Evil Employers
So, employers can be evil in many ways. The employer I want to smash down in this rant is a company I worked at for a year and a half and my hideous boss.When I first heard about this position, I was excited because it was close and was exactly what I had been hoping to do. I had to suffer many phone calls, a phone interview, and a 2 hour on-site interview to get into this position, and was never given a job description.
As they began to assign me duties and responsibilities, I started to question whether tasks like running to the bank were really part of my job. I looked up the description I had never previously seen and found that it read more like a corporate based position than they had ever let on. I was told the position only covered two divisions instead of the corporation. The phrase I came to again and again was "assist the department in whatever way possible".
First, who writes a job description like that? Also, if they are using this to measure your performance on the following basis, how do you ever achieve a decent raise?
Measuring performance: Highest raise category (about $.50 per hour) - goes above and beyond expectations, Lowest category (getting fired) - Fails to meet expectations.
Now how do you go above and beyond expectations listed in your job description when they cover everything you do with the blanket expectation above? How can you exceed expectations when they expect you to do everything under the sun? After putting up with a confrontational, demeaning, and arrogant manager for 17 months and making barely enough to pay bills and have anything left over, I turned in my resignation.
After resigning, I lucked out and got to work for one of the best companies to work for in America as a contractor. Let's just say these two companies were total opposites and leave it at that. When my contract position for the project I was working on ended there, I was sort of on the job search.
Out of the blue, I get a call from my former employer about coming back to work for them in my old position. I keep putting them off because returning seems like volunteering for a prison sentence. As a now full-time student, I didn't have enough hours available for what they were trying to push anyway. My first refusal wasn't taken seriously, nor my lack of returning their calls. One day they caught me at home and I agreed to stop in for a meeting.
When I go in for the meeting yesterday with my old boss (OB) and the director of personnel (DoP), I can already tell that they think they have me over a barrel. OB even says "You don't need to be nervous, just relax". Like I was nervous they wouldn't let me take the job or of being in their presence. After 18 months experience of listening to this kind of drivel and not making a response to it, I am proud to say that this time I did my best to crush him down. I looked him in the eye and said "I'm not nervous." My tone was very defensive in hopes that he would get the message that whatever he thought he held over me wasn't there.
Basically, they wanted me to do my old job in about half the hours I used to do it in. Their only concession was that I could work from home for some of it and be on an hourly pay scale. They even acted like traveling shouldn't be a problem after I told them I have class four days a week. (If I could post the job description here I would so everyone could see how ridiculous this was, but I am trying to protect these people by only giving enough detail to let you know what a horrible company this is.) The pay they offered me was about $2.50 more per hour than what I was making when I left. It was still $1.50 per hour short of what I was making at my last job which had about 10% of the responsibilities of this job.
I told them I had other opportunities available that would pay almost $6 more per hour than they were offering. I also told them that anything under an amount ($3.50 per hour more than they offered) was very unappealing since it would not give me any experience in my new career field. I told them I would think about it, but basically let them know it wasn't going to happen.
That brings us to this morning. Every day I have Careerbuilder.com return job openings to me via email for all jobs in a 30 mile radius. Our local papers are joined to them, so I usually see almost every job advertised in the area. What did I happen to run across this morning but the job I was being persuaded to take yesterday? This was not a shock since I had told them it would not be a long-term commitment to them either way. What was shocking was that the base pay they were offering was almost $3 more per hour than they offered me and the outside figure was around $5 more per hour. Overall, the base pay was a $12,000 jump from what they started me off at and $5 more per hour than I was making when I left.
WTF is wrong with these people? Do they think I am an idiot they can abuse and insult because I won't find this shit out? Let me tell you all that I've been working in IT for the last two years. If there is any possible way to find out information about something on the Web, I can find it. Hell, in this case I wasn't even looking.
I can't wait for the call from the DoP asking me if I have made a decision. I am going to lay into the DoP about the pay in the ad I saw. I'm then going to let 'em know that I could already see that my OB hadn't changed a bit (which was part of the bait they set out for me to come back). He was totally posing as a reformed manager. Then I'm going to ask what kind of deal they think they are offering when I can already see they are going to pay someone else more to do the same job with more hours to do it in. The coup de grace will be when I unleash my bitterness and hatred about how they are constantly scheming all of their employees with their supposed pay scale increases.
I'm going to leave this post with a final thought and question for all of you. If you were offering a position and you had a choice between someone who has been doing the position you are offering in your company for a year and a half and has been in a similar position during the six months they left, and someone who has never worked for the company, who would you hire? Why would a company pay someone who has never done the job more than someone who has done the job the best of anyone in the position?
Are these people really that frickin' stupid or do they just think I am?
2 comments:
Dude...we all know that this evil corporation was just hoping to pull one over on you. You gotta let me know how it goes when the DoP calls you, because I have seen the unleashed fury.(Laundry man) I feel a little sorry for her..no, wait..that was gas.
Don't trust business people, that is all I have to say. I have been scewed over, too, many times. My sympathies. Know that they weren't worth your time. Once you start getting older (say: over 40) you start realizing your time on earth is limited, as far as you know, so it really isn't worth it to waste your energy on unhealthy ju ju.
peace and love,
L
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