kind of an obvious thing to say but work is so weird. i just had my informal goodbye call with all my (now ex-) coworkers. strange to think iāve spent so much time talking and laughing with these people over the last few years and now will just never speak to 99% of them again.
if anyone knows what the āall-in podcastā is, they rent out the pier for their private afterparty for their āall-in summitā every year, and it is exactly as gross and lame as youād imagine it to be. It was my job to go under the pier and hook up all their power.
looked it up, those are some of the worst people on earth
is it normal for a workplace to have you (me) train someone without any prior notice? my job (food industry, front of house) has done this to me multiple times and it makes me so angry every single time - particularly because we have a Training Binder with Official Company Mottos And Information but i never get to go through and review it before i have to teach the information to somebody else.
anyway, this happened yesterday. to add insult to injury, i was training someone who will be my superior (i am a shift lead, and she will be a manager) and she would not. stop. touching. me!!! on my arm, on my back, on my shoulders. and saying stuff like āthank you sweetheartā and āhoneyā and stuff like that. i wanted to fucking scream
This can be considered harassment. Iām not you and I know the situation is complex, but I strongly recommend you set your boundaries for your own comfort and safety immediately and make sure that someone else witnesses you doing it.
Iām sorry this happened to you. Itās totally inappropriate.
is it normal for a workplace to be dogshit at onboarding people? 'fraid so. and is that a burden for everyone? you know it.
i get a lot of satisfaction from things being done properly-- thatās why i hate work so much.
so happy that doesnāt happen to me. iāve got an auraāsome call it a personality disorderāthat chases off the touchy and the chatty. my poor wife otoh has the opposite.
It might be normal (the impromptu training part), but it isnāt right. In some campus positions people will try to pull this too, putting students into a shift without warning staff that theyāre basically training. People sometimes work years to be an effective teacher; maybe training someone should entail at least glancing at a manual and thinking about how youāll convey the information.
hey will you train this person with no heads up happens to me yeah. But not workplace touching they cant be doing that no
I get stuck training people a lot, I totally get that itās incredibly frustrating. I feel like Iām not a great teacher and I was never taught how to properly train someone, so itās anxiety inducing.
If you end up expressing your discomfort with being touched, I hope it goes well! I shrink back every time Iām touched unexpectedly and it stresses me out a lot, I canāt imagine going through a whole shift like that
idk if the toucher is of the creep type but if theyāre a nice person who lacks a sense of appropriate boundaries then you could look at it as a kindness if you tactfully (if tact is due in this case) address it. Would ofc help you, but also help a possible naif from getting in trouble down the line too
Unfortunately both of these things are far too common.
Regarding the touching, this is also a managerial technique some people learn. Thereās some info out there ā I have no idea how credible it is, however ā stating that light touches on the top of the arm or shoulder help subconsciously foster a sense of trust and compliance. I have no idea if it is what is going on here, but sometimes it is (essentially) weaponised as a control tactic. People end up thinking āyeah, my manager is pretty decent actuallyā¦ā where theyāve been subtly manipulated along the way.
I suppose thereās nothing new there.
If it makes you uncomfortable, politely say something and put a stop to it immediately.
That absolutely sucks. Iāve certainly had to do this for people who would be my superior before, but I at least remained untouched.
alllllllllright.
itās been three months today, seems like a good time to break my silence.
on the literal day that i finished my contract project i was offered a job to apply for. i got sick of complaining about interviewing for stuff and not getting them so i kept quiet until i knew one way or another. turns out i got the job. it can happen to you.
the gig is a many hats type situation at a cultural heritage museum, which suits my adhd and broad skill set just fine. i get to build stuff, coordinate volunteers, install and prepare exhibits, manage and digitize collections, plan events, yell at the mayor, power wash poop, create A/V exhibition materials, and undertake the inventory and preservation of our entire collection, just to name a few things.
iāve never had a job job like this. one where iāve got autonomy, benefits, equitable treatment, constant challenges (complimentary), weekly check-ins, PSLF (for now), and executive power. i can finally build my credit, go to the doctor, get new glasses, save money, take my elderly cat to her new biannual vet visits, go to dinner, actually manage adhd, and not juggle five jobs. this is not to brag, iām just almost 40 and finally get to see some sort of future for myself.
the nice part is i still have time to keep my fingers in all the previous pies! keep an eye on VGHF stuff in the upcoming months!
anyway. idk. iām happy and homeostasis is an unfamiliar area to me so iām not sure what to do with this just yet.
i gotta go finish up installing the new exhibit for the opening on friday, then i gotta finalize the slides for a community preservation basics workshop, and then weāre installing the VGHF exhibit at PRGE (which you should visit!), so itās gonna be a fucker of a half-month but i can at least check-in to say iām okay. literal years of work finally paid off.
Congratulations! The list of different job tasks made me laugh; sometimes a job really is as broad as power washing poop, planning events, and working with volunteers in the same day.
The autonomy part is an especially nice part of it. Being trusted to show up and get what needs doing done is a satisfying feeling.
Right on!! I saw the release it gave you to score that job in the IC discord. So happy for you!
Genuinely happy for you. As an aside, speaking as another person who had a dramatic leap in āprofessionalā fortunes - they say material security turns you conservative, but the experience youāre describing had the opposite effect with me. When you get to live a little no longer on the knife edge, you realize everyone can and should have these things and itās bullshit that they often dont
yes! it isnāt more money and more free time that tends to make people conservative, itās
- when more of your income is from property you own, because now your interests are closer in line with capitalists, andā¦
- when you have reason to worry youāll lose what you have, because you see it happening all around you
the accelerationist idea is if things get bad enough then something will happen. sure, i suppose, but i canāt think anything good will happenā¦ for things to really get better, first they have to get a little better.
itās incredibly new to me, the autonomy. trust is a good descriptor. itās weird not having to seek approval for every little thing before i do it, even when i donāt know what iām doing sometimes.
@yeso itās early yet but āgetting mineā has really just meant that i now have the capacity for actionable empathy. idk exactly how iām practicing that at the moment but not living in a stress response certainly means that i have much more compassion to spread around and thatās a nice opportunity.
Question for the thread: whatās the most embarrassing mistake you ever made in applying or interviewing for a job you eventually secured anyway?