Life Lesson # 3,456:

If you ever want to really know how much (or how little) you are valued as an employee … just quit your job. I put this to the test Tuesday when I followed-up my resignation e mail from last week with a formal exit interview of sorts with my boss, and I indeed learned just how valuable I am (think bellybutton lint). I guess the signs were there, like when the publisher of the company actually got annoyed by the fact that I asked for a raise right before my former boss left or when he ever so nonchalantly followed up praise for my ex-boss with “everyone’s replaceable though” when we were talking about his resignation a few months back. Yep, ever the idealist, I chose to ignore the truth.

Now don’t get me wrong, when I made the decision to quit, I was not doing so with any intention of playing games or staying if a better offer was put on the table (it would have to have been A LOT for that to happen). I mean, I’d love to say I was doing all this to fuck over my boss, but I was doing it for myself and my happiness (and, of course, eventually more money), fucking over my boss would have been waiting to quit until the Associate Editor (who quit a few days prior), or leaving without notice. After all, I had my references, why not burn my bridges? Well, maybe because I am not an asshole (although I wish I could be sometimes). Anyway, I have been planning my exit strategy since January, and, really, my “D-” boss was just the call to action I needed.

So, when I went in to talk to Mc Jerk Pants my boss about my resignation, one of the first things out of his smug little mustache-topped mouth was “so, what are you gonna do about your weekly allergy shots?” I mean really … what the hell is that supposed to mean??? I was caught so off-guard that I didn’t know what to say. He then followed up this awfully inappropriate question with a succession of rapid-fire questions meant to, I imagine, just like the first, demean my decision. I mean, what else was that initial ice-breaker question supposed to accomplish???

He also made sure to lecture me (under the guise he was passing down his sagely wisdom to little ol’ me) on how it “looks bad” to your soon to be ex-employers when you quit without having a job already lined up (guess freelancing isn’t a job?!?), and “nobody” does that … you are supposed to “look for jobs while you have a job.” Guess I never read his version of Miss Manners the Office Edition; last time I checked, it was OK to quit your job without having another job lined up. He also went on about how me quitting right after the Associate Editor did just didn’t “look good” and it’s a good way to “burn my bridges.” (Hmmm, sounds to me like someone was letting their personal feelings blur the lines of professionalism) … And he made sure to add that most other (99%, I believe he said) offices wouldn’t have let me stay after that, that they would have told me to leave right then, and that’s just how it is in the “real world.” (Like he was doing me a favor by letting me stay???) All the while, trying to tell me that he was imparting his unsolicited opinion on me for my own good.

Not to mention, he made sure to subtly belittle my decision to leave my current job to freelance full time with candy-coated jibes here and there throughout our 90-minute conversation, as well as making sure to let me know (as a seasoned job-hopping veteran) that it also doesn’t look good when you apply for a job when you don’t have a job (again, guess freelancing isn’t a job?!?). He made sure to also comment on how freelancing may hurt me if I decide to go back to being a managing editor down the road. (Whatever that meant?!?! Still not sure. Just another attempt to belittle my decision, I guess.)

See, now I understand why he had like 15 jobs over 20 years, not because he maybe wasn’t a great employee/manager, but because he was doing field work for the National Job-Quitting Etiquette Association …. DUH!

Now … the last time I checked, giving a months notice to your employer is damn considerate, considering if the tables were turned that most employers will fire you on the spot if it is in their best interest, and not give two shits if you end up homeless or in a bad way as a result. I mean, really, think about it … Somehow I have a feeling that no one will be ending up homeless because of my actions, just a bit inconvenienced. I mean after all “everyone’s replaceable,” right?

The other thing that bothered me was the fact that he kept implying that I gave him “no choice” to change the situation or my mind by how I executed my resignation. I mean, I wrote him a polite e mail and asked to speak with him about this at his convenience, but somehow that made it more final than just going in and springing it on him? Really, I thought I was doing him a favor by letting him prepare for our resignation talk. I would imagine that as a manager if one of my employees put in their resignation and I valued them that I would talk to them and try to get them to change their mind, or at the very least let them know how valued they are. The thing is, he did have choices; he could have talked to me sooner about my decision; he could have let me know I was valued, but he didn’t, and I made damn sure to let him know that he had choices, and they could have involved me.

I do have to admit, as I am only human, that I was slightly wounded for a bit over the fact that he chose to negotiate with the Associate Editor regarding his resignation and not me … but those temporal feelings aside, our talk just made me realize even more how happy I am to be leaving. Good riddance, I say.

Like many people, I have my price tag for putting up with bullshit and bullshit bosses … it’s just not $36,000 a year.

Quote of the week

All “they” [midgets] know about is not being able to go on roller coasters.

—Associate Editor

Dialogue of the week

Me: Of course I’ll write you a testimonial … it will go, “despite his fear of little things, Bob’s a BIG producer,” or “Bob will be a valuable edition to your editorial team, unless you are a midget …”

Associate Editor: If you are, he will insert a handle on your back and throw you across the room.

—

So, I am going to spend the last few hours of my mini-vacation perfecting the art of doing nothing, until tomorrow, Shalom!

I promise more stories soon. I have spent the last few days trying to plan my exit strategy. Enjoy the video!

Quote of the day:

“There’s more to you than just cupcakes.”

Monologue of the day:

Art person #1: This is how tired I am … you know when you are at the ocean and you pick up one of those seashells–a conch shell–and can hear the ocean? Well, I can hear the ocean but I don’t have a seashell.

Dialogue of the day:

Me: I have a word of the week!

Associate Editor: Oh really? What is it?

Me: Homunculus!!!

Associate Editor: What’s that?

Me: I’m not telling … you have to look it up! Although … I will tell you it has something to do with a little man …

Associate Editor: Don’t you remember I don’t like small things??? Maybe you should consider my phobias before you come up with a word of the day. Rude!

***

So, I promise tomorrow I will dish on the UPS guy (a.ka. Sir-Perv-A-Lot) … he came in again this week! Yikes!

Today though, I struck therapeutic gold. (Eureka!) It seems so rudimentary (we are talking psych 101 here folks), but I realized that if I take a deep breath and count to ten before responding to my boss, my uncontrollable urge to retort subsides substantially. I mean, I still think he’s a bumbling egomaniacal fool after all is said and done, but controlling my impulses to react will hopefully help maintain my job satisfaction level at “somewhat complacent” as opposed to “completely miserable,” as it has been for the greater part of the last month. I mean it’s tough stuff to stifle my natural inclination to correct, but in this cubicle jungle it’s survival of the fittest, and apparently the fit don’t have an opinion or point out when my boss is making a wrong or not-so-great decision.

The thing is … I have only tried this new-found impulse control method with e mails so far … Sooooooooooo, I’ll let you know if this survival technique holds up in the field. (We’ll see.)

So, you might be wondering … exactly what is it about my boss that tests my already testy impulse-control abilities? You see … one of my boss’ fave things to do is to make decisions (often ones that are counter intuitive or just down-right nonsensical) just to flex his authority. Much like most male dogs, he likes to mark his territory as often as possible, and he has just been peeing up a storm since he took his editorial throne here. I even came up with a nifty little term to describe this oft-happening phenomenon: decreemania.

Prefix: decree–to issue an authoritative order having the force of law
Suffix: mania–an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action

Mind you, my boss is no Captain Queeg, but he is pretty damn reckless and impetuous when it comes to instituting decisions, which brings us to the second (and best) part of his modus operandi: After “striking his gavel,” my favorite decreemaniac will usually come back 10-15 minutes later and take back what he said and then side with what you were suggesting in the first place! If he snapped at you in the process, you then generally become the oh-so-fortunate recipient of a bad joke or a long, irrelevant story (did I mention he is the slowest talker ever, pauses and all?)–talk about adding insult to injury.

Anyway, I better get used to deep breathing and counting … I mean, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em … so as to not be totally and completely miserable until you can leave ‘em; that’s what I say.

All this weekend I have been polishing up the résumé and working on Web site copy, so I have been a bit remiss with my posts. Anyway, thought it was time for a little filler in the form of Sound Bites from the Cubicle (Take 2).

Dialogues of the day (last Friday):

Art person #1: I just spilled grape juice on my favorite pink shirt!!!

Associate Editor: Well … just spill vodka on it and you’ll be all set.

Art person #2: Happy hour in Jane’s shirt!!!

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent)

***

*distant bizarre-sounding laughter in the office*

Me: Did you hear that? That was somewhere between an evil genius chuckle and a horse’s … what does a horse say?

Art person #1: Neigh.

Me: Neeeeeeeeiiiiiigggggghhhhh … that’s onomatopoeia, right???

I promise more stories to resume this week, like how my job has driven me to drink at lunch, pervy UPS man strikes again, more things I’ve learned about my boss, and various other sordid office tales …

TGIF! And in honor of this most beloved day, I bring you a few haikus. Think I might make this a regular Friday thing. Got a good one? E mail it my way!

The telephone rings

Pesky PR guy again

Thanks caller ID

***

Office snack machine

Where are the cheddar goldfish?

I don’t want Cheez-Its

More often than not the daily intermittent conversation from the upper left corner of the office (that’s my corner) falls under the heading of Utterly Ridiculous. Here’s a small sampling:

Dialogue of the day:

Me: Extrapolation Station!!! I loooove words that end in “tion”

Art department person: like … masturbation station …

Associate Editor: … also known as gay bars …

Me: Or airport or rest stop bathrooms

Associate Editor: or remote restrooms in the middle of parks

Quote of the day:

“I put a GPS in your pants last night.”

With much defiant pleasure, I’d like to present the first installment of “Things I Am Starting to Realize about my Boss.”

Since my boss’ one-month reign, I have come to realize that several of my “sneaking suspicions” about him are indeed correct. And, you guessed it, none of these “suspicions” are good … unless you consider my new revelations aiding my ability to navigate around his incorrigible personality, good; I guess if you know where the mines are in the minefield, you are way ahead of the guy who is clueless … still sucks to be in a minefield though. Enough said.

Things I Am Starting to Realize about my Boss (Part 1):

1. He was, in fact, not being facetious when he said he was lazy. We had our suspicions; however, all doubts about this were quickly eradicated when the associate editor, while preparing the final articles to go online to coincide with the print version of the May issue, found a few egregious spelling errors (attacting instead of attracting, for instance) that our fearless leader didn’t catch when he turned in his final, completed articles back to the art department. I guess no one ever taught him about that nifty little technology called spellchecker. You know, the one that made needing to know how to spell obsolete … oh snap, that’s right, they don’t have spellchecker on typewriters. (Did I mention my boss is 107-years-old???) And … if that wasn’t enough, lets not forget the handful of grammatical (guess he was out sick in third grade when they covered subject-verb agreement) and style errors (that he was well aware of) that were found as well. (Mind you, these errors happened when he was making changes to his documents after they were proofed by us.) Perhaps I should also mention the article that he turned in that looked like a junior high school drop-out penned it. (Keep in mind this guy claims he was a journalist for 20 years.) The thing is … I’ve read his blogs on our site, and they aren’t half bad … in fact, they are pretty tight–leading me to believe, if he isn’t into something, he just doesn’t care. We’ll call it lazy.

2. He clearly lied about his skill set on his résumé. A few things clued me in to this. Like for example, the fact that he doesn’t know how to use Quark (common publishing software). He actually had to have me come in to his office to show him where the tools were so he could work on his documents. (This is like having to show someone who has allegedly driven a car for years where the gas and brakes are.) So I asked him, “Oh, have you ever used Quark before?” To which he replied in his patented slow, grumbly tone, “Oh, ah, (insert long pause with eyes shut here) why, of course.” Of course, my ass. Not to mention that the associate editor had to walk him step-by-step through Blogger, INCLUDING setting up a Google account. I mean, these blog sites (blogger, wordpress, typepad) are made to be practically idiot proof … of yeah, did I mention he said on his résumé that he was a Web editor (with plenty of blogging experience) ??? Enough said (again).

3. My Boss considers yelling at people “having a loud voice;” In fact, that’s what he told me verbatim when I went in and closed his office door and confronted him about our “communication issue” (for the second time) after he snapped at me in front of others in the office. I mean, if it wasn’t obvious it was yelling by the yellingness of what he said, the associate editor’s “oh no you didn’t” face after he made said statement to me in a “loud voice” was a clear indicator.

Stay tuned for Part 2!