2005-01-31 - 9:35 p.m.

giving notice, and more notice, and more notice

After that last entry, let me just say, I don't intend to sound superior. I know how stressful and how scary it is both to continue on when you know you should but quitting would be easier, and I definitely know how scary and stressful it is to quit something responsibly, like giving notice at a job.

I don't want to count how many times I've given notice. A couple of times because I was moving away, and once for health reasons, but mostly because I'd found another job and was moving on. I will say though, that early on in my full-time working career, I quit a couple of jobs because there was something wrong at the job and I didn't know how to try and work through it. But at least I quit responsibly, even though there may have been some running away involved.

Anyway. It can be very scary giving notice. You basically have to go to your boss and say, "I don't want to work for you any more." Some people take that very personally. It's a confrontation, and few people enjoy that. Plus, sometimes there's some guilt involved. You're afraid they'll say, "Ah, so THAT'S why you had two dentist appointments last week and kept coming in late because your car wouldn't start."

When I was a manager, I tried to make it easy on people who were making a valiant effort to do the right thing. If someone came into my office with that pale, death row look, and said in a shaky voice, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" I'd say, "Sure, sit down." Then I'd smile and say, "So how much notice can you give me?" And they would collapse into this huge pool of relief all over my desk. Once the ice was broken and it was "out there," they could relax and talk. At one place in particular, I had a lot of college students working for me, and I knew it might be the first time they'd had to give notice that they were quitting a job. I had a couple of those just bolt on me, and I can completely see how that seems easier. Just don't come back, and you don't have to face that confrontation. So I was proud of the ones who wanted to be professional about it, and I tried to make it a little less stressful.

I'm so neurotic, that I'd be willing to think it was just me obsessing about that opening line. Do you say, "I'm leaving"? "I've taken another job"? "This is my two weeks notice"? Do you write a letter of resignation and just hand it over silently? What? But others tell me it makes them just as nervous, and like I said, when I was a manager I could see people freaking out over it. So this is why it was so exciting that on Friday, I got to give notice not once, not twice, but three times! Joy!

I thought that by rights, the first one to be notified should be the agency, since it's really them I work for. That was stressful because one time, like 15 years ago, an agency rep scolded me for quitting a job they'd gotten me. This was ridiculous. They'd gotten me the job a year earlier, and I had already become a "permanent" employee, so as far as I was concerned, my obligation to the agency was over. But when I quit, I guess the company called the agency to fill the position again (I'm telling myself they didn't call to complain about me leaving), and the agency rep called me at home to reprimand me for quitting without calling them first, and giving them a chance to "work through things" with me. That was during my former life as a mouse, and at the time it upset me. These days I'd be all WTFE. But apparently it's still on my mind. I have issues.

But Friday, I called the agency, found out I still had the same rep (for all I knew, the guy who got me the job 19 months ago wasn't even there any more), and told him the news. He was very cool. Even said to me that he'd had several conversations with HR about possibly making me full time, but they always said hiring freeze, bla bla bla. Funny that I never heard about these conversations, but I guess if nothing came of them, no reason to really tell me. Not that I didn't know that me becoming a permanent employee wasn't happening anyway. But he was great, and even said something to the effect of, well, if they weren't willing to hire you, they should have seen this was coming eventually, congratulations.

Technically speaking it was then his job to inform the company, but I told him I'd like to do it myself since I'd been working with these people directly for so long. See? I invite confrontation! I laugh in its face! Bwahahaha! Not really, I was still scared, I just thought it would make this one woman madder if she heard it from the agency and not me. And then SHE would come to ME all, what's this I hear? No no, much better if I control the situation as much as possible. I don't delude myself that it's courage. It's control-freak-ism all the way. The agency guy was all, sure, whatever.

So I went to my supervisor, you know, the one of whom I've been speaking with such high regard? I did the introductory, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" She said, "Uh oh," which made me laugh. I said, "Yeah, that's never good, is it?" Then I stumbled through the "another position - two weeks" thing. Then, since she's been reminding me fourteen times per minute for the past month that they need to get me off the budget NOW NOW NOW, I said, "the 11th will be my last day, if you even need me that long." With a pretty smile. Which basically meant, if you're in such a holy rush to stop paying me, get your behind in gear and wrap this up, and I'll be off your budget without you even worrying about what to do with me for the rest of the week.

She responded with a little of the "you're so disloyal to be leaving us in the lurch" attitude which is why people run from jobs without giving notice, and a lot of self-delusional junk about the grand things we could do before I go. Bla bla, WTFE.

Then I wanted to tell my original supervisor, Betty, and her boss, MH. I worked for them for so long when I first came, and they were great, so I wanted to tell them myself. They were both so happy for me. MH has the gift of, shall we say, unfortunate phrasing, and came off a little patronizing, but, that's Just The Way She Is. I know she meant well.

Really funny side note. An email went out to several people who will be affected by this final project I'm still on, telling them they now had a time crunch and needed to get stuff together to be sure this project would be finished before I go. One guy, who SHOULD be in charge of the project and will have to deal with the aftermath, replied basically by saying, You mean she's still here and still working on that? If you're asking me what else needs to be done for it to be complete, as far as I'm concerned it's complete NOW. Stitch it up and get it off the table already. And by the way, if the cost of her pay is still being taken out of my group's expenses, please make that stop.

I mean, you know, he said it nicer and all business like, but that's what he said. However, he did refer to the project as "the project that never ends."

I wasn't included as a recipient of his email, but it got back to me (and even got forwarded to me). People were appalled. People were embarrassed. People said he was overstepping his authority. People told me he didn't mean anything against me personally or my work. My immediate response? Privately? "Someone here has balls? Cool." Publicly? I laughed and said that I didn't take it personally at all, that I didn't read any disrespect in it, and that furthermore he was right. I didn't say that a lot of people would be a lot better off if he actually had the authority to make those recommendations stick.

So... new job in two weeks. It seems really right for me. And yeah, I'm really scared.

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -