Friday, August 31, 2012

Pity Partay

The mini-reorg at work has started.  I am still employed, but the new job I got is such an awful fit with my skills and personality that I almost wish someone would buy me out and give me severance.

My boss's boss called to tell me the "good" news.  All I could manage was "Mhhmmm" and "Uh-huh" and finally "OK, bye".  I hung up and burst into tears.  I'm not one to cry much at work, but this is just such a supremely bad fit that it feels awful.  Also, the person who gets the job that I love and am good at is the guy who filled in for me during my recent maternity leave so now I wonder if I hadn't gone and taken 5 months off if this would have even happened.  What a crap lot of emotions happening!

So, anyway, I cried on and off in my office for the next couple hours (while still doing an awesome amount of work for the job that I love).  Since my office is in a small building in a remote part of the factory grounds, I didn't see anyone except the young woman in the office next to me.  She was very understanding.  Then I went through the entire box of tissues on my desk, went to my car and went through those, so when she went out to lunch, she stopped and brought me back a very pretty cube of Puffs.  And I won't be sitting next to her thoughtfulness any more.  Damn her for being so awesome and making this even harder.

I texted my BFF the following:  "The mini re-org came down & I am unattractively crying at my desk (bldg is empty so it's OK).  I want a bat, some Beastie Boys, and an old printer.  Oh well."  She replied with supportive words, so I followed it up with "How long is it appropriate to cry at work b4 u stop feeling sorry for urself? Im getting that cried too much headache & thirsty feeling."

So, I am done crying now.  I have to figure out a game plan for what to do because taking the new job is not really much of an option.  It is such a bad fit that it wouldn't even be funny how bad it would be.  (Imagine me having to interact with people every day...and sit in an open-style cube farm with others.  The solitude-loving introvert in me would go crazy having to be near people at home and at work.)  My husband said to send a meeting notice to my boss, my boss's boss, and the potential new boss to discuss career path (and send it right before I go home for a holiday weekend).  I made my wishes and preferences well-known prior to the re-org so I doubt they'd listen.  Does anyone have any better ideas?

4 comments:

  1. At my last job I worked in a cubicle on an entire floor of nothing but cubicles. I never had to talk on the phone, though, to get the work done. I would have probably left at lunch the first day and not gone back. I feel your pain and I think it's shitty they gave your job away while you were on maternity leave.

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  2. Oh that sucks.

    I don't know what you do. Start a job search?

    If you do, I may be joining you in searching.... My company is moving to a new building in about 1 year. The new building is in a crappy location for me, far away from the cluster where all the other biotechs in San Diego are located. And the big boss believes in open plan office space "to promote collaboration" (he, of course, gets an office, as do the other senior managers). And now I have learned that most people won't even get cubicles- they'll get a spot on a big desk with little dividers between spots. My team would get cubicles because we don't also have lab space. But I am not sure I can keep working at a company that is making so many sucky decisions for its workers.

    But at least I have a year to figure out what to do. It sucks that they sprung this on you right after maternity leave. I hope you find something even more awesome to do.

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  3. I was pretty much in the same position when they restructured at our office. It totally sucked. I ended up going on short term disability -I was totally burned out from office politics & crap.

    The advice I have is this: see a lawyer. Not necessarily to take action, but to find out your options and timeframe in which you must act if you want to use any of them. I decided to stick it out and to try to make a job that I knew was not going to work for me, well, work. I did this for 3 months. And it turned out to be the wrong thing to do if I wanted a package for a constructive dismissal.

    Won't get into more details here, but if you want more specifics, feel free to email. Hang in there.

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