Wish me luck...

witzend

Well-Known Member
Things have been going fairly steadily downhill with my boss. I had wanted to work close to home one or two days a week, and she hard sold me into working 25 miles from home 4 days a week. It wouldn't be so bad except that gas prices here are now $3.20 a gallon, and at 20 mpg that's a lot of gas. Our gas card bill is up over $250 a month since I started working there, and it's not just the increase in gas prices!

Plus, she is the type to find fault in everything. I don't mind doing her books, but she doesn't understand them at all so when I have questions about things she gets very defensive.

She also is of the opinion that there isn't a right way and a wrong way, there's her way and the wrong way. So, every thing that I do, she hovers over me and watches and then tells me how to do it instead. E-mails, phone calls, filing... She tells me to put people on hold then says "listen to how I do it" and picks up the phone and says essentially the same thing I have said but in a different way.

Her idea of training is "look at it, what do you think you should do with it?" But heaven forbid I should do it differently than what she would do!

I'm going to tell her today that with gas prices getting so crazy I am going to look for work closer to home or with fewer days. Please cross your fingers that I don't chicken out and that she doesn't have a cow. It has been a very tense place the last few weeks, and I just can't do it anymore. My heart feels like it is going to pound out of my chest every morning!
 

JJJ

Active Member
Can you afford to lose this job without another one lined up? If so, I'd turn in my notice, it sounds horrible. If you can't afford be out of work, I'd find a new job first, then turn in notice.

I'm in the final negotiating phase for a new job (been offered the job, we're working out the details) and one of my big things is that they let me do my job -- no hovering!.
 

ScentofCedar

New Member
Witz, wishing well and hoping this leads to a better position closer to home for you.

They say that once we have taken that first job after being home for awhile, our confidence in ourselves blossoms. The things that made us happy once just aren't enough anymore, and that's when we get out there and find something more suitable to our talents and personalities.

You go, girl!

Barbara
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
A job shouldn't be that stressful. Boss's shouldn't be condescending. I hope you find something closer to home and better pay!
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I chickened out.

:faint:

But, hopefully for good reason. I don't intend to leave her in the lurch, and would love to continue to do her bookkeeping for her for a small fee. There are a couple of statements she needs to get to me and I can have her books clean and ready to go for the first time ever. EVER! I'll do that next week, (I'm off tomorrow as she is out of the office) and talk to her once it's set up. There is another employee whose 17 y/o typical teen daughter is working part time and the boss is happy with her. Also, the 17 y/o is able to do the grunt work like putting away deliveries and recycling/garbage that I can't do. I am going to suggest that she have the 17 y/o come in starting with the summer break and do the grunt work and filing/faxing. She can come in and do it before then for all I care.

I really don't want to leave under a dark cloud, and I think she will feel better about it if I get things settled for her books-wise, and make sure that she understands that she'll get a better deal hiring the kid. Once the kid gets the idea of how to do it under her belt, she could keep doing it after school starts again in the fall, or train someone else. Her dad can help her learn the ropes on the filing and paperwork, so it should be an easy peasy deal.

I hope...
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Witz

I wonder if this lady has the slightest clue of what a valuable employee she has??

If your plan doesn't work, or she makes working miserable, give your notice and head for the hills.

Hugs
 

Stella Johnson

Active Member
Well, if you really need the income I wouldn't tell her ahead of time that you are looking for a job. She may blow her top and let you go right then.

If it were me, I would quietly look and then put a 2 wk notice in.

If you don't need the $$ then it would be ok to tell her you really can't make the drive any longer.

steph
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Sounds like you made the right choice. It's always best to straighten everything out, both at work and for your own future, before you leave.
Good luck!

P.S. She won't know how good you are until you've been gone a mo. or so. Then she'll call and ask you back. You can bet on it!
 

rejectedmom

New Member
"don't burn any bridges you never know when you might need to go back over them" That is advice my dad used to give. I think it has great value. It is always better to leave on good terms.
-RM
 

klmno

Active Member
Any way to start working from home and tell boss how much you'd "love to keep helping out" but that you need to work from home- then line up some other companies to do work for from home, too?
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I think your suggestion of suggesting handing over to the 17 year old is a good one. be prepared for her to reject it, though - it wasn't HER idea and she sounds like a control freak who is also very insecure. Such people are a nightmare to work with.

A place where I was working, part time - I had been employed under very strict limits due to my disability but the boss kept breaking the rules and changing my hours around badly. She also seemed to always need a whipping boy. At first it was one of the casual, commission-only employees she was hassling, until he simply stopped turning up. Then it was her very efficient and had-working secretary - this boss was being impossible, giving conflicting instructions and then sending the secretary a "warning" letter (you accumulate three and she can sack you). I left to go on two weeks' holiday and when I came back, the secretary was gone and her name was not mentioned. I asked where she was and was met with silence.
With the commission staff all gone (none would work for her) and now the secretary gone, there was nobody else for her to nitpick except me. She & I were still getting on sort-of OK, but I knew it wouldn't last. I overheard her ringing the disability agency who had sent me to her, asking for more people with my disability "because they're hard workers and very bright". We did need more staff but I knew it would be horrible for them.
Finally the extra hours she was asking from me took their toll and my health collapsed. My doctor ordered me onto bed rest. The boss even asked me to work from home (from my bed!) making phone calls for her. I'd already done that on my holidays, receiving business calls on my mobile (for which I was not paid).
I asked the boss for a reference. I didn't even get a statement of employment from her.

I finally worked out what you need to hold on to - you owe her nothing. Her loyalty towards you is nowhere near yours towards her. I know you feel a sense of obligation, to leave your work in a state of completion. I understand that, but do be prepared to walk away when it becomes necessary. Do not feel guilty.

I left before my boss really began to target me, but I knew it would happen and it was just beginning. She took my enforced leave as a personal insult, as if I had engineered my health collapse deliberately to inconvenience her. I DID work from home as best I could to tide her over, but it was a lull time in the job by that point. And I never got paid for that, nor did I get any recognition.

She was a flaming idiot. She at one stage claimed that she had spent a lot of time and effort training me, which was nonsense. The software she was using, I was more familiar with and I showed her some new tricks she had never known. I brought her useful contacts which she never valued (her boss did) and at one stage, when I was given the task to contact a high-ranking official, she got angry with me for contacting the wrong person. In fact, I had contacted the right person - he had been in that job for six months, and the man she had expected me to contact, and who she had been dealing with, was the outgoing holder of that position. She wouldn't take my word for it, and when she saw him on the news that night she accepted what I'd said, but never apologised.

Ever since this, I have learned to stop trying to beat my head against the brick wall of other people's insecurities and inadequacies. I have too many other important things to do in my life, than waste my time with bullies.

Walk away as soon as you are ready, and do it with a clear conscience. You deserve better than this. I do wonder, for you and me, if there could also be some aspect of, "this person is disabled, therefore I can assume their brain isn't functioning as well as mine, I can get away with being condescending."
I prefer to hang around people who value me as I am, not for what they assume me to be limited to. People like you and me are not limited by disability, nor are we defined by it.

Marg
 
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