My New Work Attitude

I had a one-on-one with my supervisor the other day. I approached this with the attitude that I was going to be totally honest with her, and if I got fired afterward (I should be so lucky), so be it.

"So how are things going?"

I got up and closed the conference room door.

"Oh dear."

"To be honest, I am very unhappy. In fact, I'm looking for another job."

The look on her face was priceless. She was genuinely thrown off by this revelation.

We proceeded to discuss the sources of my unhappiness—including the frat house atmosphere of the department—and she promised to start making some changes in that regard…at least at first. By the end of the meeting, however, she was backpedaling and trying to tell me that this middle-school maturity I am immersed in on a daily basis is typical for our career. "I've worked with lots of techs and it's the same everywhere."

Uh, no it's not.

"Please don't leave! You're the only tech I have who people haven't complained about!"

That told me reams.

I would like to think something positive will come from our little chat, and to her credit she did call out someone yesterday who let an f-bomb fly, but I'm really not expecting much. A lot of what I hate about this place is engrained in the company DNA, and nothing is going to change.

Ironically, the annual employee survey came out the day after our meeting, and I was totally honest there as well. "Have you thought about resigning within the last six months?" Seriously? Unfortunately there was no every single fucking day response available.

Would you recommend ██████ services to friends or family?

Not only no, but hell no.

The remainder of the questions were mostly about my satisfaction with the company—much like the survey you get after eating at Jack-in-the-Box, where 1 is "highly dissatisfied" and 5 is "very satisfied." I couldn't answer a single question any higher than "neither satisfied or dissatisfied," with the majority of them being "dissatisfied" and "very dissatisfied."

And at this point—even if the survey isn't "anonymous" as advertised, and it gets tracked back to me, I DON'T CARE.

And not surprisingly, my supervisor hasn't exchanged a dozen words with me since our meeting…