When our finances made it necessary after 16 years out of the workplace (and while I still had my kids in school,) that I find an income and health insurance, I had one restriction - no commute. After 8 months of job seeking with poor response and no results, I drifted down the ladder in terms of the types of jobs I applied to. I found that trying to get directly back to the management level or field I left was not going to happen. If I applied for management jobs the response was negative due to being out of the market for so long and when I applied for entry level I was questioned about why I would do that work with my background. Plus I was turning 50.
After nearly a year of job searching, I took the job I was offered, and was pretty much running the small business after a couple of years. The only reason I left after 5 years was because of a new hire who chased out a couple of us long time employees in order to rule the roost. It was an awful experience to go through. I still get upset when I think about it.
I cycled through a couple of low pay, dead end jobs. Now I'm in another small business finding that after a year I am, again, running much more of the business than I was hired for. I am working a lot of hours, having sleepless nights and anxiety over my workload.
The owners of the business contribute a great deal to my anxiety because they over promise and then dump a lot of their work onto the small staff on top of our already substantial workload. It's been escalating for months. In fact we are all looking forward to them taking a week of vacation because it may give us the chance to catch up. The fact that they get to go to a warm, sunny place for a week, away from the devastation they are causing and we get to clean up the mess is not lost on any of us. But there it is.
So, today, on April Fool's Day, I wonder if I am just a fool to care so much, to work so hard, to take so much of this burden to heart for business owners who have the attitude "that's what you get paid for" about their employees who are really working above and beyond our "pay grade." (I am paid $16.00 per hour, $4.00 per hour less than the person I replaced and $5.00 per hour less than I was earning 5 years ago.)
I hope to stop working all together later this year - thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I don't have to work for health care coverage. In the meantime, this fool is trying to find a better approach to getting through the day, be a good employee and co-worker and still leave it all behind when I go home for the night!
3 comments:
Oooh, I am sorry. A bad workplace is a nightmare.
If we can just keep the Rs from repealing the ACA, then you can go on to do whatever you like, I hope.
It's hard to dial it in, but it sounds like it's what the job deserves. I hope you find something you enjoy.
My husband would love to retire early but we need his paycheck. His company has a very young attitude, as in "work ethic? what's that?" He's having to spend all his time with a visitor this week because the other person that's supposed to be helping can't get his ass into the office before 11. And then there's lunch. That guy might get to work around 1, but then the beer starts at 4.
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