What if you are in an office where the boss finds examples to justify
your previously-determined "improvement needed" status (that you didn't
really agree with in the first place and was based on only three months
of work performance in a totally-new environment) instead of looking
for positive examples of you actually showing evidence of improvement?
For example, two people gave you independent reviews with one good and
one bad. Only the bad review was used to justify the pre-determined
conclusion whilst the good review was totally ignored. What the fuck?!
What
if you have a boss who is still bearing a grudge based on the honest
feedback you have given her and is in a perpetual vengeance mode that
you can never concretely-prove? Also, the supposedly anonymous feedback process is so not the case—a lesson learnt I guess.
What if you are in an
office that is so competitive as a result of the top-down
survival-of-the-fittest management style to the extent that people find
that they need to backstab, belittle others and play political games in
order to climb up and that training does not go to people who need them
but to people as a reward?
What if hard work (think
12-hour days, 2-kg permanent weight loss over 2 weeks, feeling faint in the walk
home from work, not even having the energy to have dinner at times and
thinking public holidays are a curse for the first time because that
means lost time to do work) and commitment are not concepts to laud but
are traits that are deemed not as important as how ones does the job,
how vocal one is to sell oneself, how much one is willing to feed the
bosses' egos in order to claim a spot in the bosses' favourite list
(yes, bosses play favoritism in this office)?
What if
you are in an untransparent company where numerous things vital to your
career and future transpire without your knowledge until the very last
minute when the bad news hits you seconds before you have to swim or
sink to try to turn the tide around?
What if you are in
a huge company with great international success that short-changes
employees at every turn instead of taking care of their welfare, thinks
that it works hard to retain talent yet is unwilling to forgo a
mere $8000 to help a high-performing employee to do her job better, an
amount that is miniscule compared to the profits promised to
shareholders, the promise being the only thing the company cares about?
What
if the feedback you provide to higher management does not ever get to
the desired audience because of mid-level management's own agenda and
employees are starting to give up and constantly looking over the fence
for greener pastures but finding it hard to jump due to the
seemingly-worsening global economy?
What if you are in a
company so desperate to raise the bottomline where clients are treated
as gods, a company with a chief mission to please its existing and
potential customers and one that spares no expense to throw its
employees into the fire pit if that is what it takes to land the deal?
What
if it has been proven time and again that the company you are working
for pays its workers less than what its competitors do?
Welcome to my world!
So now I am stuck with the situation where if I were
given the opportunity to exhibit an improvement in behaviour based on
the "corrective action plan" written for me out of the "improvement
needed" assessment of the performance review and I cannot prove it by
the next session in a month's time (based on other peoples' review—which
is again a flawed system as you'd be screwed if this person doesn't like
you for whatever reason) then I would be given a written warning from
Human Resources. Just so you know, as little as two of such warnings
could see employees served up with the termination letter!
There are also justification examples in this "corrective action plan" that do not reflect what exactly happened and I will most certainly fight till the end to have the erroneous sections eliminated. I am done with being a doormat in the face of this powerful company.
To
make matters worse, I am in the process of changing projects ie. new
challenges lie ahead with a steeper learning curve to overcome, and so
having only a month to prove myself before a possible warning is really
unfair to me. But how can one argue against an unmoving and cold company
who does not give a damn about its employees?
I know
it was my choice to leave the cushy job in Sydney in search of a
more challenging environment but have I bitten off more than I could
chew with this relocation to Melbourne? It has been half a year since
my move and I know I need to provide some updates as to how well that
is going. So there you have it (summarised in the series of "what if"
questions), this is what I have to deal with at work six months in.
Looks
like there is no chance I will ever rise up to become a senior engineer
in this dog-eat-dog office as I am unwilling to play the game and lose
my principles
(yet again!).
But given the current economic climate, I think I would
have to bite the bullet and stay in this mucky situation a while more.
Oh, and to make things even less palatable, I am about to lose the privilege of
walking to work as I would soon be posted to a dodgy suburb (the
Footscray office) which I have been told is quite unsafe to be in after
dark ie. the time of the day you would be in if you work overtime, which
is something that is definitely going to happen.
As for my life with Ision outside of work, the social rut we are in (as alluded to in my previous
post)
still remains. You cannot really blame us because work is so draining
(in different ways to both of us) that on our off days or after-work
hours, we just want to do nothing and think about nothing (slumping in
front of the TV for me and in front of the computer for him). But things
are improving and we are slowly venturing out to visit other suburbs
near the city to see what's out there. Also, as winter ends and the
weather warms up a little more, I hope I can get back to my photo
shoots. I currently have two to three shoots in the works but unfortunately none in
the bag.
Half a year has flown by since I left Sydney
and although things are not as good as I might have envisaged, I still
believe that it will get better. Check back with me in another six
months and hopefully that is what you will hear from me.
