(no subject)
Why hello, my long neglected lj. *brushesawaydust* Life has been... Interesting these last few months. Good and bad, slow and uneventful, but interesting nonetheless.
Austin and I are doing great. Things were a bit rocky there for a couple months. But it all came down to communication. (Doesn't it always?) Christmas Eve, my parents came up to spend the evening with us. This was the first time they'd met. He was a little nervous but all in all, it went perfectly. I think he was surprised at the level of thoughtfulness that my parents out into finding him gifts. They liked him, had good conversation, he thought they were wonderful, I was glad everyone was happy. Especially happy that it finally happened seeing as we'd been together a year already.
Meanwhile, at Chase... Things with my manager were getting progressively worse. She was singling me out at work for attendance and making up me being late 3 minutes here or 2 minutes there. She wrote me up for performance, citing that my sales had gone down in the last few months and she wanted "to help me get back on track."
Now, I don't mind being coached for performance. If I'm not hitting my numbers, that means I'm not making as much money. I like making good money, who doesn't? What I don't like is when I'm the only one getting this treatment. All the bankers talk to each other. We are pretty tight and we know what is going on with one another. One of my coworkers, who I love dearly I might add, was performing worse than I was. She often left work early, without any repercussions. She had at least 7 occurrences. Seven occurrences at Chase is grounds for termination, yet she wasn't even on written warning. I didn't want her to be in trouble, I just wanted to be treated fairly.
Around the end of November I started to get that restless feeling. Chase was a great place to work. I loved my job. Absolutely loved my coworkers. My manager was a bitchy, vindictive, favorites-playing c-u-next-Tuesday. I started to toss around the idea of going into teaching. I have always loved teaching. Every corporate job I've had, I have considered going into training. I loved working at the head start program. I loved working with the young girls in my senior capstone class at psu. So I decided to look into it.
And then I decided that I needed to get out of sales, get out of the corporate world. My original plan was to get a job at fisher investments but that didn't pan out. I would've been able to work earlier in the day and take classes in the afternoon/evening. When I didn't get the job, I was forced to talk to my manager about a schedule adjustment. I brought it up the week before Christmas to my assistant manager because boss lady was on vacay. She said she would let Kim know we'd need to talk about it when she got back.
So on nye, I talked to my manager about my schedule. She stared at me as I talked, telling her I was going back to school, I wanted to stay at chase, but needed a little help with scheduling. She said no. Flat out no. She couldn't do anything. Which means she didn't want to. And then in the same 10 minute span, wrote me up for attendance.
So I went home in tears. I had a shitty night. I didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything. Austin and I stayed in, watched football, drank a little champagne, watched the ball drop, and I was in bed by 12:20.
I was seriously considering just quitting. I had money in my 401k I could cash out. I'd have one last paycheck. And students loans would be dispersed soon. I tossed that idea around through Friday. Id applied at AT&T and verizon. I'd reached out to old managers but nothing was developing. So around 330 I emailed my old boss at psu asking if she had any student positions available. It would mean MASSIVE pay cut but at least it's a job and a flexible one at that. Plus, as a student, I would have student health insurance. She emailed me back 20 minutes later. All it said was "you're hired! When can you start?"
So I gave notice at chase, but with the caveat that I needed to be to class by 430 on Monday and Wednesday. Boss lady told me she didn't know what that would mean but would call hr on Monday to find out. (Code for, she was not willing to help me for 4 days of the last two weeks I was there. She could've made that call herself, she didn't want to.)
Monday, I spend all day working my ass off. At 330 she pulls me in the back room and basically tells me that if I don't resign, then after Wednesdays occurrence of leaving early, I'd be terminated. "If it were me, and this is with my manager hat off. Like, so far off we are down the street having a beer." Bitch, you don't ever take that damn hat off, you don't give a fuck about me, and I don't think we would EVER be down the street having a beer together. Anyway, she basically told me that if it were her, she'd resign instead of trying to finish the last two weeks and end up being terminated. So I tell her, fighting back tears mind you, all right well then let's count my cash box and turn in my keys, I guess I don't really have a choice. For the next 30 minutes, I'm crying because I've never been fired from a job, nor have I ever left a job on bad terms. For chrissakes, my manager hired me back over email as soon as I asked if she had any availability. I didn't even try to hide it while we were getting it all done. If customers or coworkers saw me sobbing, whatever, she could deal with that. Maybe slightly unprofessional but I was incredibly hurt. A good manager should make an employee feel like they have your back while still being able to do the manager thing, that they care about your well being as well as your success. She does not know how to do this.
But I'm done with Chase. Quite honestly, I did love working there. I truly loved helping my customers in the way I did. I worked hard and it showed. I was always a top performer, my customers loved me and would tell my managers that all the time, and I was always willing to stay late if we needed, I volunteered to switch shifts for coworkers; I really did work hard there.
But I'm so happy to be gone. So now I'm back working at psu. I'm in school again, prepping myself for the masters program in the graduate school of education. I am loving my classes. I'm glad to be out of the office environment with uniforms, windowless buildings, constant bullshit customers and their trash and ghetto excuses as to why they can't take care of their shit. FUCKING GROW UP AND PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FINANCES!!!!! It is NOT my job to make sure you know how to budget or to refund fees because you fucked up.
Whew! Yeah, that was long. Sorry. I've been super stressed and have kinda been holding all of this in. I have been less than present for so many people and I hate it. I miss having friends. And a life. And doing things. Boss lady at chase sucked all the life and energy out of me. But now that I'm back in school, working at a much more flexible job, hopefully that means I will be more present.
And now I'm going to take a nap. I'm getting a wisdom tooth pulled on Monday and right now I'm in an incredible amount of pain. Just wishing I had something stronger than Advil. Mouth pain is the worst.