I've only held four jobs in my lifetime. So far two of them have been very short-term. I'm going to be embarking on a fifth here in a week or so, and I hope it will be much, much more long-term. Once again I'm going to be doing something I've never really done before, so I'm hoping to find myself well-suited to it, and less discouraged/anxious about going to work in the morning.
Oh shit. "In the morning." Yeah, I'm screwed. I've never had an actual morning job. I can get up and go to school in the A.M. like a champ, so I'm hoping I'll be the same with work.
The first time I changed jobs I gave my two weeks and my manager asked if I wanted to just not be on the schedule for the second week. I thought that was a great idea, and it helped when I wanted to start my training in that second week. Otherwise I would have had to put it off and start later and all that jazz. It was, all-in-all, a very smooth transition. Except for the part where I had to get my final paycheck and had no idea that they would hold onto it until I picked it up. ("What method did you select during hiring?" Holy crap, guy. I don't remember what we did during hiring. That was almost four months ago and I filled out a lot of forms at that time.)
This is a similar situation, where I had a job for a short period of time and managed to find a better one while still at the old job. The transition has been ... much less smooth.
To understand the problem you first need to know that the ending employment has a rule about paper. I scoured the HR policies available online since my training manual had no information about resignation and found only that we were supposed to contact our supervisor, and our supervisor would contact HR. Because of that policy regarding paper and because my supervisor and I worked on slightly different schedules, I didn't want to stick an envelope on her desk and wind up fired (or get her fired). So I sent her an email and assumed that she would let me know what I needed to know from there.
I'm very "by the book" on this stuff. My job in Japan wanted two months and I gave them two months. Every other job I've given two weeks. Including this one. Now, this one also overlapped with me catching a bad cold that caused me to miss a lot of time since it affected my ability to speak on the phone, but I came back as soon as I could (sooner than I should have) and powered through. And once I was back I confirmed with my supervisor--since I turned in my two weeks on Saturday and she has weekends off--that she got my resignation. Because she had given me absolutely no indication via email that she had received it, nor had she told me what I might need to do next. That was on a Thursday.
And I continued to hear nothing from anyone until Tuesday. By then I had, by my count, three days left of my employment. I had already secured Job #2 and was set to start it at a later date. Suddenly someone was telling me that I needed to get a letter that could be filed with HR and to turn it in ASAP. This was sent through a chain of emails that started with mine to my supervisor, then her email to another person who emailed someone else who emailed my supervisor who then forwarded it all to me.
I contacted my supervisor and asked if I really needed to get that written notice since I wouldn't be able to bring it in until Thursday, seeing as Wednesday was my day off. I told her that I was leaving on Saturday, I already had my new job lined up, and I couldn't just stay on much longer. Besides, the job was impacting my health. And it was. Apparently my body doesn't care if I know the other person isn't really mad at me. It just hears, "Angry person yelling at me" and goes into a massive fight-or-flight. Which, when you have an autoimmune disorder, kind of fucks you up. Stress is already bad, but for me it's extra-bad. And that kind of stress is the worst. I just shake and sometimes I involuntarily cry. I just can't deal with it.
And that's on top of the sad people who make me sad. Like literally sad.
So ...
I never heard anything back.
Ever.
I had some stuff to do on Thursday and when it was all over I just could not bring myself to get on the buses to go to work and get yelled at some more. I went in on Friday thinking that if HR needed to talk to me (exit interview or whatever) I should go in. Also, I still had some of my personal belongings there and I wanted to make sure I took those home.
No one said a word to me except my supervisor, who told me she wished she could know me outside of work because I seem like a great person (I don't know how sincere that was). And that was it. No exit interviews. Nothing. No word on what I might do with my badge and stuff. Nada.
And to make matters more complicated, my final day was supposed to be Saturday. HR isn't around on Saturdays. My supervisor isn't around on Saturdays. I couldn't get a bus scheduled to take me home on Saturday evening, so I thought I might go part of the day Saturday (today) and then leave a few hours early to get the last bus home.
But.
My last call on Friday was a man who was absolutely hysterical. Just steaming mad, screaming into the phone. And there went my adrenal glands, releasing a gallon of adrenaline. I talked the guy down a bit and he apologized, but I told myself, "No. I'm not going in tomorrow. This is it."
So the game now is to wait and see what happens. As far as I know I'm still in the system and scheduled to work on Monday. I will literally keep calling out as long as I have to. I suppose I can write a nice, long letter to HR telling them a lot of the same information I just told you. It's ... frustrating.
And this doesn't even get into all the other crap that caused me to think, "I'd better get to looking for another job ..." The stress thing is just scratching the surface.
Anyway, I think I'll be much happier in my new job. Cross your fingers for me.
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