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Mar. 27th, 2016 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logans_girl2001So I've been having a rough time of it lately and that's making this post rather difficult to write. Added to that is the fact that there isn't anyone ( save maybe one person but I have no idea because we haven't talked in a while) who will even remotely care.
The first week of this month my manager, G, came to work sick and considering that she has a four year-old she doesn't ever cover her mouth when she coughs. Seriously, not even a half-hearted attempt to cover it.
This lead to the whole office getting sick. I desperately wanted to take a day off but my daughter and I had tickets to a triple feature of the Divergent Series leading up to the premiere of Allegiant so I needed to work extra hours so I could get off at noon.
On the 18th my supervisor, J, told K and A and I that we had been approved for overtime the following week (this past week) while W is out on vacation. At one point during the day I saw K and A dividing up W's sites and I was livid because they do other things that exclude me and this was just reinforcing my belief that no one wants me working there.
I worked a short day that day (came in late and left at my usual 3:30) despite being offered overtime (I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck and I needed to do my laundry). Monday when I picked K up (she lives near me so I offered, plus she pays me), I noticed that she had her laptop. I was annoyed that her and A were allowed to take them home over the weekend but got over it because the approval obviously came after I had left.
G hadn't approved my time for the previous week by the time I left Monday so when I got to work Tuesday I sent her a reminder email. It became obvious that G wasn't coming in for the day so I sent an IM to J asking about it. She asked for information to talk to the agency about doing a manual approval of my time. After she spoke to him she IM'd me back and told me that he said I still have two weeks.
I was like 'what the everloving fuck!?'. Over the years I've worked for several different placement agencies and have never had my contract run this long. When I was hired I was told it was a ninety day contract. But I've since found out that it's not; it's an almost eight hundred hour contract. But either way, according to my calculations it should have ended last Friday.
On the 18th I mentioned this to J and she said she was going to have me fill out the self evaluation that all the other employees filled out at the end of last year, she'd go over it and then we'd talk about it.
So Thursday, just before I was supposed to leave, she talked me into one of the small conference rooms. Below is the eval with my answers in blue and hers in red (she gave me a copy of her notes).
Performance Evaluation
Employee Name: [redacted]_______________________________ Date: 3/21/16_____________
Position: Consignment Biller_______________ Department/Program: Consignment________________
Manager’s Name: [redacted]_______________ Title: Consignment Accounting Manager__________
Performance Review Period- From: Nov 18, 2015___ To: March 21, 2016_____ Year: _______________
Your thorough and timely participation in the appraisal process will help facilitate a fair and comprehensive review of your progress and accomplishments this past year (or partial year).
Please complete and return this form to your manager by COB, December 18, 2015.
She didn’t read from her notes and I didn’t read it until just now. I’m going to address some of her comments and then get on to the ‘discussion’ we had after we ‘discussed’ my eval.
“…when you are receiving constructive criticism, you are so focused on what your response is going to be that you don’t really hear what’s being said to you.”
Maybe if she came to me with positive criticism sometimes, I would be a more ‘active listener’.
I completely agree with what you listed above-we need to work on the manner in which you prioritize your sites so that every site gets touched every day.
I had changed how I key a few weeks ago but with the additional sites with W on vacation I changed it even further.
As I’ve suggested you should look at your list of sites in the Consignment Status Workbook and filter or sort by the days out the most-focus on getting those keyed first. Keeping these things in mind will help you prioritize.
She has not once mentioned this to me (this is also not the only lie she told me).
Furthermore, if you want me to spend fifteen minutes with you before you leave each night to prioritize for the next morning, we can totally do that.
I am a forty-two year old woman. I think I can figure out how to prioritize my sites.
I also would like to see your accuracy improve-this included daily sales as well as not skipping over or only partially finishing pump tests.
Only time I don’t complete a pump test the same day is if there is an issue with the pump test.
Active listening is something I’d like you to work on. When I come to teach you something or give you feedback (positive or negative-we all know I try to find a balance between the two), I need you to focus on what is being said to you instead of focusing on your retort. There is no need to be defensive; my goal in giving feedback is to help you grow in to a stronger, more effective team member. Your inability to master this concept will inevitably render you ineffective in your job.
Again she hardly ever gives me anything positive and she talks down to me. So excuse me for being defensive when I feel like I’m being attacked.
I will provide you with the opportunity to take some online classes regarding active listening and accepting criticism-I think these are things you need to work on.
I do not need instruction on any of this. She needs instruction on not talking down to her employees.
[redacted]-There are some concerns with your interactions with other team members, myself included. You are a strong worker, but you often overstep personal boundaries in the office. For example, you often interject in to conversations that do not include you or you speak for other team members instead of letting them speak for themselves. Another trend I notice is that you worry about what everyone else is doing (telling me of someone takes their lap top home, looking at people’s monitors when you walk by, etc). I think it is best for you to worry about what you can control personally instead of focusing on the environment around you. I am willing to coach you in this aspect if you are interesting in making an improvement. Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a great book for tips and tricks on mastering this.
Again, I am pleased with the work you do and I can see opportunity for you to grow. I need to see immediate improvement in the aspects discussed herein as a contingency to hiring you full time. We will re-evaluate in two weeks when your contract is up.
First off, everyone interjects themselves into conversations; it’s how conversation works. Secondly, the biggest culprit of this (and making everything about her) is K. But since K and J are friends outside of work, I doubt J will ever say anything to K about it.
The thing about telling her when someone takes their laptop (it’s one word, bitch) happened exactly ONCE. And was kinda more like me going ‘so we’re able to take our laptops home again?’ with a nod in the direction K had just gone.
As far as looking at people’s monitors when I walk by, it’s nearly impossible not to. We have half walls so unless I walk by with my eyes closed, I’m going to see what people are working on. When she said this, and I rightfully denied it, she mimed me twisting my head so far back over my shoulder that my upper body would have been twisted around.
She also mentioned that her and I have made eye contact in the toilet, according to her it happened while she was sitting on the toilet. Which is so untrue as to be laughable. I avoid eye contact in the bathroom at all costs. Below are pictures of the cracks that she claims she made eye contact with me through.
As you can see, you can't even see the toilet from either crack. After I took these photos, I went into the handicapped stall to pee and realized that when I turn to close the door, I can see a sliver of the toilet. She must have meant she saw me come into the bathroom and saw my eyes travel across the crack when I turned. In which case that means she was doing exactly what she was accusing me of: being worried about what others were doing. Here's a picture of that crack:
Also, you'll notice that you can just barely even see the toilet. I took all this to mean she was just looking for things to bitch at me for.
There's also the fact that she said I always butt into other's conversations which, again, is untrue because I spend ninety percent of my day with headphones in. In fact, she used the quantifier 'always' a lot. Which, yet again, leads me to believe that she was just looking for reasons to bitch and would ultimtely give her cause to not take me permanent.
Another thing she said was that someone (she claims she can't remember who) told her that I have issues with getting along with coworkers and that's why I've never had a job that lasted more than ninety days. I nearly came out of seat at that. I know I've jumped around a bit in my career life but nothing like what she implied. Below is my resume for the past ten years:
12/95: Daycare. Was fired for stupid reasons.
Duration: A few months.
08/96: Another daycare (employees get a discount and I was now a single mother). Was fired for accidentally hitting a child on the head with a styrofoam cup.
Duration: A few weeks.
09/96: Walmart. Resigned to go to work at Walgreens.
Duration: Just over one year.
01/98: Walgreens. Resigned to go to work for a friend from church.
Duration: Just under three years.
01/00: Went to work for a church friend as office manager of her in-home business. Was fired just before her company went belly-up.
Duration: A few months.
04/00: Armstrong Cabinets (part of Armstrong Flooring). Resigned when they started laying off senior VPs.
Duration: Over two years/almost three years.
11/02: Walgreens. Resigned for a Monday-Friday 8-5 job.
Duration: two years, one month.
12/04: Contract job. First my contract was extended and then I was told that I was seen taking too many breaks (there was another contract worker who looked like me (long brown hair and glasses) but was shorter and fatter who was always on a break) so I was let go.
Duration: A few moinths.
05/05: Dallas Credit and Accounting Services (accounting firm for Bear Transportation (a transprtation brokerage firm)). Was let go just as the recession hit.
Duration: Almost three years.
03/08: Contract worker. Was brought in to cover for new hire who had previous plans.
Duration: Two weeks.
09/08: Contract worker. Contract ended and they hired someone from outside the company.
Duration: A few months.
04/09: The Avenue (plus size clothing store). Resigned to work at a call center with more hours/better pay.
Duration: Nearly two years.
01/10: The CMI Group (in country outsourced call center for TWC). Was let go for following policy after missing work for a week for which they could not fire me.
Duration: Just over a year.
08/11: Contract worker. Company ran out of work for me.
Duration: A few Months.
03/12: Lori's Gift Shop (chain of hospital gift shops). Resigned to go to work at Cottonwood Financial.
Duration: Just over three years.
07/15: Cottonwood Financial (legal name of Cash Store payday loan stores). Was let go due to... I'm going to say personality conflicts because I was never given a solid reason. Of course none of J's issues with me factored here because the way the cubes were set up I had no one nearby that I could 'force my way into their conversation' with. Besides I was beginning to feel like I didn't really fit in.
Duration: eighty-nine days.
J said that none of things we 'discussed' meant she didn't want to hire me but that's not how it came off. Even now reading over her responses and remembering what she said, I still feel like she was telling me why I won't be hired when my contract ends.
The first week of this month my manager, G, came to work sick and considering that she has a four year-old she doesn't ever cover her mouth when she coughs. Seriously, not even a half-hearted attempt to cover it.
This lead to the whole office getting sick. I desperately wanted to take a day off but my daughter and I had tickets to a triple feature of the Divergent Series leading up to the premiere of Allegiant so I needed to work extra hours so I could get off at noon.
On the 18th my supervisor, J, told K and A and I that we had been approved for overtime the following week (this past week) while W is out on vacation. At one point during the day I saw K and A dividing up W's sites and I was livid because they do other things that exclude me and this was just reinforcing my belief that no one wants me working there.
I worked a short day that day (came in late and left at my usual 3:30) despite being offered overtime (I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck and I needed to do my laundry). Monday when I picked K up (she lives near me so I offered, plus she pays me), I noticed that she had her laptop. I was annoyed that her and A were allowed to take them home over the weekend but got over it because the approval obviously came after I had left.
G hadn't approved my time for the previous week by the time I left Monday so when I got to work Tuesday I sent her a reminder email. It became obvious that G wasn't coming in for the day so I sent an IM to J asking about it. She asked for information to talk to the agency about doing a manual approval of my time. After she spoke to him she IM'd me back and told me that he said I still have two weeks.
I was like 'what the everloving fuck!?'. Over the years I've worked for several different placement agencies and have never had my contract run this long. When I was hired I was told it was a ninety day contract. But I've since found out that it's not; it's an almost eight hundred hour contract. But either way, according to my calculations it should have ended last Friday.
On the 18th I mentioned this to J and she said she was going to have me fill out the self evaluation that all the other employees filled out at the end of last year, she'd go over it and then we'd talk about it.
So Thursday, just before I was supposed to leave, she talked me into one of the small conference rooms. Below is the eval with my answers in blue and hers in red (she gave me a copy of her notes).
Performance Evaluation
Employee Name: [redacted]_______________________________ Date: 3/21/16_____________
Position: Consignment Biller_______________ Department/Program: Consignment________________
Manager’s Name: [redacted]_______________ Title: Consignment Accounting Manager__________
Performance Review Period- From: Nov 18, 2015___ To: March 21, 2016_____ Year: _______________
Please complete and return this form to your manager by COB, December 18, 2015.
| List the most important responsibilities associated with your position at Empire: Enter the fuel sales of the sites assigned to me. Correct any errors in stick amounts and over/short. |
| Manager’s Comments: The expectation for our team is to accurately enter fuel sales in a timely manner. Accuracy is just as important as timeliness-the more accurate we are, the less errors we have to correct. It is also expected that you get to know your sites ‘inside and out’-we have the Consignment Details to aid in this, but the more you key your sites, the less you should need to depend on the document. However, we never want to ignore the document, because if there are changes, this is where the changes get logged and it is your responsibility to always use the most up-to-date information. |
| What are your most significant accomplishments and contributions in the past year? |
| Manager’s Comments: You’ve done well with getting the speed going for keying your sites. Accuracy is a concern. In February all mistakes logged for the department and you had the second highest occurrence of mistakes. I think that being a more active listener will help you in this regard; when you are receiving constructive criticism, you are so focused on what your response is going to be that you don’t really hear what’s being said to you. I encourage you to listen to the full explanation and process the information that is being given to you before forming your response. |
| If you had specific targets/objectives to achieve, what were they, and to what extent did you achieve them? (Quantify them if applicable). 1. 2. 3. 4. |
| Manager’s Comments: |
| What activities have you initiated, or actively participated in to encourage camaraderie and teamwork within your work group? What were the results? I participated in the Secret Santa, attended the Christmas Party and participate in monthly pot luck lunches. I enjoyed buying gifts for someone I didn’t yet know. I had fun seeing my co-workers out of the office at the party. I enjoy trying different foods and talking with my co-workers while getting the food. |
| Manager’s Comments: These team building activities are great and we are glad that you felt comfortable enough to participate even as a contract employee. |
Describe three areas in which you believe you excel:
2. 3. |
| Manager’s Comments: Again I am proud of your speed in keying. However, the accuracy is a concern as well as your lack of taking constructive criticism. |
Describe areas in which you believe you can improve in terms of your professional capabilities:
3. |
| Manager’s Comments: I completely agree with what you listed above-we need to work on the manner in which you prioritize your sites so that every site gets touched every day. As I’ve suggested you should look at your list of sites in the Consignment Status Workbook and filter or sort by the days out the most-focus on getting those keyed first. Keeping these things in mind will help you prioritize. Furthermore, if you want me to spend fifteen minutes with you before you leave each night to prioritize for the next morning, we can totally do that. I also would like to see your accuracy improve-this included daily sales as well as not skipping over or only partially finishing pump tests. Active listening is something I’d like you to work on. When I come to teach you something or give you feedback (positive or negative-we all know I try to find a balance between the two), I need you to focus on what is being said to you instead of focusing on your retort. There is no need to be defensive; my goal in giving feedback is to help you grow in to a stronger, more effective team member. Your inability to master this concept will inevitably render you ineffective in your job. |
| In what ways do you feel your manager can better support you? |
| Manager’s Comments: |
| What types of training/development do you seek to improve your effectiveness in your current/future positions at Empire? I would like to know how to do all the different types of sites we key. |
| Manager’s Comments: This is a great goal-I think that covering sites this week has helped with this, and I am proud of how you seem to have caught on to the twelve sites you took on in addition to your own. |
| State three career goals for the coming year and how you plan to accomplish them. 1. 2. 3. |
| Manager’s Comments: I think your main goal should be to secure full-time employment with [redacted], if that is in fact what you desire to do. Secondly, I will provide you with the opportunity to take some online classes regarding active listening and accepting criticism-I think these are things you need to work on. Third-I want to see your number or mistakes decrease each month. |
| What are your ideas on improving customer and/or employee satisfaction and retention here at Empire? |
| How would you characterize your overall work experience at Empire over the past year? I have enjoyed working here and would very much like to continue for the foreseeable future. |
| Manager’s Comments: |
| MANAGER ONLY - Manager’s Overall Assessment of Employee’s Performance in the past year: Melissa-There are some concerns with your interactions with other team members, myself included. You are a strong worker, but you often overstep personal boundaries in the office. For example, you often interject in to conversations that do not include you or you speak for other team members instead of letting them speak for themselves. Another trend I notice is that you worry about what everyone else is doing (telling me of someone takes their lap top home, looking at people’s monitors when you walk by, etc). I think it is best for you to worry about what you can control personally instead of focusing on the environment around you. I am willing to coach you in this aspect if you are interesting in making an improvement. Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a great book for tips and tricks on mastering this. Again, I am pleased with the work you do and I can see opportunity for you to grow. I need to see immediate improvement in the aspects discussed herein as a contingency to hiring you full time. We will re-evaluate in two weeks when your contract is up. |
She didn’t read from her notes and I didn’t read it until just now. I’m going to address some of her comments and then get on to the ‘discussion’ we had after we ‘discussed’ my eval.
“…when you are receiving constructive criticism, you are so focused on what your response is going to be that you don’t really hear what’s being said to you.”
Maybe if she came to me with positive criticism sometimes, I would be a more ‘active listener’.
I completely agree with what you listed above-we need to work on the manner in which you prioritize your sites so that every site gets touched every day.
I had changed how I key a few weeks ago but with the additional sites with W on vacation I changed it even further.
As I’ve suggested you should look at your list of sites in the Consignment Status Workbook and filter or sort by the days out the most-focus on getting those keyed first. Keeping these things in mind will help you prioritize.
She has not once mentioned this to me (this is also not the only lie she told me).
Furthermore, if you want me to spend fifteen minutes with you before you leave each night to prioritize for the next morning, we can totally do that.
I am a forty-two year old woman. I think I can figure out how to prioritize my sites.
I also would like to see your accuracy improve-this included daily sales as well as not skipping over or only partially finishing pump tests.
Only time I don’t complete a pump test the same day is if there is an issue with the pump test.
Active listening is something I’d like you to work on. When I come to teach you something or give you feedback (positive or negative-we all know I try to find a balance between the two), I need you to focus on what is being said to you instead of focusing on your retort. There is no need to be defensive; my goal in giving feedback is to help you grow in to a stronger, more effective team member. Your inability to master this concept will inevitably render you ineffective in your job.
Again she hardly ever gives me anything positive and she talks down to me. So excuse me for being defensive when I feel like I’m being attacked.
I will provide you with the opportunity to take some online classes regarding active listening and accepting criticism-I think these are things you need to work on.
I do not need instruction on any of this. She needs instruction on not talking down to her employees.
[redacted]-There are some concerns with your interactions with other team members, myself included. You are a strong worker, but you often overstep personal boundaries in the office. For example, you often interject in to conversations that do not include you or you speak for other team members instead of letting them speak for themselves. Another trend I notice is that you worry about what everyone else is doing (telling me of someone takes their lap top home, looking at people’s monitors when you walk by, etc). I think it is best for you to worry about what you can control personally instead of focusing on the environment around you. I am willing to coach you in this aspect if you are interesting in making an improvement. Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a great book for tips and tricks on mastering this.
Again, I am pleased with the work you do and I can see opportunity for you to grow. I need to see immediate improvement in the aspects discussed herein as a contingency to hiring you full time. We will re-evaluate in two weeks when your contract is up.
First off, everyone interjects themselves into conversations; it’s how conversation works. Secondly, the biggest culprit of this (and making everything about her) is K. But since K and J are friends outside of work, I doubt J will ever say anything to K about it.
The thing about telling her when someone takes their laptop (it’s one word, bitch) happened exactly ONCE. And was kinda more like me going ‘so we’re able to take our laptops home again?’ with a nod in the direction K had just gone.
As far as looking at people’s monitors when I walk by, it’s nearly impossible not to. We have half walls so unless I walk by with my eyes closed, I’m going to see what people are working on. When she said this, and I rightfully denied it, she mimed me twisting my head so far back over my shoulder that my upper body would have been twisted around.
She also mentioned that her and I have made eye contact in the toilet, according to her it happened while she was sitting on the toilet. Which is so untrue as to be laughable. I avoid eye contact in the bathroom at all costs. Below are pictures of the cracks that she claims she made eye contact with me through.
As you can see, you can't even see the toilet from either crack. After I took these photos, I went into the handicapped stall to pee and realized that when I turn to close the door, I can see a sliver of the toilet. She must have meant she saw me come into the bathroom and saw my eyes travel across the crack when I turned. In which case that means she was doing exactly what she was accusing me of: being worried about what others were doing. Here's a picture of that crack:
Also, you'll notice that you can just barely even see the toilet. I took all this to mean she was just looking for things to bitch at me for.
There's also the fact that she said I always butt into other's conversations which, again, is untrue because I spend ninety percent of my day with headphones in. In fact, she used the quantifier 'always' a lot. Which, yet again, leads me to believe that she was just looking for reasons to bitch and would ultimtely give her cause to not take me permanent.
Another thing she said was that someone (she claims she can't remember who) told her that I have issues with getting along with coworkers and that's why I've never had a job that lasted more than ninety days. I nearly came out of seat at that. I know I've jumped around a bit in my career life but nothing like what she implied. Below is my resume for the past ten years:
12/95: Daycare. Was fired for stupid reasons.
Duration: A few months.
08/96: Another daycare (employees get a discount and I was now a single mother). Was fired for accidentally hitting a child on the head with a styrofoam cup.
Duration: A few weeks.
09/96: Walmart. Resigned to go to work at Walgreens.
Duration: Just over one year.
01/98: Walgreens. Resigned to go to work for a friend from church.
Duration: Just under three years.
01/00: Went to work for a church friend as office manager of her in-home business. Was fired just before her company went belly-up.
Duration: A few months.
04/00: Armstrong Cabinets (part of Armstrong Flooring). Resigned when they started laying off senior VPs.
Duration: Over two years/almost three years.
11/02: Walgreens. Resigned for a Monday-Friday 8-5 job.
Duration: two years, one month.
12/04: Contract job. First my contract was extended and then I was told that I was seen taking too many breaks (there was another contract worker who looked like me (long brown hair and glasses) but was shorter and fatter who was always on a break) so I was let go.
Duration: A few moinths.
05/05: Dallas Credit and Accounting Services (accounting firm for Bear Transportation (a transprtation brokerage firm)). Was let go just as the recession hit.
Duration: Almost three years.
03/08: Contract worker. Was brought in to cover for new hire who had previous plans.
Duration: Two weeks.
09/08: Contract worker. Contract ended and they hired someone from outside the company.
Duration: A few months.
04/09: The Avenue (plus size clothing store). Resigned to work at a call center with more hours/better pay.
Duration: Nearly two years.
01/10: The CMI Group (in country outsourced call center for TWC). Was let go for following policy after missing work for a week for which they could not fire me.
Duration: Just over a year.
08/11: Contract worker. Company ran out of work for me.
Duration: A few Months.
03/12: Lori's Gift Shop (chain of hospital gift shops). Resigned to go to work at Cottonwood Financial.
Duration: Just over three years.
07/15: Cottonwood Financial (legal name of Cash Store payday loan stores). Was let go due to... I'm going to say personality conflicts because I was never given a solid reason. Of course none of J's issues with me factored here because the way the cubes were set up I had no one nearby that I could 'force my way into their conversation' with. Besides I was beginning to feel like I didn't really fit in.
Duration: eighty-nine days.
J said that none of things we 'discussed' meant she didn't want to hire me but that's not how it came off. Even now reading over her responses and remembering what she said, I still feel like she was telling me why I won't be hired when my contract ends.
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