A year ago, I was trapped in an almost hopeless work routine with few avenues of escape. My schedule varied from one week to the next, so I could not take on a second job, even if I wanted to earn some extra money. Rarely did I have time to look for something different, spending most all my time at work.
Between my age and the economy there were few employment opportunities. I was reminded frequently that I was fortunate to have a job. That was always expressed after some additional burden was assigned. The implication was clear. If I didn’t want to do the work, the company would find someone else and send me packing.
Consistently, my employer expected me to come in early or stay later, without any additional compensation. I was salaried, which in the real working world meant the company owned me. Other than the thin promise of a bonus there was no reward for working longer and harder – not even a 'good job' or a pat on the back.
Retail management is one of the least rewarding careers, I've decided. After more than twenty-five years in store management, employment conditions never improved. Products competitively priced meant sliced margins, hourly staff cuts forced management to step in and fill the gaps in sales floor coverage and take on additional workloads. Customer service was sacrificed to spare the six and seven digit incomes of directors at the proverbial ivory tower. Nothing about downsizing proved temporary. Efficiency increased through reduced operating costs to quiet bean counters, at least until next quarter's round of cutbacks.
The last couple of years I worked for that major retailer, the sole source of sanity was coming home after work to write a few pages of fiction, or pen a poem. Sometimes my humble offerings posted online received encouraging critiques while ever I pursued the pipedream of becoming a successful writer. Without that escape, that release, I wouldn't have endured the long hours and pressure. Working was a means to sustain me, a job instead of the career a salaried position was supposed to represent.
The pressure grinded my nerves and harmed my health. Consuming more alcohol than I should, most nights, drinking was the only way I could get to sleep. Sometimes the store's antiquated security system prompted false alarms. The sensors were very old. Some were installed when I was in college! One by one they were replaced as they failed, but I was the one who responded to the calls. I lived closest to the store.
Always faithful, fulfilling every condition of employment, I arrived late at night to search with police for phantom intruders. Probably too intoxicated to do so, still I answered the call. Had anything happened, an accident on the way or an arrest or DUI, it would have been my fault, of course. Driving was wrong, but then, why was drinking when, at any moment, I might be called upon to respond to the store's needs. A salaried employee's personal time or private life is a gift of the company not an inalienable right.
At January's end in 2012, on a long delayed vacation, I visited my two young adult daughters who are roommates in Champaign, Illinois. Thank God it was unseasonably warm for the entire week. In Florida for far too long, bearing a more traditional Midwestern winter would have been painful. Seeing them, spending time with both, meeting their friends, and exploring the world that has become theirs served as a needed break. Their pursuit of dreams inspired me. Both are artists. All their friends are artists. In their world, only creativity counts for much.
The gene is strong in our family. Their mother and her sister were both gifted. My mother's sister was a painter. A cousin is a Country music legend.
Returning from Illinois, my attitude changed. Why was I putting up with the bullshit? Was the money worth the physical and mental abuse? Back to the store, the new work week started on Sunday. Working conditions changed for the worse. The general manager I worked with for nearly four years decided to retire. Although we had many differences of opinion over our working relationship, we respected one another. Through our efforts we transformed the store. Many customers commended us on the improvements. Since my arrival in early 2008, every facet of the operation was overhauled. Customers were drawn back to shop in our store. We received awards and store management earned a bonus in 2010. Yet, as is true in all retail, whatever we did never met the expectations of senior management. Next year's goals were based on exceeding last year's results, regardless of market conditions.
There were changes at the district and regional level as the corporation struggled to maintain its bloated bureaucracy. Despite our store's successes, the company failed. Instead of looking at what our store accomplished and using it as a blueprint for success, newly promoted directors imposed their ideas. We were not there to think but to execute their directions, like mindless cannon fodder in a battle.
Some those ideas were based on ludicrous assumptions of staffing levels that simply could not exist within budget constraints. So, the days ensuing my return to work were filled with additional pressures and resumed threats. New buz words came down from on high and were circulated in daily conference calls. Problems were discussed in one way conversations in lieu of being on the sales floor and actually accomplishing anything. I lost count of how many times they told me that every day I needed to look in the mirror and ask if I was giving 100%.
Along with a new manager, the micromanaging district manager was in the store every day. Individual management workloads increased. A five day work week had long since become five and a half... and then six days, as it was increasingly impossible to reach expectations and complete tasks. Since before Thanksgiving the scheduled twelve hour shifts were sixteen hours or more in reality. Days off were a gift. Planning anything away from work was impossible. Requested days off were challenged and usually not honored.
Forced to spend more time at work, my options were clear. Show up on scheduled days off or be sacked; work late or be fired; come in early or be terminated.
After working twelve days in a row, February twenty-second was to be my first full day off. The previous day I had worked hard to complete everything on my work list. I ensured there would be no need to call me in on my day off. I needed the downtime. I was physically, mentally and emotionally bankrupt.
Having come to work at ten-thirty in the morning, it was past midnight when I left the store. The company claimed that staying beyond the scheduled time was my choice. Even though at my scheduled departure time the store was not recovered properly, it was considered my fault and therefore a poor reflection of how well I managed the grossly understaffed store's recovery. In a no win situation, I asked several of the hourly employees to stay a little past their shifts. They did it as a favor to me out of respect, not in response to a threat, and certainly not out of loyalty to the company. They knew I could not leave the store a mess. Even though I would be written-up for mismanaging the store labor, I did the right thing. I walked every inch of the store to ensure it was up to standards. And then, the hourly employees clocked out. I set the alarm and we all went home.
Finishing everything on my work list, I knew the store looked better than it had in days. I was in the mood to celebrate. My plan was to wind down for a few hours and catch up on some writing. The survivor of twelve days under continual scrutiny and pressure, I was going to enjoy some time off.
On the way home, I bought some beer. At some point in the morning, when the beer was gone, I walked to the neighborhood convenience store and bought more. Despite my attempts at writing, mostly I was drinking between reading and revising a project I'd put on the back burner weeks before. In the process, I fell asleep – or rather passed out – in my chair while sitting at my computer.
My phone rang at around three in the afternoon. I saw from the caller ID that it was my new store manager. Expecting a question about something that I could easily and quickly answer, I made the mistake of picking up the call.
Although I had slept for a few hours, legally I was intoxicated. I shouldn’t have answered the call. Yet, if I had not, I would have been in trouble the ensuing day. Being drunk was not an acceptable answer for not answering the phone.
"You need to come in to work," my manager said. It wasn't stated as a request but as an obligation.
"Is someone sick?"
"No, I need you to come in and fix things." He went on to explain the district manager was there and had walked the entire store.
"I finished the work list."
"I saw that. Now, there's a new one."
"It can't wait until tomorrow?"
"He wants it done now. He's pissed you left the store looking like it did."
"What are you talking about? It was fine when I left."
"I opened this morning. It was a mess. I took pictures. I'll show you when you get here."
"It wasn't a mess…I walked every inch of the store--"
"Look, just get your ass in here!"
Living close enough to walk, I opted not to drive. I needed the exercise and clearing my head was a priority. I threw on casual clothes. It was my day off and if I was going to work, doing manual things, I wasn't going to wear nice slacks and dress shirt.
Other times I came in to work on my day off; wearing jeans was fine. When I reported to the general manager, he told me to go back home and dress appropriately.
I started to leave the store and got all the way outside before everything inside boiled over and something snapped. Whatever it was that released from its confinement couldn’t be put back.
With nothing left of desire to serve my ungrateful employer, I turned around and went back inside. Seeing the Human Resource Manager on my way, I smiled at her expressed what a pleasure it was working with her. She tried to talk me out of quitting. As I listened, all her reasons were her reasons, her economic rality. She had small children depending on her. I had me. After several minutes of listening to my rebuttal, she began to agree, revealing that she wanted to quit as well. She said that if the economy was better, she'd quit immediately. You see, she also felt the company disrespected employees. She had been blamed for things over which she had no authority or control. In the end she wished me good luck and we hugged - something expressedly forbidden under company policy.
The general manager was not where I left him, so it took several minutes to track him down. Handing him my store keys and employee discount card, I said, "No hard feelings, but I can’t do this anymore. If I do, I'll be dead before the year's out."
Whether he was stunned or expecting it, I don't know. All he said was, "Okay." Maybe that was all he thought I deserved for quitting. Perhaps he thought it was better for the store if I was gone. I turned and walked back the way I came, except I was unemployed.
Since then, friends and family have told me I should have stayed on until they fired me. The way it ended, I couldn't draw unemployment benefits. But they weren't suffering the daily knot in the stomach, the continual blame for everything imaginable and the unrealistic demands. The State of Florida told me the same thing as my friends and family. Despite agreeing with me in principle, the representative referred back to the law. Salaried employees are treated differently than hourly.
The company expected me to work at its behest without additional compensation. They paid a salary which I had accepted under the conditions of my employment contract. It didn’t matter that if my pay was for forty-five hours a week but had been working consistently above seventy hours a week. State denied my claim and appeal.
Unemployed for nearly a year, maybe it was a mistake to quit. It never felt like an error in the one way that counts, though. Walking home from the store that afternoon, after I turned my keys over to the manager, I felt better than I had for years. For six months afterwards, I still received alarm calls, though I repeatedly requested to be removed from the call list. Maybe it was their means of harassment. The calls ended after I threatened legal action.
Although I languished in a malaise for a while, somewhere along the way I realized I no longer needed to drink in order to sleep at night. My health gradually improved. After the years of wear and tear borne of working crazy hours and poor eating habits and bizarre sleeping schedules, some things were better. No longer did I need to deal with the unpredictable general public. They believe that, as a customer, they are always right, even when what they expect is profoundly wrong or occasionally just simply nuts. In a sense, the customers and their demands were not as insane as what came from the company's upper management.
Ending the story happily would be nice, but it’s a work in progress, just like life in general. Sometimes it is what it is, but more often it is what we let it become.
Between my age and the economy there were few employment opportunities. I was reminded frequently that I was fortunate to have a job. That was always expressed after some additional burden was assigned. The implication was clear. If I didn’t want to do the work, the company would find someone else and send me packing.
Consistently, my employer expected me to come in early or stay later, without any additional compensation. I was salaried, which in the real working world meant the company owned me. Other than the thin promise of a bonus there was no reward for working longer and harder – not even a 'good job' or a pat on the back.
Retail management is one of the least rewarding careers, I've decided. After more than twenty-five years in store management, employment conditions never improved. Products competitively priced meant sliced margins, hourly staff cuts forced management to step in and fill the gaps in sales floor coverage and take on additional workloads. Customer service was sacrificed to spare the six and seven digit incomes of directors at the proverbial ivory tower. Nothing about downsizing proved temporary. Efficiency increased through reduced operating costs to quiet bean counters, at least until next quarter's round of cutbacks.
The last couple of years I worked for that major retailer, the sole source of sanity was coming home after work to write a few pages of fiction, or pen a poem. Sometimes my humble offerings posted online received encouraging critiques while ever I pursued the pipedream of becoming a successful writer. Without that escape, that release, I wouldn't have endured the long hours and pressure. Working was a means to sustain me, a job instead of the career a salaried position was supposed to represent.
The pressure grinded my nerves and harmed my health. Consuming more alcohol than I should, most nights, drinking was the only way I could get to sleep. Sometimes the store's antiquated security system prompted false alarms. The sensors were very old. Some were installed when I was in college! One by one they were replaced as they failed, but I was the one who responded to the calls. I lived closest to the store.
Always faithful, fulfilling every condition of employment, I arrived late at night to search with police for phantom intruders. Probably too intoxicated to do so, still I answered the call. Had anything happened, an accident on the way or an arrest or DUI, it would have been my fault, of course. Driving was wrong, but then, why was drinking when, at any moment, I might be called upon to respond to the store's needs. A salaried employee's personal time or private life is a gift of the company not an inalienable right.
At January's end in 2012, on a long delayed vacation, I visited my two young adult daughters who are roommates in Champaign, Illinois. Thank God it was unseasonably warm for the entire week. In Florida for far too long, bearing a more traditional Midwestern winter would have been painful. Seeing them, spending time with both, meeting their friends, and exploring the world that has become theirs served as a needed break. Their pursuit of dreams inspired me. Both are artists. All their friends are artists. In their world, only creativity counts for much.
The gene is strong in our family. Their mother and her sister were both gifted. My mother's sister was a painter. A cousin is a Country music legend.
Returning from Illinois, my attitude changed. Why was I putting up with the bullshit? Was the money worth the physical and mental abuse? Back to the store, the new work week started on Sunday. Working conditions changed for the worse. The general manager I worked with for nearly four years decided to retire. Although we had many differences of opinion over our working relationship, we respected one another. Through our efforts we transformed the store. Many customers commended us on the improvements. Since my arrival in early 2008, every facet of the operation was overhauled. Customers were drawn back to shop in our store. We received awards and store management earned a bonus in 2010. Yet, as is true in all retail, whatever we did never met the expectations of senior management. Next year's goals were based on exceeding last year's results, regardless of market conditions.
There were changes at the district and regional level as the corporation struggled to maintain its bloated bureaucracy. Despite our store's successes, the company failed. Instead of looking at what our store accomplished and using it as a blueprint for success, newly promoted directors imposed their ideas. We were not there to think but to execute their directions, like mindless cannon fodder in a battle.
Some those ideas were based on ludicrous assumptions of staffing levels that simply could not exist within budget constraints. So, the days ensuing my return to work were filled with additional pressures and resumed threats. New buz words came down from on high and were circulated in daily conference calls. Problems were discussed in one way conversations in lieu of being on the sales floor and actually accomplishing anything. I lost count of how many times they told me that every day I needed to look in the mirror and ask if I was giving 100%.
Along with a new manager, the micromanaging district manager was in the store every day. Individual management workloads increased. A five day work week had long since become five and a half... and then six days, as it was increasingly impossible to reach expectations and complete tasks. Since before Thanksgiving the scheduled twelve hour shifts were sixteen hours or more in reality. Days off were a gift. Planning anything away from work was impossible. Requested days off were challenged and usually not honored.
Forced to spend more time at work, my options were clear. Show up on scheduled days off or be sacked; work late or be fired; come in early or be terminated.
After working twelve days in a row, February twenty-second was to be my first full day off. The previous day I had worked hard to complete everything on my work list. I ensured there would be no need to call me in on my day off. I needed the downtime. I was physically, mentally and emotionally bankrupt.
Having come to work at ten-thirty in the morning, it was past midnight when I left the store. The company claimed that staying beyond the scheduled time was my choice. Even though at my scheduled departure time the store was not recovered properly, it was considered my fault and therefore a poor reflection of how well I managed the grossly understaffed store's recovery. In a no win situation, I asked several of the hourly employees to stay a little past their shifts. They did it as a favor to me out of respect, not in response to a threat, and certainly not out of loyalty to the company. They knew I could not leave the store a mess. Even though I would be written-up for mismanaging the store labor, I did the right thing. I walked every inch of the store to ensure it was up to standards. And then, the hourly employees clocked out. I set the alarm and we all went home.
Finishing everything on my work list, I knew the store looked better than it had in days. I was in the mood to celebrate. My plan was to wind down for a few hours and catch up on some writing. The survivor of twelve days under continual scrutiny and pressure, I was going to enjoy some time off.
On the way home, I bought some beer. At some point in the morning, when the beer was gone, I walked to the neighborhood convenience store and bought more. Despite my attempts at writing, mostly I was drinking between reading and revising a project I'd put on the back burner weeks before. In the process, I fell asleep – or rather passed out – in my chair while sitting at my computer.
My phone rang at around three in the afternoon. I saw from the caller ID that it was my new store manager. Expecting a question about something that I could easily and quickly answer, I made the mistake of picking up the call.
Although I had slept for a few hours, legally I was intoxicated. I shouldn’t have answered the call. Yet, if I had not, I would have been in trouble the ensuing day. Being drunk was not an acceptable answer for not answering the phone.
"You need to come in to work," my manager said. It wasn't stated as a request but as an obligation.
"Is someone sick?"
"No, I need you to come in and fix things." He went on to explain the district manager was there and had walked the entire store.
"I finished the work list."
"I saw that. Now, there's a new one."
"It can't wait until tomorrow?"
"He wants it done now. He's pissed you left the store looking like it did."
"What are you talking about? It was fine when I left."
"I opened this morning. It was a mess. I took pictures. I'll show you when you get here."
"It wasn't a mess…I walked every inch of the store--"
"Look, just get your ass in here!"
Living close enough to walk, I opted not to drive. I needed the exercise and clearing my head was a priority. I threw on casual clothes. It was my day off and if I was going to work, doing manual things, I wasn't going to wear nice slacks and dress shirt.
Other times I came in to work on my day off; wearing jeans was fine. When I reported to the general manager, he told me to go back home and dress appropriately.
I started to leave the store and got all the way outside before everything inside boiled over and something snapped. Whatever it was that released from its confinement couldn’t be put back.
With nothing left of desire to serve my ungrateful employer, I turned around and went back inside. Seeing the Human Resource Manager on my way, I smiled at her expressed what a pleasure it was working with her. She tried to talk me out of quitting. As I listened, all her reasons were her reasons, her economic rality. She had small children depending on her. I had me. After several minutes of listening to my rebuttal, she began to agree, revealing that she wanted to quit as well. She said that if the economy was better, she'd quit immediately. You see, she also felt the company disrespected employees. She had been blamed for things over which she had no authority or control. In the end she wished me good luck and we hugged - something expressedly forbidden under company policy.
The general manager was not where I left him, so it took several minutes to track him down. Handing him my store keys and employee discount card, I said, "No hard feelings, but I can’t do this anymore. If I do, I'll be dead before the year's out."
Whether he was stunned or expecting it, I don't know. All he said was, "Okay." Maybe that was all he thought I deserved for quitting. Perhaps he thought it was better for the store if I was gone. I turned and walked back the way I came, except I was unemployed.
Since then, friends and family have told me I should have stayed on until they fired me. The way it ended, I couldn't draw unemployment benefits. But they weren't suffering the daily knot in the stomach, the continual blame for everything imaginable and the unrealistic demands. The State of Florida told me the same thing as my friends and family. Despite agreeing with me in principle, the representative referred back to the law. Salaried employees are treated differently than hourly.
The company expected me to work at its behest without additional compensation. They paid a salary which I had accepted under the conditions of my employment contract. It didn’t matter that if my pay was for forty-five hours a week but had been working consistently above seventy hours a week. State denied my claim and appeal.
Unemployed for nearly a year, maybe it was a mistake to quit. It never felt like an error in the one way that counts, though. Walking home from the store that afternoon, after I turned my keys over to the manager, I felt better than I had for years. For six months afterwards, I still received alarm calls, though I repeatedly requested to be removed from the call list. Maybe it was their means of harassment. The calls ended after I threatened legal action.
Although I languished in a malaise for a while, somewhere along the way I realized I no longer needed to drink in order to sleep at night. My health gradually improved. After the years of wear and tear borne of working crazy hours and poor eating habits and bizarre sleeping schedules, some things were better. No longer did I need to deal with the unpredictable general public. They believe that, as a customer, they are always right, even when what they expect is profoundly wrong or occasionally just simply nuts. In a sense, the customers and their demands were not as insane as what came from the company's upper management.
Ending the story happily would be nice, but it’s a work in progress, just like life in general. Sometimes it is what it is, but more often it is what we let it become.
Account and rationale for leaving a bad job.
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