Human Resources

I don’t usually like the mask to slip. I try to play a guy playing a guy online, ya know?

But I’m human. I cry; laugh; Love; shit in the toilet; and work an actual job like everyone one else.

I’m not an important person. In fact, on paper, I am the least important person at my place of employment. To make myself sound more pathetic, I work weekend nights.

No one want to work that shit, right? But I do. Someone has too. In fact, I invite management to come work with me ALL THE TIME.

Sure there’s nothing glamorous about my job, but I largely work alone and get to call the shots. But more importantly, at least as far as my employer is concerned: I DON’T BITCH ABOUT PAY.

I have never asked for a raise. I have never even called management (on weekend nights) unless they call me first. I try to make sure that ship remains floating while everyone else gets to sleep in their beds and enjoy precious time with their families.

At least that was story before November 2022. Then something changed: new management. You put on a smile, introduce yourself, and say you look forward to working with them.

But then odd whispers are heard through the grapevine: word is that you make too much money (I’m actually underpaid considering the area I live in); I’m not qualified to do my job; I will have to receive extended training or face a reduction in pay or possible termination.

So what do you do? You confront management about these rumors. And what do you discover: yes, the rumors are true and deadlines must be met before the end of 2023.

I won’t divulge what kind of employer this is. But I will say that it’s the kind where you can vote out the top boss who chooses his or her underlings and this boss has to run for re-election every four years.

So you remind management “hey, you are aware that you are appointed by your boss, right? And in your boss’s position, the incumbent has lost twice in a row. And I vote in this election by the way.”

So you feel kinda bad about making such threats, even though you’re right, because it was said out of spite. They’re just trying to do their jobs too, ya know? So you lay low for a little while.

Then shifts change, the second in a month and a half, irking some but mildly irritating you. And THEN in a meeting, all of these rumors are made explicit, outraging everyone.

Another thing about this employer: in addition to an elected top boss, there is also an elected group of people to balance out power. So you reach out to one of them, air out your grievances, let it be known that you will quit unless a certain member of management is fired, then begin applying for other jobs because you know nothing will be done about it.

But then, just after Christmas, a miracle occurs: the top boss terminates the manager you and everyone else wanted gone.

Things settle down, everyone’s made happy, but one person wants to settle an old score. A flippant remark is made, everyone laughs about it, but one person takes offense. It’s blown out of proportion, and the person who made the comment is terminated.

You’re understandably pissed about this. It is commonly understood that management was in agreement and laughed with this comment, but made the terminated individual the scapegoat. So you keep it to yourself and lay low.

A month goes by. Everything’s quiet. Suddenly you receive a notice that you’ll be hit up with insubordination if you fail to complete some recently introduced, ill-defined task. In fact, the manager that issued this notice sent it out right before his three day weekend. It was literally the last thing he did before he left.

So exercising your meager role as a night attendant, you reach out to ALL of management…at 2am on a Saturday morning…and give them mundane updates and inform them that this will be standard practice moving forward because there is no management on weekend nights.

So a few managers pop in on Sunday morning and inform you that they will be the ones that will determine “standard practice”. You say “fair enough,” but you also know where the bodies are buried-so to speak, of course-so you tell management to take care of such n such issue and to never threaten you again.

Where things stand currently, your issue will likely get taken care of which will force the retirement of a certain problematic individual. While this will absolutely hurt your already staff depleted employer, to make matter worse, you will also be turning in your two weeks notice.

I’m not proud of my behavior. But really, there’s A LOT that I left out of this scenario. I said nothing about my boss and supervisor that got fired two years ago. So I’ve had enough of the threats and backstabbing.

Sometimes you have to send a message to your superiors: don’t fuck with you 🤷‍♂️