Current Events > Tfw you just want to quit a horribly toxic job

(+) Yeah! (+)

Cleo_II posted...

Its done CE! Sent the resignation email. My boss had a talk with me and hes pretty sad Im leaving but agreed on why and said he knew the environment is rough and not for everyone. He was happy I even gave a two week notice. So at least I will get paid while doing very little as I transition things. Ill be paid out my vacation time as well which is another week. So that should help ease financial anxiety as I line up my next job.

I hope you do great :)

We should go party tonight! ^_^
---

Congrats, Cleo! A step towards a happier life.
---

Thanks everyone!
CyricZ posted...

We should go party tonight! ^_^

Lets do it

Drinks on you
---

Yep.

I wish I could quit but I make $20k more than at my last job, get a five digit annual bonus, pay two digits a month for health insurance and have literal pension.

In an odd way, it actually sucks to have such good compensation and benefits. Means I'm stuck hating my job, my life and Microsoft for another 30 years.
---

WTF I got a call from my boss boss (the person who actually hired me) pretty much begging me to stay. He said that my boss gave me misinformation of my career path and gave me stupid tasks and he will put me in a different role right now if I like, thats a lot more challenging and some cool projects to work on. And that he wasnt aware of all the shit happening with sales people trying to steal my clients and if I involve him hell personally look into things. He even said hed assign me a new manager if I wanted.

Totally came out of left field. I told him Id take a day to think about it.

Don't do it I say.
---

Villain posted...

Don't do it I say.

The only reason Im contemplating it is that it would give my old boss a few months to ramp up at his new company and create a role for me. So if things here dont improve, Ill have an out.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

We didnt discuss compensation but I dont think that would be an issue since I have an offer on the table I can leverage.

DevsBro posted...

Yep.

I wish I could quit but I make $20k more than at my last job, get a five digit annual bonus, pay two digits a month for health insurance and have literal pension.

In an odd way, it actually sucks to have such good compensation and benefits. Means I'm stuck hating my job, my life and Microsoft for another 30 years.

Do you work at MS? They have crazy good benefits and pay from what I hear.

I vote pass on staying.

If your boss' boss were any good at it, he'd have known about this long ago.
---

Wht made the workplace toxic?

Cleo_II posted...

Its done CE! Sent the resignation email. My boss had a talk with me and hes pretty sad Im leaving but agreed on why and said he knew the environment is rough and not for everyone. He was happy I even gave a two week notice. So at least I will get paid while doing very little as I transition things. Ill be paid out my vacation time as well which is another week. So that should help ease financial anxiety as I line up my next job.

How did you get a weeks vacation for 2 months of work? I have 2 days for my first 6 months lol (8 days automatically given after that)

---

CyricZ posted...

I vote pass on staying.

If your boss' boss were any good at it, he'd have known about this long ago.

Well he has like 15-20 directs, including my boss. So a lot of the stuff that happened, I never brought up to him. He said we should have had more regular synchs and thats where he dropped the ball.

But I do think its funny that now that I want to leave, they want to offer me the role I originally applied for before I was down-leveled to something else during the interview

fuck that

---

hi cleo
---

toyota posted...

Wht made the workplace toxic?

Several sales people breaking rules in the hopes of stealing my clients. If you try to escalate the situation, basically nothing happens as long as someone makes a sale. Recently I brought up someone who broke the rules 3 times with me, the third time after she was told to back off by management. When I brought it up I was basically spoken to like a child who couldnt handle her own battles.

Crazy micromanager who every week would badger me about metrics even when I was killing their overall quota expected for new hires. Hed whine about certain types of activity metrics (like number of reach outs or whatever), he didnt understand I have higher quality interactions than most. Other micromanaging team members (not even on my team) trying to tell me what to do constantly. Extremely rude people. Ive never in my career have had people communicate like this to me. Oh and some other chick stole my presentation material and used it for her own part before mine.

No_U_L7 posted...

How did you get a weeks vacation for 2 months of work? I have 2 days for my first 6 months lol (8 days automatically given after that)

I have 15 days of vacation a year, and accrue 4.65 hours per pay check. Ive been here 4 months.

Kaiganeer posted...

quit your job, divorce your husband, take some time off of everything and when you feel like you're ready, start speedrunning the OoT 100% category full time

This

Cuck ZFG right out of his top spot
---

Cleo_II posted...

DevsBro posted...

Yep.

I wish I could quit but I make $20k more than at my last job, get a five digit annual bonus, pay two digits a month for health insurance and have literal pension.

In an odd way, it actually sucks to have such good compensation and benefits. Means I'm stuck hating my job, my life and Microsoft for another 30 years.

Do you work at MS? They have crazy good benefits and pay from what I hear.

No. If I worked for MS I could fix their problems. Well, probably not. They probably wouldn't assign me to them. But I would have hope at least.

Nope, I use .Net, SSIS and Visual Studio and hate them all with a fiery burning passion.
---

Cleo_II posted...

But I do think its funny that now that I want to leave, they want to offer me the role I originally applied for before I was down-leveled to something else during the interview

Wouldn't be the first time thats happened to someone... lol

---

Lol my manager is being soooo nice to me today. Said he really wants me to stay. Ive decided to pass on it though. I know Im taking a risk on banking on opportunities that arent tangible yet but I feel like I need to go with my gut.

Also helps that I closed some deals today

Damn senior sales manager is good at sales. No wonder he has his job. Went to turn him down and he doubled down. Said Id report to him personally from now on, promote me to the next level and hed personally work on addressing the culture issues. That he would always have my back to keep me happy. He said he made a mistake assigning my current manager to me because hes new at managing people. Im really surprised at the level of which he wants to keep me after only being here 4 months when my last company basically did nothing after I was there for 3 years and only regretted it when I was gone. Kinda leaning towards staying for a couple of months and if it doesnt work out then my old boss will have had time to ramp up at his new place and create an opening for me.

Cleo_II posted...

Damn senior sales manager is good at sales. No wonder he has his job. Went to turn him down and he doubled down. Said Id report to him personally from now on, promote me to the next level and hed personally work on addressing the culture issues. That he would always have my back to keep me happy. He said he made a mistake assigning my current manager to me because hes new at managing people. Im really surprised at the level of which he wants to keep me after only being here 4 months when my last company basically did nothing after I was there for 3 years and only regretted it when I was gone. Kinda leaning towards staying for a couple of months and if it doesnt work out then my old boss will have had time to ramp up at his new place and create an opening for me.

How much of a comp increase is he willing to offer?

---

Beware of people seeing it as preferential treatment, and resenting you for it. If you thought it was toxic before ...
---

Summarizer posted...

Beware of people seeing it as preferential treatment, and resenting you for it. If you thought it was toxic before ...

Who cares, she can just threaten to quit again and get another raise

---

Cleo, the culture is the biggest issue isn't it?

He genuinely cannot change that. A cultural change comes about as a massive shift as an organization.
The rest is nice. But you have to keep in mind you're in sales. He's most likely low balling you and what he said now is closer to his real offer.

He can promote you to "Top Sales Manager Number One!" but culture ain't changing that fast.
---

We havent talked compensation yet but I believe its a lateral move. We have a follow up talk for end of the week.

RdVEHfJqAvUPIbk posted...

Cleo, the culture is the biggest issue isn't it?

He genuinely cannot change that. A cultural change comes about as a massive shift as an organization.
The rest is nice. But you have to keep in mind you're in sales. He's most likely low balling you and what he said now is closer to his real offer.

He can promote you to "Top Sales Manager Number One!" but culture ain't changing that fast.

There were 3 factors in my decision.

The first was the role was a step down for me career wise but its a bigger company with higher standards. So the expectation was that I would do this and prove Im ready. My boss said it takes 1-2 years. But the work is dull so I dont feel challenged. I can do this with my eyes closed.

Second issue is culture and the fact that sales people get away with stealing clients.

Third was my boss is a crazy micro manager.

So the senior manager can fix one and three right now. He said my boss was wrong about it taking 1-2 years and that was only for junior folks and not experienced people like me. And he can work on number 2 but it will take time. He escalated a nasty email I got from another manager because he said it was inappropriate to treat me that way. And if I give him visibility he will make sure to push back and slowly help shift the culture.

Honeslty Im just seeing this as Ok I dont have to quit right now because Im miserable, I can stick it out a couple of months and buy time for these other opportunities to form

Point 1 is a wash since you knew it was a step down but you get moved up with this so it evens out.
Point 3 is definitely a plus.
Point 2 is the difficult one. I'd agree if you can get it in writing what you absolutely don't want to happen that "it won't happen and we will work to ensure it does not happen" then maybe stay. But if he's definitely behind you and supporting you, staying isn't a bad option.

There's also the fact maybe he never heard the problems with the culture and this is new to him and since you are that good it's more of a "okay we need to keep her, let's try to make it better"

I think you should ask (if it's possible) to have a lunch of coffee with one or two members of the team you'd be working with if you were changing jobs and definitely make sure there's a woman included so you can get the perspective of a woman working there.
---

I decided to turn it down. They are trying to guilt trip me but Im sticking with my instincts. I did some hard thinking and Id rather go back to my old company despite their issues than risk staying here and jeopardizing my mental health further. We started talks and it sounds like there is room for me.

Im tuning down my other offer as well. Too many risks with a contract job and they have been moving so quickly and not giving me time to consider. So that gives me yellow flags too. Its a lot of money so I hope Im not being dumb.

So Ive narrowed it down to my old company or the company my old boss is going to. Should take a few weeks for everything to form and that will give me a break to work on myself.

Shit or get off the pot!
---

Cleo_II posted...

I decided to turn it down. They are trying to guilt trip me but Im sticking with my instincts. I did some hard thinking and Id rather go back to my old company despite their issues than risk staying here and jeopardizing my mental health further. We started talks and it sounds like there is room for me.

Im tuning down my other offer as well. Too many risks with a contract job and they have been moving so quickly and not giving me time to consider. So that gives me yellow flags too. Its a lot of money so I hope Im not being dumb.

So Ive narrowed it down to my old company or the company my old boss is going to. Should take a few weeks for everything to form and that will give me a break to work on myself.

I have to admit this has become a far more complicated decision than I originally thought from reading your thread and have seemingly mixed up the various opportunities you were considering.

That all being said I'd be very dubious about someone who promises to help work with you to change the culture. You either be the change and drive it, or you don't. I'd be curious to understand why they didn't do much about it before, and realistically what will change now?

---

You sound certain so that's a good sign. Imo there's nothing a good brain storming session cant solve. I find this thread fascinating as in my region for my field theres only really 3 places you can work and 70% of the field goes to one of them lol

---

gloBal enemy posted...

I have to admit this has become a far more complicated decision than I originally thought from reading your thread and have seemingly mixed up the various opportunities you were considering.

That all being said I'd be very dubious about someone who promises to help work with you to change the culture. You either be the change and drive it, or you don't. I'd be curious to understand why they didn't do much about it before, and realistically what will change now?

Yeah its kind of crazy how I went from no opportunities to 4.

To be clear, my choices now are:

1. Contract role for a big rate, with opportunity for conversion in 6-12 months if I hit their metrics. Partial remote job. 1099 with no benefits. Not a lot of career growth though. A lot of risk if they dont convert me or they do convert me and offer me shit full time pay.

2. Go back to my old company under a new manager. Starting talks now. The benefit to this is I know what Im walking into. I have a lot of medical issues and they were always flexible with me. I have tons of friends still there. Id be welcomed back with open arms

3. My old boss from my last company is leaving and said he would hire me once he started if I wanted. He has the headcount. It would be remote and we work well together. This company has amazing benefits too, including 4 months of maternity leave (if I ever get the chance lol). My old boss was also aware of my medical issues and super chill if I needed to take time off or take a few hours to go to the doctor

4. Recent development was I tried quitting and my current job is trying to keep me but changing my title, manager and addressing culture issues (which I doubt they can). Turned them down officially this morning.

Im leaning towards 2 and 3, and hope I can buy more time with 1 but ok if they refuse it.

No_U_L7 posted...

You sound certain so that's a good sign. Imo there's nothing a good brain storming session cant solve. I find this thread fascinating as in my region for my field theres only really 3 places you can work and 70% of the field goes to one of them lol

Thats because you work for the government lol. But I will say that I do get a ton of opportunities because my background is rare with my engineering degree and Im more technical than a good majority of sales people. I have very powerful references (several executive level ones). Ive worked really hard to build a good reputation and good rapport with people and now its paying off.

Cleo_II posted...

Yeah its kind of crazy how I went from no opportunities to 4.

To be clear, my choices now are:

1. Contract role for a big rate, with opportunity for conversion in 6-12 months if I hit their metrics. Partial remote job. 1099 with no benefits. Not a lot of career growth though. A lot of risk if they dont convert me or they do convert me and offer me shit full time pay.

2. Go back to my old company under a new manager. Starting talks now. The benefit to this is I know what Im walking into. I have a lot of medical issues and they were always flexible with me. I have tons of friends still there. Id be welcomed back with open arms

3. My old boss from my last company is leaving and said he would hire me once he started if I wanted. He has the headcount. It would be remote and we work well together. This company has amazing benefits too, including 4 months of maternity leave (if I ever get the chance lol). My old boss was also aware of my medical issues and super chill if I needed to take time off or take a few hours to go to the doctor

4. Recent development was I tried quitting and my current job is trying to keep me but changing my title, manager and addressing culture issues (which I doubt they can). Turned them down officially this morning.

Im leaning towards 2 and 3, and hope I can buy more time with 1 but ok if they refuse it.

Thanks for the summary.

Between 2 and 3, it depends how much you believe in 3 and whether you'd stake your career on them. In my line of work (professional services/consulting) where the work and culture is very much driven by the partner, many people will follow their boss (who usually brings clients with them) and hence they are in a position to call the shots and make things happen. If however they're just another mid-level or senior-level manager, they're also at the mercy at those above them and even if they appreciate your background and want to bring a certain style, there's no guarantee they'll be able to pull it off. The maternity leave benefit is a good one (I post this as both my wife and I were fortunate to work in companies with 18 weeks paid paternity leave).

If it were me and I genuinely believed in the opportunity at 2 in a new team, I'd stick to that given you have your 'network' and already have a strong reputation there, but keep in mind that you can only pull that card once where you've already resigned/constructively resigned (ie set the expectation that you have)... and you also run the risk of people looking at you differently depending on your seniority.

---