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Ben Is Going Through This Right Now

How a sinister manager slowly pushes you to quit:

Step 1 – I’d get a little cold. Less friendly, less supportive. You notice it but brush it off.

Step 2 – I’d stop noticing your work. No appreciation, no recognition. You’re getting slightly demoralized now.

Step 3 – You’re suddenly not in important meetings anymore. Things move without you. It hurts but whatever, I guess.

Step 4 – Your good work gets taken away. You’re left with random, low-impact tasks. You feel devalued. This feeling ruins your evenings.

Step 5 – You’re told to “do better” but no one tells you what that actually means?!?! This is turning into actual frustration.

Step 6 – Out of nowhere, “performance concerns” come up. You panic. “What am I doing wrong?”

Step 7 – You try to fix things… but the goalpost keeps changing. You just had your first anxiety attack.

Step 8 – They start watching everything you do. Small mistakes become a big deal. You’re constantly walking on eggshells now.

Step 9 – I’d become harder to reach. No guidance, but still judging your work. You’re feeling deflated.

Step 10 – Everything gets written down. Emails, notes, “just documenting.” You know they’re setting you up to fail.

Step 11 – You get put on a Performance Improvement Plan. It looks official, but it doesn’t have clear metrics. You’re angry.

Step 12 – You start hearing lines like “this might not be the right fit.” Subconsciously you’re prepared to leave and never look back.

Step 13 – Your workload gets weird. Either way too much or barely anything. You’ve started making applications elsewhere.

Step 14 – You feel confused all the time. You’re trying harder but it’s not landing. You can’t wait to get out of here.

Step 15 – I’d hint that leaving might be easier. You AGREE. Like, so much easier. Now, if only you had another back-up option.

Step 16 – You’re exhausted and your self-esteem has taken a major hit… and quitting starts to feel like the only way out, with or without a back-up option. You quit. They win.

Bad employers are very good at psychological pressure. As an employment lawyer, I’m trained to spot these patterns early and see what’s coming next. Follow along to learn.

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Underrated

Pet Shop Boys: Relentless  (1993)

I love this album, mainly because it was so different from what PSB had put out up until that point.

I will forever associate this disc with a little club I happened upon called The Playground in San Francisco in August of 1993 because it seemed they were always playing it.

I discovered The Playground after I had started boxing up my life to move back to Arizona—for the first time—after nearly a decade in The City. City life—and still pining over Rory—I knew it was time for me to cut my losses and start new.

Once I’d made up my mind to leave however—going so far as to give notice at work and on my apartment—as she is wont to do, The City pulled out all the stops to get me to stay. One evening I was out in front of my apartment building washing the car, and an absolutely gorgeous man happened by, struck up a conversation, and the next thing I knew we were upstairs doing the nasty. I started meeting guys left and right. And then my friend Rick came over one evening and started singing the praises of The Playground.

I was no stranger to sex clubs, having frequented the 1808 on a regular basis just after moving to San Francisco and spending many a rainy night wandering the halls of Mike’s Night Gallery many years later, but I’d drifted away from those venues because it was easy enough to find sex pretty much anywhere in the city if you really wanted it. So why pay for it?

In any case Rick’s full-throated (pardon the pun) endorsement of The Playground let me to check it out one night.

From the description in my Journal at the time:

There ís something very primal about the place, something that ís very much linked to our deepest (and yes, darkest) sexual fantasies. The owners have a gold mine in their hands, if they know how to keep the ambiance alive.

It s a converted warehouse on 17th Street between Folsom and Harrison. The building itself is at the back of a large parking lot. It’s all gray metal with yellow painted trim. At night there are two rotating yellow beacons located on the loading dock where you go in. When you first enter, to the right is the admission area. When you pass through that, you first enter the television and refreshment area. There are several sofas clustered about a lone TV. If you proceed back, slightly to the left, the next area you come to is the glory hole space. It’s a series of black painted cubicles surrounding a raised platform. Naturally, there are more than ample holes drilled between the cubicles and the platform. Immediately to the right of this area is what I’ve come to call “the drive-in.” There’s an English taxi (vintage unknown) parked there that faces a projection television that plays the same porn videos that are playing in the television area. If you continue back toward the rear of the building from the drive-in, you get into another area dominated by separate cubicles. These cubicles surround another, smaller room, and they have small holes drilled at eye-level, allowing you to look into the smaller room and see whatís going on. When you exit the peep-hole area and head again, toward the rear of the warehouse, you pass “the dungeon” on your left, where you’ll find a sling and various other equipment I could not identify. To your right is the restroom (and yes, people do have sex in there). Continuing back, down a set of stairs, are three more spaces: the jail, the infirmary, and off the infirmary, a small room with a bed and a single lone light bulb. There’s something very eerie about these two rear rooms, although exactly what it is, I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on. The jail, which opened only recently, is very hot. It consists of a large area surrounding four cells, complete with bunks and toilets.

I think this is the building (at least as it appears today). I can’t definitively verify that because gates on street view are blocking the view of the entrance.) The parking lot was much smaller with another building blocking it off to the right of the entrance gate.

After visiting The Playground several more times, combined with all the men falling out of the sky, I abruptly changed my plans to leave and ended up staying in San Francisco for another nine months. By then the downpour of eligible bachelors had ended and I was at wit’s end with the same aspects of city life that had initially prompted my thoughts of moving back to Arizona months earlier. It was then that I returned to Tucson for six months before the siren call of The City prompted my return.