Jul/10
2012
2012
I'm A Quitter
I fuckin'quit.
Three weeks ago, after a not so happy meeting in my manager's office, where I tried to explain to him why a sincerely fucked up project a few of us peons had been thrust upon was fucked (and having him still not "get it"), I gave notice. I shut the door to his office and I suggested that my manager get ready for more bad news. "You're leaving?" he asked. "Yup" I said. "I figured this would happen sometime soon".
There was no moment of "why," "do you want to talk about it," or "what can we do to keep you". Instead there was simple resignation and slow planning for my eventual departure from my post of thirteen years. Even his manager merely said "Oh - sorry to see you go!"
Gee.
Sure, maybe there's nothing that can really be said or done when someone gives notice after having accepted an offer from another company, but I would have liked some crocodile tears at the very least. But no - my manager of thirteen years, whom I had been bugging for a raise, a review, a something for about a year (and his old boss previously for an additional two years) just said "I figured this would happen."
Gee, again.
I hadn't just asked him. I hadn't just asked his manager. I had asked him, his manager and the manager before him. I asked all of them because the only times I had been given a raise was when HR magically realized that I was no longer being paid an amount equal to the lowest market average for someone with my job title (There's a bell curve - I fell on the lower left slope. Hell - I turned down an offer for an entry level position making almost as much as I was making as a "senior UI designer! But that's a different story).
Last fall, when discussing how I might get bumped up a notch or two, my manager said that it'd be up to my manager and his boss to review and approve the request. "Isn't that manager you?" I asked. "Yeah - I guess it is," he said.
Motherfuckin', GEE, motherfucker.
It eventually came down to slowly surmounting frustration with management and the projects to which I was arbitrarily assigned. After knocking myself out for the past two years to cover for everyone's design asses on Big Monster Project With A Catchy Name, our design services were dropped in favor of more contracted developers who didn't give a single shit about quality. Follow that up with getting the run around from New And ImprovedTM management, who couldn't organize a distributed team around a simple process without completely undermining any trust that the grunts may have had... I was just ready for a way out. Things weren't going to change. I'd seen this pattern way too many times.
And it sucks. It sucks that it came to this after thirteen years. It sucks that I had to just shrug my shoulders and say "Oh well. I tried." In the end the slowly churning gears of the mediocrity machine that had no idea how to work with designers, or people for that matter, won.
3 comments
Comment from: Roulette [Member] 
Been there. Though I bailed after 5 years instead of 13. When I was promoted to a new position it was determined that it was a 'lateral move' and they couldn't give me a raise. Instead, I was promised that during the next eval, they would give me a big bump to bring my salary in line. SO, I waited for 6 months and my big raise finally came. 3.5% They didn't understand why I was upset. It took 2 months for me to find a new job, and when I turned in my resignation, they did the same thing as your boss. They said they knew it was coming.
Though amusingly enough, there was an exit interview, and one of the stock questions was 'why are you leaving?'. My response to HR was 'I was promised a raise to match my promotion and the company completely and utterly failed to provide it. My new employer offered me an 65% increase over the 'lateral move' salary the company offered me.'
Though amusingly enough, there was an exit interview, and one of the stock questions was 'why are you leaving?'. My response to HR was 'I was promised a raise to match my promotion and the company completely and utterly failed to provide it. My new employer offered me an 65% increase over the 'lateral move' salary the company offered me.'
07/10/12 @ 21:00
Comment from: u235 [Member]
Sad but not really off the bell curve. Few companies in this economy see the value in long-term employees. If anything they see them as a burden. With outsourcing rampant it's unlikely that the 50's employer ethic will ever return (actually, it's impossible since a: no one makes dick here in the USA any more and b: pensions are now viewed as evil, profit-sucking disasters, unlike say massive CEO salaries.)
One black-humor side note: many years after I had left a specific company I discovered that my five years of <2% raises weren't because of my performance (that was never said), nor the companies (they were actually doing ok, although that was not said). Turns out the head of my department was taking the raise money allotted to our group and lopping it in half. Half he kept to pad out his budget. And the rest... well no one checked to see if the raise money actually went to the employees.
glhf in the new job. It has to be better than the last.
One black-humor side note: many years after I had left a specific company I discovered that my five years of <2% raises weren't because of my performance (that was never said), nor the companies (they were actually doing ok, although that was not said). Turns out the head of my department was taking the raise money allotted to our group and lopping it in half. Half he kept to pad out his budget. And the rest... well no one checked to see if the raise money actually went to the employees.
glhf in the new job. It has to be better than the last.
07/11/12 @ 17:46
Comment from: sTmykal [Member]
Eesh. Seriously? I sometimes wonder if my upline had intentionally not acted because it'd meant that they'd lose a direct report or something similar. You don't want to think stuff like that but when it happens, you have to wonder how people can think it's ok to undermine someone elses career - especially someone you're supposed to be the leader of.
So I'd been privy to a "career ladder" plan to make sure people who weren't necessarily ever going to manage people would still have an opportunity to advance after so many years. I saw the first draft in 2009 and at last check they were still planning on implementing it, so I should "just be patient."
Meanwhile I learn later that all it really took to get someone a raise is two phone calls. No red tape. No forms. No rounds of approval.
So I'd been privy to a "career ladder" plan to make sure people who weren't necessarily ever going to manage people would still have an opportunity to advance after so many years. I saw the first draft in 2009 and at last check they were still planning on implementing it, so I should "just be patient."
Meanwhile I learn later that all it really took to get someone a raise is two phone calls. No red tape. No forms. No rounds of approval.
07/18/12 @ 21:22
Comment feed for this post