Another work situatin post

[Anglewannabe]

First a bit of background. As I have shared, last Tuesday, I received a conditional employment offer at a new organization depending if my references were OK. (it turns out they were and I got the job). However, Tuesday afternoon, I did not know I had the job for sure. That afternoon, we were called into a big meeting. There will be a restructure in 2016 and some of my co-workers will be loosing their position.

Wednesday, I told HR and management that I would be leaving. I have told other people and always tried to be considerate of the fact that they don’t know where they will be in 6 months. I have carried on almost as diligently as before. I must admit, I am slacking a bit. My manager asked me if I wanted to learn a new task and I told her ‘since I will be leaving soon, I don’t think it is worth it to learn new things’ She understood.

My manager sits one cubicle over and down from me. (kitty corner so to speak). This conversation took place with both of us at our desk where everyone could her

Manager: Angie is this your last week

Me: no next week

Manager: Wow it is coming up fast

Me (not thinking): Not fast engouh

Manager: There is still a lot to do while you are here

Me: (in my private thoughts thinking there is nothing to do, the whole team is spending 30% of the day surfing the net) Yes, but it is not very motivating to learn anything new when I won’t need it shortly

Manager: Well, I think there is a lot of fun in learning

I said nothing trying to give her the last word.

Manager: There is so much for you to learn

Me: I guess different people see it differently. Some people like black, some like white. Some people always want to learn. I prefer only to learn when I will be able to use it

Manager: So true everyone is different.

Conversation dies down.

30 minutes later she pulls me in for a private talk

Manager: I want to say about your attitude, please watch it. There are other people who don’t know if they will have a job and we don’t need negativity. They can hear what you said and I don’t want a bad atmosphere.

Me (pulling out my Dale Carnegie skills): You are right, I should be considerate of people’s feelings. You don’t need negativity in your department.

Manager: Oh no, I was thinking of you. I want you to enjoy your last days here and I don’t want you to leave on a bad note. I am saying this for you, I just want you to be happy your last 2 weeks

Then I listened to one of her monologues about people are upset since they don’t know their future and all she cares about is me

I just don’t get it. She brings up my end date in front of everyone. She set the tone to potential have other people feel bad. I was more than willing to agree I should consider other people’s feelings. And then she twists it into she has a concern for me.

Did I miss something? Because from where I am sitting, I honestly don’t understand her concern

Angie

 

[Catholic1954]

What concern? It sounds like she is annoyed that you have found another job and will be leaving soon and she will be stuck finding someone else to take over your duties, not your problem. Don’t be surprised if this was just the first of several such conversations in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Convert1]

What concern? It sounds like she is annoyed that you have found another job and will be leaving soon and she will be stuck finding someone else to take over your duties, not your problem. Don’t be surprised if this was just the first of several such conversations in the next couple of weeks.

Agree. Some managers see employees voluntarily leaving as a failure of their own management position. Not all, but some. They tend to the think they didn’t make the job attractive, or challenging enough. (I say this because I had one say this to me)
Keep a positive attitude and be productive until you are done. Don’t get drawn into negative conversation.

God Bless!

 

[pianistclare]

Sorry. You should not have appeared indifferent. You still work there. You still owe them 100%. I would have said you might as well go now.
It doesn’t matter if you were bored or worse, didn’t think you needed to learn some new skill. We learn every day if we’re wise. Hopefully you will learn from this.
Sorry. She was right to be annoyed.
I hope you like your new job better, for your sake.God bless.

 

[underacloud]

What concern? It sounds like she is annoyed that you have found another job and will be leaving soon and she will be stuck finding someone else to take over your duties, not your problem. Don’t be surprised if this was just the first of several such conversations in the next couple of weeks.

Yes, this ^

A lot of managers react poorly when someone resigns. They take it as some sort of personal insult to them and then lash out at the one leaving. It also seems like this manager wants to make herself feel superior by trying to teach you something new, simply for the sake of it. She wants to make you feel like she still knows things that you don’t. It’s pretty pathetic and the appropriate response is probably pitty for her. Just humour her for the next couple of weeks while repeating to yourself internally that none of this matters.

The company is still paying you for the next two weeks and if they think your time is best spend appeasing a petty manager, so be it. I would just roll with the punches.

 

[Indigo_Cardinal]

Sorry. You should not have appeared indifferent. You still work there. You still owe them 100%. I would have said you might as well go now.
It doesn’t matter if you were bored or worse, didn’t think you needed to learn some new skill. We learn every day if we’re wise. Hopefully you will learn from this.
Sorry. She was right to be annoyed.
I hope you like your new job better, for your sake.God bless.

You (meaning the OP) didn’t just come across indifferent, but outright mulish. While I completely get not wanting to go through training that you won’t use, there’s better ways to put it.

It would have honestly been better if you’d responded with, “I appreciate you thinking of me, but as you know, I won’t be here in two weeks, and I’d hate to use up the company’s training resources when the company won’t benefit. Is there somebody else in the department that might be interested?” You come across as thoughtful of both the company’s time and your coworkers that way, and you boss would have a lot of trouble arguing your point. (Granted, she could, just because she’s the boss, but then she’d look stupid, rather than you looking petulant.)

In the end…as long as they’re handing you a paycheck, you do as they say.

 

[underacloud]

In the end…as long as they’re handing you a paycheck, you do as they say.

I agree.

They’re paying you for your time. If they choose to waste your time and their resources, so be it. They have paid for that right.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

First a bit of background. As I have shared, last Tuesday, I received a conditional employment offer at a new organization depending if my references were OK. (it turns out they were and I got the job). However, Tuesday afternoon, I did not know I had the job for sure. That afternoon, we were called into a big meeting. There will be a restructure in 2016 and some of my co-workers will be loosing their position.

Wednesday, I told HR and management that I would be leaving. I have told other people and always tried to be considerate of the fact that they don’t know where they will be in 6 months. I have carried on almost as diligently as before. I must admit, I am slacking a bit. My manager asked me if I wanted to learn a new task and I told her ‘since I will be leaving soon, I don’t think it is worth it to learn new things’ She understood.

My manager sits one cubicle over and down from me. (kitty corner so to speak). This conversation took place with both of us at our desk where everyone could her

Manager: Angie is this your last week

Me: no next week

Manager: Wow it is coming up fast

Me (not thinking): Not fast engouh

Manager: There is still a lot to do while you are here

Me: (in my private thoughts thinking there is nothing to do, the whole team is spending 30% of the day surfing the net) Yes, but it is not very motivating to learn anything new when I won’t need it shortly

Manager: Well, I think there is a lot of fun in learning

I said nothing trying to give her the last word.

Manager: There is so much for you to learn

Me: I guess different people see it differently. Some people like black, some like white. Some people always want to learn. I prefer only to learn when I will be able to use it

Manager: So true everyone is different.

Conversation dies down.

30 minutes later she pulls me in for a private talk

Manager: I want to say about your attitude, please watch it. There are other people who don’t know if they will have a job and we don’t need negativity. They can hear what you said and I don’t want a bad atmosphere.

Me (pulling out my Dale Carnegie skills): You are right, I should be considerate of people’s feelings. You don’t need negativity in your department.

Manager: Oh no, I was thinking of you. I want you to enjoy your last days here and I don’t want you to leave on a bad note. I am saying this for you, I just want you to be happy your last 2 weeks

Then I listened to one of her monologues about people are upset since they don’t know their future and all she cares about is me

I just don’t get it. She brings up my end date in front of everyone. She set the tone to potential have other people feel bad. I was more than willing to agree I should consider other people’s feelings. And then she twists it into she has a concern for me.

Did I miss something? Because from where I am sitting, I honestly don’t understand her concern

Angie

Watch your attitude? What is she gonna do? Fire you? You are already leaving. LOL

Sounds like she did not like that you said there is no point in learning something new because you are leaving anyway. She probably got worried that others heard you say that and will start to think “Well, if i might not have a job in 6 months, why should I put in 100% effort” Of course, that is not your problem though.

However I will say that in my line of work, construction, people get laid off after a job is over all the time. You could work on a project for a year or two and then after the building is built, or the bridge is built, you could get laid off. It is not good work ethic to tell your boss that you do not feel motivated to do something because you are leaving soon or whatever. I just cannot comprehend doing that. I have known that I was going to get laid off and I will still tell my boss “I want to learn” even if I may not need it again. Imay not feel that way, but I would never tell my boss that. I am a worker, to my bones. I work satisfactory to my supervisors no matter what. Even if I know I will not be under them anymore some time soon.

All that talk about caring for me, I would have been saying “Yeah right” in my head the whole time. If a boss really cares, you know that they care. You can feel it. If they have to tell you, it means they are being weasel’s about something. All this is in just in my humble opinion. I have been known to be wrong sometime’s.

 

[maryjk]

Watch your attitude? What is she gonna do? Fire you? You are already leaving. LOL

Yes. She could. She could tell the OP to pack up her stuff and leave. “Thanks for your time, but if you aren’t going to put forth the effort, we aren’t going to pay you.”

She could also make it so the OP never gets a good reference from her current place of employment.

It really isn’t wise to burn bridges.

 

[EasterJoy]

What you are missing is that work is a small world and you never know who you will run into again. Do your work as diligently as if your next job depended on it. It is only fair.

You were asked if you wanted to learn something new, and you said you didn’t. OK. It is probably better for your current employer to invest the time in teaching someone who will be around to use their new-found skill at their place. When your supervisor started to encourage you to learn it, anyway, though, it was time to clue in that your current supervisor wants you to learn this whether you feel like it or not. That was the point at which it would have been good to say, “I didn’t think the company would benefit as much if the time was taken to teach me, not only because I personally retain information better when I have a chance to practice it after I learn it but also since I won’t be around to use the lesson for the company’s benefit. If you want me to learn it, though, of course I’ll learn it.”

People who supervise meet each other and know each other. They talk to each other about employees that they have both supervised. Your current supervisor wouldn’t have to say a word about you for this incident to have a less positive impact on you than it might have. We can be damned by faint praise, by the merit that people can’t honestly say we deserve.

The best employees give their best every day, whether they are short-timers or plan to stick with their current position. I know this job has been hard on you, but stick in there and give them good memories of you. Those will be the ones that stick with them, and you may cross paths again. Besides, it is the fairest way to act.

 

[AKDee]

Watch your attitude? What is she gonna do? Fire you? You are already leaving. LOL

And that is just the type of “short-timers” attitude that causes some companies to simply have a policy of letting someone go immediately when they give notice. Or in this case, yes, it could well end her employment there, and on a bad note. She may have another job, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t owe her current employers her best effort while she remains on their payroll, and she may also one day need a reference. These last two weeks are a final chance to ensure that reference will be a positive one. Never, ever burn a bridge.

 

[pianistclare]

And that is just the type of “short-timers” attitude that causes some companies to simply have a policy of letting someone go immediately when they give notice. Or in this case, yes, it could well end her employment there, and on a bad note. She may have another job, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t owe her current employers her best effort while she remains on their payroll, and she may also one day need a reference. These last two weeks are a final chance to ensure that reference will be a positive one. Never, ever burn a bridge.

Right.

 

[estesbob]

When one of my employees resigns I give them their next two weeks pay, show them the door and wish them well. I don’t like having people on staff who are leaving

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

First a bit of background. As I have shared, last Tuesday, I received a conditional employment offer at a new organization depending if my references were OK. (it turns out they were and I got the job). However, Tuesday afternoon, I did not know I had the job for sure. That afternoon, we were called into a big meeting. There will be a restructure in 2016 and some of my co-workers will be loosing their position.

Wednesday, I told HR and management that I would be leaving. I have told other people and always tried to be considerate of the fact that they don’t know where they will be in 6 months. I have carried on almost as diligently as before. I must admit, I am slacking a bit. My manager asked me if I wanted to learn a new task and I told her ‘since I will be leaving soon, I don’t think it is worth it to learn new things’ She understood.

My manager sits one cubicle over and down from me. (kitty corner so to speak). This conversation took place with both of us at our desk where everyone could her

Manager: Angie is this your last week

Me: no next week

Manager: Wow it is coming up fast

Me (not thinking): Not fast engouh

Manager: There is still a lot to do while you are here

Me: (in my private thoughts thinking there is nothing to do, the whole team is spending 30% of the day surfing the net) Yes, but it is not very motivating to learn anything new when I won’t need it shortly

Manager: Well, I think there is a lot of fun in learning

I said nothing trying to give her the last word.

Manager: There is so much for you to learn

Me: I guess different people see it differently. Some people like black, some like white. Some people always want to learn. I prefer only to learn when I will be able to use it

Manager: So true everyone is different.

Conversation dies down.

30 minutes later she pulls me in for a private talk

Manager: I want to say about your attitude, please watch it. There are other people who don’t know if they will have a job and we don’t need negativity. They can hear what you said and I don’t want a bad atmosphere.

Me (pulling out my Dale Carnegie skills): You are right, I should be considerate of people’s feelings. You don’t need negativity in your department.

Manager: Oh no, I was thinking of you. I want you to enjoy your last days here and I don’t want you to leave on a bad note. I am saying this for you, I just want you to be happy your last 2 weeks

Then I listened to one of her monologues about people are upset since they don’t know their future and all she cares about is me

I just don’t get it. She brings up my end date in front of everyone. She set the tone to potential have other people feel bad. I was more than willing to agree I should consider other people’s feelings. And then she twists it into she has a concern for me.

Did I miss something? Because from where I am sitting, I honestly don’t understand her concern

Angie

Angel, you know that we support you and we are rooting for you. But this post was concerning. You would do well to really work on your attitude before starting a new job. Your employer was trying to tell you something about yourself as a helping point. Employers often deal with those last two weeks of someone working and it can be a tricky situation. I have always enjoyed my last two weeks somewhere because I tend to work harder knowing I will be leaving soon. Also I would want to learn as much as I could as it might apply to life career experience. Not to mention that the place you are working obviously is struggling. You could be a force for good instead of being seen as one of the smart rats that is jumping ship.

These itches you seem to have to argue with employers needs to be shut down immediately. Because your new job needs to start off well. I recall several conflict posts about employers from you. Please take the advice you have been given and apply it to this job and your new one.

Understand I am just being blunt.

You should have happily learned a new skill or application if not for your benefit but for the workplace and people you are currently in.

Lead by example here. Leave with your best on the field…

 

[EasterJoy]

When one of my employees resigns I give them their next two weeks pay, show them the door and wish them well. I don’t like having people on staff who are leaving

Quite a few businesses do this, unless the short-timer is leaving because of a re-location or some other reason that does not suggest any discontent with their current position.

Integrity says, “Do your job just as well in the last few days as you did when you were trying to impress others.” Actually, you do your job just as well when there is no one there to prove you aren’t. That is only honest and fair. When your mind is on the next job, though, it can be very hard!

 

[shainski]

I have to say I agree with pianistClaire, AKDee, and HoosierDaddy.

I’ve always wanted the best for employees - and if the best were a job at another company - so-be-it.

However, the tone of this post seems to wreak of negativity. I, as HoosierDaddy was elated when I heard that you finally got what you were hoping for.

Maybe your current job will mean nothing to you once you leave. Maybe some of the people you currently work with will end up at that new company as well. Maybe one of them will one day be your boss. Who knows.

I would leave a job with the best attitude possible. (Even if I didn’t think the company treated me well) I would document everything I have done to make it easier for the next person. I would learn everything there is to learn if that is what the superior wanted. I might advise them that I am really trying to finish up some odds and ends and it might be more beneficial for them to have me that as opposed to something else. (I would want my legacy to be of a valued employee)

It’s only two weeks. Can’t you find it in you to maintain a positive attitude for that?

I’ll have to say, I’m disappointed.

 

[underacloud]

Let’s not be too hard on Angie.

Her issues with this manager have been well documented here and I don’t think we need to be too “disappointed” in her that she let her frustration affect her a little bit in these circumstances.

I do agree that intergrity requires you to do the job just as well now as before. Do your work well and respect managements requests of you - not neccessarily because they are sensible or optimal, but because they are paying you a fair wage for the use of your time, as they see fit (within reason of course).

 

[pianistclare]

Angel, you know that we support you and we are rooting for you. But this post was concerning. You would do well to really work on your attitude before starting a new job. Your employer was trying to tell you something about yourself as a helping point. Employers often deal with those last two weeks of someone working and it can be a tricky situation. I have always enjoyed my last two weeks somewhere because I tend to work harder knowing I will be leaving soon. Also I would want to learn as much as I could as it might apply to life career experience. Not to mention that the place you are working obviously is struggling. You could be a force for good instead of being seen as one of the smart rats that is jumping ship.

These itches you seem to have to argue with employers needs to be shut down immediately. Because your new job needs to start off well. I recall several conflict posts about employers from you. Please take the advice you have been given and apply it to this job and your new one.

Understand I am just being blunt.

You should have happily learned a new skill or application if not for your benefit but for the workplace and people you are currently in.

Lead by example here. Leave with your best on the field…

Yup. Agreed.
Hopefully this ends here.
I wish you all the best Angie.
But curb that tendency to think everyone is out to get you! They’re not!

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Yes. She could. She could tell the OP to pack up her stuff and leave. “Thanks for your time, but if you aren’t going to put forth the effort, we aren’t going to pay you.”

She could also make it so the OP never gets a good reference from her current place of employment.

It really isn’t wise to burn bridges.

You are right, I responded with the wrong assumption that the boss probably would not bother to fire her for giving attitude given that she was leaving anyway. That is wrong. I do not know how her manager is. I once had a superintendent that you could yell right back at and he would not send you home. I had a superintendent once that was always sarcastic, mildly insulting and a jerk sometimes. I was always just sucking it up until one time I did give him attitude with a remark that basically meant “Screw you” and all he did was smile and carry on while my co-worker was busting up laughing. And he kept me on that job 2 weeks longer than he was even supposed to.

Just yesterday a ex-coworker of mine called me asking if I was employed because he was made foreman at his new job and he was trying to put together a crew. So, yeah, it certainly is smart to never burn bridges and you never know who you might run into again at another job and if they will be your boss.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

And that is just the type of “short-timers” attitude that causes some companies to simply have a policy of letting someone go immediately when they give notice. Or in this case, yes, it could well end her employment there, and on a bad note. She may have another job, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t owe her current employers her best effort while she remains on their payroll, and she may also one day need a reference. These last two weeks are a final chance to ensure that reference will be a positive one. Never, ever burn a bridge.

You are right. I never have that attitude myself even when I know my contract is up soon and I should not encourage it in others. See my above post