Previously, I discussed people with long term career goals in mind.  This economy has focused many on the here-and-now, however.  The only reason here-and-now people interview is that they’ve reached their breaking point.

Everyone has a “deal breaker” (or more than one) when job hunting, and it’s best to know what those are when going in for the interview.  Even better: Consider how to pose questions that will get these situations and attitudes revealed, prior to accepting an offer.  It stings to discover later that you’ve landed into a breaking point situation only after having taken the job . . . especially if you left another position to do so.

Of course, not all of these circumstances can be anticipated or screened for ahead of time.  Gretchen* had no idea what she was getting into when she accepted her position as office manager at a company’s local office.  During the interview, everyone seemed pleasant enough.

Actually, the people at her office are nice to be around, but she quickly discovered that the brunt of her job entails fending off creditors for the regional office, including explicit instructions to lie outright to them.  Her company deliberately doesn’t position anyone with power at the local office, and if they happen to visit, local staff are instructed not to call them by name in front of any visitors, lest they be bill collectors.

Gretchen has also been given a litany of instructions, including only to “take a message” or give callers the local address for mailing statements, rather than ever give out contact information about the regional office to anyone.

It didn’t take long before the stress levels of Gretchen’s daily routine rose immensely, since she ended up dealing with hostile people that she was blamed for giving the runaround to.  They wanted answers, and she could only cite the speech she’d been given, knowing that they’d fall into the hole intended for them.  They knew it too, eventually, and would be furious with her.

Gretchen could only take being the scapegoat for so long, and decided to Forget It! when she contacted me to start looking for another position.  Of course, it took several months of looking before she found something, so in the meantime, we worked on her detachment from the hostility, so she didn’t feel personally hated by so many callers.  We also made a point to search for consumer – and other – reviews online when interviewing with future companies.  This action, we discovered, would have helped shine a light on her current company’s reputation.

Holly* never has understood why she’s been treated differently at her job by her boss than her co-worker.  She arrived first at the sales firm, with a good record, and showed stellar performance in telemarketing for the first year.  Her feedback from the boss was always a sanitized “That’s nice,” but she figured that he wasn’t the warm and friendly type.  That was ok with her.

When he hired an outside sales person, however, things changed.  He did provide warmer feedback to her.  She didn’t just get good feedback, she got praise.  When new items came up for sale, he made a point to tell her, mentioning the employee discount – and on some occasions, offering an additional one.  Holly happened to overhear this, but no mention was made to her, and no extra discounts on any items.

Later, after the co-worker returned from maternity leave, the manager made special arrangements with her work schedule so that she could work from home one day per week.  Holly thought that this was nice for the co-worker (and reasonable).  A couple of months later, she asked the manager for permission to work from home on a special project that lasted for two weeks and was lectured instead!

While Holly bore no ill will toward her co-worker, she couldn’t see how it was more reasonable to let someone who does outside sales to work from home for a several month stint, versus someone who does telemarketing, for a very limited scope.

Holly was frustrated over these inequities when she contacted me, but wasn’t quite sure she was at the deal breaking point.  On the other hand, she wondered how much farther it would go.  Also, what – if anything – could she do about it?

The more we discussed her overall situation, Holly explained that she had a great many responsibilities at home, and unless and until she absolutely had to, she would rather not add another task such as a job search to her to-do list.  However, she was tired of feeling helpless at work, while her manager continued taking advantage of her.  What if he crossed a line?

Holly decided to stay and Fix It! by doing a couple of things differently.  She diligently wrote down each and every example she could think of where she had been treated outright unfairly in comparison to other employees, including the (approximate) date, place, and anyone it happened in front of.  (She even brought them up in conversation casually to the witnesses, with, “You remember when . . . ?” for verification, which helped not only jog their memory, but hers, when they mentioned things she’d forgotten.)

She also made a point to record anything her manager did moving forward, including saving emails.

For preventive measures, Holly made attempts to socialize a bit more outside her department, particularly with the co-worker that her manager seemed to like so much.  They hadn’t liked or disliked one another strongly, but didn’t really spend much time together one way or another previously.   We thought it couldn’t hurt to improve her PR image within the company.

Finally, regardless of what anyone else thought of Holly, we sought to reduce her daily stress by making the trip to and from work more pleasant with her station cued to jazz, and her workplace rearranged with some photos of loved ones.  Various audio and video cues helped to remind her throughout the day, during stressful times, why she was there – and for whom.  She and a friend also text each other once a day, to check in.  They have an arrangement so that there’s always at least one person to say something nice to them daily . . . and nobody overhears the conversation.

Do you have a Fix It or Forget It? story to share?  Send it to me, and it might help others.  Identifying features will be altered prior to publishing.

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Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
—  Rita Mae Brown

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Gloria* and Herman* felt stressed and isolated at work

Xavier* and Wendy* worked for difficult bosses

How Best To Prepare To Fix It Or Forget It?

Tags: anxiety, breaking point, career, deal breaker, discrimination, economy, employer, employment, fix it or forget it, hostile workplace, job, job advice, job interview, job search, jobs, nervous, stress, stressor, unemployed, workplace