Top — Reasons why I want to leave my present job

I know, I know, I know, I said I’m done with those dark and murky posts, ‘though the title suggests that this one’s going to be such, I am just trying to write down things about my present job so I can decide what to do next, so this isn’t actually a rant, just thinking outloud as the tagline of my blog goes. As you might have noticed, I didn’t write any number ’cause honestly, I don’t know how many reasons I could write at this point. So enough of the sidetracks and let me begin my list.

1. While most people in our team are complaining with the workload, my complaint is different. I want more work, not that I’m addicted to working, I am not and will never be a workaholic, it’s just that the learning has stopped for me. The first few months was stressful, lots of pressures and adjustments to make but after getting used to all those costings and month end closing processes, learning has stopped for me. It’s not because I already learned the whole business but rather it’s more of, my boss who’s supposed to be my mentor as well, is not teaching me. I see the way she is towards the fresh graduates, she treats them differently, you can see how eager she is in teaching them but towards me she’s really different. As much as I don’t want to believe that she’s playing favorites, I just can’t help it. I can’t raise this issue with the higher boss, I’m sure that she won’t believe it ’cause she sees the way my boss treats those youngsters. To add, those youngsters are not really under her responsibility, I am the only one that she’s supposed to handle. It could be that she believes in me too much, that since I’m more experienced, I can better have a grasp of how things are or it could also be that’s she’s afraid to share her learnings to someone who has bigger chances of outshining her in the future because as I said I’m more experienced. Honestly, between the two possibilities, I’m leaning towards believing with the former, I can see how she she’s trying to hide her shock when she found out that I know what happened with a certain issue, she was surprised that I know it without her telling me.

2. Lack of future developments, no definite future plans, no career path. Let’s just say that I’m contented with my present position but how about next year? It seems like I should pray that my immediate boss will resign shen she marries just for me to progress ’cause things are also the same for her, she also doesn’t have another ladder to climb.

3. Budget, will it motivate you if you keep on hearing, “there’s no budget”. I understand the times are tough but should we be blamed for the idle capacity of this over expensive building? Furthermore, offices from other countries has enough budget and since bonuses are centralized meaning it depends on worldwide peroformance, aren’t they following the same when it comes to budget? People from other offices can afford to hold meetings overseas for just a day, can’t they do it over telecon? Plus, they check in on 5-star hotels. I’m not demanding for luxuries like that, what I want is a fair increase in salary because I deserve it, we deserve it.

4. Unreasonable requirements. I came from the world of auditing, so I understand compliance requirements but the very reason why I’m on a love-hate relationship with audit is that there are times when it feels like it’s asking for something unreasonable. Here, it’s a lot more unreasonable, the basic concept of cost benefit analysis has been forgotten and no one on the top management wants to stand up and point it out for fear of??? being passed on a promotion? (not so sure with that one)

5. My boss is…. sorry I couldn’t think of a proper adjective or it could also be that there are a lot of adjectives in my mind right now. Competitive, she definitely is, and it’s really unhealthy, she keeps on comparing her work, pressuring others, sometimes even lying just to get ahead. She’s a total bitch sometimes, excluding people, digging out issues, etc. She doesn’t share her knowledge, at least with me.

6. I hate having to work on holidays, guess this is a part of working in an MNC as long as its a normal workday in the regional office you can’t go on a holiday during closing and some other critical business days like the first day of the year.

7. I hate the location.

8. The pay is not enough, I mean the bonus…

 So far, that’s all I could come up with, ‘though there are times when the list seems to be endless. I want to leave, I’m 50% sure of it but where do I go from here? I’m already working for a Fortune 500 company, it definitely means an additional badge to my resume opening doors to great opportunities, this is a join then jump oraganization after all but it also means that the bar has been raised, would you settle for anything less? I don’t think so.

Where do I go from here? mode all over again, Lord please guide me, show me the way.

Championsville

It was one afternoon break during my final year in high school, while me and my friends were talking about what courses are we going to take in college, we noticed one of our classmates busy drawing something at the back of his notebook. So out of curiousity we called his attention to ask, he gladly showed it to us, he was about to be finished, he was just retouching some parts of it. What he draw was, Championsville, too bad I didn’t scan that drawing, I’m not sure if he still has it, had I had a copy it might save me the task of explaining what it’s about.

Championsville is a place, a small futuristic commmunity to be built in 5 years time. It is owned by us, yes the entire class owns it. I am running a bank and an auditing firm at the same time with two of my classmates who also decided to take up Accountancy. There’s a TV station where those people who’ll be taking up Mass Communication will work. There’s a church where the one who draw it, serves as a pastor. The school will be run by the only girl in class who wants to take up education. A basketball court where the sports guys of the batch will have a league. A hospital where the future nurses will work to be lead by the sole doctor aspirant. A hotel for the future chefs, a port for the sole seaman wanna-be. A plant for the future engineers. An office of no particular nature yet, for the others who haven’t decided yet what to take. Conceited that we are, we named it Championsville ’cause we won the intramurals and field demo championship, we think we rule the school. It’s a well-kept community of highly successful individuals, there is peace and harmony, there is unity, the streets are always full of laughter just like our classroom, but then it’s fictitious, it’s a make believe.

Things were easier before, all we had to do is dream and keep on believing. The worst worries that we have is the next Calculus exam. We were full of hopes, we all thought that life is easy, that maybe someday there will really be a place called “Championsville”.

Now, nearly 8 years has passed what happened to the inhabitants of the blissful community. The accountants turned out to be as accountants, ‘though there were others who weren’t able to append three additional letters to their names but we don’t own a bank neither an auditing firm but we did worked in an auditing firm. The media people, some went to call centers, sell cars, while others to non-technical office jobs, only one was able to get somehow close to the media industry. The pastor wanna be, the one who drawn the picture, I’m not sure, maybe he already is. The only girl who wanted to teach ended up as a nurse instead, she’s registered, one of the only two, I guess. The doctor hopeful turned out to be a registered medical technologist in a call center. As with the basketball players, the team captain is taking up a master’s degree while the others, I don’t know. The future seaman fulfilled his dream, the chef hopefuls, they work in a hotel. The engineers also made their dreams come true.

Some of us succeeded, some did not, maybe most of us didn’t turn out the way we expected them. Championsville remained as a fictitious place but it is where our simple dreams were drawn. Dreams that fueled us, while others may have given up along the way, there are also others who were able to continue the battle. Years had passed, we don’t see each other now, we’ve lost touch, some friends even parted ways while there are also new friendships built but then, who knows maybe someday, we can still turn Championsville into a reality, maybe not exactly as how it was drawn or how we imagined it to be with our young minds, but something more realistic.

“As we go on we’ll remember, all the times we’ve shared together, as our life change, come whatever, we will still be friends forever”

Unfinished

I have a pending draft article in my dashboard, it’s been months since I began writing it but up until now, I can’t finish it, I don’t know how to. The message I am trying to convey through it is simple, in fact I just realized that I already posted an article almost of the same meaning after I started my “unfinished article”, the only difference is the published article seems vague as I was desperately trying to disguise it.

I don’t know if I was able to begin the article right, maybe not. It could be the reason why I can’t finish it. Maybe there are things inside of me that I am trying to hide, afraid that I might reveal it as I continue writing, I don’t know.

All I know is it’s for you, why am I trying to write it, maybe it feels like that if I put it into writing, it’s no longer inside me, it will no longer be painful (for lack of a better term). As I write down the words, I am screaming but only here in cyberspace, hitching my wagon in the tiniest bit of hope that you might be able to read it.

Unfinished, that’s how I titled this, plain and simple even literal, it’s about an “unfinished article” which means more than just being an unfinished string of words. The article may be very well likened to us, no definite good start, full of words in the middle but the end is yet to be written, something we both don’t know how. Do we really want to finish whatever it is? Well, it might just be a stupid piece of crap created by imaginations but what if it’s more than just that?

Maybe one day, I’ll wake up knowing how to finally finish it, it might need some rewriting ‘though but at least a period in the end is always better than an elipsis.

Just a product of a lazy Friday afternoon in the office while listening to sentimental love songs.

Repost: Out of here

I received this through email, it’s a very nice article, I thought I was reading my sentiments, I can truly relate to it, so let me share it with you.

Out of here
By Anna Veniza R. Arcilla
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:10:00 09/12/2009

Filed Under: Employment
Soon I will be leaving the company that has been my home for two years and nine months. The idea of leaving has been giving me nightmares, but I know this is what I really want.
When I first joined the company, I was an idealistic neophyte who believed that as long as I was doing my job, no problems would arise. I was happy with the company, and it became a second home for me. I gained friends and even won their respect and loyalty. I developed feelings for someone who turned out to be a womanizer (the feeling lasted for only one month), and now he is my ka tropa. I fell seriously for an IT guy with a wide forehead (who just got promoted recently), and now we are kind of “MU” (mutual understanding) after two years of waiting. And I was able to save enough money for some of my future plans.
Months passed. New people were hired, and trained. Some old co-workers got promoted and some left for reasons I could not comprehend at first.
Then it suddenly dawned on me that something was wrong with the situation. There were nice people who got promoted and began sprouting horns on their heads. There were others who were already bad even before they were hired and they were spreading discontent and havoc.
I saw a couple of my fellow workers crying because a monster of a manager had screamed at them. Even as tears continued to flow from their swollen eyes, they were still checking documents and searching for errors, no matter how hard it was to focus on the computer screen.
I saw my pregnant friend crying because a satanic manager was cursing her online. Another friend was humiliated by a moody manager when she filed for a leave of absence.
I reacted violently when the company decided to increase our salaries based on our rating system. A nice manager had given a neophyte a grade of 4+ (even if he was still committing a lot of errors) while another manager gave an experienced worker a grade of 2 (even though she was one of the best employees). The neophyte received a P1,700 salary increase and the latter got a P300 increase. Was that fair?
I learned that when somebody got promoted, it meant he had stepped on someone else, like crabs in a basket. I also learned that an employee is only an employee, and no matter how long he has been in the company and how hard he has been working, he still remains just an employee—without a voice, without the right to talk or to question things, and with the duty to follow and act dumb.
I am not saying this because I feel bitter. Bitter over what? Because I have never been promoted even if I have put all my energies into my work? Because I sacrificed time for my family so I could render overtime work in compliance with orders of my superiors? When my mom died in a hospital, I didn’t know about it until my shift was over because we were not allowed to bring cell phones into the work area.
It is every worker’s dream to be promoted because it means receiving a salary higher as well as some perks and privileges. But in this company, I cannot even dream of being promoted because that won’t change anything. Instead it will give the people above you another excuse to bully you.
I know that I am sounding like a spoiled brat, sulking over things I cannot have. But sometimes you need to act like a brat so that you will get what you really want. And now all I want is a work place that will be a true second home for me.
So, I had this plan of leaving, and a plan to find a replacement. Then I told my boss that I was quitting.
Two of the best managers of our department talked to me and told me they were happy with my decision. They understood and they knew how I felt. They seemed actually to share my relief as I was telling them about my decision.
Friends are asking me what made me quit. I tell them there is life after work, and that I need my life back. I need to slow down and assess my life and feel free for a while. And my only regret is that I didn’t do it earlier. I’m not running from the things that make me apply excessive eye liner and eye shadow to express my anger, I just want to clear my mind and know who I really am.
Now I realize that working hard is not enough to make one happy on the job. Some things aren’t good as what we want to be. I know that by leaving, I can learn things other than what I know now. I am not dumb, and I don’t want to be forever following black witches’ orders.
I used to be a kind, soft-spoken girl with an understanding heart, but now I am completely the opposite. I came to the point of looking at life as if it’s a curse. I don’t want myself to continue hating life.
I want the old me but I want to bring with me the things I learned. This place has made me strong. It taught me to be thankful for living a simple life, simple yet happy. It also made me realize that I miss my family and friends.
My father told me that I should look for a new job where I can be happy and which will not take me far from them. He reminded me that they had taught me and my siblings to believe that simplicity spells happiness. Who am I to disagree?
When I go, I will be leaving behind the people who have been nice to me. But this is a small world and I know we will bump into each other again and again. And there is Facebook and Friendster to help us stay in touch. As for the IT guy, he will still be there, texting me every night.

(Anna Veniza R. Arcilla, 26, is a graduate of Jose Rizal University with a Bachelor of Commercial Science Major in Management degree.)

Alone

I just got back from having a snack downstairs, in my two years and seven months of working this is the first time that I ate outside the office alone. I know that I’m not friendly neither do I have a welcoming aura, I’m known for being snobbish but since the first day I worked I always have a buddy with me except today.

I’m quite new in this office, if staying for eight months is still considered as new but I was not able to make new friends. In my former office, I’ve got three sets of friends, my friends from the other service line, my batchmates and the next batch after us, so there never was an alone time. Lunch, dinner, snacks and even breakfast was always filled with laughters and small talks. Except for some, the people here are just fine but the problem is I can’t feel any connection with them. Maybe, I’m the one to be blamed ’cause I might be the one rejecting them or it could also be because apart from working in the same company we don’t have anything in common. I find them boring or maybe they just don’t have the same interests that I have. One of my friends from my former office also transferred here with me but even her makes me feel alone. She’s kind, that was never the question despite of her antagonistic moods at times, don’t get me wrong she’s not doing the telenovela antagonist thing, but I think she’s got the habit of always going against what people has to say or maybe it’s more appropriate to say that she’s always going against what I have to say. I don’t know, she could just be bored that’s why she keeps on contradicting me just to have something to say. I’m not expecting her nor any person to always be on my side, we are all genetically wired in a different way but because of her being my antagonist everyday, I feel alone. It feels like people here are against me. I really feel so alone, the quietness also adds up to the feeling.

I was able to survive ’til today by finding endless ways to entertain me like listening to Chico and Delamar’s top ten as recorded by blueritz, reading E-books and quotes during breaks and just recently reading about Boys over Flowers especially Gu Jun Pyo (Lee Min Ho) and staring at his pictures. But can I tell Chico or Delamar that I saw my crush last night, can I share my pictures from my out of town trip to Lee Min Ho or can I open up to Jan Di that I’m having a bad day, no, right? But thanks to them for keeping me company.

I guess it’s true that you cannot be lucky on the same thing twice. I was lucky to have good friends from my former office but not now. I can’t help but still want to be with them. We’re not exactly of the same likes and dislikes but I can feel that there is a connection, our wavelengths are parallel. Maybe, because of the intensity of what we had to go through together that we’re bonded in a special way, something that I miss, something that I will forever cherish, something I’m glad happened.