This is my first lounge thread.
I was spurred to post here by reaching the tipping point with my job. I will start with the positive and work my way to the grievances and deconstruction of the institution.
I'm and Industrial design engineer by trade and I work in a large design office filled with all manner of designers, I'm the only one with an engineering background. Its a fun atmosphere of friendly people. no cubicles just a large lofted office space in an old 1940's factory. I generally like where I work and the people, that is till it comes down to working... I work in a sub group of this office composed of 6 people, 3 managers and 3 grunts(I'm a grunt) Everyone is salaried.
I don't mind the day to day but its the relative disregard for my input of actual value that is discouraging. I was basically robbed of 5 vacation days last year between thanksgiving and Christmas. I had been awarded 4 vacation days my first year as I had done exemplary work, year 2, and I had earned an extra day off through overtime on projects. Then I'm told as I go to take some time off that I can't those rewarded days were only forwarded from my assumed second year of employment, plus the earned day off goes away if you don't use it, apparently I waited 1 week to many as my co-worker used his from the same period just prior to my asking. I had gotten over the gripe of not having time off. I figured they must have an important reason to keep me in the office, I worked on 3 projects that were all severally miss handled. When working a contract I was ordered to work ahead of client approval, BY A MONTH! 1-2 days is ok but that is a huge amount to gamble. Then I was told to design a new drawing system for some of our more nuanced products to save time in crunch(summer) I did. I then applied our new drawing and fab standards to the unapproved project to fill time.
Well I worked way to far ahead now, and basically one ten sec review(something my boss's couldn't be bothered to do a month ago) and all the drawing and standards are garabage because, the guys in the shop can't read a basic spread sheet... great reasoning there! And wow they finally submitted our preliminary outlines from before thanksgiving and now there are changes... On several occasions I mentioned to everyone that we don't need to not work ahead that it would be a waste of time and money... In my annual review when they raised my meager wages by 2 percent when inflation is 3 percent so I'm making less and still collecting internship wages... I SAID WE NEED MEETINGS SO PEOPLE TALK TO EACHOTHER! We have had many wasted weeks of work due to managers not communicating to each other or us what is going on.
I was told by my one female manager that I couldn't have my vacation days because people work hard for their vacation days... WTF does that mean! I don't work hard? The game isn't work hard its work smart. I am so furious at the continual disregard for me as a valid input on things when I do my job! People get angry if employees sit and web surf at work, well I get upset when I'm denied vacation out of spite by a manager that is on a power trip. I've never delayed a project by a month or more because I couldn't be bothered to send an email with people reminding me every week. Its really just one manager who is making me pull my hair out, she is ridiculous. She is a nice person but makes work some superficial power struggle. I don't care if she is off 1 week or 20, I only care if I get what is mine why should she care how many vacation days I get, how does that soil her time off? She got bent out of shape when I came in late one day, I work 70-80 hr weeks for 5 months out of the year and she got upset I was 30 mins late one day, she is 25 mins late every day and leaves before the rest of us, she isn't even the top manager or the owner...
I'm just so disenfranchised. I've worked many different types of jobs in my life but I've never felt so devalued even when getting cussed at left and right in landscaping. I don't work hourly I'm salaried if what I do is done right and on time why does it matter if I'm there 10 or 80 hrs a week. It should be apparent I don't mind over time but I don't appreciate the waste at all. My main issue is probably that I'm more than 10 years younger than the youngest person on my team. They are just set in their ways. Time to find a new job. My fish breeding isn't minting cash yet, lol. I had bought a house and expressed interest in sprinkling my vacation days around in the fall after our crunch was over so as to have several 3 day weekends to do stuff before the winter set in and was told by the same manager NO. "you can't be seen taking all those 3 day weekends it sets a bad precedent" Not like we had any work or anything.
Ok yell at me tell me I'm a selfish self entitled person like my parents.
I really don't know if I can take another job like this one I'm so depressed, like my work (what I do with my 90 percent of my life at this point) doesn't matter. Even worse is the sensation that pretty much ever skill or sensibility you develop in school is worthless.
I was spurred to post here by reaching the tipping point with my job. I will start with the positive and work my way to the grievances and deconstruction of the institution.
I'm and Industrial design engineer by trade and I work in a large design office filled with all manner of designers, I'm the only one with an engineering background. Its a fun atmosphere of friendly people. no cubicles just a large lofted office space in an old 1940's factory. I generally like where I work and the people, that is till it comes down to working... I work in a sub group of this office composed of 6 people, 3 managers and 3 grunts(I'm a grunt) Everyone is salaried.
I don't mind the day to day but its the relative disregard for my input of actual value that is discouraging. I was basically robbed of 5 vacation days last year between thanksgiving and Christmas. I had been awarded 4 vacation days my first year as I had done exemplary work, year 2, and I had earned an extra day off through overtime on projects. Then I'm told as I go to take some time off that I can't those rewarded days were only forwarded from my assumed second year of employment, plus the earned day off goes away if you don't use it, apparently I waited 1 week to many as my co-worker used his from the same period just prior to my asking. I had gotten over the gripe of not having time off. I figured they must have an important reason to keep me in the office, I worked on 3 projects that were all severally miss handled. When working a contract I was ordered to work ahead of client approval, BY A MONTH! 1-2 days is ok but that is a huge amount to gamble. Then I was told to design a new drawing system for some of our more nuanced products to save time in crunch(summer) I did. I then applied our new drawing and fab standards to the unapproved project to fill time.
Well I worked way to far ahead now, and basically one ten sec review(something my boss's couldn't be bothered to do a month ago) and all the drawing and standards are garabage because, the guys in the shop can't read a basic spread sheet... great reasoning there! And wow they finally submitted our preliminary outlines from before thanksgiving and now there are changes... On several occasions I mentioned to everyone that we don't need to not work ahead that it would be a waste of time and money... In my annual review when they raised my meager wages by 2 percent when inflation is 3 percent so I'm making less and still collecting internship wages... I SAID WE NEED MEETINGS SO PEOPLE TALK TO EACHOTHER! We have had many wasted weeks of work due to managers not communicating to each other or us what is going on.
I was told by my one female manager that I couldn't have my vacation days because people work hard for their vacation days... WTF does that mean! I don't work hard? The game isn't work hard its work smart. I am so furious at the continual disregard for me as a valid input on things when I do my job! People get angry if employees sit and web surf at work, well I get upset when I'm denied vacation out of spite by a manager that is on a power trip. I've never delayed a project by a month or more because I couldn't be bothered to send an email with people reminding me every week. Its really just one manager who is making me pull my hair out, she is ridiculous. She is a nice person but makes work some superficial power struggle. I don't care if she is off 1 week or 20, I only care if I get what is mine why should she care how many vacation days I get, how does that soil her time off? She got bent out of shape when I came in late one day, I work 70-80 hr weeks for 5 months out of the year and she got upset I was 30 mins late one day, she is 25 mins late every day and leaves before the rest of us, she isn't even the top manager or the owner...
I'm just so disenfranchised. I've worked many different types of jobs in my life but I've never felt so devalued even when getting cussed at left and right in landscaping. I don't work hourly I'm salaried if what I do is done right and on time why does it matter if I'm there 10 or 80 hrs a week. It should be apparent I don't mind over time but I don't appreciate the waste at all. My main issue is probably that I'm more than 10 years younger than the youngest person on my team. They are just set in their ways. Time to find a new job. My fish breeding isn't minting cash yet, lol. I had bought a house and expressed interest in sprinkling my vacation days around in the fall after our crunch was over so as to have several 3 day weekends to do stuff before the winter set in and was told by the same manager NO. "you can't be seen taking all those 3 day weekends it sets a bad precedent" Not like we had any work or anything.
Ok yell at me tell me I'm a selfish self entitled person like my parents.
I really don't know if I can take another job like this one I'm so depressed, like my work (what I do with my 90 percent of my life at this point) doesn't matter. Even worse is the sensation that pretty much ever skill or sensibility you develop in school is worthless.
