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Have you ever been fired for not liking sports? ...I have.
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| Banora |
I was fired today. I tried to talk to the manager because yeah, there were some problems in the office, but I was so blind-sided that I really didn't know what to do.
Basically, I worked at this office for a month. My job was to answer phones, file, schedule interviews (they are a staffing agency specializing in putting the dregs of society back to work) and help those who are not computer literate fill out our online application. I originally took the job under the impression it is a temporary position because I am moving to Boston in a little less than two months. Turns out it was permanent, and the manager and owner knew I was moving but hired me anyway as they have an office in Boston I could work at.
So my first day I arrive I am told the trainer can't come, so I basically feel everything out. Besides me, the owner and the manager who have private offices there are three other people in the office cubicles. I asked a question to one of the girls, Shelly (who was hired a week before me), and she was so rude and unhelpful I pretty much stopped asking her for help. Her attitude never improved toward me the whole time I was there despite my honest attempts.
So I started to ask the other staffing person, Marcus, for help when I was confused and he was really nice and more than willing to help. Only problem is he is the head staffing consultant so often very busy, so I would have to ask Shelly or she would butt in and give her (usually wrong) answer/advice when I asked him a question.
The other girl is Kate. Sometimes she is my best friend, but when Shelly was feeling nasty she is my biggest hater.
Anyway, so the owner is your typical out-of-touch, can barely use a computer older business owner. He discovers that I am very handy with the Office Suite as well as Photoshop and other useful tools and starts asking me to redesign the website, design his powerpoints, photoshop and start running the social media. I don't mind because I think this will be great when they write my letter of recommendation and I have something to show for my work. Not to mention this is quick, easy stuff. Well, now my workload has added.
Then the manager decides to saddle me with marketing/recruiting for some big fund-raiser they are throwing in a couple of weeks. I warn them I am terrible at sales, but they said it isn't so much as selling as I just have to make sure the word gets out to people. So, more to add on to my work load.
Shelly starts loudly every morning bitching and moaning because she "mopped/did dishes/swept yesterday and this is SOOOO UNFAIR because not everyone is pulling their weight around". So I start mopping, doing dishes just to shut her up. Then she starts to bitch that I am not answer to answer the phones and she is so busy she can barely handle her workload, let alone answer the phones (she will snatch up the phone on the first ring, then loudly complain how this is taking her away from her job). Shelly would always say no to every question I had, while Mark always says yes. The problem is when I am helping Marcus with job placements and he is telling me 'fill ten positions' and I ask him a question and he is either away from his desk or busy, Shelly would interject and tell me that 'she's got it' or just say 'no' to everything. Constant conflicting instructions were hard as hell to follow.
Two weeks ago the owner calls me in and asks me to design a layout for our emails linking the new website, social media, and promotion link for the fund-raiser. I do that. He likes it and says everyone needs to use it. I send out a company wide email (we have two offices).
Shelly loudly complains she doesn't have time for me to 'play on her computer'. Whatever, I let her do her thing (which is wrong). I get a message from the other office that the GM can't figure out how to set up the emails, so I replied she can copy and paste my work into the signatures. She replies back with "I want to know how so I can do it myself." The phones are ringing off the hook, people are coming in to pick up their checks and asking a billion questions plus I had to update the website again so I told her I wasn't very good at explaining things remotely and it would be easier to copy and paste the design. I get a response of "I will figure it out myself."
Figuring the matter is solved I go about my business when I get a nasty email from the GM an hour later "When someone asks you for help the correct response is to get on the phone and walk them through it. We are TEAM PLAYERS and your behavior is not very conducive to a team environment. I was frustrated with your lack of help to even respond to you any further." I wrote an email back, apologizing, since I didn't mean to make her upset. No response. I go about my day.
I come in the next morning (7am) and see there is an email from the GM of the other office. She has decided she does not like the layout of the signatures and wants me to redesign them. NOW. I design five for her to choose from sticking close to what the owner specified. She replies she does not like any of my designs and will choose her own. Later in the day I get an email with her complaining that the links in her design won't work and the formatting is wrong. I ask her if she would like me to call and help, I offer to DRIVE 30 miles just to show her how to format properly. She tells me no. I go about my business. I get bitched out AGAIN for not being a team player.
Finally I go to the manager of our office and tell her that I am concerned; I never received proper training and I feel like it is effecting my job. She agrees and apologizes, saying that she sees me struggling and will give me the proper training... next week.
So earlier this week we sat down and I got the training; except she was telling me everything I already knew and had figured out! I essentially wasted three hours of her rehashing everything I had learned. I only walked away with maybe four or five new tips. We also talked about getting me a headset to wear for when I had to be away from my desk so I could continue to answer the phone.
Yesterday the owner of our biggest account (Jackie) called and was demanding someone's doctor's note and wanted it NOW. Shelly swore she remembered seeing the person in question come in and hand me the note, but I never saw him and do not remember having a doctor's note on my desk, as I would have filed it immediately. Jackie calls our manager and is bitching her out, demanding this note, threatening to pull her business if we don't find it. For the next two hours we tear through garbage cans, shredded documents, anywhere and everywhere.
We're all in a panic when I asked "Why can't we just call the guy and have him ask his doctor for a duplicate note?" the manager explains it is because Jackie wants it NOW and she can not be kept waiting. I said she might have to wait anyway if we can't find it, so maybe we should call the guy just to get him on standby. Finally Jackie calls back and realizes that she never needed the note, but only needed the dates the guy didn't work.
Crisis averted.
Today the manager was acting really weird toward me. I was heading out to lunch when she calls me in her office. She explains that it is simply not working out, that I am away from my desk too much and not able to answer the phones, making Shelly and Marcus do it (two days prior she told me that Shelly was to answer the phone if I am away from my desk), that there is too much hostility in the office, that she is upset at my attitude toward the GM at the other office and her struggle with understanding email signatures, and that she is pissed at my attitude toward Jackie and that I dared to even suggest Jackie wait for something she requested.
She was also angry that: "During your training you said 'I know' or 'I already do that' to everything I was trying to teach you! That is not a positive attitude!" I was only saying that so she'd skip over the stuff I figured out on my first day and actually, you know, get to the more advanced stuff I was ing up on. I guess that is why she suddenly ended the training session early.
She then went on to say "And really, you don't fit in here at all! Everyone here loves sports and you have made it clear you don't. We all watch tv and like to discuss tv and movies and the radio and you don't do any of that! You purposely separate yourself from us and it really distracting. Besides, you are moving soon anyway, so think of this as a way to free up this problem of having a job before you move!" I tried to explain that without a job up until I move I can't go to Boston. She was all: "Yeah this sucks, I'm sorry."
So. To sum it up: bull office politics. I'mma go be a bum now. |
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| Sushipunk |
| That's pretty ed up, especially since you were doing so many extra tasks that weren't initially even part of the position description. Hope you can find a new job soon, Jori. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
Sports? I have a good idea to get a little bit more than happy with my own personal information.
The only thing I can do to get the job done. I have a good idea to get a little bit more than happy with my own personal information. The only thing I can do to get the job done. I have a good idea to get a little bit more than happy with my own personal information. The only thingI can do to help me. The gun.. I been good, and the kids to the people of all, I have been in a few years ago! The first time. It was the only way you can do to make it a little more about this this topic, I have to do. But the most part of a few years, but the fact, that I is have can get a good day. I am going to have a lot. The gun, and I will have to be a good time time to time and money.
To sum it up banora, me pounding on SwiftKey auto suggestions made more sense than that story. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| Seriously though that sounds like how I got let go at my last job. Didn't matter that I did two extra job descriptions or that my team was the only one to get out a project on time and under budget the last quarter I worked. Stupid office politics got me fired. |
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| Banora |
Why did no one think to talk to Shelly about her attitude? It was so bad Marcus even came to speak to me and apologized on behalf of Shelly for how she acted toward me. Granted, I started to act like a cunt back to her this week and she surprisingly became nicer. Does the manager think firing the person who doesn't bitch every five minutes about how they 'don't have time for this' (a comment made from her every time a client calls to fill an order) or gets a nasty attitude with our staff looking for work is really going to solve the problem? She will probably be a bitch again to the next person.
Also, I don't understand why it is so important to be a team. Okay, that is a lie, I DO understand it, but as long as I get my work done why does it matter that I am different from the rest of the office? I don't need to like the same and go to lunch with my coworkers every day in order to make sure I get my work completed. |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Banora
Why did no one think to talk to Shelly about her attitude? |
I bet Shelley never showed the bad attitude side while management was around.
| quote: | Originally posted by Banora
Also, I don't understand why it is so important to be a team. Okay, that is a lie, I DO understand it, but as long as I get my work done why does it matter that I am different from the rest of the office? I don't need to like the same and go to lunch with my coworkers every day in order to make sure I get my work completed. |
Yeah, that part was just a total cop-out. "We like to talk about TV shows and movies" ROFL. |
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| Banora |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
I bet Shelley never showed the bad attitude side while management was around.
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No, she would loudly complain about how stressed she is, how she doesn't have time to take this call, and how she can't handle this and get attitudes on the phone while the manager is sitting two cubes away. I really can't believe she got away with the she said to some of these people... then again, she is obsessed with the same sports-team as the manager, so...
I mean, I get it, we're dealing with people who are entitled s suckling on government hand-out programs with huge attitudes, or just pieces of right out of jail, but seriously, getting an attitude every time someone calls because you had to answer the phone is a bit much. |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Banora
No, she would loudly complain about how stressed she is, how she doesn't have time to take this call, and how she can't handle this and get attitudes on the phone while the manager is sitting two cubes away. I really can't believe she got away with the she said to some of these people... then again, she is obsessed with the same sports-team as the manager, so... |
LOL, I ing hate people like that. Hopefully this will turn out to be a blessing for you, it sounds like that place and those people completely suck. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Banora
So I started to ask the other staffing person, Marcus, for help when I was confused and he was really nice and more than willing to help. Only problem is he is the head staffing consultant so often very busy |
Sorry about that, but I guess you know how annoying the other guys are - they all keep me very busy :(
:p |
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| Banora |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
LOL, I ing hate people like that. Hopefully this will turn out to be a blessing for you, it sounds like that place and those people completely suck. |
I hope so. How can I go about getting a fair amount of money without sucking dick or showing ?
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
:p |
:p |
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| Yohan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Banora
I hope so. How can I go about getting a fair amount of money without sucking dick or showing ?
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rob old ladies. beware of swinging purses. they are deadly
totally sounds like a BS, and I'd put in a grievance for illegally fired
but if you are moving in 2 months, may not be worth it |
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| Banora |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yohan
put in a grievance for illegally fired
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I wasn't illegally fired, though. Kentucky is an At-Will employment state, meaning if I wore a blue shirt and the owner hates blue I can be fired for that reason. |
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