What would you do if you were being treated unfairly?

[Jay_Bunny]

What would you do if you were being treated unfairly at work? I am so close to quitting my job and finding a new one but I'm always afraid that the job I get in place of this one will turn out worse than this one, but of course, its getting worse there every day. *sigh* So what would you do if you were passed over for promotions, treated unfairly from the other employees, talked to like you are five, deal with jack***es all day, and are just fed up with how the system works.

[JLC]

I guess it would depend on how bad things really were...and I would take the time to search myself to see if there was anything ~I~ could be doing wrong (or at least improving on) that would help better the situation.

Realize that life isn't fair. And frequently, one's perception of fairness is completely different from someone else's, and neither perception is necessarily invalid. And sometimes, we can perceive something as unfair, when in actuality, it was perfectly fair and reasonable...we just didn't have the full picture available to us.

Every job (or school year or relationship or whatever endeavor you get involved in) will go through "rough patches" where it seems like everything is going wrong and nothing ever goes your way. If you can grit your teeth and stick it out through these rough times...and especially if you can open yourself to learning valuable lessons along the way during these times....you'll find yourself sailing far ahead of your peers eventually. Because so many people give up just because things suck for a season. And every time you give up, you have to start from scratch somewhere else...not to mention the learning and growth missed out on when we quit on something too soon.

All that being said...only YOU can know when enough is enough. There ARE times when we're just in the wrong place and need to move on. If the job truly makes you miserable, to the point that it has a negative impact on other areas of your life, and you've done all within your power to make things better....then it may be time to move on. Or at least to keep your eyes open for a better opportunity.

[Jay_Bunny]

Its not really all that bad but they tend to favor people and those of us at the bottom of the food chain suffer for it.

Example 1: Last semester I was doing school full time and work full time. I had a class at 8am and worked a lot of closing shifts. Normally we get out of there at 11:30pm but one night the bookfloor was running a little behind and cafe (where I work) was finished. I had an exam the next morning in the class that started at 8am, so I asked the manager if I could go ahead and leave so I could get some studying done before the exam and get some sleep since I had to be up at 7am. He said no and it was because it was company policy that no one could leave the building early. We all had to leave as a group. We ended up getting out of there at midnight. Tonight (though this has happened on numerous occasions), the cafe was running behind. A friend of mine who works on the bookfloor offered to help us and while she was helping the manager tells her that she can leave and go home (at 11:30) and also tells the rest of the bookfloor employees they can go home early while the cafe employees (two of us) were to stay and finish without help. They do this often and it drives all of us crazy.

Example Two: Last year, our cafe manager quit due to discrimination and lack of support from the other managers. She was being blamed for things that she had not done and she got tired of it and left. We had no cafe manager for 6 months! One of our cafe servers got promoted to cafe lead but when he expressed interest in cafe manager (he had been cafe manager at his previous store) they said no because they didn't think he had enough experience. : He ended up quitting not too long after because they denied him the position for a second time. Then we finally got a cafe manager and had no lead. Well I was basically working cafe lead hours and new what the cafe lead's duties were so I expressed interest in the position after a few months of them not finding anyone to hire or transfer over. The cafe manager said we'd talk about it and said she'd set up a meeting for us to talk. Two weeks later it was announced that the bargain lead would now be the cafe lead (he was cafe lead at his old store years ago). The man is a total idiot. He takes advantage of his position to boost his breaks up before others and takes longer on his breaks, skips closing procedures. One night he skipped a step and I told him he needed to do it. He said "I'll do it tomorrow. Its not that important." I told him "No, you need to do it now. Its on the checklist, its important, so it needs to be done." I later got written up for having at attitude with the cafe lead.

And this is just the tip of the iceburg. Sorry to rant, but I had to rant to someone.

[Jay_Bunny]

And I know I must sound like a brat for whining. Its probably much worse off for other people but when I come home from work all I want to do is stay home and take care of my animals. I would love to just wake up and know that I have a day full of animal care ahead of me.

[Entropy]

Recently things have been incredibly bad at work. Bad enough for me to take action and talk to the human resources manager. I tend to sit back and take anything so luckily this is known and my issues were taken seriously.

Most business have an employee hotline that can be called, perhaps look into this?

[Timbuktu]

I agree that you need to look at yourself honestly to see if there is anything you could do to improve.

also are you managers college educated? I have experienced being treated like this at jobs where the managers were not required to have college degree's and since I was going to college they did not want me to move ahead for fear I would take their job.

I have always tried to do whatever job I was doing better than anyone else ever has or could. you do that and good things will come. good luck with it hope you make the right decision for you because at the end of the day that is all that matters.


Brandon

[Jay_Bunny]

I'm always looking for ways to improve and I am always looking for things to do that other employees would just overlook. Trust me, I hate to be the person to do things wrong or never improve myself. They have even told me, I am basically next in charge under the cafe lead. I'm a hard worker and I always do my best at anything thrown at me. I just wish they would take moment and see that I'm working hard and start paying more attention to some that are doing things wrong. I had to correct several mistakes done by other employees tonight and these things normally go unnoticed.

Thanks everyone for reading and thanks for the advice given. I think I just need to find a job in medical. I worked in pediatrics for three months once. I was updating files, getting things ready for the nurses, typing out things for doctors, prepping rooms, getting vaccines ready (not actually mixing but setting out the vials, needles, bandaids, ect), school forms, ect. Medical work like that is my strong point. My mom (who was my supervisor at the time) was even teaching me to draw blood. I got it on my first try! I love that kind of work but it doesn't pay as well as in Northern Va.

[Bruce Whitehead]

Not knowing much about your situation, it is hard to comment... maybe the job is not a good fit for you... or vice versa.

But either way, I make it a rule not to work in soul sucking jobs. I have had them... tolerated them... made them work, and the day I quit it was like...

"Wow... I do not have to ever see those people again! WOO HOO!!!"

Bruce

[wolfy-hound]

Most of what you're describing sounds pretty minor to me. Annoying, but typical for ANY workplace. There will always be rpeferred people, and some won't follow the rules, and some will be buttheaded bosses.
If the rules say you can't leave early, then don't worry about if someone else was allowed to break the rule. It won't gain you anything but stress to fuss with yourself about what someone else was allowed to do.
There's always going to be those who hate to be corrected and fuss about that. When it's a higher-up, they'll write you up. It's a constant balance between allowing them to make mistakes, and judging when the mistake is not worth the later work or grief you'll get when that mistake is discovered.
I was super gripey about my job until recently I realized my job ain't that danged bad at all. I'm not harrassed in a vicious manner, I'm not sexually harrassed, they don't cut my paycheck for no reason, or threaten to fire me every day if I don't do the work of three people.. and there's plenty out there that have to put up with all that plus bad working conditions like overly hot kitchens, filthy environments, and under minimum wage. That made my job seem a lot better when I viewed it in that light.

If it's really that bad though, find a new job, and then quit that one. I'd advise you quit in a polite manner, because you never know when you might need to go back.

[Jay_Bunny]

I suppose those are minor things. I just hate going there everyday and coming home feeling like crap. I was just a bit frustrated last night and had to vent somewhere. I'm sorry it was here and I apologize for that.