Work

[allegate]

supervisor 01 is in travel status and I'm unsure when he will be back.
supervisor 02 is in FMLA status and is trying to medically retire. his OOO says he's returning Monday so we'll see.

She said she wouldn't go to HR until talking to sup 02 so there's at least that.

But also! She and sup 02 go back at least a decade if not longer and they are tight. like you'd think they were having an affair tight. They aren't - for reasons I won't go into - but that's what their relationship is like.

I spoke to one of the guys I work with earlier and I feel a bit better. took a walk, listened to some aggressive but positive music, had a cry.

I texted her this morning because I thought I'd be late, turns out I was only 15 instead of 30 so I made the request in the system. She called me and said she values my time and how she knows I work extra here and there so I should just delete it.
Later in the day I used my institutional knowledge to fix a fiscal access issue that everyone else was "well it should work" and she said good job.

Like, sure?

[ickyvicky]

I have this one co-worker that keeps calling out last minute on her shifts. Each time it's a different excuse. I'm reaching my boiling point, but at what point do I get to say to her, "Do you want this job or not?!" The only reason why I'm hesitant to say anything is because it's hard finding someone to cover an evening shift.

Her excuse for tonight is she was at the gym and pulled out her back and has to go to the hospital.

[Sebek]

I have this one co-worker that keeps calling out last minute on her shifts. Each time it's a different excuse. I'm reaching my boiling point, but at what point do I get to say to her, "Do you want this job or not?!" The only reason why I'm hesitant to say anything is because it's hard finding someone to cover an evening shift.

Her excuse for tonight is she was at the gym and pulled out her back and has to go to the hospital.

She probably wants the job but completely on her own terms. I'd guess she prefers the freedom to do whatever she wants over a maximum paycheck (or maybe she's salaried and time punches don't matter). From my experience she will continue to consistently call out until she faces some sort of repercussion. There will be all manner of reasons for the call outs and she'll make them seem reasonable on the surface. Besides also putting her on notice the conversation most managers would have with her would be is "you could be the best worker we have, but you're worthless if you're not here working" and "missing your shifts is pulling down the rest of the team since we have to pick up your slack." Unfortunately it's usually easier to track a pattern of poor performance and address it through discipline than it is to change the attitude of someone who's already started checking out.

[ickyvicky]

We started our new summer hours, and I even asked her first if she wanted to continue through the summer - giving her the option to say no, but she said yes - which is even more infuriating. I let her pick her days and hours too. She just has 2 days week!

[ninedead]

My wife and myself are both school bus drivers. We love our jobs as we both drive elementary kids. Best part of the job is that we are off when they are off, which is a bunch of days during the year. Currently in our 6th week of summer vacation with 4 more to go. Only bad part is not getting paid during these summer months so savings is vital.
Anyway, I love my job and don't think I could do anything else. We will never be rich but we will also never have to go to a job we hate or be stressed out due to work.

[allegate]

mini update:

Spoke to my direct supervisor and he said two things - I don't have to worry about being reduced (yay) and that he's going to be medically retiring asap (not yay at all). He tried to assuage my fears by saying that he doesn't want me to have to worry about a new boss messing things up for me - which already happened, if you recall - so he's going to take steps. The thing is he's not at work to take these steps because he's in such a bad way medically that he's now on FMLA / LWOP* and is probably never coming back.

On top of everything else his supervisor has been detailed to a position for the past three months and all signs point to him getting the job eventually. This would mean that not only would I be working for a new direct boss I'd also have a new main boss, neither of whom would be privy to the whole "hey he's still learning this job" agreement.

So I've been searching for a new job. In my initial conversation with my supervisor and temp supervisor I told them in no uncertain terms that if push came to shove I have no problem taking a downgrade at a different position to get out of that situation and I'm holding to that. I'm looking at a lot of virtual jobs - yay covid!(?) - and it doesn't look that bad.

The difficult part is not knowing where I'm going here on top of not knowing where I could be heading there. Too much uncertainty and no way to clarify any which way. Sure I could take that HR job at the IRS but it could be a worse situation with a badbadnotgood boss as well. Or, you know, working for the IRS.

Funnily enough one of my searches was for "25 miles of my zip code" and it brought back every virtual job in the country. One of them was not virtual though, it said "by the time this position closes you must live in one of these 25 states". We just paid our house off (another bargaining chip I used) and my wife is about to finish building an extension (long story, but she's a civil engineer with free time) so when I asked her "so, you want to move to Vermont" so that was a hard no. lol

*Family and Medical Leave Act / Leave WithOut Pay (when you're out of all available leave)

[allegro]

FMLA / LWOP

Having a husband who was a federal government employee for 35 years, I read those as "FAMla and LEEwop." Of course, LOL.

[allegate]

As an update: several names have been floating around apparently for the supervisors in question, none of whom are any great shakes. I am applying to a job that is fully virtual but is a training position as well, starts you out with the immediate assumption that you need to learn to do and then promotes you from there. Really great opportunity except it closes tomorrow and I am leaving tomorrow to go camping and so I'm cramming together a new resume and all that asap. funny thing is there's a form required for application and I can only get it on the work network - I just tried and got a super scary "your IP has been logged" for trying to access it.

the really stupid thing is that it has my social on it and if you try to email anything with a social on it the security bots flag it and don't send. AND you cannot hook a USB up to the computers without those same bots coming after you. fun Mission Impossible stuff.

[Jinsai]

I can say that my vaxxed and boosted ass is starting to get regular live sound events again. Like, really, thank whatever... I was losing my mind. One of my favorite things to do as a job is mix live sound, and it doesn't upset me unless the band doesn't know how to play. I like making musicians sound good live, and I know how to do it, and goddamn it feels good to be getting that sort of employment again.

[allegate]

I'm applying to a job. I just finished answering 155 psych questions and now it's the practical bit. The example was "Night is to dark as morning is to ___" and the answer was 'light'. The actual question is blowing my mind because it jumped from that to basically 'can you do maths in your head at a lightning speed'.

no, the answer is no. I mean I know it's for the department of education but come on!

edit:

it was something like "what number is 11 away from the previous number when both are squared" and then a second one was the same but with 23.

then there was a sequence of numbers with "what the next number": 0, 1, -1, 2, -3, ___

I could not figure it out for anything and tried formulas and even wolfram alpha. It thought about it for a loooong time and said "dunno dude". So I just picked one of the answers, 4. Because maybe, right?

I asked my son who had just woken up (according to him) and he thought about it and said 5. "It's the Fibonacci Sequence but every other is negative." So not solvable, just annoying.

Then there was the timed bits with language and spelling and punctuation. luckily I've been an anal-retentive twat about those things for decades so that was easier.

[ickyvicky]

Crazy

[otnavuskire]

it was something like "what number is 11 away from the previous number when both are squared" and then a second one was the same but with 23.

6 and 5 (36-25=11), and 12 and 11 (144-121=23)

[allegate]

Oh I figured them out - I'm sure there's a mathematic way to do it but I just went "15 squared - 14 squared...nope. 14 squared - 13 squared....nope" until I got it.

I'm still salty about the series thing.

side note: probably not going to get that one but that's OK.

[DVYDRNS]

After 17 years of self employment. I am going back to the corporate world.

I guess having a kid and a new wife changes your priorities. go figure.

401K and benefits with a salary and commission sounds amazing right now!

[Pillfred]

Had a guy fly from Vegas to here, Sioux Falls S.D., to buy 20lbs of dried beef only to turn around and fly back out today as well.

[DVYDRNS]

Was supposed to start my new gig today. I got Covid instead.

[allegate]

last week was the first week back for my actual boss. exciting times because hey maybe we can actually discuss what he wants from me, especially since it's time for end of year evaluations. he asks me to schedule some time so I do, this past Wednesday actually. I am online and ready to go but he's...out of office? turns out he was sick and didn't tell me. fine, whatever. he's got a tumor in his effin' brain, I'm not going to make life difficult for that. but there was another meeting today about something unrelated and I get to work and get online and ready to go and nope he's out of office again with no notification.

I told his boss (my old one) that I can't keep going like this. I need some kind of direction for this job that they both said I could do with their help if they aren't providing any help. all the training in the world can't make me better at this if 'this' is never defined.

for example: I don't know what I'm being graded against because the software used for that was never updated from my last job. I'm hitting those standards sure but that's not applicable anymore.

sigh. I'm eligible to retire right now - I have my 20 - and I've seriously thought about it. I'm young enough that I can get a job somewhere else and do another 20 before retirement age rolls around.

[allegate]

Well he just resigned. Fudge.

but hey, maybe I can get a job in the UK? that's cheaper than gas + buying lunch.

[leftshoe18]

I work in a school and flu season hit us fucking hard this week. The district has had at least 1/5 of the kids out every day this week and today the specific school I work at was over 40%. This is just nuts!

[allegate]

I submitted a deletion request on 11/18 for the boss who resigned. Easy peasy.

Yesterday I got an email saying my ticket had been completed. shortly after that I started losing access to everything. I put 2 and 2 together fairly quickly and tried to contact IT. The IT support page uses your Active Directory account to log in and since I was deleted...well there was no log in. I get someone else to do it for me and about two to three hours later I'm back, I have access, and everything is as it should be.

I get to work today and I'm deleted again. Fully disabled this time, I can't even log into the computer. I call IT again and they say "you're not deleted" I say I sure am, I'm looking at it. Go round a few times and then the swears start flying because I have two accounts in the AD system and they don't know which one is correct. I tell them which one it is - because this is old hat to me, I've known about the two accounts for years and one even has the incorrect SSN attached to it - but that's not good enough. Apparently they need to go national IT for assistance because this is beyond local help. Sure, fine.

So here I sit. I cannot access any work stuff but I'm on the network. I can't access any communication like Outlook or Teams but I can browse ETS and YouTube.

Well, at least I'm getting paid?

[Khrz]

Glad to see that chaos is everywhere...

I'm enjoying a week off because I've been very bad with my PTO and ended up with more than three weeks off, an month and a half before the end of year.

My boss has been on sick leave since early September and though everyone knows he won't be coming back, our superiors collectively pretend that everything's dandy.

One of my best, nay, the only decent colleague in my service is going and I really really hope he'll be replaced by someone who can adapt fast and knows what they're doing, because we really won't have the time (or, concerning the other colleagues, the inclination) to teach them the ropes.

I feel like I'm the only one left in the team who's not alarmingly incompetent and/or an asshole, and that says a lot because I'm not overflowing with confidence in my abilities.

Boss had his quirks and problematic habits, but at least there was some sense of vision and direction while he was there... Right now that boat's just floating in the general direction where it was headed last time the engines were on, and everyone's acting like someone, somewhere, is still at the helm.

I love this place, and I really don't want to leave because I know the other places aren't as humane as that one but it's a mess...

[Sarah K]

Start what is a dream next step (I'll use both degrees!) for me with about a $40k raise on Monday.

Already feeling like an imposter!

[ickyvicky]

Really debating about leaving my job. There's just something holding me back from doing so (besides financials, obviously,) and I don't know what it is. Maybe I'll regret it?
I've been looking at other jobs in the meantime, but have been unsuccessful so far in 2 interviews, so I don't have anything currently lined up, which I'd prefer not to do. The timing if I were to leave now would be better in September rather than later - and that's just me being nice to my job, no other reason.

For those that have left a job without having another one lined up, what were some of the positive and negative things you've experienced?

[versusreality]

keep grinding Vicky. you'll get what you are looking for.

I'm considering not just leaving my job, but my whole field with a career change. Currently I'm a special education teacher and also have a cert in counseling. I'm at the lower pay scale so not making too much. I feel I need to earn more, and this field doesn't provide that. I have over 140K in student loan debt too. I likely will have to move in the spring, trying to get engaged this summer...a lot on my plate, not much in terms of money. I've been in education for about a decade (started as a substitute for many years) , I feel I did my time and it's time to move on.

I'm in the process of doing a Google project management cert on Coursera. Maybe I'll head in that direction.

This is NOT a complaint, just an observation on how underpaid teachers are: my gf recently started a new, fully remote position. it's considered somewhat entry level. she didn't have much experience going into it. she is making more than me.

[ickyvicky]

@versusreality I know it! My husband is special ed teacher too

[henryeatscereal]

Really debating about leaving my job. There's just something holding me back from doing so (besides financials, obviously,) and I don't know what it is. Maybe I'll regret it?
I've been looking at other jobs in the meantime, but have been unsuccessful so far in 2 interviews, so I don't have anything currently lined up, which I'd prefer not to do. The timing if I were to leave now would be better in September rather than later - and that's just me being nice to my job, no other reason.

For those that have left a job without having another one lined up, what were some of the positive and negative things you've experienced?

It's never a good idea to leave a job without having another one already, reason being that you're kind of "naked" in between.

I've done it before and granted that life in NY is very different than life in my hometown (though there are many similarities...), but i discovered that looking for a new job it's always better while HAVING ALREADY a job (it might sound sexist, but it's like looking for a new girlfriend/boyfriend...).

Doing it after you have quit, it's like gambling...

[the duder]

So I'm at about the midpoint of my career in education. Started off teaching middle school science in Sweden, then moved back stateside after my sister passed away. I found a science position at a local high school near the beach I was lifeguarding, then left to coach swimming and get my masters in instructional technology. Went back to the beach after graduation with my masters and the previous high school miraculously had another science position open.

I put in another six years of teaching, then in 2018 I transitioned to my current role of instructional tech specialist. I've presented at ISTE, a major ed tech conference the past 3 years and was asked to sit on a panel of big names in the world of edtech to discuss the implementation of AI in K-12 education at this year's conference.

Despite this, I feel stuck and ready to shift careers. Our district has had a string of terrible press stemming from personnel issues over the past two years, and our leadership can't seem to find time to do anything but damage control. I've got my admin certification, and applied to multiple middle and high school AP positions only to be passed over for the "good ol' boy" network or someone from outside the district (as a counter to the GOBN).

I started looking into instructional design/learning and development positions, but from the vibes online, that market seems to be saturated with candidates.

I'm just feeling a bit stuck; with 14 years in the state and a great pension system, I want to keep growing but don't feel like I'm being supported in my aspiration. I started a consulting business on the side to try to exercise my creativity and learn some basics of instructional design, so maybe that can go somewhere.