Well it’s been another 'stellar' week of my life …. please note that sarcasm was intended there. It’s been a bad week and on top of last week I’ve felt even less sociable than I have previously. Not exactly the best way to feel when you’re trying to get excited about something more interesting. Aside from the fact I’m handling my Dad’s birthday (which would have been tomorrow) badly, work still doesn’t improve.
The boss went off on his jollies this week. As he seems to be the root of most of my issues you’d be forgiven for thinking that I might have a good week. Well actually no I didn’t. To be honest, it started before he even left. We had a recall come about on Tuesday. Nothing new there; we can do those standing on our heads metaphorically speaking. Of course, the boss being the way he is, will find any opportunity to not have to do any work. To explain this next comment you have to understand another rule of thumb about the department, which is that there must ALWAYS be one technologist in the department – even if the boss, who is, himself, a techy person with all the expertise the others have is in. This, I believe, is part and parcel of the fact he can’t be arsed to do anything or find out what’s going on in his department until it turns into a fire.
Anyway, I digress. The recall came in mid afternoon and we would in no way have managed to send it out to members by the time the postie was due to collect at 4.30. There’s a lot of information that needs to be pulled together before a recall can go out to be auctioned by members. So he said to me “There’s no-one (as in the technologists) in tomorrow is there?” I told him there wasn’t. Figured that was the end of it because he should have known the reason why at that time. I left it at that while we waited for the technologist (who we shall call Mildred) who happened to be in that day to come back in to the office from the assessment she was doing. I’m still unclear as to why exactly he doesn’t feel capable enough to do a recall when he’s the one who set up the procedure to do them, but believe it is just because he doesn’t want to do anything work wise until retirement.
A few minutes later he said to me “In future can you make sure that at least one technologist is in the office at all times?” I could not believe him! You have no idea how satisfying it was to be able to say to him “Well Gary was due to be in until the X primary came up”. He had nothing to say. That primary audit was arranged while I was on my holidays and was, therefore, naff all to do with me. Ah, the joy!! :) It’s just another example of him trying to knock my legs out from underneath me and make me feel more useless than I already do. Why, despite doing the job for all this time, does he still think I’m completely incapable? I am university educated and have been working in the department for 18 months now. I think I have a fair idea of how to do things.
Also, on the back of a comment last week about being 5 minutes late one day last week, and the subsequent lecture about taking a different route to him (and pointing out to him that the A15 is just as far from my house as Barton and it’s a longer journey and asking if he was going to give me a pay rise to cover my increased travel costs if I took that route – he remained strangely stoic on the latter) I have started keeping a record of my times – when I leave work, when I get to my desk, when I go to and return from lunch and what time I leave. Suffice it to say I have left no earlier than I did that day last week when I got in late and have still managed to get to my desk on time and have actually worked longer than my prerequisite hours. He has no concept of anything. He believes that because he can do it everyone else can. Forget the fact that people come from different places via different routes encountering different obstacles to their progress, and I am neither paid nor respected well enough to get to my desk 15 minutes before my designated start time as he does which was his comment a few weeks ago.
The other major annoyance and thing that sent my blood pressure soaring again took place over the space of two days. As I mentioned in my last blog, we do NPD testing on new products prior to launch. When the results come in they go to the originating technologist (i.e. the one who signed the paperwork telling the lab what to test the products for) at which point they will look at the results and let me know whether they are acceptable or not so I can pass copies of the certificates to the suppliers. Now the idea is they send an email to the buyer, supplier representative, marketing department (who create the label artwork) and me, however this doesn’t happen. The idea is that development is an urgent and important thing which needs to be moved on as soon as possible and part of that is providing copy certificates to suppliers as soon as possible. However I am not being told when results have been accepted (or not as the case may be) until a week or more after the certificates have come in when they finally land back on my desk by which point the results tend to be a moot point.
Again, it’s another way of making me look incompetent and redundant in this job. It’s doing my nut in to say the least. I also found it ironic that this particular Technologist (who we shall call George) can’t send me an email I NEED in order to do my job, but can send one to someone else that they don’t need!! I mean what the fuck?!?! I honest to GOD can’t wait until I can escape this badly run shithole.
Now I just need to find a few more jobs I can apply for. I know that sounds odd, but what it boils down to is that I’m finding the jobs …. but they all want to interview while I’m on my Dallas trip. I want to be motivated to apply for them but what’s the point if I can’t interview if I get the option. :( Hello rock, meet the hard place …. again. Tell me again why this shit can’t be easy?
Saturday 20 March 2010
Saturday 13 March 2010
Escape
Why is it so difficult to escape from any given situation? I find myself in a place where I am miserable. It’s been this way for some time but with the current climate in this world it seems harder than ever to escape. It also seems like there are so many hoops to jump through now. I know it’s a sign of the times but it doesn’t help my anguish.
Let me explain. It’s no new news that I hate my current job. I’ve always felt that I am looked down on and don’t really ‘belong’. It feels sometimes like I’m viewed as an imposter; I had the misfortune of taking a maternity cover job in a seemingly close-knit department. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve felt that I’m not wanted there – that I don’t belong and that my predecessor was back in her place in the department. It makes it harder when you hear comments about how staff members “wish X was here”. It does a lot for your confidence, especially when you’re trying your best, when you haven’t been doing the job for several years, and you have a slightly different method of working than your predecessor.
Last week I got a proper taste of where I stand in this department. I work for Quality Assurance. We basically make sure that own label products are safe, and are responsible for vetting suppliers and making sure labelling is accurate and legal. Part of the procedure for new suppliers is the testing of new products at the lab before launches to make sure that the specification information, and therefore the labelling, is accurate. As a rule, the lab has a 10 day turnaround from receipt of samples of new products until completion of the testing and reporting the results. I have an additional rule of thumb whereby, when asked when results are due, and knowing how testing can sometimes run into problems and be late on completion, I NEVER give a definite date for when we expect to receive the results even if I have been given one. I may give a rough “should be done by”, and will tell members of the department that they should be on their way, but will NEVER say the results will be in on XYZ to people external to the department who don’t know how the lab and it’s testing operates.
Last week we ran into problems. I was asked by someone in another department when we were expecting a set of results for a new product. As usual I said they SHOULD be due on XYZ – as non-committal an answer as I could possibly give. It seems this third party took this date as given and embarked on the next part of the product process which sets things in motion for the final launch. The next thing I know, one of the technologists in the department is, for want of a better phrase, “going for me” and telling me to never give out definite dates if I don’t know. That would be all well and good if this person had actually ASKED me what I said and gave me a chance to explain; but no. She decided to take someone else’s word as gospel and laid into me without giving me the option to tell my side. Truth of it is this would never have happened to X. As a member of the department who has put all the processes in place, some of which I’m STILL getting to grips with 18 months down the line, she would never have been subjected to such an attack. She would have been given the chance to put her side across rather than just being accused of something she hadn’t done.
Suffice it to say it made me realise just how miserable I am in my current predicament. Usually something like this would annoy me and I would stew on it for a while, manage to keep my emotions in check until I got home, get a bit upset over it and then put it to the back of my mind – maybe bitch about it occasionally, but not this time. This time I actually broke down and cried. I don’t cry, especially not at work, but this time I couldn’t stop myself. I retreated to the toilets and cried – not a lot, but just enough to get a bit of it out of my system. A few minutes later I came out and one of the girls who works on the support side of things with me noticed I was still a little pissed and upset, but as per usual I tried to make out that I was fine but my eyes were still red and watery. Half an hour later the other woman who works support with me ordered me into the toilets to talk to her because the first one told her I was upset -- and I completely broke down and wept. I mean proper can’t-talk-properly-or-loudly-or-at-all-without-my-voice-cracking-and-sniffing-and-crying-a-bit-more-all-over-everyone.
I told her everything; about how I don’t fit in because I’m not X, how it pisses me off that members of the department are approaching X about things that she no longer has anything to do with and are part of my job, about how I feel like people are deliberately obstructive because they don’t tell me what I need to know to be able to do my job properly and therefore become a convenient scapegoat, about how I feel people look down at me because I’m “only support” and therefore easy to replace despite being as qualified as some of them albeit in a different field, how I don’t sleep properly most nights for wondering what is going to kick off next. All of it laid bare for the first time in 18 months. Some of the department know how miserable I am, but I think this was the first time they realised just how miserable I am. I was even told that it must be bad because I can usually laugh this kind of thing off. I was also advised to use this experience as a catalyst to find something new and that I had to get out because the situation was going to make me ill from the constant stress.
And this is the problem. I’m tired. I’m too tired to stay but I’m too tired to find something new. This job has completely wiped me. I want to escape it; I NEED to escape it for my health and sanity but I find myself in a position where the job has practically destroyed me. I don’t feel confident or able enough to do anything because my whole being seems to have been eroded by the constant need to watch for the hypothetical knives and keep my head above water. I’m always on edge wondering what is going to happen next. I’m fighting the urge to hand my resignation in on a daily basis despite not having anywhere else to go. I’m in the same position I was in at my first job before I was made redundant – to be honest that probably saved my life so I should probably thank HR for that. ;) Probably the only good thing to come out of that job, but that’s by-the-by.
I also miss when it was easy to apply for a job. I miss the simplicity of merit being taken on the basis of your CV and covering letter. It seems now, that 95% of job applications are in the form of forms. Now it’s all basic information and then 3 pages of “tell me why I should consider your application”, “why have you applied for this job” (because I need to for my mental health and to pay my bills is not a good answer it seems no matter how true it is) and “give me an example of when you did XYZ”. Forget the fact that my CV practically glows educationally, employment-wise it’s been all about admin. As snobby as that sounds, most jobs I think I could do require these damned supporting statements in 1000 words and this misguided belief in “buzz words” - words that anyone can fake that they know but which doesn’t mean they can do the job at hand. It seems the days are gone where enthusiasm and a willingness to learn was enough for an employer. Talk about streaming. It’s like being back at school; dividing the population up between those who already can, those who want to be able to, and those that just can’t demonstrate they can effectively. It makes the whole “Investor in People” scheme in this country a laughing stock because most places want the ones who already can and who can prove they can, not the ones who want to learn and have the potential to be great. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Maybe I’m breaking this down to its most pessimistic form, and maybe it’s more than a little to do with how low I feel right now, but at the moment I have 10 applications to complete, 7 or 8 of which need to be in next week and 2 that have to be done and submitted by Monday, and I can’t for the life of me pinpoint how to support my applications even though I KNOW they’re jobs I can do. I’m not a person who sells myself at all effectively. I don’t have the confidence at the best of times to stand up and shout “look at me I am actually very good”. I’ve always been humble and it’s not a habit I’m finding easy to break and it’s also not something I learnt to do in school / college because the only guidance I got at the time in terms of applying for job was how to write a basic CV. No-one has ever said to me “you can do this, this and this, and this is when you’ve done it”. I didn’t even get that help from the job centre when I wasn’t working. To be honest, I don’t think they even looked at my qualifications once and certainly didn’t push me to try for something different that I may have been qualified for. Yeah, I know people are probably saying “you have to take responsibility for yourself” but when you’re punching AT your weight and not getting anywhere the last thing you can stand is more disappointment when you’re trying to punch slightly above it and what you’re used to. The job centre’s interest spanned as far as just getting me off their books into the first job that came along so their figures didn’t look bad. I think that’s how I’ve wound up where I am. The job centre has a policy that if there is a job you can do you have to do it else you risk any help you may be entitled to usually. If I could have gotten out when my contract first ran out I would have, but as the job was there I would have got no financial help, and that’s not something I could afford.
So here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place in a situation where the country is going down the tubes and there is a lot more competition for the jobs that are out there, but conversely, if I don’t get out, I’m going to waste even more time being miserable and I simply can’t go on like that ….
Let me explain. It’s no new news that I hate my current job. I’ve always felt that I am looked down on and don’t really ‘belong’. It feels sometimes like I’m viewed as an imposter; I had the misfortune of taking a maternity cover job in a seemingly close-knit department. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve felt that I’m not wanted there – that I don’t belong and that my predecessor was back in her place in the department. It makes it harder when you hear comments about how staff members “wish X was here”. It does a lot for your confidence, especially when you’re trying your best, when you haven’t been doing the job for several years, and you have a slightly different method of working than your predecessor.
Last week I got a proper taste of where I stand in this department. I work for Quality Assurance. We basically make sure that own label products are safe, and are responsible for vetting suppliers and making sure labelling is accurate and legal. Part of the procedure for new suppliers is the testing of new products at the lab before launches to make sure that the specification information, and therefore the labelling, is accurate. As a rule, the lab has a 10 day turnaround from receipt of samples of new products until completion of the testing and reporting the results. I have an additional rule of thumb whereby, when asked when results are due, and knowing how testing can sometimes run into problems and be late on completion, I NEVER give a definite date for when we expect to receive the results even if I have been given one. I may give a rough “should be done by”, and will tell members of the department that they should be on their way, but will NEVER say the results will be in on XYZ to people external to the department who don’t know how the lab and it’s testing operates.
Last week we ran into problems. I was asked by someone in another department when we were expecting a set of results for a new product. As usual I said they SHOULD be due on XYZ – as non-committal an answer as I could possibly give. It seems this third party took this date as given and embarked on the next part of the product process which sets things in motion for the final launch. The next thing I know, one of the technologists in the department is, for want of a better phrase, “going for me” and telling me to never give out definite dates if I don’t know. That would be all well and good if this person had actually ASKED me what I said and gave me a chance to explain; but no. She decided to take someone else’s word as gospel and laid into me without giving me the option to tell my side. Truth of it is this would never have happened to X. As a member of the department who has put all the processes in place, some of which I’m STILL getting to grips with 18 months down the line, she would never have been subjected to such an attack. She would have been given the chance to put her side across rather than just being accused of something she hadn’t done.
Suffice it to say it made me realise just how miserable I am in my current predicament. Usually something like this would annoy me and I would stew on it for a while, manage to keep my emotions in check until I got home, get a bit upset over it and then put it to the back of my mind – maybe bitch about it occasionally, but not this time. This time I actually broke down and cried. I don’t cry, especially not at work, but this time I couldn’t stop myself. I retreated to the toilets and cried – not a lot, but just enough to get a bit of it out of my system. A few minutes later I came out and one of the girls who works on the support side of things with me noticed I was still a little pissed and upset, but as per usual I tried to make out that I was fine but my eyes were still red and watery. Half an hour later the other woman who works support with me ordered me into the toilets to talk to her because the first one told her I was upset -- and I completely broke down and wept. I mean proper can’t-talk-properly-or-loudly-or-at-all-without-my-voice-cracking-and-sniffing-and-crying-a-bit-more-all-over-everyone.
I told her everything; about how I don’t fit in because I’m not X, how it pisses me off that members of the department are approaching X about things that she no longer has anything to do with and are part of my job, about how I feel like people are deliberately obstructive because they don’t tell me what I need to know to be able to do my job properly and therefore become a convenient scapegoat, about how I feel people look down at me because I’m “only support” and therefore easy to replace despite being as qualified as some of them albeit in a different field, how I don’t sleep properly most nights for wondering what is going to kick off next. All of it laid bare for the first time in 18 months. Some of the department know how miserable I am, but I think this was the first time they realised just how miserable I am. I was even told that it must be bad because I can usually laugh this kind of thing off. I was also advised to use this experience as a catalyst to find something new and that I had to get out because the situation was going to make me ill from the constant stress.
And this is the problem. I’m tired. I’m too tired to stay but I’m too tired to find something new. This job has completely wiped me. I want to escape it; I NEED to escape it for my health and sanity but I find myself in a position where the job has practically destroyed me. I don’t feel confident or able enough to do anything because my whole being seems to have been eroded by the constant need to watch for the hypothetical knives and keep my head above water. I’m always on edge wondering what is going to happen next. I’m fighting the urge to hand my resignation in on a daily basis despite not having anywhere else to go. I’m in the same position I was in at my first job before I was made redundant – to be honest that probably saved my life so I should probably thank HR for that. ;) Probably the only good thing to come out of that job, but that’s by-the-by.
I also miss when it was easy to apply for a job. I miss the simplicity of merit being taken on the basis of your CV and covering letter. It seems now, that 95% of job applications are in the form of forms. Now it’s all basic information and then 3 pages of “tell me why I should consider your application”, “why have you applied for this job” (because I need to for my mental health and to pay my bills is not a good answer it seems no matter how true it is) and “give me an example of when you did XYZ”. Forget the fact that my CV practically glows educationally, employment-wise it’s been all about admin. As snobby as that sounds, most jobs I think I could do require these damned supporting statements in 1000 words and this misguided belief in “buzz words” - words that anyone can fake that they know but which doesn’t mean they can do the job at hand. It seems the days are gone where enthusiasm and a willingness to learn was enough for an employer. Talk about streaming. It’s like being back at school; dividing the population up between those who already can, those who want to be able to, and those that just can’t demonstrate they can effectively. It makes the whole “Investor in People” scheme in this country a laughing stock because most places want the ones who already can and who can prove they can, not the ones who want to learn and have the potential to be great. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Maybe I’m breaking this down to its most pessimistic form, and maybe it’s more than a little to do with how low I feel right now, but at the moment I have 10 applications to complete, 7 or 8 of which need to be in next week and 2 that have to be done and submitted by Monday, and I can’t for the life of me pinpoint how to support my applications even though I KNOW they’re jobs I can do. I’m not a person who sells myself at all effectively. I don’t have the confidence at the best of times to stand up and shout “look at me I am actually very good”. I’ve always been humble and it’s not a habit I’m finding easy to break and it’s also not something I learnt to do in school / college because the only guidance I got at the time in terms of applying for job was how to write a basic CV. No-one has ever said to me “you can do this, this and this, and this is when you’ve done it”. I didn’t even get that help from the job centre when I wasn’t working. To be honest, I don’t think they even looked at my qualifications once and certainly didn’t push me to try for something different that I may have been qualified for. Yeah, I know people are probably saying “you have to take responsibility for yourself” but when you’re punching AT your weight and not getting anywhere the last thing you can stand is more disappointment when you’re trying to punch slightly above it and what you’re used to. The job centre’s interest spanned as far as just getting me off their books into the first job that came along so their figures didn’t look bad. I think that’s how I’ve wound up where I am. The job centre has a policy that if there is a job you can do you have to do it else you risk any help you may be entitled to usually. If I could have gotten out when my contract first ran out I would have, but as the job was there I would have got no financial help, and that’s not something I could afford.
So here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place in a situation where the country is going down the tubes and there is a lot more competition for the jobs that are out there, but conversely, if I don’t get out, I’m going to waste even more time being miserable and I simply can’t go on like that ….
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