I've been placed on warning at my work. 30 days from the day before Thanksgiving. This situation is stressful in it's very nature, but to learn you may get fired the week of Christmas, stresses you out beyond words.
I should have seen it coming. This job since it's inception, has been muddled. My first interview should have been an indicator. I was pretty much interviewing myself. My "future" boss was fairly uncommunicative throughout the interview. I had to lead it.
When I started my job, I started with a few low level analysis. I stuck to the formatting structure, talked to my customers, and was fairly happy. Then the entire team quit/transferred and my boss asked for volunteers to take on Domains. No one offered so he volunteered me. I should have known by everyone's lackluster response. I was thrown into the job with only less than 8 hours of training from the previous employee (who was transferred to another department, and I was not allowed to ask her questions after her transfer.) My boss, who had done the job himself, was often too busy or responded that he didn't know where data was in an effort to make me "find it myself."
After being assigned Domains, I was thrown into Splits. A convoluted process with virtually no training. Immediately I was given a very high priority, high visibility and complicated split...which I promptly messed up. And rather than help me, my boss simply informed me, "When you make mistakes, you make our department look bad. Don't do it again." And continued to have me do the complicated split for another week or so.
After that, I made a couple more mistakes, all this over the span of two years. Through maternity leave, stress, and living within a bubble. However at my year end review I was informed that I received a "Needs Improvement", but that I was already improving and would not have to worry about the "performance improvement plan" HR was making him do.
Months later, he phoned me and warned me that he was scheduling a meeting that HR had been hounding him about (his words.) And that he was calling to let me know that he was scheduling the meeting so I wouldn't worry.
So day before Thanksgiving, I arrive at this review with HR (in a conference room located in front of my peers.) At the beginning of the meeting, I'm handed a stapled set of papers that lists everything I did wrong and stated if I didn't improve, I would be fired or placed on extended warning at the end of 30 days (12/21/2012.) The irony of the day was not lost on me.
So, trying my best, I've developed checklists, checked my data twice before sending out, but my best wasn't good enough. Someone found an error in one of my reports and now I know my days are literally numbered there. My PIP said absolutely no errors for a quarter. I had one.
So...that takes care of exorcising my demons. Getting it out. Now for the part I need to stay sane. To continue to believe in myself. To continue on and realize, that while I may not have succeeded at this job, I am not a failure.
- I have do what not many can do. I take tons of metrics and analyze, format, and present them in a matter of hours. And I do this multiple times a day.
- While I could have communicated more, my training was near to none and expectations were exceptionally high.
- I learned from my experience and bring that with me.
- I know how I failed, and I know how to fix it.
- I know what I don't want to do or where I want to do it. This job from the beginning was an experiment. I wanted to try a highly competitive, newer company to see if I liked it. I don't. Even if I had succeeded at keeping my job, I would have been utterly miserable. And probably would have stayed.
- I've missed being the main caregiver to my kid. I would love some time at home to help him develop. And explore. And discover.
- I'm fortunate enough to have a supportive family and friends.
- Finances are gonna suck, but we'll streamline and do things we didn't do before...like cook.
- Hopefully, my next job will be less stressful and I can enjoy work again. I've been so stressed, I literally shake physically when going home.
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