Writing Prompt Courtesy of Mama Kat's Writers Workshop
Tell us about a job you quit...why did you do it?In March of 2013 I lost a job that I loved so very much, it was a huge heartbreak for me and really sent me into a depression that I wanted to get out of. After sending in resume after resume and feeling very let down, I got a phone call from a company local to my town looking for a Social Media Manager/Strategist. I was incredibly excited because I didn't think my town was technologically advanced enough to even know what Social Media was. (I may be slightly exaggerating, but I doubt it.) I went in for the interview, loved that this place was local, it was a small company, seemed great. The pay was low, but hey - I needed a job. I was desperate and I think that's what they saw, they saw my vulnerability.
The Monday after my birthday I got a phone call that they wanted to hire me and wanted me to start the next day. I jumped at the chance, accepted the offer and was majorly excited that I actually found a job in my field locally, since I had been driving almost an hour each way every day for work.
When I first started it seemed great, the manager wanted to hear my ideas, we bounced ideas off each other, I got a blogging list prepared, an editorial calendar, scheduled some social media posts, etc... The third week I felt like everything went to hell. My manager started to say that Social Media wasn't working for him, he wanted to nix his plan for that, he wanted me to completely re-design their website (for the $10/hour I was getting paid), he wanted me to make cold calls to local businesses, etc... Immediately I got frustrated, this was not in my job description. I am a social media manager, consultant and strategist not an entry level intern working for minimum wage -- no offense to anyone! Besides, completely re-designing a website for $10 an hour? I have done that for companies before and gotten much much more than $10 an hour. After this the manager turned incredibly rude to me, ordered me around, constantly wanted to start arguments about how Social Media is worthless, etc... So one Friday I left and never returned. I e-mailed them telling them that I had it with busting my ass for $10 an hour, being disrespected and doing things that were on a lower level than what I wanted to do. I felt like I was misled at first, I felt like this was their plan all along and I was not going to stay somewhere I didn't feel welcome. I was done.
Two weeks later I came to find out, they decided they were not going to pay me for the hours I worked the two weeks prior. Why? Because I left them hanging. After a long argument on the phone with my manager and his superior I contacted the New Jersey labor board and within two weeks after that, they sent me a check in the mail.
Moral of my story? My mom warned me before I started there. She told me that the company I was going to be working for was a "re-start" of a company that went bankrupt a few years back. She told me they had a horrible reputation for shitty customer service, cheating customers, unreliability, etc... I dismissed her concerns -- I should have listened to her. That was a month of my life I'll never get back, I could have been looking for better jobs and settled for that.
