What would you do if you were being treated unfairly?

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.

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.

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. :weirdface: 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.

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.

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?

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

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. :mad: 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.

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

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.

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.

Honestly man Its probably better to vent then to go off the handle at work and get fired. Quitting always looks better when looking somewhere for a new job. I myself love my job but hate my manager. He's new and I've met 10 year olds with better leadership skills then he has. He routinely breaks company policy and offers 10 percent reductions on any problem for a dissatisfied customer. Except when they need to exchange for an upgraded item. Annoys the heck out of me. Also he always compares our store to his last job at Home Depot. Which is NOTHING like our store. Not to mention the guy is just plain annoying to be around.

Sorry for the mini rant there, but I understand were your coming from.

Yea, I'm on Monster.com putting up a resume and applying to a few places. Maybe I can get a job with a veterinary clinic/hospital! That would be fun!

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Originally Posted by 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.

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That was my life until August of 07. I liked my work, but I hated the bosses, I was stamped with a 'bad attitude' by corporate for unfair reasons.

I worked my butt off the entire time I worked there, exhausted when I came home. All for them to tell me it wasn't good enough. I was bitter at my co-workers that got away with doing 'just enough to not get fired'.

I felt racially, sexually discriminated, and it was so stressful. Passed over for promotions, screamed at by corporate persons, no matter what I did.

I was given jobs and responsibilities above my pay grade and status, that resulted in stressed relations between myself and direct superiors. Corporate was playing chess with me, trying to give me projects that would ultimately fail. And when they didnt, they told me it still wasnt good enough. They were trying to make me quit for months.

I was bringing it home and wreaking havoc on everyone for months. I was depressed and had some episodes, my health was bad... migraines, stomach aches, body was weak.
Then!
I was offered a job when things got really bad. I give it up to God on that one, I was looking, but hadn't put in any resumes and I now have an awesome job that I love and make more than I would have ever made at my previous job. Stress free, great hours, awesome co-workers, great position... it's just fantastic.

Think positive, take action.

With the passing over for promotions part. I've showed them that I work hard. Normally I work in the cafe but on the rare occasion I work bookfloor. I especially like working in the kids section. Its just fun and I know where all the books are. Once, it was my first time working in that section alone. That day, we had a shop (which means someone comes in and rates the employees performance in each section of the store), and I didn't know I was "getting shopped" and I got a 100% on the score! and it was my first time working back there alone! It was awsome. Just the other day, one of the head cashiers asked me if I liked working on the bookfloor and I told her "Very much so." and she said "I'm going to talk to the managers and see if we can't get you some more shifts out here because you are doing really well." If I could just get out of the cafe I'd be fine. Maybe one day I'll be kids lead. Yea, that would be nice. Actually the kids lead asked me why I hadn't been made lead anywhere yet and I told her that I'd expressed interest in not only the cafe lead position but also the kids lead position and she said "Well then why aren't you the kids lead. Heck, I don't even know what I'm doing back here half the time."

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

With the passing over for promotions part. I've showed them that I work hard.

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That's retail for ya. The biggest suck up wins every time. Cut throats, two faced people, the whole charades. Hate retail.

As do I. My dream....to stay at home with my animals. lol. I would love to be able to just wake up in the morning and start cleaning snake poo. *sigh* Maybe one day.

Just remember, things can always get worse.

I have a similar situation, and my workplace has put me in sick leave for months due to depression. If you can leave that place for a new one with little trouble, consider it. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect in their work. I know it sounds like some distant ideal but I believe happy employees make any business function better.

It's always stressful to work and study at the same time, especially when the workplace sucks, take good care of yourself!

Don't apoligize for coming here to rant about it! Geez, isn't that what it's for in here the OffTopic section?
I rant about my work on occasion. Sometimes it's just too much. I hope you get offered something way better from your Monster resume.

Everyone gets frustrated with work.... A month and a half ago I was ready to quit as well, but now I'm glad that I held my tongue and didn't....

I work for a company that, due to management, had wanted customer service to be a priority, but yet only rewarded their personnel for 'production'... I'm one of those ones who when I'm 'secret called - and for us, it's real customers with a real problem who get called back 15 minutes later - have only *once* gotten less than perfect (Haha, my one time was an irrate customer, screaming and swearing at me, I knew what her problem was, and exactly how to fix it - so I skipped the useless troubleshooting that would only frustrate her more, I calmed her down, had her joking around and laughing at the end of it and telling me that it wasn't okay that she was so rude... She scored me perfect, the company failed me on their 40% and I ended up with an 88% overall) - Thanks alot, I just convinced someone that we're some uncaring terrible place who she doesn't want to do business with and you freaking fail me because I didn't ask her to go and do a bunch of useless crap! Bonus time comes around every three months, and because I spend extra time with those who needed it, I'd get next to nothing for the bonus because it was all based soley on 'production'... Promotion time, not eligable because it was all based on 'meeting call time stats'... Not to mention, every meeting I was in with my boss I'd get told that I needed to up my production (and really, it's not even that far off, a rep meeting the 'stat' will take 10 calls an hour, I take 9).

In my case, I was lucky I didn't get the 'bad attitude' label because my response to my TM was *always* - my other stats and customer service are the best in all of our call centres - I am not stressing myself out and rushing people off the phone just so that I can say that 'on average' I only talk to each person for 341 seconds a call. It's crap, it's a crappy system and it doesn't work in line with the companies goals... So sure, I'll *try* to spend less time on the phone with each person, but it's never going to be a priority for me.

Well.... It turned out I wasn't the only one who felt this way... A company wide employee survey came out, and I totally went off about this on the one section stating that as a company who was so 'customer focussed' we did nothing to reward the reps who actually left their customers happy... blah blah blah, it was a *very* long rant. 2 Months later, they roll out a new system, up our call time so that we spend more time with each customer, our bonus is now *entirely* based on our customer satisfaction results (which means an extra 1000$ every three months for me plus a gift card for every double perfect I get-which is usually 5 of 5 a month).

One thing our company is very good for, is expectations... You have a meeting with your boss and if you say, "What exactly do I need to do in order to move up into this position" they will have the info for you within a week. Try going to management with all of your information in check and asking exactly what they would need you to do in order to become the lead in the kids section. You'd be surprised by some of the expectations, then, if you're willing... I wasn't, focus on improving the areas they want, in a couple months go to them and say, "I approached you about this position, and you let me know that I needed to do or improve upon these areas, here is what I have done in hopes that you will consider me for the position the next time it comes around"...

Anything entry level or retail is crap and just has to be dealt with because new employees are a dime a dozen.

Best thing for you is to apply to other places with a pay raise, and keep doing that until you find something that suits you, doesn't suck, and is rewarding for your effort.

On my 21st bday, I quit my highschooler job at Blockbuster (movie rentals, don't know if they have that store in any of your neck of the woods) because there had to be something more longterm, and found a company that designed roofs for houses. I always had an interest in architecture, so this was right up my alley.

Entry "grunt" computer design work was $10 an hour, and I've earned my way up to $26. Took on more responsibilities, learned more about the industry, and above all else ASKED for it. Smaller companies are more personal... you'll get nowhere in a big corporate retail store.

There are so many jobs out there that you have no idea even exist!