and those like her, propel me toward finding something better for myself and toward reaching my ultimate goal. I won’t always work for someone else, and each position I’ve accepted since has been to my benefit in one way or another. Though it’s been a while since I left that job, I’ve recently heard that things haven’t much improved. They were even hiring again last I checked.

Onward and upward, I’d say.