Applying Myself

[CAUTION. Work-related rant ahead. Reader discretion is advised.]



Due to a recent change in schedule, which prompted (or mostly just heightened) a certain disgust with my current workplace, I have recently begun seeking alternate employment. Which means that for the last three-or-so months, I'll go through mad bouts of spamming local businesses with my CV & resume, until I'm absolutely sick of it. See, I really, really hate feeling like I have to sell myself because, honestly, I don't feel like I'm anything special.* I work hard with very little motivation or confirmation required, I adapt pretty well, and try to do the best in any situation, sure.

But then again, shouldn't everyone?

My first job was pretty good about that. Sure, we were a little teeny tiny operation, where even the managers did the same work as the rest of us and everyone was more or less held to the same standards, and met them. I was shocked beyond belief when I took my current job, and was given for training to an able-bodied woman who spent most of her time sitting in one corner of the room, fiddling with her phone. More troubling still was when, at the end of my first day, the closing manager--the one who had told me to apply for the job in the first place--warned me to use my own discretion about listening to my lead trainer.

Now, this particular person had known me for at least the last ten years of my life. She knows my family well. She knows how I work, and how I operate. She knew that, at that point, I'd only had the one job, and that it hadn't even been close to this particular field. She knows that I'm respectful to a freaking fault, and that I essentially have no discretion in this context.

And she put all of that into professionally incompetent hands. Seriously. That should have been my first red flag.

The second flag popped up at the end of my first ninety days. One of the things I initially liked about taking this job was that you got a ninety-day trial period, where you were still paid minimum wage, but didn't have to worry about getting all the other qualifying paperwork and whatnot. At the end of this trial period, I was supposed to sit down with my director and discuss whether I felt comfortable with filling the position they were hiring me for, or if I needed to be put elsewhere (in the center, or in another profession). Now, personally, I'm a very deliberate person and I haaaate having to make rush decisions; the idea of have three months to make up my mind, and to actually voice any concerns to a superior, appealed to me a lot.

But that's not what happened. The first three months went by, and a co-worker came by my work station one day to drop off the appropriate paperwork so I could sign it and turn it in at the end of my shift. Because the director more or less sets her own schedule, it wasn't unusual for a week to pass without the two of us seeing each other. So, after a couple of weeks go by and she's made no attempt to seek me out, I start leaving StickyNotes for her: "We should talk soon, have some questions for you. Thanks! (My Name)" I left one a week in her mailbox; after another month, I started leaving them everyday, sometimes on the door to her office.

I didn't sit down with my director until I'd been working at this place for half a year. And you know what the first thing she brings up to me is? My lack of availability (I was a full-time student at the time, and had to repeatedly refuse to take extra shifts because it would interfere with my classes), and how ineffectually I was communicating with my clients. Seriously.


Somehow or other I've managed to stick with this company for very nearly three years; the work itself has always been rewarding enough to overshadow my perpetual annoyance with the management. Not so much lately. I had to take a rather severe hour cut because of my schedule this semester, and because of it I'm stressing paying my car note. My manager claims she can't help me out any more than she is, and I get that. But that doesn't help me any, not with the car (which I can't really afford to refinance, and my credit can't afford for me to quit on), not with my studies, and certainly not with my deep-and-increasing dissatisfaction with my job.

And so back I go, auctioning myself to the highest (and hopefully the best) bidder, hating myself for every shining word on my resume and recommendation letters. Yes, I know I deserve to be treated better than this, that I am a good worker and a good person,** and that I my needs are not such that they couldn't easily be met by another employer. Still. I am just.
So.
Freaking.

Sick.

Of.

Applications.


@.@


*As an employee. As a person, I'm mostly freaking amazing. We know this by now, yes?
**I think. Whatever that actually means.