Planned Exit
Itâs an interesting perspective, watching emotional collapse from the inside out. Even knowing whatâs happening doesnât affect what is apparently the inevitable decay of trust and self-control and ability to critically analyze a situation. There are days I feel frozen, my arms and legs literally too heavy to move. That same thick gravity freezes my brain, and the chemicals between synapses swim through molasses, advancing through the synaptic clefts at a painfully slow rate.
A middle-manger slightly above me in the department has disappeared under mysterious circumstance. He didnât show up at work, then he was reported to be on funeral leave, then it was announced that he had been terminated for âprocedural violationsâ. They timing roughly fits when we got our reviews. I cannot help but have my own thoughts on this. His work was divided up and temporarily dispersed among the rest of us, myself included. That made no sense to me â why would they give more responsibility to someone who was herself in a âplanned exitâ category? I figured it wasnât like they had any choice; the stuff had to get done and there wasnât anywhere else to dump shiton. The reassignments were supposed to be temporary until he was replaced. I was given one new employee to supervise, and a new department I was responsible for oversight on.
They are in the process of rewriting my job description. Apparently now anyone with a B.S. in biology can do my job. The job description includes the new department I have oversight over, plus the additional supervisory role. (THAT should have been my first clue, but I missed it at the time.) When I asked if the increased responsibility came with a pay raise, my boss rewrote the job description in front of me so that the number of employees under my supervision wasnât specified. When I told her that was one way to get around a pay increase she laughed. Apparently she thought I was joking.
Yesterday I was taken aside in the department headâs office and told that the new division of labor was permanent; we would not be hiring to replace Mr. âProcedural Violationâ. I closed the door and to her office and told her that the situation made no sense to me. Our orientation meeting coving the new review procedures had made it very clear that anyone it my category was pretty much on notice. While they might try salvage training in a very few rare cases, the majority of us would be on âPlanned Exitâ status. Why would they give me new permanent responsibilities if I was out the door in 60 days?
Big Boss looked surprised. She said it wasnât her understanding that this was how the review process was to be handled. I told her that the manual they handed out to us in the meeting was very clear on the matter, and that people in my session had specifically questioned this point because the diagrams explaining this in the presentation were a bit confusing. She said sheâd talk to HR about it.
Meanwhile, the help wanted sign on the door of my pharmacy looking for a pharmacy assistant, will train, is looking tempting.
Wow, the policies sound really crazy. Nobody seems to even understand what they are. Confusion reigns supreme in HR it seems. I don’t blame you a bit for thinking the pharmacy assistant job is looking pretty good. A job with a huge salary cut is better than no job at all. Especially these days. One question, though: What about your health insurance?
The absurdity of the whole situation is mind boggling.
Wow, they can’t even get that right, can they? Shows how focused they are on employees. :o/
I read something the other day about pharmacist’s assistant being a pretty good job. Do you get an employee discount on your prescriptions? *halfhearted grin* *sigh*
I wonder if this username is still good. Let’s try.
Wow, your workplace sounds as bad as mine. I haven’t figured out if it’s a deliberate management policy to keep staff in a permanent state of confusion, or just sheer incompetence that means that one branch of management tell you one thing, and another branch tell you something completely different. Do these people never actually communicate with each other???
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It sounds as if the left hand doesn’t know what the *left* hand is doing, let alone having a vague acquaintance with the right hand.
A job that you could leave behind at the end of the day, and hopefully be treated like a human being during your hours at work, does have its advantages, even if the money isn’t great.
I’m sure you’re aware of this, but your first paragraph is a pretty compelling description of depression. Take care of yourself – and let your loved one[s] do the same.