I'm coming up on 14 years of experience in my field, and I feel like because I like to have fun at work and joke around while we work, I don't get treated like an adult. I'm 37. I work circles around some people and I feel like I leave it all on the field every day. I help everyone, I do just about anything they ask, I help get new people up to speed, I come in early often, I don't come in high.. you get the picture.
So my manager has like a year of on the job experience and is just about the worst manager I've ever had. Nothing is ever good enough and I'm always "wrong". I've tried standing up for myself, and I've tried letting it roll off my back. Neither approach solves any of my problems.
Today, my manager waylaid my team member on a break and asked her what I do back there. I'm never not doing stuff and everyone but my manager sees it and knows it. I'm the type of worker that you don't have to worry about.
So I text the manager after she left and asked if she had a problem with my work. Of course not! I'm gods gift to bread! Blah blah blah...
She calls my teammate after hours and discusses why I have a problem.. doesn't ask me why I am upset. Instead I'm the asshole for standing up for myself.
There's a guy I work with that is basically checked out and refuses to make decisions or small talk. He's a good worker though. He told me one day that I should just turn off my brain and do what management says no matter how stupid and just let the pieces fall where they may. I'm trying. I really am. But the leftist in me is screaming at me to stand up and try to fix it. It's against my nature to prostrate myself to people like this. My new strategy is to turn my brain off and just be a soulless husk of a man at work who just keeps his head down and isn't friendly toward anyone. I'm only going to talk about work and work related stuff.
It's hard to do and it's so lonely! I have to listen to the same garbage music every day hear the same "working hard or hardly working" jokes every day and eat the same bowl of shit every day because the management doesn't pay any attention to the yahoos they pull off the street to do this job that should realistically have some training. It's a daily shit show and me and a couple of people have to "deep state" fix everything behind managements back while they chortle at the wine bar and take credit for all the fires we put out.
I should just quit, right?
My job is recession proof, it pays pretty well and on a good day, I enjoy it. I'm also hitting that age where I'm slowing down a bit and I don't know how to do anything else. I live at least 25 minutes from towns where jobs are, and they all would be a significant pay cut. I'm scared of the trump economy and rolling the dice on a different job.
In 3 years I've had three different managers, and the latest one is so bad he's making one of the better members of the team quit.
sometimes the situation at an organization becomes untenable. happened to me. I did just under a decade at a place. so there I am in my 40s, laundering the reputation and helping people making 4x my wage ascend ever higher so they can treat me like an appliance.
at a fundamental level, I was helping people and my immediate coworkers were cool. we also all trauma bonded over how shit the deal was.
but the writing was on the wall, the future was only going to be worse as the most swollen assholes were being elevated and making decisions that would structurally undermine everything I believed in.
so, when I felt myself getting pissed, I would update my CV and send out applications to places that looked better. and not just local either. frankly, I de-prioritized local because I already knew the landscape. and I wanted nothing to do with what was being constructed. I wanted out.
so I looked at other states, well away, that have reputations for being better to workers, unions, etc and would be accommodating to someone relocating.
I probably applied to half a dozen jobs over a six month window, but those were tailored applications where I researched the area and the organization pretty heavily.
as often as places completely undervalue institutional knowledge and experience, there are still some out there that recognize how critical these things are. I was in my 40s when I jumped ship and started over somewhere else, after 14 years getting to know people and places.
it was drastic as hell and took a shitload of spare executive function to pull off, but being treated with respect, valued, and working for a non-toxic organization was like waking up from a nightmare.
I think what really made me do it was knowing what the long timers were like at my old place. after 10 years I had become the most senior staff. the senior staff that quit before I did had done 12-20 years there and they hated life. just angry as fuck all the time, wouldn't even try to be friendly, and we all could understand the urge. we also just thought it wouldn't happen to us. but when I became the most senior, I couldn't ignore the vibes anymore. and the disrespect only amplified. that idea that an employer is doing me the favor by "giving" me a steady job for years is one that I won't tolerate. God it was amazing announcing my departure at a meeting. some close work friends knew a few days prior I had accepted an offer, but 80% were completely blindsided. it was exquisite. all the cool people immediately got why and were congratulatory and all the assholes were like mad, and it felt good to laugh at their confused anger. hmmm... who was doing who the favor all these years?
anyway, I knew the only way I could find something real was to go wide, because most workers can't or just won't.
I've made huge geographic moves before and honestly, it's like time slows down. it's tiring and draining for everything to be new and all the old patterns to be blown away, but it's also enriching too. it's like starting a new chapter in an anthology. the days don't blur together, they are full of new people, new faces, new places and ideas.
one of capitalism's most consistent features is proletarian dislocation, but if you're willing to engage it as an adventure, you can meet a lot more people, become intimately familiar with more places, and learn a lot more about yourself.
I keep in touch with my old colleagues and I am frequently able to confirm that the choice I made was correct, because of how much more wretched it has become.
I also get to be the guy they know in this part of the country, if they want to visit and see what the deal is.
only you can know if it's worth the hassle or not, to exercise your right to walk and contribute your time to something else. for me, walking away from a shit employer feels like fighting and staying feels more like surrender.