Holding Me Back
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I don’t know why for certain, but I think he saw a lot of himself in me and was jealous that I was better than him.
Anyway, I was still a bank teller and killed it in sales for two years, leading my branch and I was always top three in the region. I was 22-23 at this time and figured it was time to move up and be a banker. I went up to my resentful boss and he said that a promotion was not in the cards right now because I have not been consistent with my sales and that I am too free-spirited (as he describes himself, too). He said, if I become more consistent with my sales, he will consider it.
I know, it’s stupid. I’ve been the most consistent bank teller in sales for two years in my region, but whatever. I went balls to the walls for four months. I ranked in the top 20, not in my region, state, or even country, but all of North America for those 4 months. That is an incredible achievement which put me in like the .006 percentile for my position.
I went back up to him. I was prepared. He knew how well I have been doing and how well his branch has been doing because of me. However, he said he thinks I am just not cut out to be a banker, that our branch was too busy, and I needed more experience.
I thought, ‘no way.’ I was prepared for a denial, so I told him I was going to switch to part-time. I did that and finished university and quit shortly after in order to travel.
After traveling, I was immediately offered a job as a banker at a different bank. What did I do during my first quarter there? I led the region in sales.
I still hate that manager. I feel like he personally stole years off my life, fighting for something that he knew he was never going to grant me, all while reaping the rewards of my labor.
Though I must say I like the direction my life has turned and if it wasn’t for him, I might still be grinding away.”
No Special Treatment
“I put in a resume for a new job as an IT Director.
I met with the owner and we hit it off. I gave him my desired Salary (54K). He didn’t care for it. I left the interview and went about my business. I wasn’t in a hurry for a job.
Four months later he calls me back and says he’d like to sit down with me again. He mentions that he can’t meet my salary request, but we could work out other benefits in its place. I’m more than open to this idea.
So we sit down and decide to knock off about 5K in salary in favor of the company paying for my cell phone, and a better than standard vacation package.
Now, this company has been around forever, but they never updated their vacation package. It is terrible for new employees. Basically, you have no vacation for your first year at all. Once your second year starts, you start accumulating days off. So basically, by the end of your second year, you now have five days off. If you were there for 10 years, you got the second week.
So I said I wanted two weeks right out of the gate. He agreed but asked me to be very quiet about this arrangement as it could potentially anger other employees. No… I didn’t get it in writing.
Six months later, my wife and I have planned our very first out of country vacation. Beach. Cozumel. All-inclusive. A month before said vacation, I remind my boss (the owner) that I’ll be taking some vacation time, and that I’ll need to use those vacation days we discussed when I got hired on.
He ‘had no recollection’ of such an agreement. ‘We’ve always had the same vacation plan for every employee, so we wouldn’t have given you special treatment.’
I argued with him. It didn’t do much good. By the end of the conversation, he agreed to let me take five days of unpaid vacation, and thus would dock my first post-vacation paycheck.
I had resumes out by the end of the week.
Thankfully I’m skillful enough in my job set that finding another job of nearly equal value was pretty easy.”
Failed Counter
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“I got another job offer for a position that paid about 50% more than what I was currently making. My supervisor made a counteroffer that more than matched it – I just had to jump through some paperwork formalities.
That paperwork gets dragged out for about 2 months when I’m told that the supervisor didn’t have the authority to make that kind of counteroffer. There were other things he could have done, though. It was a government job that apparently had a defined pay range for a position. He offered outside of that range, then just claimed that it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t legally give me that amount. What he could have done was give me a different position or job title which he refused to do, or he claimed that people above him wouldn’t let him open a ‘new’ position even though it was just changing an existing position.
Instead, I was told I could get a 10% raise, take it or leave it.
I had the offer in writing but it wasn’t an official document, and I knew fighting it would have been a long uphill battle. I took the 10%, found another job, and left without helping train a replacement. I no longer cared after how he cheated me out of a good raise. The new job offer was even higher than the original offer, so it all worked out for me in the end.”
Liar, Liar
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“I worked 18 months without any vacation or even requesting a day off for personal. One of the guys I supervise died, and he happened to be my stepfather. Instead of taking time off for my mother and brothers, I covered all my hours plus his for the next several weeks, running into 100+ hours per pay period multiple times, because the department couldn’t handle losing BOTH of us and we were already limping by with temps.
After weeks of hard work, I went to my boss to ask for one night off to spend with my grieving family. I could not believe her response!