Well, I gave notice, anyhow.
Although I hate to do that to someone while they're traveling, I sent Bernie an email telling him this arrangement isn't working out, isn't leaving me any time or energy to search for a new job, and that he has my official two-weeks notice. My last day will be 3/23.
Am I crazy? Should I have tried harder to gather the energy to job-hunt in the evenings?
Should I have the conversation I so badly want to have with him about how a major factor in my decision to just leave is my frustration with his policy of ignoring the actual work that needs to be done around there, of bidding jobs based on how much he thinks clients will pay and not how long it will take us to do them, and of pililng more and more stuff on his one employee under the theory that anyone he's giving a paycheck to regularly should just shut up and be grateful?
Or should I take the High Road and assume that the company's eventual failure (guaranteed unless he changes how he does things) is not my problem?
Hmmm?
posted by AnneZook on 03.09.07 at 04:00 PMWas it something I said? I asked about the raise and then....
Seriously, I think this is a great move, and I think your second thoughts are entirely understandable.
Their fate is NOT your problem. You've given them excellent value for their money, extraordinary service, and it's probably kept them going longer than they deserve. (weird metaphor alert:) Bernie is a chaos addict, apparently, and you've been codependently trying to keep him functioning for a long time. Your liberation may well precipitate his collapse, but that doesn't make it your responsibility.
posted by: Jonathan Dresner on 03.09.07 at 04:50 PM [permalink]Yay!! It's the right move, you know it is. The only thing staying on would do is delay the inevitable. Work out your two weeks, take a few days to rest and get over the lingering insanity and then start the great job hunt *g*
Oh, after your last day, maybe you should change all your phone numbers and your email addy so Bernie can't find you to ask for bits of help...
posted by: Dail on 03.09.07 at 11:43 PM [permalink]Thanks, both of you. I appreciate the support.
And, no, Jonathan, it wasn't anything you said. We all know this has been coming for months.
I hadn't thought of Bernie as a chaos addict. I've known people like him before. I think it as as a sort of liars pathology.
It's something I've seen before in people who tell lies casually--they say whatever they think someone wants to hear (they don't even think of it as "lying"), regardless of whether or not they mean or believe it--and then they go mad trying to cover their tracks and keep from being caught out. Which means they need to keep making up more lies or, like Bernie, just boldly claim that reality is different than it is and trust that in the ensuing confusion the truth of the matter will be lost.
I'm not necessarily truthful because I'm a person of high moral values. It's just that--I don't tell lies because it takes too much energy to keep track of them and I'm far too lazy to live in that kind of turmoil. Nor, as I've finally decided, do I want to work for someone who considers that kind of turmoil a sign of "productivity" in a company.
posted by: Anne on 03.12.07 at 11:45 AM [permalink]