Many of you may have already heard about this, so sorry if it’s just a repeat for you!
I went in to work this morning - I’d already made a one-on-one meeting with my boss - and went into her office when she came in. I took in my letter of resignation (which I will post in a quote below this paragraph). I essentially went in and told her the following:
“I’m going to be the barer of bad news. Michael and I have had to make some decisions recently, and make some changes to assist us both financially and in terms of health, as well as other things.”
I then handed her my letter of resignation:
Dear R*****,
It is with great sadness that I inform you of my decision to resign from my role as a Customer Service and Administration Officer for [Company Name].
I have enjoyed the role very much, have made many lifelong friends and will always have warm memories of my time at [Company Name]. However, I have had to make a decision that I feel is best for myself and my family, and part of this means resigning from my position.
My resignation is effective from today. As per my contract, I am providing [Company Name] with four weeks notice. My last working day will be the 25th July, 2008.
Please let me know what I can do to assist with the transfer of my tasks before I leave.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and [Company Name] for having me as part of the team for the past two years, and I wish you and the team at [Company Name] all the very best for your continued success.
Yours sincerely,
Terri Hyland
She was quiet for a moment, but then said, “Well, it will be sad to see you go, and you’ll be sorely missed. I can tell you that we’ll have a farewell lunch for you, and you’re most likely up for the performance bonus at the end of financial year [June 30]. It’s been lovely having you on board and we’ll miss you, but I understand you’ve got to do what’s right.”
So it went well, all in all. It was a big relief.
So - why did I quit? A combination of things really. For one, the company has really gone downhill. We’ve got large volumes of work and not enough staff to get through it all. Additionally, there are some policies and just general management issues that got on my (and other peoples’) nerves, which I’ll go into in a second.
Secondly, Michael and I are stressed out. Mainly from our financial situation. We pay $300/week rent which, when you’re earning just under $2,000 a week between you, is a nice chunk of your paycheck. Throw in groceries, bills (which can be $500/bi-weekly sometimes), transport then any recreational things, it leaves us with no money.
In relation to point two, then, we have decided that it’s best for us to move to Tasmania. We will be living in my parents’ house for the time being, until we both have jobs and then we can get a place to rent. It’s kind of taking a step back, but when they offer to have us rent- or board-free, can we really turn it down? We hope to have ourselves relatively self-sufficient within a month.
The next thing I wanted to rant about was all the things that are wrong in my current work environment. My former colleague wrote an email to our General Manager after she left, explaining everything that’s wrong with the office and that if things weren’t fixed, more people would leave. When I read our GM’s response, I knew it was time to get out. I’ll post that response at the end of this post (if it ever ends!). I’ll just dot-point here the points my former colleague (we’ll call her AR) made in her email to our GM.
- The work is monotonous and repetitive with no scope for creativity or ownership of issues.
- AR was a staff member for 2 years - she answered 95% of phonecalls accurately within 2 mins; she answered a high volume of phone calls; she met processing requirements over 95% of the time; she had a high quality of output; she is loyal and honest; she has team building spirit; she had the patience to train new staff; she had less than 2% of calls or issues passed on to someone senior; and a 95% punctuality rate. In spite of this, in her 2 years of employment, her only payrise was for $490.
- Management telling staff that we would get a ‘morning tea’ if we reach a certain target, then withdrawing the offer when we didn’t reach targets. It is a big turnoff to see staff being offered food in exchange for exceeding targets!
- She has worked in various capacities with various industries, has always received certificates and awards for her productivity. With our company, she didn’t even receive a single movie ticket until her last day.
- Staff bonuses were announced. It ended up being another ‘morning tea’ saga; after reaching productivity levels we were told that our scores would be ‘zeroed out’ when a ‘critical error’ is committed. As humans, we all potentially have the capacity to create a critical error and zero out our daily scores. It’s the most outrageous way to make sure no-one ever gets a bonus.
- At any given time, there are at least 6 people waiting in line to use the one available printer and card printer. The fact we still meet targets in spite of this shows that staff are resilient and tenacious, and really trying to get the job done. The critical error method ensure they get penalised for that.
- We have two IT staff - yes, 2 - for THREE FLOORS of offices. One of the IT staff is a trainee, who goes to TAFE while continuing his position at the company.
- In relation to the last point, about 5-6 weeks ago we had a system shutdown - this left 20 staff twiddling their thumbs from 8am till 12pm because the main IT person was on leave and the trainee was at school for the morning.
- Computers are old and outdated, and very slow. A lot of us get system errors, and are just told to “shut down and restart”.
- For AR, the company couldn’t even spare $15 to buy her a bottle of wine on her last day as a gift.
In response to this extensive email that AR wrote to our GM, this was our GM’s response:
Hi [AR],
Thanks for your comments, can’t say I totally share your perspective but I understand the general ideas and agree with you on some points.
I wish you and your family all the best for the future
Kind regards,
[GM]
Fed up. I’m out of there!
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