My bf's company (long rant)

[meezercat]

OK, my bf has been working at this consulting and website designing company since September, and over time it's become more and more apparent to me that it's a toxic environment and he should get out, even though he hasn't been there that long. He came home last night utterly miserable.

See, he has a degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art and was hired on as a web designer, something he had done freelance previously but this was his first full-time gig at it. And he was really really happy doing it, fitting in well to the corporate world, and everyone was ecstatic that not only was he good at designing web pages, but with his computer background, he could sort of speak the developers' language, understand their capabilities and limitations, and have a sense of how long it would take them to do things. All that was key, because the project manager he worked with was an idiot who pretty much spent all day surfing through porn sites (that guy has since been fired).

Anyway, there seems to be very poor management there (it's a family owned business), so there is a lot of turnover. The turnover happens for two reasons: 1) The employee can't take it anymore and quits, even if they've only been working there for one week, 2) Top management goes on some sort of tirade and fires the employee, usually for a really stupid reason, and then they're stuck because they needed someone in that position and now they don't have anyone.

Well, a few months ago the company lost ALL of their IT people through a combination of the above two scenarios. Since they knew my bf had some tech and networking experience, they asked him to pitch in and maybe spend half his time working in the Data Center. This included his being on call every night and all weekend, even though we live 50 miles from the company, and the managers knew from the beginning that was an issue. Anyway, he went along with it especially since I was having big problems at work and knew my own job wouldn't be around much longer.

Well, he had decided that he was going to go to his boss (one of the owners for now) and tell him he didn't take a job in the Data Center, he took a job as a Web Designer, and that was what he wanted to do. Yesterday, before he could even do that, he was called into his boss' office and told that he was needed in the Data Center pretty much full time, especially since he was much more talented in that area than he was at design (oh, and did I mention he is their ONLY web designer? and they have several major projects that need to get done pretty quickly?) AND they want him to start working noon-8pm so the Data Center is covered until 8 pm.

Needless to say I'm helping him try to find another job....

But to tell him HE'S NOT TALENTED??? I want to go rip this guy a new *******. He's very good, but for people who work in highly subjective jobs like that, self-esteem can easily be tied to the feedback you get. That compounds to the fact that in college, he got some very negative critiques from certain (not all) instructors because the school was full of icky politics and my bf refused to play along. So he's got a bit of a complex about it. And this part just makes me more mad than anything!

So here's the situation as I see it:
- They can't manage to hire anyone for the Data Center who lasts longer than a week
- They beat down my bf by telling him he's not talented, so he feels like he has no option but to work in the Data Center.
- They know he won't just up and quit because they know I'm unemployed right now.

I'm just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mad http://www.aliensoup.com/ubb/smilies/reddevil.gif

At least if he works those 12-8 hours he can schedule 9 am interviews and they'll be none the wiser.

If I were working, I'd tell him to just tell them to stick the Data Center job where the sun don't shine, and let him just look for something else. But both of us are living off his income right now http://www.aliensoup.com/ubb/smilies/frown.gif

Something good has GOT to happen soon, right????

I just want to go kick his boss' ass right now.

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Love will tear us apart....again

[Finity]

well, i can see how that would be really really insulting coming from the boss, but he may not have meant it in such a harsh way...he may have just been trying to exphasize to your BF that his skills in the data center were much more needed than the website...and that was his way of making it known

but other than that i think your BF should ask for double the pay for doing two freakin jobs. it sounds like they need him a LOT more than he needs them...except for the unemployment thing for both of you....but there are other jobs to be found

yeah i think he should tell his boss the way it has to be for him to be happy or just say **** it and get a new job

theres always a better one. just a matter of finding it

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"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help." ~ Calvin

[the_scarier_one]

bleh. that stinks.

but maybe finity is right. his skills might be more useful in the Data center rather than the web design.

but, the boss may have put it a bit rudely. and to kind of force him to do a job he didn't get hired for, is kind of wrong. but, maybe he'll find another job and be able to say byebye to bad boss and management.

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The Captain: What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week - which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
Later, Luke: What we've got here is a failure to communicate....