Only thing I would add is never do an exit interview. IMO there is no upside as an employee and only downside potential as anything can come back to haunt you. Simply decline.
When I left the company I worked for as a young man the home office mailed a large questionnaire, asked me to complete it and mail it back. I thought I would write on it… “You didn’t give a shit about what I had to say while I was there why ask now”. But I didn’t because there would be a record of that as well so I just ran it through the shredder for 10 seconds of joy.
One of thing things I find frustrating is that in the corporate world, there are a lot of workplace culture surveys that claim to be anonymous, but aren’t. So, people don’t trust the anonymity of surveys.
But I am the one responsible for doing those surveys and I take the anonymity seriously. I just had to do one on our workplace culture and I had to re-emphasize the anonymity multiple times and explain to people that I would redact information if they give up their own anonymity or personally attack other employees.
And, your post reminds me to listen to Tom T. Hall some more.
I have an awesome boss, and like my job.
But I am walking away in 16 months because they will pay me 40% of my salary for not showing up.
The funny thing is, my boss and I are probably walking away at the same time, and they will be screwed.
I have said before that there are two types of employees who leave: the ones who the employer is sorry to see go and will miss and want to stay in contact with, and the ones who the employer is more than happy to see walk out the door. I have no doubt you are the first type.
KC, just curious, but going back to one of my earlier comments, are you sure your boss wasn’t trying to fire you without actually firing you? I say that because what she did to you sure seemed like a way to get an employee that she didn’t want around to leave on his own. I know if somebody did that to me my first thought would be to walk
And, yes, I understand that you were working the project. However, this would not be the first time an employer got rid of somebody without first thinking of the consequences of doing so. From the way you describe your boss, it does not sound like she understood or appreciated everything that you did.
I do not ask this question as an implied insult, only as an honest question.
Oh…I’m sure she was. But we were in a conversion from one EMR system to another. That EMR system was my primary job function and nobody knew it like I did. 5 other counties ran it and were converting to the new system and had wanted me to work with them on it. So they didn’t expect that i would walk. Had we not had that conversion, she would have fired me. Then I would have had a case.
My boss had several different positions - when I started she was nursing manager. The nurses hated her and the turnover there was incredibly high. She had fired others on our team for petty things. And if we weren’t doing that conversion, they would have fired me. She would think a system should a certain way and would not accept hearing that it won’t do that. That reporting system she wanted to use for strategic planning was an example. That system was designed to track financial performance. She insisted. Even after I told her the company said it’s not designed to do what she wanted. The county had a license we had to buy and she approved $5000 worth of training. That was the time I was able to work with them to fit this square peg in a round hole. And she got pissed because it was taking time to figure that stuff out. I actually sat down one day and worked up something in excel that would do exactly what she wanted…even with color coded results. She didn’t want that - she wanted this fancy assed software. Working ithe company I got close to what she wanted, but it was very quirky. Then I got put n admn leave. They dropped the software after I left because nobody at county IT could make it do what she wanted.
Oh…her biggest sticking point. She wanted me to develop training for Microsoft Office programs to teach staff. This “training” could only be done in one hour classes. Microsoft Training takes at least 3 eight hour days. And the knowledge level varied among staff…some had no clue about how to use it and others wanted to know the more advanced stuff. I tried to tell her that you cant teach Excel in an hour. And I had several other things I had to work on that I couldn’t devote full time to developing this training. That really got her goat.
It got to where I had to take Xanax just to go to work. I’d take another if I had a meeting with her in it. My blood pressure was high and at times I would literally vomit because of stress. I honestly feel that had I stayed in 2019 that I wouldn’t be alive today. Ain’t no job worth that. FWIW - she gained a new appreciation for what I did when I wasn’t there to do it anymore.
This discussion reminds me of the retirement of one of my Dad’s friends. Both he (Rod) and my Dad worked at Eastman Kodak and they were offering an early retirement. Rod had worked in Roll Coating where they made film. Rod was good at his job and somebody else couldn’t just step into it.This is a few years before Kodaks bankruptcy. Rod was home just 2 weeks when he got a call from his former boss asking how certain things were supposed be done. Rod said: “I’m retired” and hung up the phone!
I retired in December yet I get called for overtime every other month. I wouldn’t answer the phone when I was working but now I jump on the call. It’s typically a supervisor that isn’t aware I retired and I get to explain how busy I am and I couldn’t possibly make it into work. Last time they called I started negotiating what it would take to get me into work, we had a good laugh.
We’ve had the opposite happen, someone would retire and realize it was a big mistake and beg for their job back. It’s amazing how many people retire without running the numbers.
sometimes it’s not about the money. Some people are so defined by their jobs that they find themselves bored when they retire. Money wise - my costs are way down in retirement. But I never let my job define me. If a person feels they have to have a job to be “worth” something, then those are the ones who should work until they die if that’s what make them happy.
With the people I worked with it was the money. A group of retirees from my work get together every month or two for a breakfast and I’ll go to a couple a year, most enjoy retirement and don’t miss the job. A few don’t miss the job, just the paycheck.
I struggled with that for a bit, I had my job since 1991. It predated my marriage, my kids, almost all of my relationships. That all went away once I actually retired, my sleep and health is better, I’m doing the things I want to do. Volunteering at local races, trail maintenance, I’m doing a CPR and forestry class in a few weeks. I’m FAR more than just an average air traffic controller.
@glasspilot - Did you live in Rochester when your dad worked at Kodak? We lived in the Town of Brighton, which is a suburb of Rochester, from 1985 until 1996.
@glasspilot - our daughter graduated from Brighton High School in 1995. When we lived in Manhattan (NYC) during the seventies and eighties we frequently went to the Outer Banks of NC for a vacation and loved it
